CTN Expo 2025 Conversations with Animation Legends--Part Two

PLEASE Help FUND Season 3—Time is of the essence and no amount is too small! Contribute HERE: https://throne.com/language_of_the_soul

Episode two of a two-part series showcasing CTNX Animation Expo 2025. We roam CTN with Disney and Pixar veterans, educators, and fresh voices to ask how story, culture, and technology can revive animation beyond remakes. From Brave’s lush production design to real-time pipelines and indie funding, we map practical paths to original creator-driven work that moves audiences. And in the spirit of Language of the Soul Podcast, transforms them.

Interviews with:

Russ Edmonds

Mark Andrews

Seth Kearsley

Aaron Blaise

Joshua Pyun

LOTS One-time Donation
Your donation, however big or small, will help us build our platform. Click Here to Donate!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:45

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul Podcast, where life is story. For those of you that did not tune into the first episode, this is a follow-up to a former episode about Disney Legends. We two years ago had a roaming podcast at CTN Expo. It's the largest, or it was at the time the largest animational convention in the world. It was a little more intimate this year, but this is our second episode in a two-part series at CTN. So without repeating basically the entire last episode, just to know that the place is crawling with Disney legends, and of course, they're all my colleagues actually from my eleven years at Disney feature animation during what's now become known as the Animation Renaissance. But the beauty is, I guess I had a lot of security at Disney, but traditionally the industry is not that secure, so people tend to move around. So whenever I would interview a Disney legend, they would bring up TV animation properties or other films they had worked on elsewhere. So it's like a gold mine or a treasure trove of lore. So enjoy the nostalgia, the lore. There are some iconic legendary animators in this episode. We also interview students or greener artists or aspiring animation artists and just say, Hey, what brought you to CTN? And that's as inspiring as everything else. So without further ado, enjoy the interviews. Thank you for sitting down with us. Thanks for having me. Welcome to Language of the Soul Podcast. Uh we're starting real general with everybody. I do know a little bit about you, but not everything. Okay. And then, of course, here a lot of my colleagues from Disney feature animation. I feel like I should know their whole IMDB, but you can't.

SPEAKER_07 2:28

Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:29

So we're starting from scratch with everybody. Um and I know you're an icon and a legend, but I'm gonna pretend I know nothing about you just for the listeners. Okay. And say, can you just tell us your name? And then maybe what you've been up to and some of the titles you've worked on.

Mark Andrews: Career Origins

SPEAKER_03 2:41

Absolutely. My name is Mark Andrews. Uh I've been in the animation industry for 30 plus years now. I got my start in TV animation on uh the real adventures of Johnny Quest when Hanna Barbero was still existed.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

What year was that?

SPEAKER_03 2:55

That was uh when I got out of uh college in '91.

SPEAKER_07 3:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

So 91 through 99, uh I worked on stuff. Uh Warner Brothers happened. They created after Little Mermaid happened and kind of broke the door back in for animation being a real thing again, uh in f in the feature realm, studios started popping up all over the place. DreamWorks, Warner Brothers. So I was just rolling out of Kalaranza with a bunch of my friend, and it was kind of like a a new golden age of animation.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

We were all getting hired and I started in 92 at Disney. So I moved the wave.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

So we're right there. I went to the Disney internship in 91 when they brought it back from Florida to Glendale. It was 1990. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 3:39

Internship. There you go. That's funny.

The 90s Boom And Studio Hopping

SPEAKER_03 3:41

We're right there at that same, that same crux. So I had a lot of good instructors there. I mean, almost everybody that worked at Disney taught at CalArts. They were my R nighttime instructors. So uh it was it was exploding because there wasn't enough people and there was a hunger to make a bunch of stuff. So you had these big studios. So I worked on Quest for Camelot, Iron Giant with Brad Bird, and then Osmosis Jones before I left, uh feature animation at Warner Brothers, and I worked with Sam Raimi on Spider-Man boarding and live action. And then Brad Bird got hired at Pixar. So I went up to the first time. Twice? No, no, it's gonna be more than that. It's gonna be more than that. Uh it was his head of story on Incredibles, was his head of story on Ratatouille. Then Pixar asked me to direct up there. Um I went off and did uh uh John Carter of Mars with Andrew Stanton. I was co-directed.

