The Dreamers and I, a new documentary by Kenji Yamamoto

I finally have something to share with you, it's a documentary called "The Dreamers and I" which I made some animated sequences thru out. Kenji Yamamoto was a film and video editor and 10 years ago, he decided to make his own film after years of working on other people's films.

He got a grant to begin this project where he discovered am endless cast of characters living in a "Hacker House". The people from all over the world who were legal immigrants who were creating their own projects in hopes of selling their projects to big companies like Apple, Google and other big tech companies.

Don't take my word for it. Enjoy this interview instead...

Here's another interview where you can hear Kenji explaining how this film came about.

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2026/07/31/the-dreamers-and-i

I started the project when it was called, "The Big Deal" and early on, Kenji had discovered that he was basically camera shy and wanted an animated version of himself talking to the viewer instead of himself. 

I started working on making the animated Kenji designs first and allowing Kenji to direct the character design process. This all began in 2024 and it was a slow process not on a tight deadline. I am currently editing down an interview with Kenji and his wife Nancy, who is also has a lot of films under her belt as well.

For now, enjoy this trailer from the film and you will see the animated Kenji towards the end.

"The Dreamers and I" will begin streaming on PBS beginning August 1st and I will post a schedule if you are interested in seeing the whole film for free!

Just leave me some feedback...

Kevin Schreck, Documentary Filmmaker

Before the success of "Who framed Roger Rabbit", Richard Williams had been very successful producing animated title sequences for feature films and animated commercials. Throughout his career, he was learning more about the by bringing in animation veterans to teach his crew and working on his masterpiece, to be known as "The Thief and the Cobbler".

Kevin Schreck had heard about how eventually Williams had never fully completed it on his terms and decided to make his thesis film called "Persistence of Vision". A very interesting and inspiring documentary of a part of Richard Williams life where he learned and mastered 2D animation.

I recently had the opportunity to talk to Kevin Schreck about his first documentary and his second about Turkish artist, C.M. Kosemen. Schreck is finishing up a third film about a rap artist called "Enongo; the Sammus documentary.

Please enjoy the Animateducated interview below...

And if you enjoyed that interview, there are many more on the YouTube channel Animateducated. Please subscribe there!

Thanks, Jim