In animation, the directors are part of a huge team of animators who all have opinions, too. It’s a much more democratic process. Also, the animation executives oversee things more.
It just seems like the whole, overall animation world is trying to go where maybe animation doesn’t belong.
I lucked out. I got in just when animation just started to take off.
Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn.
Ariel got me into animation. She was the first Disney heroine that really felt alive. She felt like a real young woman.
Animation is incredibly difficult – much like doing a giant sweeping fantasy novel.
My respect for animation has gone way up. It’s a truckload of work. I have to sit with my animators the same way I’d sit with my actors and cast them.
Live action movies are someone else’s story. With animation, audiences can’t think that. Their guards are down.
I usually have 10 different animation projects going at a time.
The best way for a beginner to write for animation is to closely watch animated films, then read the screenplays for them afterwards.
Since I was a kid, I’ve always been obsessed with animation.
There’s a process in the movie industry in both live action and animation called development hell!
I don’t know if animation is a style. It’s a format.
The Italian character in general is full of animation, and the natives enter into the interests and welfare of the stranger before them with a fervor that forbids all doubt of its sincerity and that is truly surprising.
America is behind Europe and Japan in terms of accepting adult ideas in animation.
The voice for ‘Surly’ is, of course, very close to my own voice, but it’s informed a lot by this story, by the arc and the animation and working with the whole creative team on ‘The Nut Job’ in finding what really works.
I learned a lot about 3D animation from and with my dear friend Michael Hemschoot of Workerstudio. Taught me that I want to play more with animation and image manipulation. Fun stuff!
Of all studios that should be doing 2-D animation, it should be Disney.
As animation directors, you’re the first one on the film; you’re the last one off, and you get to learn from and touch every department throughout the whole journey. I don’t know any other job in the world that’s like that. I don’t think live-action is like that. It’s a very different sort of experience.
Luckily, I went to school at CalArts, and then ended up here at Disney, starting in the Animation Building and working my way up. I started as an animator, and then did character designing and storyboarding, and eventually, directing.
Any type of animation, it could be really super crude or very sophisticated, it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t make this point in this shot, this one here and this one here. There’s the saying, ‘One shot, one thought.’ It’s pretty much a true way to go.
When I was a teenager, I did one animated series back when I was on ‘General Hospital.’ It was 1971 or ’72. Then I didn’t do animation until ‘Batman.’
A lot of our animation projects are co-productions with French production companies.
One good thing about animation is that, if you do screw up a line, they won’t use it. You can keep going until it’s right.
I get asked a lot if I’d want to get into live-action movies, and the answer, honestly, is ‘no.’ I’m an illustrator, and I think animation is an extension of that way of expressing myself. That’s not to say I’d never make a live-action movie, but I don’t strive for it.
If you’re sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that’s entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it’s the storytelling. That’s why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.
My parents had a software company making children’s software for the Apple II+, Commodore 64 and Acorn computers. They hired these teenagers to program the software, and these guys were true hackers, trying to get more colors and sound and animation out of those computers.
I was a little shocked at how adult some of the humor was, because I was never that into animation before and when I watched ‘Shrek’ I really laughed out loud.
I’ve loved all forms of animation.
Cartooning at its best is a fine art. I’m a cartoonist who works in the medium of animation, which also allows me to paint my cartoons.
The nice thing about animation, you don’t even really have to account for yourself. All of the physical stuff that you work on as an actor, you just throw away.
In college, I was a cartoonist at ‘The Daily Northwestern.’ So I draw myself. I was an animator. But basically, I went to Northwestern to major in English, wound up in college for two years. Studied animation there. Came to Disney. My first week at Disney was the week that ‘Star Wars’ came out.
It’s very hard to adapt something. You end up changing it too much to make a good movie out of it. I prefer to work with things that are custom made for my kind of animation.
I have a studio at my house, and there is a sister studio for Disney which is about 45 minutes away, and we haven’t dropped a beat. In the art of animation and voiceover work, you can pretty much work from anywhere.
In all animation, if it’s done quickly, you’ll know it. And if you’re very slow and careful with it, it’s going to look a little more beautiful. It’s just compressing time into seconds.
In my opinion, animation will continue to thrive as long as there are children, parents, television, movies and the need to laugh.
Creative content is challenging, no matter what, and animation is particularly challenging.
I took a lot of influences from Studio Ghibli, which is the Japanese animation studio that made ‘Spirited Away’ and ‘Castle in the Sky.’ They’re like the Japanese version of Disney – but without all the schmaltz.
