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Anilujah
A place where animation and faith collide. We discuss the redemptive analogies found in animated movies and TV shows. Presenting the Gospel in a relatable format for those who are into animation, nerd culture and anime.
Anilujah
The Spiritual and Artistic Worlds of The Secret of Kells
This week we are joined by director and animator, John Lumgair who heads up Quirky Motion. We talk about how he got into animation and revisit the film, The Secret of Kells.
We uncover the rich themes and symbolism, from the contrast between darkness and light to the mystical character of Aisling. Drawing parallels to biblical passages and early Christian literature like "The Dream of the Rood," we reflect on the film’s blend of Christian and pagan motifs.
Check out John on Instagram
Check out the Jazz Cow Kickstarter
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If you've ever heard of the Book of Kells, then you'll be excited for the movie that we're talking about this week the Secret of Kells. Join us this week as we revisit this film with new commentary and our special guest, director and animator, john Lomger.
Speaker 2:A place where animation meets faith. You're listening to the Analuya Podcast and you're locked into another episode of the Analuya Podcast, making that intersection between faith and animation and those lovely redemptive analogies each week. My name is Josh and we are glad to be back with you once again, and I got my picnic shirt on. So I guess if I just lay down on the ground, you can start putting all your nice picnic foods and I'll just be the table for the day, but without any further ado. My lovely wife Rebecca.
Speaker 1:Hey guys.
Speaker 2:And we got a really special episode today. I want to get right into it. This episode is kind of a revisitation of it, because we've actually talked about this film before. It was actually during our first season of the podcast that we talked about this.
Speaker 1:That has been a while. I guess it's a good time to come back and do a revisitation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and we have a great guest for this revisitation as well. So, all the way from the UK, we have John Lundgaer with us. John, thank you so much for being on the show with us.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We want to have our audience to know you a little bit better, so we're going to ask you a few questions, get your background and go from there. Rebecca, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So first of all, you're in animation and you've got something new coming out, which is really exciting. But before we get into that, just tell us a little bit about yourself your background, where are you located, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:So I live in London. Although I'm currently not in London, I'm in the west of England, just above my friend's art studio. I've been living in London since I was a child.
Speaker 1:Where are you located? In London, by the way?
Speaker 3:So South London, a place called Streatham, and yeah, it's a a fun, interesting area to live, lots of stuff going on yeah, I lived there for a year getting my master's degree in art history and visual culture.
Speaker 1:That was so fun. I was in Kensington so I'm familiar with some of the areas. London's really big and it all kind of has like if it's different culture, all the different neighborhoods, which is kind of fun. So tell us a little bit about your animation journey. How did you get into animation?
Speaker 3:do they make these animations and was just fascinated by the process. I love the stories, the comedy, the comedy just I just loved so much. And then I would make flick books. I would do lots of drawings. I'd love to see the idea that they could come alive, and that really excited me. At school I was good at art and not that many other things. Maybe it was certainly my strongest area and ended up studying animation which that's the story I have, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's the best way to go actually to do animation. And then did a bit of freelance stuff and started a company doing film and animation in 2006. That's what I've been doing ever since.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's exciting. So you mentioned that maybe not everyone do a degree in animation. How would you suggest, if people want to get into animation, that they would go about doing that?
Speaker 3:yeah, so the the thing with animation is it's not like law or medicine where it really matters to have the qualification. With animation, it matters what your work is. If you can show you're good, then that's much more useful. There are so many ways you can learn. Online you can learn from all sorts of really brilliant people, and then there's really good books. The big thing is actually doing it and practicing.
Speaker 1:Practice, practice, practice, practice. That's what I've learned over my art journey too. Honestly, the more you do it, the better you become, because within animation right, there's so many different styles of animation yes, tons of styles and that's a really fun process yeah, the variety is what makes it so exciting.
Speaker 3:The story can determine the style, so you can really have the right style that matches the story that needs to be told, and no other medium does that quite like animation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree, and I'm sure we'll talk about that in today's movie that we'll be discussing, because it absolutely plays a huge role in the story. The animation style. Okay, so on average, how long does it take to animate a series or a movie?
