As part of Canon’s “Project Imaginat10n” (www.imagination.usa.canon.com) campaign, five influential celebrities from five diverse disciplines will direct short films under the tutelage of two-time Academy Award winner Ron Howard, with the finished products to be shown in the first photography-inspired film festival in 2013.  The “10″ in the title represents the ten storytelling elements (mood, time, goal, obstacle, relationship, backstory, the unknown, setting, character and discovery) that photographers can submit images under, which will then inspire the stories for the films that will be shot on Canon equipment.

During this recent phone interview with Collider, Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx (one of the creative icons chosen to be a part of this project) talked about how excited he is to be a part of this process, how grateful he is for the opportunity to do something behind the camera, that he’s expecting to make his film in February or March, after he’s had a chance to review and select all of the images, and that he’s looking forward to seeing how everyone else involved interprets images for their own projects.  He also talked about what it’s like to play the President and First Lady with actress Garcelle Beauvais on White House Down, which he’s currently shooting, how the experience of working with Quentin Tarantino on Django Unchained has inspired him, why he’s interested in directing, and the actors he’d not only love to team up with, but also direct, in the future.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.