SPEAKER_04 4:36

John Carter was live action.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

John Carter live action, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

So you story board do they often board everything? So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

We but we boarded it just like we would do any other movie with that kind of detail. Um because it's a process that's uh uh a really good process that helps save that time and we can visualize stuff and a big you know two hundred million dollar action adventure movie, you're gonna you're gonna want that, right?

SPEAKER_04 4:59

Right. Um well depending on the director then depending on the director.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

Um so went off and did that, then I came back to Pixar and uh directed Brave.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

I d wait a minute. I why did I think Brenda was a director?

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Brenda was a director, and she was the first director, and here was her story, and they worked on it for seven years, and then and this has happened on every most of every Pixar film, is you get to that 18-month deadline, and if the movie's not working and not clicking it, they make a change, and they make a big change.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Well, sometimes somebody gets uh thrown under the bus and they pump new blood into it. Also Yes, yes, they do.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

So so uh classic Disney, so yeah. So they so Brenda, they let Brenda go. Oh, I didn't know that. They asked me to come in. I did a page one rewrite on the story, finished that movie in 18 months, got it to where it really needed. We got the Academy Award, which I share with Brenda. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_04 5:57

I was asking out of complete ignorance, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's I mean, she had such a beautiful story. I'm just glad to be a part of the channel. Which was a lot of her and the production design team with uh uh Steve Pilcher and cinematographer, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

Yeah, yeah, there's everything art direction, cinematography, production design, and I kept the screen.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

All of that. It was so theatrical, and I loved that approach. So I just said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. You know, let's just roll with this because it's it's really powerful.

Pixar Era: Incredibles To Brave

SPEAKER_04 6:27

And I would say nonlinear is that I just was blown away by what you got away with. Uh-huh. Can you speak to that? For me, it was like long story. But you know, the Western storytelling structure and all those do's and don'ts. And yet the early films of Walt Disney would go off on a complete like look at Pinocchio. Right. Entire songs that just capture your imagination and take you on a journey, but they don't propel the plot forward, right? And they don't give you really character development. It's just a journey for children and igniting their imagination. Right. I felt that way about Brave that it was non-linear. Does that do you have anything to say about that?

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Yeah, I think that was something that was that it came up because I mean, at the end of the day, we want to make it entertaining, and I think that element in the storytelling suddenly gets missed as the priorities. You know, who's the character, what's their motivation, where are they going? Are they likable? You know, all that kind of stuff. It's like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. What about is this even entertaining? Is this scene entertaining? So, so to have her have this uh, and we're playing with the mythologies, the Scotland mythologies, the Will the Wisps, the you don't know if you're in one space or another, you know, um, all of a sudden they find this mysterious Brock where they encounter more dew, it's because she had to encounter more dew and come back, but you couldn't go and hunt that bear if you wanted to, you know. So, so weaving all that together, you have it is if you pull back to 60,000 feet, it's straightforward. But once you're down there in the woods and in that landscape and in the story, you tend to you're wandering and you're following your nose. So we try to make it organic.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

I've exactly yeah if it can I follow up on that? Yes. I don't want to I want to I don't want to steer it away from where you might have been headed, but I think that's what I loved about it. Without knowing the regional folklore, it was nonlinear because it seemed self-referential, if that makes sense. Yeah. Uh Shyamalan lost me. I liked his first couple films, but then like The Lady in the Water or whatever. It's like, uh sorry, I am not invested in this because it's self-referential. Yes. But I felt like Brave because I didn't know the local re what regional folklore felt not self-referential, but in a great way. Like I was along for the ride.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Yes, yes. We were honoring that cultural kind of heritage that we all felt when we got over. And then when we were on our research trips there and even talking to the Scots and our guides, I mean, there's so much lore that they understand, there's so much stuff that they believe in. I mean, if you took a poll right now, 50% of everybody in Scotland and Ireland still believe in fairies. Right. It's a very real part of their lives and the things that happen, that's their connection kind of to the universe. So, how do we bring that back, that element that is uh deeply enriched in them and the soil? How do we put that into the movie? How do we get that, honor that, right? So that's it's tricky, it's a tricky thread to weave.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

We've had a couple podcasts about exactly that. How do you honor, you know, like I mean, Mulan's a bad example, but you got a huge country and it's their most well-loved tale. How do you not piss people off for one and honor it?