Speaker 3:It's very much a question of how long is a piece of string Once you've got script and storyboard. So the actual process of animation, that can be a big range because it depends how large your team is and how long it is, how complex it is, and so different things take different lengths of time to do. Feature films usually spend a couple of years on it. The project I'm doing, which is between 20 22 minutes we're factoring in about a year for that, but it depends. We'll have a smallish team. When you something like the Simpsons, they have a team working on it. They've got another team working on episode two. Lots of these things are running concurrently, which means that they can make things faster.
Speaker 1:Even just one year, taking 22 minutes of screen time. That is so much work that goes into producing these types of short films or long films, so that's awesome. There's so many people that work on these projects. Speaking of animation, and you mentioned a project that you've got coming up tell us a little bit about your new project called Jazz Cow.
Speaker 3:Tell us a little bit about your new project called Jazz Cow. Jazz Cow is about a jazz playing cow and he reluctantly leads a resistance movement to fake filters, to big tech, to the algorithms that are kind of controlling the world. And so he and his friends just want to play jazz the people in his area that but they want to paint paintings, they want to. They want to eat food that takes forever to cook, they want to play chess. They want to live in the real world. But then you've got this, the fake world of his nemesis, dr pop, and he's trying to get everybody just scrolling on their apps, and so that's the setup of the series. And then the thing we're trying to raise money for is a pilot, which is going to be a heist episode, where Jazz Cow's trying to get his sacks back and he has to fight the system without using the tools of the system. So it's a silly comedy with some maybe deeper themes on the surface.
Speaker 1:Just that quick synopsis that you gave. I could really tell that there's a promotion of living in the present moment and not so much in the social media apps and things that can really distract us from the here and now. So that's really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really an interesting premise. I mean, as soon as you said Unclosed Jazz, I went sold Awesome. Really an interesting friend. This I mean, as soon as you said an enclosed jazz, I went sold awesome. Well, thank you for all that information. So we're going to go ahead and get into our discussion. As I mentioned earlier, this will be about a film that we discussed during our first season of the podcast, and that is the secret of the Last time. We focused primarily on the animation, which we'll still do, and we also talked a little bit about the history. I think we'll delve a bit more into that as well. I guess I just want to get Erde's initial reactions of the Secret of the Kells, whether you've seen it many times or this was your first time. So, john, for you about the Secret of Kells what do you like about it? What do you dislike? What are some key takeaways that you got from it?
Speaker 3:so I absolutely love the film. I think seen it a number of times and one of the things when I first saw it, I loved the visual style of it. I loved the fact that it was. It was unique. It wasn't trying to be disney, it had a really strong graphic style and the way it fitted with the actual book that it was about. All the way all that meshed together I just thought was brilliant, and so that drew me in. And then, after the initial drawing in, I think the themes that underpin it are brilliant. They totally resonate with me. So I've only got real praise for it. There's not much I can say negatively about it at all. Nice.
Speaker 2:Rebecca, how about you?
Speaker 1:I've seen it multiple times now and it's one of my favorite animation movies, particularly from an indie studio, and all of their work is fantastic.
Speaker 1:I forget the name of the studio but they're an Irish animation studio and they're incredible. Such a rich story. In the Secret of Kells they mesh the history of what we believe happened to the book and put it beautifully in this fun and entertaining story that people of all ages can enjoy. I will say for little children it could be a bit scary. There's a run-in with a pagan god, pre-christian god, called Kromkrik. That seems a bit scary. I will say I mean, I'm what? 33 years old and it's still a little bit scary.
Speaker 1:I'm like, ooh, I don't know all of the details that they put in about even the animation style being a nod towards the art of the time. This would be the late 8th, early 9th century. They didn't really have a concept of perspective in their art and so you can see that in the Secret of Kells things look flat. They've pulled it up. When we would draw it today, we would draw the perspective. In the Secret of Kells the perspective was off and that's on purpose. I really liked that nod to what was going on in art at that time. That was really cool. The themes that they pulled in from the book. I was like, yeah, it was great, it's great. From the book I was like ah, it was great, it's great, resonating off of what both of you have said.
