43
Fitch graduate finds fame in the film industry
Photo
AUSTINTOWN
From Austintown local schools to Pasadena, Calif., “Anomalisa” movie production designer and art director John Joyce serves as a prime example that there is nothing that can’t be accomplished if one is passionate enough.
“I worked hard at making everything I can make to the best of my ability,” he said.
Joyce, a 1998 Fitch High School graduate, came from an art background – his mother majored in art education and his father in art.
“They always encouraged me to express myself,” he said. “Parents are the most-influential teachers you have at a young age.”
Linda Joyce said she noticed her son’s interest in art before he reached school age.
“I remember when he was 4 years old sitting at the drawing table, him and his father,” she said. “They always drew together – shapes and animals. And they made things out of newspapers. There was always something creative going on in the house.”
Young John would collect lightning bugs in jars, bring them inside his home on Silica Road, turn out all the lights and admire the way they lit up the house.
“If you got dirty, it didn’t matter,” she said. “All that mattered was having a ball.”
The closing of the steel mills in 1979 in the Youngstown area influenced his childhood, and it showed through his art.
“Much of his influence and his art was industrial,” his mother said. “You could see it in the materials he used. Everything had gears and wood and metal.”
While in high school, Joyce’s teachers embraced his artistic abilities, leading him to the Pratt Institute in New York.
At Pratt, he started off with the basics – drawing and painting – and moved onto building when he noticed his art started looking more and more volumetric.
“The more sculptural work I did, the more the concepts behind kind of told a story,” he said. “As things progressed I wanted to tell these stories more and more. ... Stop-motion animation completely built a world of everything I loved to do – designing characters and environments tell and animate that story. It’s an all-inclusive medium.”
Stop-motion animation is a production technique that physically moves small objects in small increments over a period of time to create the illusion of movement.
After he received his bachelor’s degree in fine arts, he went to California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Calif., for his MFA in animation. There, he would tell stories with his volumetric artwork.
His roots came back to him when classmates and teachers started to ask if he was from the East Coast.
“They knew because of his work ethic. John’s an extremely hard worker and expects everything he does to be quality – he’s always been that way,” his mother said. “He just puts in so much effort, and that’s why he is where he is.”
His work ethic helped him work through several challenges the art world presented for him.
“It’s not an easy profession by any means; you have to really be self-motivated all the time,” Joyce said.
Through high school and his undergraduate years, he wasn’t required to use computers.
When he began his graduate degree in California, he had to use his eighth-grade knowledge to begin mastering computers, Linda said.
“It’s absolutely necessary to evolve in art,” John said. “You have to constantly be able to do it and improve and learn.”
He said with all the hard work in every project, learning from the past and continuing to do it enabled him to produce great work.
Some of his great work included being a Toronto Film Festival winner, Grand Jury Prize winner at the Venice International Film Festival, Golden Globe and Oscar nominee for Best Animated Film, assistant art director for “SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas” and production designer for Vans Shoes commercials.
“Others will see your passion,” he said. “Get yourself out there and show them what you can do.”
Not only was it important to show passion, he said it was important to remember who the art is actually for.
“Art is such a personal thing. It’s something you do on your own,” he said. “Art that I made whether a painting or sculpture or animation, I always did it for myself. ... It’s about self expression and the way you see the world and the events that happen within it. It’s about seeing and feeling. I just love waking up every morning and going to work. And that’s what it’s about – having a career that makes you happy.”