Interview with “Education With Lawrence & Toni” Creator Shea Territo

It’s always important to think of the children, especially in the aftermath of a major apocalypse!!! That is the situation Lawrence and Toni are in in the short film Education With Lawrence & Toni. They are the titular stars of a struggling educational show for children, and over the course of the film, we see the trials and tribulations they go through in terms of keeping sane in a broken world. 

This student film was created by Shea Territo, who has been attending CalArts for the past few years. This thesis film of theirs has gathered a cult following when it was posted to YouTube last year. 

In the spirit of bringing attention to indie animation, BubbleBlabber sat down with her this month to explore the inspirations and process of making this final project for animation school.

Malcolm Rambert: I guess the first question I’d like to ask is how are you doing?

Shea Territo: I’m doing good. I don’t know if you’re in California right now, but it is raining cats and dogs. It’s really crazy.

Malcolm Rambert: Are you currently watching or reading anything?

Shea Territo: I am watching Severance now, and a lot of it takes place in New Jersey, where I’m from. The most recent episode was filmed in the Pine Barrens, which is pretty cool. I’m also watching Common Side Effects, which is a new animated show on Adult Swim. It’s unbelievable; I just watched the last episode yesterday.

I’m currently reading two books right now. I just read my self-made comic at a really awesome bookstore in LA called Other Books and I picked up two books from there. The first book is Chinese Stories from Taiwan: 1960-1970 because I’m half-Taiwanese. And I thought that it’d be interesting. I’m planning on reading Conquest of the Useless: Fevers of the Hidden Jungle by Wernzer Herzog, which is all of his diary entries that he wrote while he was making his film Fitzcarraldo.

Malcolm Rambert: Education With Lawrence & Toni has a very interesting premise. The main characters are childrens’ TV hosts, but specifically of the PBS kind, which I really connected with. What made you decide to do that?

Shea Territo: I have no idea what specifically influenced the decision. I grew up watching Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Even though the latter came out in the 70s, we had VHS tapes of it. It’s just very special to me.

I think when it I was coming up with the idea, I watched the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor, which was all about Fred Rogers; it made me buy books on the man and watch way more stuff of his. If anything, that’s what really inspired the decision;  how truly compassionate he was and how he would translate these extremely heavy things into a way a child could understand while also not holding anything back.

In the documentary, they discuss an episode talking about the Robert F Kennedy assassination where Lady Aberlin is blowing up a balloon for Daniel Tiger; the balloon pops and Daniel asks her “What does ‘asassination’ mean?”. And I’m like “that is fucking genius!!”

Malcolm Rambert: The setting of the film being in a post-apocalyptic world is very intriguing. In their Letterboxd review, a mutual of mine compared it to Neon Genesis Evangelion, saying they enjoyed that series, but wished it went into how the disaster affected other people not connected to the main characters like this this short did. What inspired you to make that the setting?

Shea Territo: A lot of things. In terms of fiction, Evangelion was definitely one of the biggest inspirations because after the Second Impact, Japan was stuck in an endless summer, and I just thought that was so depressing and sad. Being from New Jersey, which is where I wrote most of the film, I thought of New York, which is where the characters live in. I thought being stuck in a winter would have that same kind of effect,

The disaster itself was inspired by so many world events that people go on with, and I was really happy that that came across. Being born in New York, my parents had to explain 9/11 to me, and they always emphasized how the world before that event was so much more kinder and nicer. I sometimes wonder when I have kids how I’m going to explain COVID. Like, am I gonna be like “The world was so great and then COVID happened!”, y’know? So I sort of subconsciously implemented that while making the post-apocalyptic world: this idea of the current world after this horrible thing happened and its never specified what it is.

Malcolm Rambert: I understand at CalArts, every year you have to make a film on your own; from the voice acting to the sound design. Then, there’s a thesis film which is the first time you’re working with a major group of people to produce something. What was the process of that like?