Speaker 2:I've seen this a few times and it just still amazes me. Each time the Secret of Kells is, of course, referring to what we think might happen to the Book of Kells, in which I referred to in our episode. I think the sub header was the first graphic novel of the gospel. But yeah, I love the animation style, the whole story and it's not that long either. It's only a little bit over an hour. So even though it's not full length by other standards, it's still a great film. It tells you a lot within a short amount of time. Really love it. Before we get too far into it, for those that may not be familiar with the Secret of Kells, rebecca, can you give us a bit of a synopsis?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'll read the synopsis that we've already got down, because I could go for a really long time on the synopsis here. Twelve-year-old Brendan, who must fight Vikings and a serpent god to find a crystal and complete the legendary Book of Kells. In order to finish Brother Aidan's book, brendan must overcome his deepest fears in a secret quest that will take him beyond the abbey walls and into the enchanted forest where dangerous mystical creatures hide. Very interesting synopsis. I hadn't read that before. I mean, it's true, yeah, everything is true and the whole story itself. It never really talks about what exactly the Book of Kells is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do a nod to it. Brother Aidan says when he's talking to the abbots concerned about the wall because of the Vikings that are going to come in, and Brother Aidan kind of sees through that and says, well, no, this is important, this brings hope. So even those who are not believers can get a correlation of it. I want to go through a few themes. We have some notes here. Rebecca, do you want to start us off with one of the key themes that you have brought out?
Speaker 1:Sure. So first of all, what is the Book of Kells? The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels from the late 8th, early 9th century. The short history which is included in the movie is that it's begun on the island of Iona, which is a little island off the coast of Scotland, came in and destroyed the Abbey. One person got away. This would be Brother Aidan. In the story he flees to Ireland, to Kells, the Abbey at Kells. That is where the book is finished, which is why it's called the Book of Kells. So main themes oh man, bringing light into the darkness, I think, is the main theme of this little movie, and banishing the darkness with light. It is the book, the gospels that bring the light and hope. That is the overarching theme of the story. I don't know if the animators who created this story were Christian. I don't know what their intention was, but that's what I see as a Christian. It's the hope of Christ, banishing the darkness, battling the demons inside of you. Those are the main themes that I see.
Speaker 2:And to bounce off of vanishing in the darkness and coming forth the light. We see that really literally when Brendan goes into the forest outside the walls for the first time and we have these dark wolves coming at him, and then we have the spirit of that forest, who we later learn is Ashley.
Speaker 1:Yes, when all the wolves sit up really straight and they're just like looking around and then boom, they scatter and it was just like wow, I don't know something. That was just really satisfying.
Speaker 2:They take notice. This is something that commands attention and authority. It reminds me of the passage where there's a picture where in the demons die at Jesus' feet because they know who he is and they flee whenever it's commanded. We sometimes, you know, for the prayer that you know, hey, flee in Jesus' name, and that commands power and authority for any demonic spirit that might be present.
Speaker 3:So, John, for you, any other themes that you had chosen or you would like to at the beginning or fairly early on in the film there's a quote that says beauty thrives in the most unlikely place. So there was this idea of beauty. The book isn't just bright and powerful, but it's beautiful. Beauty is contrasted and it's got almost like this garden of eden field, because you've got this, the garden that they're in, but then outside is chaos, and so see this kind of idea where you've got the center, and then you've got this marginal world. The pagan gods are real and they still have power, and yet they've got this kind of center where everything is safe but they've got to maintain it. And you've got this thing of borders, because obviously the abbot's trying to build up all the walls to keep them safe.
Speaker 3:But actually the message has to get out and it's how much of the fringe should you let in? Should you let in Ashley? And what is Ashley? How does that fit within the ideas that you would find in the gospels? She's not a demon, but what is she Like? The world of enchantment, in a way, particularly in our era, when the last few years I think there's been more openness in society to the idea of a more enchanted world. So this idea of this fringe, that's a bit enchanted, but who knows what's going on with it. I find really interesting. So that's another layer.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And what you said trying to keep up the walls to keep people safe that there is this message inside of it that needs to get out. I think all Christians have made this statement.