SPEAKER_07 9:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

Um, but just back to something you just said, I had a student from Greenland, no, Iceland, sorry, and she said, Oh yeah, there's a rite of passage. You know you're really friends with somebody when you have the conversation and you admit you believe in A, B, C, and D.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Right, yes, yes. Yeah. So that's I mean, so you got all those forces working against the audience, still has to understand the story, and they have to relate to the story because if I'm not relating to it and I'm not invested, it doesn't matter what it is. I'm out, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:04

So, how did you strike that balance of honoring the folklore but knowing it's going to be lost on people that are not from that culture and making it relatable and being invested in it and all that stuff?

Nonlinear Story And Scottish Lore

SPEAKER_03 10:13

I mean, it's it's it's trial and error ultimately at the end of the day. It's how much do you turn that knob on your mix board? More legend and myth. Didn't work, let's pull it back, it's too much. You know, you're finding all those on your mix board. But it's screenings or how do you think it's it's it's always internal, right? It's because we can sit there, and I think that's the biggest thing is that uh creating telling stories, I have to be able to put on my objective hat and be the audience as if I don't know what's happening with the story. So uh a lot of uh the people who work at Pixar and Disney and Dreamworks and stuff like that, that internal group, that's what we've developed so we could sit back and go, okay, this thing's starting to fire on all the cylinders now. Oh, this section isn't firing on all the cylinders. So one of the biggest things in Brave that we had to do from an audience screening is is the connection between the witch and mordu and the spell that Merida has with the cake that turns her mom into a bear.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

It's been a while, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

So it there was it wasn't syncing for that audience. So we came out of an audience review and we need to make this foolproof, bulletproof for the audience. So now we're taking visual icons and connecting that thread through these visual icons and through the story that the witch tells. There's double-bladed battle axes, which is Mordu's uh uh icon. Um he asked, he came to the witch to ask for a spell. You know, so we're putting it all together so that we can track that this Meredith's story has happened before, and Mordu is the warning. The wisps are warning her they're not bad, they're actually good. They're warning her from going down that path, that selfish path, because that's what happened, you're gonna turn into a monster. So she just turned her mom into a bear. If that keeps going down, she's gonna become a monster, it's gonna ruin their relationship. You know, bad, bad, more bad things are gonna happen. So it was just bringing all that and tightening it up, right? And it's and it's tricky to get to have it all.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

Do you have consultants about the folklore, or did you check in with just the average?

SPEAKER_03 12:25

We did. I mean, uh uh when I was walking through the studio and saw all these sketches of guys in kilts, because I'm Scottish. Oh, really? Okay. I'm all, what the hell is this? And Brenda's all this is my movie idea. It's about this, you know, young woman and her relationship with her mom, and da-da-da. They break it up with magic, and we're gonna set into Scotland. I'm all, wow, do you have any help? So all of their first research books on the lore and photo books of Scotland and stuff were all my books.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

Wasn't Carter Goodrich on board pretty early on? I loved little studies, yeah. Yeah, he did a bunch of great stuff. That alone I would want to jump in that project.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

I know, yeah, it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

So I didn't know you directed that. We struck gold here.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:05

Can we switch gears and talk about up a little bit? Of course. Were you head of a story of the game?

SPEAKER_03 13:09

I was not head of story on, I was head of story on uh uh Ratatouille.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Oh my come on. And Incredibles, yes. Dude, well, okay, there's so much to talk about here. But I as much as I loved Brave, it's been a while. Yeah, yeah. So I couldn't really follow some of what you said. I got a lot going on in my noggin. Yeah, I do love it. I need to go back and watch it again. Yeah, yeah. But I loved um UP for a variety of reasons. Sure. Um can you speak to the thematic content of you as you experienced it? Like what was it mainly, what were the main themes, or what was it trying to impart, if anything? I know it's not a didactic.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Right. Well, I as uh I was working at Pixar when Up was being done, but I was on other projects. So I wasn't working directly on UP.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

Well, I did it. Wasn't it on your uh Ratatouille, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Incredibles, yeah. Those I have intimate knowledge.

