'An Almost Christmas Story': David Lowery Talks Animation Writing
Dec 5, 2024
As a storyteller, David Lowery has a flair for the formidable. His films are often steely and stern, even as his characters find themselves in fantastical situations—becoming a ghost, befriending a dragon, or pursuing a medieval knight.
Lowery is the writer, director, and editor behind films like The Green Knight, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and The Old Man & the Gun, his stories taking us through fantasy, psychological drama, true heists, and more. His roots are in indie film, though he’s taken on bigger budgets of late, particularly to give his spin to beloved Disney classics.
A screenwriter/director with such a singular voice and vision is going to produce work like no one else, and that’s certainly the case for his new original holiday short, An Almost Christmas Story, now streaming on Disney+.
Cowritten with Alfonso Cuarón and Jack Thorne, the short is an animated tale of a young owl lost in New York City after being spirited away in the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. He meets Luna, an equally adrift little girl. These delicate, paper-like characters inhabit a world of harsh cardboard cars and two-dimensional adults, where they have to find their own way during the holiday season. There’s a mix of whimsy and weight that feels distinctly like Lowery in the work.
Final Draft jumped into Zoom with Lowery to discuss his approach to his first animated project and the discoveries he’ll bring to his next live-action film, including economy in screenwriting and the importance of storyboards.
Final Draft: This is your first animated project. Did your approach as a writer change as you started working on this?
David Lowery: Definitely. It was an entirely new experience and one that I really loved. I loved the process of writing this film because I’ve been writing screenplays my entire life, it feels like at this point, and I felt like I was relearning the art form with this film. It was nice to be knocked out of my comfort zone and forced to relearn how to tell a story for the screen in a way that I had never done before.
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