Speaker 2:It's like oh yeah, saints on fire for Jesus, and I love the gospel, but we should just give it to ourselves. The commandment is to share the good news, so we've got to take it out of the walls of us and spread it to others, more now than ever. Also piggybacking off of Ashley, I wouldn't classify her as a demon, but what is she? Is she a forest spirit? Is she a fairy, as Brendan suspects that she is? In the beginning of the movie we hear something to the effect of that. You know, I've existed through many ages. Is she an angel? Is she a deity? Rebeccabecca, do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:yeah, it is really interesting to think about what is ashley and you know, like you said, john, how does she fit in? She's one of the more interesting pieces of this story to think about. I tend to think that she talks about it as her forest, and I think she is kind of like the spirit of the forest. She represents nature, because there's this idea that you can communicate with God and experience his presence in nature, and perhaps that's kind of what Ashley is doing is almost like a guide into how you explore the world. She's a very spiritual being, which I find interesting and, john, I love that you mentioned that in our world, it seems like people are really waking up to spiritual aspects of life in general.
Speaker 1:I see that too, even in the psychology world. It seems like we've been in the fifth wave and that's all about neuroscience. I think we're kind of moving into really wanting spirituality to be integrated into our lives, whatever that looks like. It doesn't have to be Christianity, it could be Buddhism or Hinduism or whatever, but just a general awareness of spirituality, which I find interesting.
Speaker 3:And I don't think it was like that a few years ago. I think there's been quite a shift. I was at a book launch and I thought it would be hyper-secular and the guy, although he didn't believe in any god, believed that there were thousands of unseen creatures everywhere that were spiritual and I thought that is the world that surrounds Kells. In a way it's interesting. The Anglo-Saxon Christians really debated what they do with the old gods. Are they nothing? Are they demons? Are they different kinds of entities? There was a kind of a debate going on at the time because I guess they had to try to put things together now as Christians, with the world that they'd had before. A lot of people today go, oh you know, they kind of think that they weren't as Christian as I think they were.
Speaker 1:They were really wrestling, I agree with you, because there was so much trying to come in and take away their faith in a way or like morph and change it. I'm sure they got great comfort from books of the New Testament, assuming they had access to them. But the letters to the Corinthians I'm sure they got great comfort from that, just because it's all about what do you do with that? What do you do with pagan gods? How do you live your life? The letters from Paul dealt so much with that. How do you integrate all of that? Interesting questions.
Speaker 2:Let's go into a bit of the history. Um gonna let you guys have the lead on this, because you're much well versed in it than I am rebecca or john john, I would love to hear from you if there's anything.
Speaker 1:I think I've talked already a little bit about broad history, but from your perspective, was there anything else that was left out?
Speaker 3:I don't know a huge amount. I know more about King Alfred and what was happening in England, but it mirrors quite a lot of the things that happen in the world today. We've got a small Christian community, external groups in this case the Vikings, norsemen coming in to kill and to steal from them. I thought it was really interesting that King Alfred was translating the Bible, but he was also a military man trying to protect the country. He was also trying to figure out where he's fusing the old Germanic codes and then the Bible and how was he putting those things together? I think there's just that era of history. There's lots of well, it's a forming of a people. Really, I know more of the English side than the Irish, but I imagine it's the same kind of process.
Speaker 3:Something I wrote down and wanted to mention was I remember, when I was about eight, someone reading the poem the Dream of the Rude and rude is the word for cross in Anglo-Saxon, and although it was an Anglo-Saxon poem, it was so creative and weird that I was just like, wow, this is incredible. It's got all these pagan motifs, but they're put under Christ. The whole poem is about the cross itself. The actual wood is the woods experience, experience which is just such a weird take on these things. So I think there's just all these ideas that are flowing around at the time, because you get that with beowulf as well, which is similar period where they're getting all these pagan ideas and they're trying to work with a thoroughly christian, but they're using these pagan ideas, almost baptizing them in a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we can see. Even too, it can be really dangerous to do that. We can see that even today with certain large Christian organizations trying to take more New Age views and practices and somehow baptize them and make them Christian, and they just aren't. That can be difficult. But things like meditation, which most of the world views as secular and not Christian, is actually a Christian idea. It is mentioned in the Bible, meditating on scripture. It just looks different from what Buddhist meditation looks like. I think finding similarities is perfectly fine as long as it's scripturally based. The people of the time during this historical period had some difficulties trying to do that as well.