SPEAKER_04 14:04

Well, you know, I worked in Paris at Disney. Remember we had a ride.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

That it was an amazing ride. That kicked open a whole level of stuff for Disney rides. I mean, we wouldn't have the Ratatouille ride in Euro Disney and Paris. I mean, we wouldn't have uh the new Star Wars ride, you know, if it wasn't for that ride and the technology that the device.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

I went to Euro Disney really early on in the early 90s.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Oh, you gotta go.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

I know, but the thing was, you know, like here you have to make sure you get a visual where you left your car. Like, it didn't take off for a while. Euro Disney, they didn't get it. No, no, so you didn't even bother looking where you parked.

SPEAKER_07 14:44

Right, right, right, right. You can see it in the parking lot. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:47

So I don't know anything about the Ratatouille ride, but my point is I left my heart in Paris. Yes. And I've been there a few times, and I love it. Ratatouille, again, non-linear in a way, yeah. But just had a warmth to it and a nostalgia to it. Um, what was your role on Ratatouille? I had a story on Ratatouille.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Yeah, yeah. That was another film. It was uh initially created by Jan Pinkava. He was a director on it, and they worked on that for six and a half years. Again, it got up to this point where you had 18 months before release, and it wasn't firing on all cylinders, so Jan had to let go. They asked Brad Bird to take it on. Brad said yes, and then Brad called by was his first call. He says, I can't do this movie without you, get on here because we have to do it in 18 months.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

I must have And you had already worked with him on Iron Giant.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

On Iron Giant and on Incredibles. Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

I didn't realize Incredibles was before Ratatouille.

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Yes, yeah. Yeah. So uh and then and then uh he replaced almost the entire crew because that whole crew was burnt out after six and a half years. We came back in, so this this the essential story we remained the same and we really worked hard for the first few months. We started in August, we worked hard for that first month up to Christmas, the Christmas break, on Jan's story telling Jan's story. But over Christmas, it was really hard. So over Christmas, I had this idea of let's kill off Remy's family because they were integral to the story. Brad had another Epiphany, he's all let's kill off Gusteau, because he was originally live in the story. So these were two things that were pulling from Remy's story, these characters. And so we came back in January after the break, and I said, I had Epiphany. I saw I had Epiphany, you first. And I said, kill off Remy's family, let's have them alone in Paris so he could reinvent himself and be who he wants to be.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

Was it ever explained what happened to them? I don't remember.

Clarifying Myth, Theme, And Audience

SPEAKER_03 16:46

They're in the sewers, and his family goes down, lost one sewers, and Remy's by himself. It was perfect. We don't know what happened to them, right? And then and then Remy idolized Gusteau, but he has no idea as a rat that Gusteau died. So when he gets to the restaurant to learn under this fantastic chef, he's gone. He's dead. So that's where we made Gusteau a ghost, a figment of Remy's imagination, to inspire him to do what he needs to do. And that suddenly slapped the movie into place, and we were rolling with a brand new kind of version of the movie that still kept that original conceit but had a whole different type of energy going into it because the movies are about one character, right? And and in a lot of these movies, including Brave, there was this tug of war between is it Eleanor's story or is it Merida's story? Is it Eleanor's story that we have to come down on one idea, right? And and and Who had the main art? I mean, it's Yeah, it was Merida. It was for Brave, it's Merida's story. I'd have to think about it, but it's Merida's because uh again, because the kids who are watching it, a parent has been a child. So a parent's gonna be able to relate to a kid growing up with their parent. A child is not gonna relate to a parent dealing with a kid, right? So we had to it as a PG four quadrant film, you have to make that distinction, right? If it was an adult drama and we were PG 13, it was live action, we make it Eleanor's story, has this unruly rebel kid, and it's more from the parent's point of view. Fine. But I think for animation, that was a decision that I could come in and make without any pain or guilt, because I hadn't been working on it for six and a half, seven years. You know what I mean? And it's and it's and a lot of it's pulled from Brenda's own relationship with his daughter or with her daughter.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

See, that's when it transcends though, like it does. When it's that you it's for good or bad, no offense. Saw Brenda's psyche in the film. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 18:42

