Scripts are funny, you either totally see the potential or you don't. I immediately saw the potential in the script Matt Burgess wrote and new exactly how and where I wanted to shoot it. This script would take advantage of my years of visual effects and animation experience, so it
was a natural fit.

My schedule was completely hectic. I'd been working on a DI for a client. I had been on 10, 20 hour days, and had no idea when we could shoot. I had taken some still photos of the kitchen in the angles that I wanted. I gave them to my editor, Yoshio Kohashi. Yoshio cut together a pre-viz using the stills and his own voice as a temp. I gave my producer David Katz, about a half a day prep.

I already had Ted Rea, a great DP lined up. Ted is an experienced visual effects shooter. Some of his worked includes Passion of the Christ and Apocalyto. I walked onto set with 48 hours of no sleep. We shot the spot in about 6 hours. Because there was a pre-viz edit, I knew I had
everything. We did all the post work at my post house, Filmworks/FX, Inc. It went fairly fast. I had a team of three people-- me, Go Aoyama, and Allen Steele. Allen and Go handled the majority of the animation. I handled the art direction myself, which was loads of fun.
The most expensive thing in the whole shoot was getting the gingerbread houses made. I should have been a baker instead of a director.

• Ken Locsmandi, Director