Among the many animated gems unspooling at festivals such as Tribeca and Ottawa this year was artist Julian Glander’s self-produced feature, Boys Go to Jupiter. Animated entirely in Blender, the surreal coming-of-age story follows the adventures of a teenager (voiced by Jack Corbett) who hustles his way to making $5,000 by delivering food via the app Grubster! Oh, and he also makes friends with a blue, donut-shaped alien who’s being hunted by juice mogul Dr. Dolphin (voiced by Janeane Garofalo).
![Julian Glander [ph provided by subject]](https://www.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Julian-Glander.png)
‘It was easy to fall back into the mindset of a 16-year-old. The core ideas of the movie kind of emerged from that mindset. It’s a surreal story that takes some crazy turns, but it’s also a somewhat grounded ode to the odd jobs I had as a teenager.’
— Writer-director Julian Glander
Glander, who previously directed projects for Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Max and Disney, created the video game Art Sqool and made the acclaimed short Plant Room with Jeron Braxton, says the core idea for the movie emerged during the depths of the pandemic lockdown. “I remember spending a lot of time on Google Street View for some reason,” he says. “I grew up in Tampa and zooming around Florida in 3D really made me feel like I was back there, in a dark digital way. It was easy to fall back into the mindset of a 16-year-old. The core ideas of the movie kind of emerged from that mindset. It’s a surreal story that takes some crazy turns, but it’s also a somewhat grounded ode to the odd jobs I had as a teenager.”
It took Glander about four years to complete the movie. “A huge chunk of that was writing the script,” he admits. “Production was really fast once everything started moving. During the rough animation phase, which was the most intense part, I did one minute of animation per day for 90 days straight! I used Blender to create the animation: It’s an amazing program and offers an amazing community. So many times throughout production, I turned to the Blender forums for help. Really can’t say enough good things about it!”
A Few Enterprising Spirits
It’s hard to believe the movie was made mostly by just Glander and his best friend, Peisin Yang Lazo, who worked as a producer. “We each did the jobs of about 100 people,” says Glander. A few local animators here in Pittsburgh did some of the character animation, and of course, we had the best voice cast ever contributing to the movie. The credits are 10 seconds long. What can I say? We kept it lean!”
Funny enough, it was the movie’s voices that kept the director up at night. “One thing that was giving me nightmares was getting the cast recorded,” he remembers. “We did all the voiceover in the weeks leading up to the SAG [Screen Actors Guild] strike last year. We were really scrambling; there was a fear that if we didn’t get the performances we might never get another chance. So I just have to give it up to my actors for getting on board with this. Jack Corbett plays the main character and sings five songs in the movie, and we only had him in the booth for eight hours total. I look back and I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’”
Gander says he was really pleased with the workflow he developed for the project, which involved a lot of bounding around. “A nice thing about a massive project is there are always about a hundred things to do,” he explains. “So any time I was stuck on something, I would switch into another section of the movie. There were a few shots in the movie that I really wasn’t happy with, and I kept trying different things and nothing felt right. So, I just left them alone for a few months. And, of course, in that time you have new experiences, learn new things, and when you come back to it it’s not so difficult. It’s a great way to work if you have the luxury of time and the autonomy to make changes!”
The artist, who is also well known for his one-of-a-kind animated GIFs, says he was deeply influenced by Gumby, The Point, the Peanuts specials, Rankin/Bass holiday specials and the claymation Frog and Toad series. “I remember making flip-books as a kid and loving cartoons, but what kid doesn’t?” he says. “It took me a while to get into it career-wise. I went to school for creative writing and started making GIFs for fun after I graduated, just little moving drawings to post on Tumblr. And those GIFs eventually expanded into short films, and short films turned into TV projects, and then, wow, here we are with a crisp 90-minute cartoon!”
Do-It-Yourself Toons
When asked about today’s animation scene, the visual artist replies, “I live in Pittsburgh, so I’m pretty disconnected from ‘the industry,’ but I really like what’s happening at the DIY level. The decades-long promise of animation being democratized by new technology is finally coming true, in weird ways. Everyone should check out the small screening series that have been popping up all over the place: Malt Adult, Loose Frames, Softscreen — there are tons of them and often they have more of a house party/underground show feeling!”
Gander says he’s been really enjoying reading reviews and writeups from festivals. “I know I shouldn’t even be looking at them,” he says. “It’s cool to see what people are getting out of the film. Boys Go to Jupiter is a coming-of-age story about finding beauty and joy in mundane and bleak circumstances, and it’s an examination of capitalism and techno-feudalism and the hard choices those systems put on us. I see that resonating with people. I’ve also heard from a number of people who saw the movie and want to start learning Blender or make their own feature film, and I say, ‘Yes, yes, yes, please go for it!’”
For more information about the artist and Boys Go to Jupiter, visit glander.co.