I brought my own as a parent because I have a daughter and three sons. And my daughter was a teenager at the time when we were making the movie, and lines of dialogue I pulled directly from my wife and my daughter and put right in the movie. It's in there. So I understand the parent-child relationship because it doesn't matter if you're a mom with a boy, or mom with a girl, or dad with a girl, or dad with a boy, it's parent-child is that relatable for everyone central story.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

The authenticity is a very simple thing.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

The authenticity, that specificity transcends.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

Well, you've probably heard the more personal you can make a work, the more you're universally it's gonna land. Yes, that's true. You still have to know what's culturally relative and what audience you're aiming for, but it is an irony, I think. Right. I feel like you probably know Brian Pimentel.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Brian Pimental, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

Yeah, I always think of Bambi 2 as an example. I don't talk a lot about the sequels. Yes, I'm a snob, you know, feature animation. That's right. We used to disown them. They got better and better. Yes, yes. And the Dumbo one was great, and then that one I loved because again, Brian's psyche was all over that. Right. His daddy issues, and like, oh yeah, how did you get away with that? Oh yeah. It speaks to people because it's so personal. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

It comes from an authentic place, right? And then you take that element and then you bring that element of how do I make this entertaining, and you blend those two together and you and you get something that not only entertains, but the person has had an experience and maybe sees something a little differently than I call it transformation, you know, the Disney films.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Animated films are really sophisticated in that way, the you know, the way they transform us, and they're not just cathartic or just entertaining, they're all of the above, you know.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And I think I think that they've skewed too much that way, and they need to bring back straight up entertainment because I want my animated Star Wars. I want my animated Star Wars, you know. We actually need to do more than animated Lord of the Rings, yes. Properly. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 20:34

Right?

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_04 20:37

Yeah, the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings need to be done correctly, in my opinion. What are you waiting for?

SPEAKER_03 20:42

You know, uh Warner's, you know. Warners, if you're listening, I'm ready. Put me in a director animated series of the two blues. The two blue wizards story that's never been done.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Is that a Lord of the Rings reference? There's a Lord of the Rings reference. Stephen Colbert.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

That's a deep cut. Yeah. No, we'll do Lord of the Rings.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

Is that from Simmerillion? I don't know that reference.

SPEAKER_03 21:03

It's from the Silmarillion, yeah. Well, I mean, Gandalf talks about it in The Hobbit, is there are five wizards sent to Middle Earth. Right? The first two were the blues.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

And that hasn't been done yet.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

And they disappeared. No, nobody knows what happened to them. We know Saruman, we know Gandalf, and we know Radagast. Saruman brought Radagast, and Gandalf was there on his own. So if you're watching uh uh Rings of Power, they got it wrong. Gandalf was not the first one there.

SPEAKER_04 21:31

See, I didn't even see that. Was that animated?

SPEAKER_03 21:34

No, that's live action. The live action started on Amazon. Yes. So they took a little license with those facts.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Well, let me ask this kind of is a good transition back to animation. Well, no, I it's a direct transition from what you just said. Yeah. It does seem like we got the origin story, and then sequels, you know, are getting traction. You can have the 12th, right? The 12th installment. Yeah. But more disturbing, in my opinion, is like everything needs a franchise attached to it or some kind of nostalgia. Like remake all the Disney classics as live action films. Money is not being thrown at original ideas, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

Correct, it's not. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 22:09

Well, how do we reverse that trend?

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Well, I think this is where technology comes in because animation has got so big it costs so much money, there's so much time spent into it because it's off these IPs that you buy, that hopefully the broadest audience is going to possibly see to afford that uh uh uh that price tag. Um, and then we keep reiterating uh the same stories over and over again, these same animated worlds and the same when we're chasing the tail.

SPEAKER_04 22:38

And AI soon enough. Right.