Shea Territo: So, I made my 1st year film online and that was truly all by myself; only one other person did the music. In my 2nd year, I also did everything aside from one voice actor, one sound mixer/composer. One thing about CalArts is that every year, your short film is recommended to fit in a certain time frame. For your 1st year, if you want to get into the Producers’ Show, it needs to be 30 seconds long; for your 2nd year, it has to be 2 minutes and 3 seconds long.

For my thesis film, I was already equipped with so much experience from the past two films and I now can make it as long as I want. So, even though the film required more voice actors, other a couple of color assistants and fellow students that helped with the script from my previous classes, I still pretty much made it by myself. It was really nice working with a lot more people because it made me realize I really like directing. I thought I would just be a background artist my whole life, just drawing in my room all day; I realized I loved working with a large range of people while making this thesis.

Malcolm Rambert: I understand your short film has been shown at a number of film festivals and won some awards, including the Los Angeles Audience Award at Jonni Peppers’ Transfiguration International Film Awards. What was that like having your thesis film be put into that? Did you submit it or was it hand-picked by them?

Shea Territo: It was picked out because Jonni and I are relatively close; plus, I had shown her a couple of very early animatics of Lawrence and Toni, so she gave me some advice, and I sent her the finished product before I posted it anywhere. But, when I was at Transfiguration, it was so surreal because I was surrounded by so many incredible, experimental artists. There were like one or two character animators like me, but for the most part it was fine artists and experimental animators, and a couple of live-action films that I really loved so much. 

I was a lot more nervous at Transfiguration than the Producers’ Show. I got peer-picked for some reason and while there I was like “Oh my gosh, these peoples’ art is just so unique and special” and the fact that I’m like with one of them in this festival is just an unbelievable feeling; and the fact that it won an Audience Award is just as crazy. I couldn’t believe it.

Malcolm Rambert: To go back to the contents of the film itself; Lawrence & Toni are characters you created and gave casting calls for. This film has certainly achieved a cult following. On YouTube, the film now has CC subtitles in Russian, Polish and Portuguese; there’s been some fanart made on by folks on Tumblr and, last time I checked, there 3 fully written fanfictions on Archive of Our Own (AO3). So, how does it feel to have this kind of following for characters you yourself created?

Shea Territo: It feels so weird because Lawrence & Toni are so specific, and they are also inside-jokes with me and my girlfriend and close friends. So, I kinda forget that people also know on the Internet who Lawrence and Toni are, and it can be a little scary. But also, it’s insanely cool because I am able to have a Patreon and I’m able to have people who are interested in these two guys that I made up. 

I can’t describe the feeling; it’s kinda scary but it’s also extremely gratifying, like I’m extremely grateful for it. It’s beyond sweet. I always read the comments on my video upload, and everyone is just so open about their feelings about the film and what it made them experience. I couldn’t ask for anything more. It’s so insanely humbling.

Malcolm Rambert: You recently made a comic containing 3 side stories with Lawrence and Toni for your Patrons on Patreon  Are you strictly sticking with animation or are comics something you’d also like to break into?

Shea Territo: I like to do everything. I feel like comics and animation, they’re so hand in hand with everything. Later this year I’m going to try and make a more long-form non-Lawrence & Toni-focused comic just because I feel like comic making is a lot more accessible in comparison to animation.

With animation, it’s a whole team effort; like filmmaking, it’s the most collaborative medium. But with comic making, you can basically just do it yourself, print your own books, and people will still really get into it. I’m new to comics, as opposed to filmmaking, so it’s something I’m really excited to get into.

Malcolm Rambert: What would you consider your biggest inspirations when making your work, animation, comics or otherwise?

Shea Territo: There’s a lot of things. I take a lot of inspiration from my own personal experience and emotions, also very human things. That’s why a lot of my stuff isn’t “crazy fantastical”, it’s very slice-of-life. Even though Lawrence & Toni is set in a pretty fantastical world, the biggest thing that I focus on, my main thesis really, is being a person and living in such an insane world; how you go about day to day, getting your groceries, doing your laundry, brushing your teeth and shit. I find stuff like that really fascinating; being a person is really awesome. 