Speaker 3:I'm sure we've all heard how easter was something in the pagan world yeah, although a lot of that stuff has been invented by atheists in order to debunk. And then you look into it and you realize these things were a lot more christian than they've given credit for it that's nice to hear I heard a talk about christmas trees and they're saying oh you know, it's really pagan.
Speaker 3:But actually Boniface, who was the guy that cut down the Christmas tree? He did it to prove that this pagan god wasn't real. So it wasn't a pagan thing, it was actually an anti-pagan thing. Then people years later go oh I see you're doing this pagan thing and it's like, well, it's not actually pagan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what's interesting too, I find with symbols like that, like a Christmas tree, is you kind of make them what you want it to be. It's kind of like how the Bible talks about you know. It's the love of money that is the root of all evil, and money itself can't be evil. It's an easy misinterpretation. It's an inanimate object. It is neither good nor evil. It is what we make of it that is good or evil, and same thing with a Christmas tree or some of these other symbols. You take it how you want to take it. I think being careful too, though, about the scripture talks about not causing your brother to stumble or be a stumbling block for your brother. Keeping that in mind, I think, is also important. You mentioned a poem, which I thought was really fun, about the cross from the woods perspective Fascinating. It sounds really interesting. I may go look that up, but there was another poem that's actually nodded to here in the Secret of Kells, and that is the cat. Did you pick up on this, john?
Speaker 3:No, I didn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so his name was Pangerbon. Pangerbon is an old Irish poem that a monk wrote about his white cat. Bon means white and Panger was the cat's name, so it's white cat or white Panger. It was an ode to the cat of like, oh you're so wonderful, panger Bon, which I thought was really funny. And how. Even in the art of the Book of Kells there's quite a few references to cats and mice, and I think at one point the mice are even fighting over a Eucharist, which was pretty funny. So yeah, I thought that was a really fun little nod to the time period.
Speaker 2:So all this talk of expelling the darkness and the light, that's the overall theme. The overall theme is hope. Have either of you seen the actual book of Kells or a copy of it?
Speaker 1:Yes, I have seen the physical copy. It's kept in Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. In the story they were talking about, you know like be blinded by its beauty and sinners being saved, which is, of course, very dramatic, but there is something ethereal about it. It is absolutely gorgeous to see, particularly the gold they used. I don't remember if it was gold paint or gold leaf, but it still shimmers. It's beautiful, beautiful, and they keep the it's in this teeny, tiny little room. They only let so many people in at a time and it's really dark to protect the pages. They change the page every so often, so if you go multiple times you might get to see different pages of the book. It is gorgeous. It's worth it to make a trip to Dublin to go see it.
Speaker 3:I've not seen it. I'd love to. I've seen reproductions in books, but not the actual book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's worth it, john, If you can get over there to Dublin.
Speaker 3:It's not far from us really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot closer than we are.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the character of Brendan a little bit. He is a boy living in the Abbott. He doesn't have a quote-unquote family. Do they say whatever happened to him? Or he just doesn't have parents.
Speaker 1:I don't think they said specifically what happened, just that he doesn't have parents. He tells Ashley at one point that he doesn't have family, but he does have an uncle. Yeah, yeah, I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 2:Maybe an absent uncle at the time.
Speaker 3:Although the uncle is doing his best in his own mind to protect him, he might not be getting it right. His motive is good. It forms a lovely connection with him and Ashley. That's the thing that tips her into engaging with him rather than seeing him as a threat.