Real-Time Pipelines And Budget Math

SPEAKER_03 22:40

But I think that the technology is coming, especially with the uh with uh things like the Unreal Engine, where you have real-time rendering, uh 24 to 70 frames a second. I've been working on that since I left Pixar in 2018. That's been my complete focus is to reinvent the animation pipeline and to use a real-time pipeline. That means I go onto a stage, mocap stage, uh, I shoot coverage for my animated film off that because it's all going to be animated by animators. I'm not I'm not keeping the mocap. The mocap is strictly for telling the story, blocking, reference, and it's all there for timing. I mean, if you and I jump up over this table and run off and we're on a mocap stage, and I shoot it with 18 different shots, and the anime, I give it to my animators, the animators allowed. I need 16 frames to get him over the table. I'm well, no, you look, look, I gotta, he's over it in eight frames. You can use the eight frames. So it's it's a much more I can make the movie for much less. So for example, it's more efficient. So, for example, I did an animated, original animated series for Netflix called Supergiant Robot Brothers. It came out in 2022, right? Just after the pandemic. It's the first ever full animated series, all done in Unreal, final pixel render. All in the machine. It didn't go to anywhere else. We did uh five hours of content, that's 10 half hour episodes, five hours of content in 18 months for$13 million. One point of time.

SPEAKER_04 24:05

What would be the price tag for a traditional CG pipeline for that?

SPEAKER_03 24:09

It's a million dollars a minute.

SPEAKER_04 24:12

But they never showed us the above, you you know the above the line, right?

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Oh yeah, I know above the line. And above the line in animation is not is not as huge as people think it is. It's not as huge as Ed Live.

SPEAKER_04 24:25

Right. Back on Lion King and my eyes went.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Whoa, wah, wah, wah. Yes, absolutely. Pixar, we had a whole different different metric. It's high, but it's not even, you're not reaching even 25% of the of the full budget for the above the line. But I came out of that experience in 22 going, wait a minute, I just did five hours of content of animation, super stylized animation that doesn't look like a video game. Five hours in 18 months for$13 million. If you gave me$13 million right now to do an animated feature and my and it was 90 minutes, where does all that extra money go? It goes into the look. It goes into the stylization and the look. So I can have a really good animated movie done in 18 months for$13 million, and animation on its worst day in the box office is a$25,$30 million opening weekend. So now that's where I can do original stories, and I could get my PG 13, I could get my R-rated animated horror films, I could do whatever I want, and the new voices could come out because$13 million to all these studios is a rounding error. Right?

SPEAKER_04 25:34

I don't know what that means. Creative accounting and it's not.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

So that lets other people, these other smaller studios, be able to get an animation game because the barrier to entry was financial. I've been having a lot of meetings with a lot of people around Hollywood that want to get into animation. They're going, but it's expensive. I don't have$100 million. I'm all you need$13 million.

SPEAKER_04 25:59

So this conversation started with how do you reverse the trend of everything having to have a franchise attached?

SPEAKER_03 26:04

This is the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 26:05

So when you bring the cost down, then more original stories can be made.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Because the risk goes away. Right. So for somebody could go, hey, I've got$200,$200 million. I want to give it to you to make me a feature animated project. I'm all, I'm not going to do that. What I'm going to do is I'm going to make you five feature animated projects, five animated series for your$200 million.

SPEAKER_04 26:27

So what are you doing next with this feature?

SPEAKER_03 26:29

That's what I'm trying to get people to give me money to do it. And it's slowly coming. There's a lot of interest out there. I'm having serious conversations with this on all the projects I work on.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

You know, I have to ask. Yeah. Do you receive backlash?

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Uh ethically, all the jobs lost, all No, no, all the well, yes, jobs will be lost, but not in the way that you think, right? Uh Disney, places like Disney, places like Pixar, they're holding on to 300 plus people, right? And they're doing one movie at a time, and there's one airstrip that the plane takes off on and you work and it's just this kind of assembly line. What we're gonna have is we're gonna have, and instead of, let's say it's 25 animated movies a year, and I'm being very generous. If you're making an animated movie every 18 months, I can have an animated movie come out every week. So you can have 52 animated movies come out in a year. That means I'm gonna need that many more times people. I mean, we're already in an animation drought right now where nobody's making anything.

SPEAKER_04 27:31

Nothing's being Greenland.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Right, and nothing's being Greenland because nobody wants to spend that much money. But what if they could spend$10 million? So what if you do a shotgun approach and I put out my horror movie, my G-rated nonsense, my play school one, my something for high schoolers, find the hottest, you know, K-pop band and do a movie about them or anybody else, and throw out a shotgun approach and see what lands with audiences, because what YouTube is telling us is that the general audience is dying. You cannot make stuff for the broadest common denominator anymore. Everybody's tired of it because it doesn't speak to their hearts. What speaks to their hearts is the niche market. So if you want a lesbian vampire, werewolf, galactic, space galactic opera that looks like uh a cross between Roman and the 50s with the British weird video thing, there's going to be a million people that would watch that movie. See that. And if they pay for a$20 ticket, that is$20 million, and I made it for$13. I just doubled my money.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

But that niche, like you're talking about a niche film, that is exactly what I'm talking about because it's called art for art's sake at that point. You know? Yes. Yes. I like it, I'm on board. So that's the problem. I mean, initially I would have thought you on the AI thing, but that's a great way of selling it.

