SOLDIER ONLINE was voted BEST ANIMATION FILM at the January 2020 DANCE & MUSIC Festival in Toronto.

Matthew Toffolo: What motivated you to make this film?

John J.A. Jannone: Daniel Munkus, one of the three musicians in the band Old Robes, was my student in the M.F.A. program in Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA) at Brooklyn College. We became friends and collaborated for several years. When Old Robes’ new album The Spider and the Spectator was coming out, Daniel commissioned a bunch of artists to make music videos, and I created this video. The mystery and energy of this song struck me in particular, and I was interested in who the “Soldier Online,” the character in the song, was.

2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this short?

I worked on this animation for about a month. Since it…