Speaker 2:Rebecca, when you were reading the synopsis, we know that Ren Hessell has come over his fears, come over his doubts. That is his own personal journey throughout this entire movie and he wants to be an illustrator, but he doesn't think that he has the talent to do so until he starts staying more in touch with Brother Aiden, and Brother Aiden knows that he has a keen interest in what he's doing and he says if you want to help, I will teach you how to scribe. We'll get the feathers from the goose to make the writing utensils and we'll make the ink Towards the end of the movie. We this like time of like regression, where aiden and rendon go out from the wall after the vikings have come in and invaded and they're like a house out in the woods and you see them working on this continuously. There's a long passage of time because we see like very grown up rendon by the time that he comes back to the abbey to see his uncle. Do you know, time wise, how long that took?
Speaker 1:I would imagine he was probably eight when he was living at the abbey and then, I don't know, it seemed like it could have been 10 years more like 20 maybe 10 to 20. Yeah, so he could have been 28 by the time he came back. But yeah, it didn't look like there was a specific time.
Speaker 2:I didn't pick up on anything anyway is there any other scene that stood out to you in this movie?
Speaker 1:to go off of what you started talking about, josh, with brendan. He, he does. He, you're right, he really does struggle within himself to become an illustrator, to think he's good enough. We all talk about him fighting our demons. In this case, he actually literally went and did that. He went into the cave of Krom Kruik, if you want to say he's one of the villains. In a way, it almost seems like he's fighting with himself, though, because it's not until he goes and defeats Kromkruik or the serpent, which is interesting in and of itself, to sort of nod to the devil, satan, evil, whatever you want to call it. I know it has different significance in pagan symbolism. I don't know what that is, but I know it's different. So he goes in and Brendan really defeats that part, and then when he comes out on the other side, he feels more confident and he can create the art now. So it's like that's kind of his journey of feeling more confident about himself.
Speaker 3:That makes sense. It's like the coming of age thing. You have to go through struggle. He has to leave the Abbey in order to find out who he is, what he's doing, so he can't just be. He'll never be able to do that until he leaves, until he works out who he is, and then come back. And it's the encouragement of Aidan that is the real thing there, because they both see value in the book, which I think his uncle knows, but he's forgotten.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how we can be so often like the abbot in that we forget the hope that the word brings and we can become so focused on building up the walls of our heart and of our lives, really shutting the darkness out or trying to in our own strength, when really, if we just rely on the hope of the Gospels and being in community with God, that's where true strength comes from, not from ourselves and what we can do. And the abbot gets it in the end he does, and hopefully so do we.
Speaker 2:John, any points that you want to make sure that we touch upon that we haven't already the idea of imagination.
Speaker 3:The faith is an imaginative faith. They're not just copyists of the bible, which would be a perfectly legitimate exercise and more efficient. Now they are taking it and they are creating a beautiful object, an imaginative object, and at the heart of this is imagination. They're not going to be able to push back the vikings who eventually became christian right? I often say to some of my somali friends that talk about violence in their culture and say well, you know how peaceful the swed are. That wasn't what they were. They've gone from being like we don't get involved in new wars today compared with what they were. And I think that it's the imaginative. So it's not just. Here is the truth in a beautiful wrapper. That's really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that goes along with Jesus telling stories and parables. He was using his creativity to share the gospel and in the same way, the monks were using beauty and creativity to share the gospel as well. I think the early Christians really leaned into creativity and imagination and partnership with God more than we do today. Maybe that's what it is, but it feels like that attention to detail and beauty that is still used today in our movies and other art that we produce, but they truly knew how to partner with God and create something absolutely stunning.
Speaker 2:So we hope this episode has been a big encouragement to you, maybe a bit of a history lesson as well. We want to thank John for being with us today. John, for those who want to keep up with you or find out more information about Jazz Cow, where can they go?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the best place for jazz cow is jazz cowcouk, jazz cowcouk, and there you can find link to a newsletter. You can find the notify me when we launch on kickstarter button and read a bit about jazz cow, my company's quirky motion q-u-i-r-k-y, m-o-t-i-o-n. That's where our social media stuff is. Feel free to drop me a message and, um, I, I will respond. Probably I'm not very good at it, but I will respond. I'll intend to anyway.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll have the links to all of that down in the description. Go ahead and support that project. Keep up with what you're doing. Just stay up to the know Until next time. Keep those halos shiny and stay holy, my friends you.