That’s where I derive a lot of my stuff from. I know it can be really corny, but I’ve always connected with stories grounded in a sense of reality moreso than super fantastical stories. That being said, I really do like Lord of the Rings.

Malcolm Rambert: Somehow I didn’t mention earlier that a good chunk of the people in the city are anthropomorphic animals. Outside of that and the big disaster, it’s a pretty grounded film.

Shea Territo: *laughs* I always forget there are animals too.

Malcolm Rambert: I recall the film being on The Internet Movie Database (TMDB), which is what people use when they want to create pages for films on Letterboxd. The Letterboxd page for Education With Lawrence & Toni is still up, but it’s disconnected from TMDB since the latter deleted it. I asked them about putting it back up since it was shown at a film festival, but they said those festivals weren’t legitimate enough and/or there wasn’t enough time and promotion given in terms of outward release. 

To make this a legitimate question, where do you see the relationship between indie and mainstream filmmaking when it comes to sites like Letterboxd; is there a way people can identify a line between the two when so much of LB is focused on logging and rating on what’s popular? 

Shea Territo: I had no idea about that. That’s a really interesting question. I have always seen Letterboxd as some sort of other social media site ‘cause there’s a ton of other super obscure films on there that no one’s even heard of.

I think indie films, especially animated ones, they have a certain charming look and feel to them, like “oh clearly one person made this”. However, it can be really hard, because sometimes I have friends and they make films and people will be like “oh a studio made this”, but nah, one person did. So I feel like the line is becoming a bit more blurred now; I think it all has to come down to presentation rather than actual writing. That can go both ways: I’ve seen indie films that look gorgeous, but the writing is like “eh”, and I’ve seen mainstream films that has great writing, but it doesn’t look great.

Basically, it’s people who make both of these things, and it’s also people who watch both of these things. Whether you have more or less of a preference, one answer is clear: people make these. It all depends on the type of stories you’re looking for.

Malcolm Rambert: What program did you use to make the film?

Shea Territo: I used a bunch of programs. Mainly I just animated in TV Paint, which is what we mainly use at CalArts. I used ProCreate and Photoshop to board because I didn’t know how to use ToonBoom, and then I edited it in Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects. But, I mainly used TV Paint for the whole film; it was crazy, I had so many TV Paint files because it was such a big film.

Malcolm Rambert: The reason I ask is because Education with Lawrence & Toni certainly does have that feel where with the way characters move and outlayed onto backgrounds, you know it’s not animated on cels, but it feels like the modern equivalent of that.

Shea Territo: That’s why I like TV Paint; it kinda has an old feel to it.

Malcolm Rambert: Reaching the end of our interview, people can find more stuff with Lawrence & Toni on your Tumblr, Patreon, and some other stuff on your YouTube channel. Do you have any plans for future projects outside of Lawrence & Toni?

Shea Territo: So, I mentioned a long-form comic towards the beginning of the interview. I can’t give that much away about it just yet; not in a secretive way, but just because I’m not sure what it’s going to be about just yet. So that’s definitely cooking.

I have a couple other tiny ideas that I want to animate out and maybe even pitch to other studios in the future. Right now, Lawrence & Toni is my focus, currently being the big thing that I’m working on. But I do have a ton of other things in the works because I do like to stay busy. It’s good for my mental health and sanity. The long-form comic is definitely coming sometime later this year, as well maybe some collaborations.

Malcolm Rambert: If you wanted anybody reading this interview to see your work outside of Education with Lawrence & Toni, what would you recommend?

Shea Territo: I really enjoy the little comics I make about my life on Instagram and elsewhere, where I’m a part-time daycare worker; not because I made it but because kids are so fucking funny and really smart. I really like making stuff about crazy shit my students say. They’re on my website as well, under the “Comics” section.

Education With Lawrence & Toni, as well can Shea Territo’s other work, can be viewed on her YouTube, Tumblr (@sweaterface), Instagram (@sweater.face) and personal website (https://sheaterritoart.weebly.com/). You can also listen to the official soundtrack composed by Roy Berardo on all music streaming platforms.