Last night I was at Netflix's Tadum theater for a screening of Skydance Animation's latest release, SPELLBOUND. I prefer to see my animated movies in a theater to truly take in the artistry and the judge the quality of the animation. But I went to this one specifically to support my friend and the film's producer whom I worked with when we were both at Disney.
There was a panel moderated by a woman from Variety afterward and one of her questions really stuck with me. She asked the director (Vicky Jenson, who also directed the first SHREK), my friend, Bruce Anderson (who is now the head of production for Skydance), Alan Menken and lyricist Glen Slater, what their first jobs in the industry were.
Vicky painted cels as she babysat (age 13) for a neighbor who worked for Hanna Barbara.
Bruce was a PA on Mulan, although his answer was that he ran the copy machine on Mulan.
THE WILD ROBOT a phenomenal animated movie also out this year, was produced by Jeff Hermann who started as PA on Pocahontas. THE WILD ROBOT was directed by Chris Sanders (LILO AND STITCH), who got his start as a character designer on Muppet Babies after he graduated Cal Arts.
A massive trailer also launched this weekend for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON "Live action" adaptation of the animated film and franchise. Directed by the animated films' director, Dean DeBlois. Dean started as a layout artist before moving into story as a story artist/writer.
Byron Howard, 2-time Oscar winning director (Zootopia, Encanto), started as a tour guide at Disney-MGM studios animation tour.
Chuck Williams, producer/development director (Sonic the Hedgehog, Brother Bear) started as editor (originally a music video editor before moving into animation).
I myself started as a painter.
I ran into another former colleague there who started as a scanner of artwork for a Pocahontas video game and is now a localization producer.
The point is, every single one of these people, myself included, took the first job they could get in the animation space, absorbed everything about every department, and then became leaders in the industry.
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Thanks for posting this! I’ve watched some of THR’s round tables in the past, but have never caught an animation one.
Great Roundtable, Laurie Ashbourne! Thanks for sharing. Nick Park said, "Strangely, this film was incredibly quick to make. It was 15 months shooting. Our average for features is about 18 months." I'm...
Expand commentGreat Roundtable, Laurie Ashbourne! Thanks for sharing. Nick Park said, "Strangely, this film was incredibly quick to make. It was 15 months shooting. Our average for features is about 18 months." I'm sure that the animation is why it takes longer to make an animated movie than a live-action film. Are there other things that take an animated movie longer to get made?
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Unlike live action, animation is made frame by frame. And each element is handled by a different artist, depending on the form- such as stop motion vs. CG vs. 2D (shadows, lighting, animation, clothin...
Expand commentUnlike live action, animation is made frame by frame. And each element is handled by a different artist, depending on the form- such as stop motion vs. CG vs. 2D (shadows, lighting, animation, clothing, props, camera) and it is iterated many times - - storyboard, rough, clean up, final renders etc. The pipleline is more often than not customized to the production needs, but always it is essentially made a half a dozen times before the final version is put out.
Thanks for explaining, Laurie Ashbourne. I've heard stop motion is a lot of work. I imagine a studio/big production company film would need a big team of stop motion artists.