^{Credit: Endless Cookie (Obscured, Mongrel Media, Scythia Films)}

Seth Scriver made his feature directorial debut with Asphalt Watches, which he made alongside Shayne Ehman. Scriver selected his indigenous half-brother, Peter, as the subject of his second feature, Endless Cookie, which has been nominated for Best Documentary at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. Although Seth’s recorded conversations with his brother provided the basis for this animated documentary, constant interruptions from Peter’s family also worked their way into the film. Among those who butted in was Peter’s daughter Cookie, who provides the film’s title. When Seth started making the film, Cookie was ten. By the time he was finished, she was nineteen. Despite initially thinking it would be a quick turnaround, Seth got a little sidetracked, which is reflected in his conversations with Peter and company. Cartoon Contender spoke with Seth and Peter Scriver about Endless Cookie. Our talk covered the lengthy production, scenes that didn’t make the cut, and, keeping in the film’s at times random spirit, the Garfield mug that got away. 

Q: The film opens with a National Film Grant officer telling Seth that he only has several months to complete the film. Seth jokes that he should’ve asked for seven years. Did you ever anticipate it would wind up being almost nine?

Seth: No! That's like the classic art project mistake or animation, specifically, mistake… I worked as a contractor as well, doing carpentry and stuff like that. My new trick, just for carpentry jobs, is always to double the time. I'm like, that should probably take me about a week, and then I'll say, two weeks. I should apply that to animation because it's exactly that. We assumed, maybe three years, three-and-a-half-years, adequate extra little bit of time, and then, sure enough, it took forever. Part of that is also because Pete lives so far away, and it’s so expensive to get to Shamattawa. It’s like the same as going to Japan from Toronto, where I live. So, if we needed to hang out again, we would have to wait sometimes because I’d have to save up money to go back out.

Q: When Seth started the project, did you have an idea of what the film would be about, aside from that your brother would be involved?

Seth: Pete's one of my favorite storytellers. Besides Pete being involved, we didn't anticipate all the kids and the dogs and stuff like that being involved. It kind of took on its own life once it got interrupted a million times by accident, which was a total nightmare until we embraced the chaos, and then it was like, okay, we can work with this. It's like, way harder, because we're going to have to animate everything, but I’m thankful that we did in the end because it turned into this family portrait, which wasn't really the plan in the beginning.

Q: Speaking of family portraits, everyone has a unique design in the film. Peter, when you saw your design, what was your reaction, and what was your family's reaction when they saw their designs?

Peter: Every time we saw the film, everybody just laughed. Everybody just got together and watched it. There's just no disagreements.

Seth: I remember at first, Cookie was like, “I'm a cookie! I don't want to be a cookie!” But now she's really into it. She's like, “I love my character.”

Q: Endless Cookie has a one-of-a-kind look. If I were to compare it to another artist, it would probably be either Gary Baseman or John Kricfalusi. Who were some of your creative influences on the film?

Seth: We like to say that we're the real Terrance and Phillip. I mean, not really. It doesn't really look like that, but it's a good joke, coming from Canada. Who are some of the influences? I got a lot of local people that I worked with like… my buddy Shayne Ehman that I made Asphalt Watches with - the previous feature that I made… Mark Bell, Keith Jones, Johnny Peterson, Jeff Halliday, and my buddy Aaron Zimmerman, Amy Lockhart, who plays the voice of the… Legal Aid Snake in the animation, working with those people over the years.

[As for famous artists]… Philip Guston, Hieronymus Bosch, Old Dutch Masters, Gary Panter, Pee-wee's Playhouse…

^{Credit: Endless Cookie (Obscured, Mongrel Media, Scythia Films)}

Q: The original cut of the film was almost two hours. What’s some of your favorite material that didn’t make it into the final cut?  

Seth: They were fully animated, so we're going to use them at some point, like, put them online, or have them as extra features, but… We had some pretty cute moments. Remember when Simone's telling the story about a fidget spinner? One of Pete's kids, Simone, was obsessed with fidget spinners, and then she told this hilarious fantasy story about having a fidget spinner, which she didn't even have one. She just had a piece of paper with a fidget spinner drawn on it, and a pen stuck in the middle that you would spin. So she told this whole fantasy all about informing me on the benefits of fidget spinners and the different colors they come in, and why she spins them, and her record for spinning them, and stuff. I mean, it's pretty cute. A thing that got cut out, but it was kind of long, and it was amazing and funny, but in the end of the day, the film really hurt your ass when you had to watch it for two hours. Even an hour and a half, it's a lot.

Peter: There was one part about my grandfather that was taken out. Basically, my grandfather's one of these people that ran something we call “the shaking tent.” It was a place where they went, got their vision quests, and then basically, there were just powerful mediums or psychics, just to see where the animals were to go hunting instead of going around looking for him. It was kind of like his story was he flew around in the sky, looking for them. 

Seth: That little segment is in there, but then it was extended to talk about this creep. Pete's grandpa's enemy was doing remote viewing, watching women undress or go to the bathroom. Pete's grandpa had this, like, battle with that guy, like a psychic battle, and they ended up kind of killing each other. 

Peter: Yeah, the other guy died. But this guy… he was charging people.

Seth: It was like a movie. Someone would pick some beautiful woman that they wanted to see going to the bathroom or whatever. Totally insane, and then he would project it in other people's minds, and then charge them, like a peep show or something like that.

Peter: So that means we had internet porn before electricity. Before white people showed up.

Seth: Endless Cookie used to end with that story, and it kind of was like a lot of information at the end of a movie.

Q: At the 98th Academy Awards, Endless Cookie is not only eligible for Best Animated Feature, but Best Documentary Feature as well. If Endless Cookie’s name is called on Oscar nominations morning, which category would you be more thrilled to see it in? 

Seth: Just getting nominated is kind of mind-blowing. Even just getting predicted to be in it is like really insanely mind-blowing for us. What would you rather be in? Documentary or animation?

Peter: I guess both… animation.

Seth: When we were done with the movie, it was actually kind of hard to figure out what is the category when we had to fill out the category… We weren't trying to fit into a category… It's made it harder to sell to platforms, because they want it to be a clear-cut, like, this is a documentary, this is an animation, you know, whatever… I would love to be in the animation section up against a bunch of huge studios... It's fun that we've been in the documentary section as well, because documentaries are just so heavy. There's heavy topics in Endless Cookie, but it's done in a kind of, like, a sneaky way where it doesn't feel heavy. But yeah, I think I would love to be up against Disney and Pixar… seems outrageous.

^{Credit: Endless Cookie (Obscured, Mongrel Media, Scythia Films)}

Q: So, does Seth really have a Garfield mug like the one in the film?

Seth: No, you know what? I saw that mug in a thrift store, and I didn't buy it. I was thinking about it constantly, and I just was like, I wish I had bought that mug. Why didn't I buy that Garfield mug? I'm really cheap. I think it was $10, and I was just like, I can't spend $10 on a car for one. But now I wish I bought it. So I drew it in the movie as kind of like a homage to that.

Q: What has the response from the Indigenous community been like? 

Seth: It's been pretty positive. You can't please everyone. The movie's kind of challenging in a certain way, but we've been really lucky. We opened up for imagineNATIVE, which was crazy. I think it's the world's biggest First Nations Film Festival. 

Peter: We haven't had any negative comments or anything like that. Even the few of the Native people that have seen it back home, they enjoyed it. They were surprised. They said, “Wow. Peter's famous.” I said, ‘I'm not famous.’”

Check out our review of Endless Cookie here. 

Nick Spake is the Author of Bright & Shiny: A History of Animation at Award Shows Volumes 1 and 2. Available Now!