A Few Words from the Author

DAVID SCHINBECKLER:

 

I wrote The Last Christmas in October/November of 2015. The idea came to me in the shower one evening after supper. I must have inadvertently overstimulated some hair follicles that are directly attached to the portion of my brain where all the cynicism lives.

Ever since the Dutch brought Sinterklaas to North America over 300 years ago, he has suffered numerous indignities and cultural transformations. But if one could sit down with Santa, today, over a pint down at the corner bar, what would he have to say about his metamorphosis into merely a marketing tool? Quite a bit, I suspect. And so The Last Christmas became my own little sleigh ride, wherein I could conjure up a jaded, but not yet defeated Santa Claus, all the while chuckling merrily away to myself at my immunity from those pesky fact-checkers that seem to  ruin everything.

I regularly read The Last Christmas at holiday gatherings with family and friends for several years. My tiny audiences seemed to enjoy the story, and encouraged me to do something with it. Maybe a picture book, or a magazine article, or a serialized newspaper story - some vehicle that would bring it to a wider audience. I was appreciative, but skeptical.

In 2019 I sold a piece of property and sat down with my oldest son, Logan, who has been in the animation business for 25 years. "What would it take," I mused, "to turn The Last Christmas into an animated short?"

His answer, distilled from several telephone conversations, was "Money and bravery."

Fine. I have never done anything remotely like this before, nor have I ever been accused of being able to figure out when I was in over my head. I might very well produce and direct a very expensive turkey. Or, I could sit back and watch my bank account accumulate interest while my arteries harden. Hmmm. I'll have the turkey, thank you.

It didn't take long to assemble a production crew, thanks to my high school years at the Interlochen Arts Academy, a top-flight boarding school whose graduates populate every corner of the art world. Mark Hood, who has worked with everybody from Bob Dylan to The Canadian Brass, agreed to handle the audio end. Emma Wilson, daughter of my IAA roommate Glen, is a gifted digital artist whose work can be found across the web. And then there's the brains of the outfit, my son Logan, who can stitch everything together.

But not so fast. The Last Christmas is fundamentally an epic poem, written in anapestic tetrameter (go ahead, look it up - I'll wait). Who is going to narrate it? Not me. My voice is thin and nasal, and I have no theatrical training whatsoever. I had to find a professional narrator with a commanding voice and dramatic credentials. And affordable. And available. How hard could it be?

I made a wish list, checked it twice, and very near the top was John Cleese.

Lo and behold, I received a phone call on the evening of January 15, 2021, from London, England. On the other end of the line was Richard Norris, John Cleese's personal assistant, advising me that John had read the script, enjoyed it, and can we make a deal. Slowly, one brain cell at a time, I realized that this was for real and three minutes later we had agreed on the fee. Thank you and good night.

My brain exploded. I had just secured the services of one of the most consequential comedic minds of our time, and a personal hero. But perhaps more importantly, this here nobody, living on a gravel road on an island in Lake Huron, had just been awarded a huge vote of confidence which I had been hesitant to grant to myself. It is one thing to absorb the compliments of family and friends after a few egg nogs around the fireplace. But with John Cleese willing to lend his name and his towering talent to The Last Christmas, for the very first time I allowed myself to believe that maybe I had something here.

Richard Norris suggested a recording date in the second week of March, 2021, when John would be in Phoenix, Arizona and with some time on his hands. Sneaky Big Recording Studio was nearby, and John had recorded there before. Could I Zoom in remotely to direct? I readily agreed, but there was a problem.

I was in St. Lucia, which had just been hit with its first outbreak of Covid 19, and found myself holed up in a quarantine hotel in Rodney Bay. I went to the office of the Bay Gardens Resort to see what kind of internet service they had available. As luck would have it, the manager, Cheryl, is a graduate of the University of Toronto and a huge Python fan. When I told her what I wanted to do, her jaw dropped and she rolled out the red carpet. After a phone call her tech guy came over and gave me access to the admin side of her fibre optic network and a private room in the hotel conference center. My laptop was smiling and so was I.

The session was slated for 1pm on March 12. I was terrified. I needn't have been. John was cordial, relaxed, accommodating, and a complete pro. We finished in three hours.

I downloaded and reviewed the audio files that evening. Everything was there. A hundred things could have gone wrong, but didn't. Time for a celebratory beverage! I strolled down to the hotel bar for a drink. It was closed.

With John Cleese's marvelous reading in the can, I dispatched a flurry of emails to the crew and slammed the project into high gear. Unfortunately, high gear was not particuarly fast. The Last Christmas has been nobody's day job and it has taken over four years to complete. But it turned out far better than any of us had inticipated. I hope you agree.