Experiencing Interruptions?

Something Terrible Happened to Joey

Final cut submitted 3/31.

"Something Terrible Happened to Joey" is a 10 minute animated short film for children ages 6 - 96 about surviving and thriving after childhood trauma. “Joey” experiences "a terrible thing" and "everybody saw it. Everybody knew." One day, after the “terrible thing” happens, Joey wakes up to find a huge bag of coal next to his bed. He has to carry it with him everywhere he goes. Eventually Joey grows up and becomes a storyteller who helps other people tell their stories. When Joey tells his own story of the Terrible Thing, he finds out that others have their own bags of coal too. Joey opens his bag of coal and examines the lumps one by one. One by one they don’t seem so heavy. He encourages others to examine their bags of coal as well, As Joey’s story unfolds, winter turns to spring, gardens bloom and the bag of coal becomes a balloon that lifts Joey joyously above the town and “everybody saw him. Everybody knew.”

  • Joseph Lovett
    Director
    Gay Sex in the 70s (Tribeca FF, Sundance Channel, The Accident (SXSW)), Going Blind (PBS), Cancer: Evolution to Revolution (HBO), Children of the Inquisition (RIIFF, Seattle, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Detroit Jewish Film Festivals
  • Joseph Lovett
    Writer
    Gay Sex in the 70s (Tribeca, Sundance), Going Blind (PBS), Cancer: Evolution to Revolution (HBO), Children of the Inquisition
  • Joseph Lovett
    Producer
    Gay Sex in the 70s (Tribeca, Sundance), Going Blind (PBS), Cancer: Evolution to Revolution (HBO), Children of the Inquisition
  • Oscar Wyndham Lewis
    Director of Animation
    The Waves, 1916, John and Iris
  • Julia Vasiliev
    Musical Score
    Bitmoji TV, Dino Ranch, SHARDS, Porsche Carrera, Canada Children's Health Fdn, Moment Ski Co., Systema Martial Art
  • Rosie Perez
    Key Cast
    "Narrator"
    Fearless, Do the Right Thing, White Men Can’t Jump, In Living Color, The Flight Attendant, The Ritz, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Fish in the Dark, The View, Pineapple Express, Birds of Prey
  • Project Type:
    Animation
  • Genres:
    Drama
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes 17 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 25, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    45,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Premiere at the New York State Museum with the NY State Board of Education
    Albany
    United States
    October 16, 2023
Director Biography - Joseph Lovett

In his long career producing for ABC News, CBS News, HBO, PBS and Discovery, Peabody Award winner Joseph Lovett has produced and/or directed over 35 hours of primetime television programming and 7 feature documentaries.

Joe is known for tackling difficult issues with skilled storytelling and empathetic interviews to bring needed attention to public health issues and taboo subjects such as Cancer, AIDS, ALS, Vision Loss. Joe has also been willing to include himself in his films as an interested interlocutor rather than as a “dispassionate journalist.” This technique allows him to be a willing guide for his viewers as he asks the questions and ferrets out the information his viewers need. Joe’s acclaimed documentaries “Cancer: Evolution to Revolution” (HBO, Peabody Award, Emmy Nomination) and “Going Blind: Coming out of the Dark about Vision Loss” (PBS) are drawn from his own experience with his family members’ cancers and his own personal vision loss.

Joe’s first feature film “The Accident” is a Rashomon style story of Joe’s family. Joe’s father died a very painful death from cancer when Joe was nine and his mother was killed in a freak car accident which he was part of when he was thirteen. “The Accident” was the first of Joe’s films where, working to understand the effects of his own grief and ability to process, he chose to expose his own vulnerability in a manner that allows others to explore theirs. It was made over 25 years.

“Something Terrible Happened to Joey” takes Joe’s own childhood traumas and abstracts them into “a terrible thing” which any child might have experienced in their life such as Abuse, Divorce, Disability, Separation, Illness. The film honors the child’s sadness, models behavior for friends who might not know what to do, and gives hope showing that with time, friends, and self- examination, an interrupted life can become whole and viable.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

When I had lost both my parents by the age of 13, I had no idea what my future held for me. I did not know if I would be “alright,” and it was clear that everyone around me was watching to see if I was going to have a nervous breakdown. As I grew up, when I heard of something terrible happening to another child, I always wanted to be able to say to them “You can be alright. Yes, your world as you know it has changed forever, but you CAN recover and be alright.” It was that desire to help others that led to the making of “Something Terrible Happened to Joey.”

Even under the best of circumstances, it takes time and effort to grow up. With a traumatic background, it can be even more difficult, but it is important for a person who has experienced trauma to know that. Everything in the film is true, the terrible thing, Ricky, the best friend who knew to “be there”, the people who were watching: learning to examine what was burdening me, sharing my story, helping others tell their stories, and getting help to rebuild “my foundation” and rebuild “my house" the way I wanted so that I could finally experience joy.

“Something Terrible Happened to Joey” is a simple story that can be so many different people’s stories. The “Terrible Thing” can be a death, a divorce, a move, an illness, an assault, an offending body part, any experience a person sees as traumatizing. While writing the story, I tried to be respectful of each person’s terrible thing. I tried to model how to be a friend just by being there. I tried to acknowledge feeling under the watch. And I tried to be respectful of the time and care it takes to incorporate a terrible thing into your life and to build your own life. I hope it can help people to look at their lives and help them to build the emotional strengths to grow.

I’m very grateful to be working with the artist Oscar Wyndham Lewis, our animator, and Julia Vasiliev, our composer and sound designer, both of whom have added such emotion and tenderness to the story with their brilliance. It’s been an extraordinary collaboration among three people who have only met over Zoom. Thanks also to the artist Leo Crane, who helped me in the early development of the story as a film.