When There is Darkness, Artists Make the Light

MCLA Senior, Mannie McBride, interviews fellow student and artist J.C. Innocent on his project about social justice in the arts. 

M: Could you explain what the project is that you are doing for those who do not know? 

JC: The project I am doing would sort of be considered an anthology project. It is where my skills from creating this podcast and my drive to be a YouTuber when I was younger. I was really into YouTube, specifically tech YouTubers because they had such an HD style. They were the ones who would say, “Oh yeah, everything must be 4k high quality. Here is the top-of-the-line technology that is created in the world.” 

JC:  That is where my passion for it started. Then I later wanted to apply that to my art. So, I thought, “Hmm, how can I get that?” That sense of high fidelity from every single kind of craft. That is not just art. I am talking and writing about performing and acting. However, I understand that I am young, and I am just starting out and getting a sense for that stuff. But I want to be able to refine my craft to be able to get to that point. And so, I am learning my building blocks with writing.  

JC: Let us say you wanted to write a poem or a script and what I am learning is how I apply a visual aesthetic to that - to match your vision when you wrote that poem or script. That is how a collaboration starts and how this project builds to become either bigger or inspire more projects. So, that is why I am working on an anthology. It allows everybody to practice then hone their craft in the way that they want without any creative constraints. It is taking time to come together because it requires a lot of collaboration. Collaborating with people who are already busy. But that is why I am embracing that busyness. Whatever work that they are working on now, they can also contribute to this project without having to do any more extra on top of it. And I like working alongside with them. 

JC: That is what drew me to make a project like this. The final parts that pieced it together were two things. One was Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse. I love that film. Both of those movies, the first one and the second one combined together. The animation is just mind-blowing. I love it. Dream case scenario, and this will probably never happen because they are probably almost done with it already, but I would want to work on the third film. As an artist, and the way they work on the film, I could just have my computer and desktop. A work at home setup, and just add my piece of animation style to the overall movie. 

M: That would be so cool! 

JC: But that is the dream case scenario. The second piece of media that helped to piece this project together was Love, Death, and Robots. That is a show on Netflix. The way that the show is structured like in anthological nature. It is all these VFX studios. Especially over like the past 10 years. I mentioned before, how movies and their quality have degraded over time because VFX artists have not had the time they needed because they had to meet deadlines set by the Hollywood industry. Then with Love, Death, and Robots they decided they were going to be twenty-minute episodes and the producers basically said, “you guys have sixty minutes to make whatever the heck you want. With the best of your technology, here is the time.” Each studio got to make an episode by their own design and got their own director. So, I want to be able to have that kind of execution in creativity. That is kind of what my project is and we are seeing how that works out. At the same time though, seeing if it is not for me or not something that can be replicated easily because it takes a lot of work. 

 M: Absolutely, especially with anything in the animation realm is extremely time consuming but beautiful. That draws us into our next question, which is what drew you to use this type of digital medium? Simply because you are also a pen and paper artist. 

 JC: What drew me to this, like I said prior, was the want to be a YouTuber. 

M: The channeling your inner child.  

JC: Exactly! But I also I did it to branch out my skill set. I feel like the more I understand about recording, not just audio but video, like 3D physical space, the better understanding I have of it. Having a better grasp on recording lets my art and creativity flow. I want my pen and paper art to come to life in that aspect. To have it turn into a video or have voice within itself. Have a poem with it that you read aloud, and it has your voiceover behind. A speaker behind the drawing if you catch my drift. I will be adding these elements that I am learning right now to my art later on when I make it for my senior art project. 

M: Heck yeah, I cannot wait to see it. It is going to look so cool!! 

JC: I cannot even conceive of it right now because it is just a lot overall. However, that is why I am teaching myself skills like photography and sound recording. I am teaching myself things about how to be able to manage these skills and apply them to class. 

M: So, the next question is this; what do you want the end product of this project to be and/or like look like when you are done with it?  

JC: The product that I am looking for is not ideal representation but representation on a scale that everybody does feel involved, that the communities that it is for feel reached out to, and that they can see themselves in it. Does that make sense? Without it having to feel forced. As I mentioned Netflix before, they have some fantastic shows, ideas and executions of different kinds of cultures and subcultures and even themes of the LGBTQ+ community. However, for every one of those fantastic representations, there are ten forced ways of representation where that person gets put in the show just to be the LGBTQ+ checkbox person. There is more to that community than that. And I want to make it clear that I am not saying that I have a better way to represent it. I am saying that I want to give the person who fits within that community, the space to be able to represent it in the way that they would feel comfortable. And hopefully that resonates with others.  

M: We need a world like that. 

JC: I am trying. That is what I want to do as an artist. That is why I became an artist in the first place. To create the world that people want to make.  

M: So, the last question I have for you, you kind of answered it already, but what are you hoping to achieve with this project? 

JC: What I am hoping to achieve is what I said earlier – to create a world that people can make things that resonates with them. What really helped me to grasp this idea and try to make it come to life is this quote from by Shel Silverstein; “If there is a book you want to read, but isn’t written yet, write it.” Having that idea, just propelled my mind forward in ways that I did not even think about before. Because it is not like I was a huge rule follower, but I used the rules as the basis of what I could do, rather than having these rules be in place to be able to create an environment where you could create better rules, create different rules, or change the rules in a way that allows you to thrive, while at the same time, keeping away the reasons the rules are there in the first place. I want to be able to write my own future and allow others to do the same.  

M: You are doing the work that you need to be doing. You clearly have a purpose, and it is wonderful. Thank you so much for the interview today, it was truly a pleasure.