June 9th, 2021 
Jackson Murphy 
Emmy-winning animator Joe Mateo was at Disney for 25 years. But he left the Mouse House to work for a newbie in the animation space: Skydance. Mateo has directed his first animated short for the studio, Blush, which will be on AppleTV+ later this year. It’s about an astronaut who visits a planet and soon meets a special companion. Blush inspired by Mateo’s wife, Mary Ann, who died of breast cancer in 2017. I was granted Mateo’s first interview about Blush, which premieres this Sunday June 13th as part of the Tribeca Film Festival’s “Animated Shorts Curated by Whoopi G” presentation.
Jackson Murphy: When did you first decide, “The way I need to get through what I’m going through and express how I’m feeling is to do that by making an animated short”?
Joe Mateo: I tried to go back to work after I lost my wife, and I struggled with it. I tried to get myself out of that thing, and I decided to create something using what I’m good at. Animation is the only way I can express myself. It’s always an outlet for me. The idea came from me struggling to breathe – having a panic attack after I lost my wife. That’s something I didn’t experience before. It came from there. Experiencing that for the first time and having difficulty breathing, I realized that my wife was my air.
JM: What was the most challenging aspect for you? Was it the animation itself – was it the story concept – was it getting certain themes across that you wanted in?
Jo. Mat.: The most challenging for me actually was recalling when I’m issuing specific moments in the film. I had to recall the emotion when I was feeling and how it was when they happened. That was really hard, but it’s something that I felt like I had to go through. I was fortunate to have support from all of our crew and Skydance in general. It really helped me recall it, and this is where the healing thing comes in. I know the message I want the audience to take from this, but I didn’t expect it to happen to me in the process of making it. That was hard, but I was in a great environment. I felt safe. Everyone was very supportive about it.
JM: That’s wonderful. Besides not only making this excellent short, you took a career jump. After 25 years at Disney, you went to the brand new Skydance. Why did you feel like you wanted to do this?
Jo. Mat: Yeah, that was crazy! Right? It was really scary, Jackson. But it’s the project, Jackson. It’s the short. The nature of it being really personal. At first, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it and directing is something that I kind of toyed around with. I thought, “I don’t think I’m up for that because I know how hard it is.” But with this project – this is my story. This is something I can tell. I know it from my heart. That really made me confident that I can tell this – I can direct this.
Jackson Murphy (at left), Joe Mateo (at right)
JM: Because this is the first project coming out of Skydance Animation and it’s going to be on AppleTV+… what do you think this being the first project says about Skydance Animation and what we can expect from them in the future?
Jo. Mat.: This is what we’re all about. This is what Skydance is all about. I remember pitching this short to John [Lasseter] and I didn’t tell him what the story is – I just gave him the reason… my reason for wanting to make the short. He’s like, “We gotta make this movie.” That’s all I had to say. It took me a month or two before I had to pitch him the whole story. Skydance is all about creating something good. Stories that have a lot of heart. I feel fortunate that I can be the first to represent what we’re trying to build at Skydance.
JM: You’re in the Tribeca Film Festival “Animated Shorts Curated by Whoopi G” presentation. What does it mean to you that Whoopi Goldberg sees the value and the importance and the impact of Blush?
Jo. Mat.: It’s very big. When I got the email that we’re premiering at Tribeca and I saw the name Whoopi Goldberg, I almost skipped everything and just focused on that name. I was like, “What?! Whoopi Goldberg!” That was crazy. I’m a fan of hers. Mary Ann and I loved her movies. The opportunity to meet her would be so cool. Just to be part of the Tribeca Film Festival in general is really exciting for me, especially for a first-time director.
JM: It’s a huge honor. And I think over these next several months… Whoopi should have you on The View to talk about Blush. That would be awesome.
Jo. Mat.: Yeah that would be awesome! And my daughter’s already like, “You’re taking me with you!”
JM: In crafting this story, what do you think the advantages are of just focusing on a couple of characters, as opposed to having a lot of them?
Jo. Mat.: First of all, it’s the short format. There’s not a lot of room to play around. It’s very precious – the time that’s given to you. You can’t afford any shoe leather in your story. Having a limited amount of characters and making sure they get enough screen time. The amount of characters is to support the story and message we’re trying to tell.
JM: I like intimacy in a lot of animated shorts, especially those with impact like this one. In thinking about the title Blush, when people blush and other people point it out to them, it’s sort of seen as an embarrassment. But I think what you do with the word blush and with this film is you reverse that. You say, “Look, blushing helped me have an amazing experience, and blushing is a good thing and something you should be proud of.”
Jo. Mat.: That’s awesome, Jackson. I love that. I need to share with you this story of why it’s Blush. Mary Ann, my wife, when we met around our first week of college, I heard this loud voice and laughter across our classroom. The instant I saw Mary Ann, I was drawn to her. When she introduced herself, she turned around and she was blushing. Immensely. Red, like she changed color. And I took it as a sign that she liked me. But later I found out, it wasn’t the case. Mary Ann just naturally blushed often. Her nickname back in high school was “Ketchup”. That’s her thing. Also, blush is ephemeral and so was Mary Ann. The time that I had with her. That’s really why I think Blush is the perfect title.
JM: I also like what you do with circles and the planet. How was it playing around with circles?
Jo. Mat.: It started like one joke that we were gonna do, and we ended up using it several times. Because it’s a short, you don’t really have a lot of time… what you put into it you build off of. That’s what we did with the shape of the planet. There’s a lot of spiral there. It was a magic moment when one of our artists came-up with the spiral shape for the mango tree – the way it’s growing. I knew from the very early stage that I wanted it to be something special – something different. But I never thought of making them grow like a spiral. It adds so much to it. Then we started incorporating spiral elements across the planet. It’s all over. A spiral also symbolizes life.
JM: And a circle feels whole and wholesome.
Jo. Mat.: And life, right?
JM: Yeah. Circle of Life. And speaking of that, what… is something that stood out to you from your time at Disney that you thought about as you were making this?
Jo. Mat.: Being a first-time director, I think I benefited from working with a lot of other directors. And how to work with people in general. I started as a clean-up artist and then became a 2D animator. And then a storyboard artist. All of that… was me building towards what I am right now. I think it’s the whole experience over at Disney. All 25 years.
JM: That makes sense. You have an experience of a lifetime like that and then you have this new chapter – and it’s all with you. The Academy just announced the new Oscars date of March 27th. So we have about 9-10 months until then. How do you feel about talking about this short… for another 10 months or so as we get closer to a possible Oscar nomination for you?
Jo. Mat.: Oh my God, Jackson. That’s too much for me to think about! But that’s crazy. I will be talking about this short for the rest of my life, I think. So I’m super excited to share this with everyone. If we’re fortunate enough to get in there, that would be awesome and exciting. But the focus for me is for the short to be seen by people. Hope and healing is what we need. If we can provide a little bit of that in a time I feel like we need it the most, globally, after the year that we had. I think that’s the focus – to get it out there. The more people that see it, the better.
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