...CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Ogden: You seem to have gone the "no murder" aesthetic one better as Jo Jo is actually a love story. How on Earth did that happen?

Craste: The story evolved into what it is for a variety of reasons. Partly it was as a reaction to 15 years of making commercials, as a vehicle to explore for myself CG's potential, and more importantly, as proof that I could make something that didn't contain the gratuitous violence, infantile humour and implicit kinky sex of my previous Pica Towers films. To some extent I've succeeded.

Jo Jo is a love story. It takes place in the basement of Pica Towers, and stars Madame Pica, the well-loved dominatrix from "The Good News". For her debut in her first film over a minute long, she's sporting a nice set of rabbit ears - as are all the picas in Jo Jo. In fact there have been a number of changes to the design of the characters. Whilst still essentially black boxes on legs, they now have a slightly more organic feel to them, and no longer look like little TVs.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ogden: I rather got the impression that the first 3 Picas movies were leading up to the revelation of a Large, Extremely Bad character who was making the rounds. However, that character has yet to make an appearance, and Jo Jo in the Stars is not a sequel. Are you planning to reveal a bit about that Villain, or expand that original storyline in any way?

Craste: "Jo Jo" is loosely a prequel to the events depicted in Pica Towers (though making that connection will probably prove beyond anyone other than myself). So no, the killer is not featured, although you do get to witness the moment of his conception. However, for anyone disappointed by the lack of bloodshed in Jo Jo, rest assured there is a feature-length script sitting in my drawer entitled "Tower of Blood", which is drenched in the stuff.

Ogden: What kind of preproduction cycle did you have?

Craste: For Pica Towers, we hit the ground running, and there was no time to anything much other than scribble down some storyboard thumbnails. As you can see, I don't like to be too prescriptive with my boards. Don't want the animators to feel there's nothing left to contribute to the story (like an ending for example).

By way of another example, here is a storyboard for the legendary 'missing episode' (or at least part of it) in which we meet the person who, whilst in the middle of ringing for the services of Madame Pica, is surprised by his wife, so dials for a pizza instead, and thus sets off the whole sordid chain of events.

But for JoJo I spent a couple of months doing a very detailed board. I needed to do this so I'd know exactly what I was doing (for once).

Click the above thumbnail
to download a special Jo Jo in the Stars poster

Ogden: Are the rabbit ears on the revised characters a visual pun ... 'rabbit ears' (arials?) on characters who used to resemble TVs...?

Craste: I wish I was that clever. No...I was never too keen on the whole TV thing, and rabbit ears seemed the most sensible direction to move the characters in.

Ogden: Did you find it difficult to write more for the Picas universe while toning down the morbid humour aspect?

Craste: The humour is still there, but it's balanced against bigger and grander themes. The idea for Jo Jo had been kicking around for a while, and it seemed to gel with the world of picas. I saw this as an opportunity to take elements of Pica Towers and try to make something that had more of a coherent story to it, and at the same time was drop dead gorgeous to look at. In many respects it is way way darker than Pica Towers, both in subject matter and the way it appears on screen.

Ogden: Are you planning more in the Picas epic?

Craste: Three years of immersing my colleagues in this bleak little world is probably enough for now. I think everyone is well and truly sick of the whole thing. So right now I'm embarking on a new project. And it's in colour!

But who knows. If someone coughs up the money Tower of Blood could become a reality.

Ogden: When is Jo Jo going to be released, and where will people be able to see it?

Craste: At the moment we at Studio aka are on schedule to deliver at very end of October and the first screening is pencilled for 19th November in London. It will also be entered into all major festivals and then we will be starting our negotations with a distributor - as yet, no firm plans.