AI, Jobs, And Niche Markets

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Technology is allowing more voices to get into, and even if you use it, you could use AI right in such a way to handle some of the pain points that we have in productions, but you use it right and you it you use it ethically. Right, well. That empowers as a tool that empowers these smaller studios that are 30 people, 50 people, to make movies every year for those audiences. And you know, fans, when a fan loves something, they're a rabid fan for the rest of their life. They will pay and see them. My daughter has seen K-pop Demon Hunter, I don't know, 10 times. Of course she is. Right. Um, if it was out in the theater at 20 bucks a ticket, that it would have gone through a freaking roof. You know, I'm sure through the prescription the uh uh subscription models, they're they're getting all those places get more than enough money. But that just tells you that these niche markets is where everybody needs to look for, and that's just harder to do.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

It's exciting. No, you're the man to sell it though. I like everything you've said. Um I will say, you know, I started, as I said, at 92 online came. Right. But I interned right uh when Rescrers Down Under was in production and Beauty and the Beast was in development. Yes. Even you know, they were pushing for a paperless system the entire 11 years I was there.

SPEAKER_07 30:02

Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:02

So every new innovation is the beginning of the end. You know, everyone catastrophizes about when the model changes.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

100%, and it hasn't been. It's only been able to make us be more creative.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Nobody explained it to me the way you just explained it. Yes. That more jobs are actually created in the end. I mean, we all knew it ain't going anywhere, but everything stalled because of the catastrophizing about AI and the insecurity of the pandemic, like everything stalled. But that the way you explained it is like this is how we get out of this rut. Am I wrong?

SPEAKER_03 30:34

No, you're not wrong. There's gonna be actually more jobs. AI isn't gonna kill anything, it's gonna create more jobs.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Okay, I'm sold. I just feel like the human element, that elusive human element. Whatever it is. Do you have an opinion on what is the human element that so far AI seems to not get? Is there one?

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Yeah, there is, and I think it's a collaborative process of creativity. Is what it is. No one human can do it all. I'm going to need somebody else to bounce something off of. Somebody else that has a slightly different skill set than I do, because you have your particular lens from your experiences, that may help me out of me trying to make the thing I'm going to make. You're going to see something a little bit more uniquely that I can take that specificity that trans that's transcending and add it into that because of that input. AI doesn't have to be a good idea.

SPEAKER_04 31:33

So how do you use AI as a tool while honoring the subjective gifts of everybody on the team?

SPEAKER_03 31:38

The pain point is, and you've probably heard this working with the director or even uh your department lead character designer, anybody, I'll see it when I see it. I'll know it when I see it, right? And that's and that's the hell for an artist. I can only draw so many spaceships. Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

I have to interject. Somebody I think this is what you're saying. Somebody once said, you know, your whole job as a vis dev artist, and that's what I do mostly is Vizdev. Right. Is you throw a bunch of spaghettians against the wall and see what sticks.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

See what sticks, what they react to.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

I'll know it when I see it. Yes. You've actually, you know, that's a miracle. No, absolutely. The argument is like, so if you can't get an art director to do it, how is AI going to take your job?

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:25

You know?

SPEAKER_03 32:26

No, absolutely. And and all my experience that I've been dealing with AI, it handles that initiation, that initial ideation of the spaghetti. Right? So you I go through the spaghetti, so when I come to my Vizdev guy and I go, look, I did a hundred thousand fucking images exploration through fucking Midjourney, trying a whole bunch of different things. Look at these three things. I think this is our first base.

SPEAKER_04 32:51

So the lateral is done in AI.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Because it can't give me what I want. I still have to fucking paint over and bring it into Photoshop and cut shit out and da-da-da. It doesn't know anything, right?

SPEAKER_04 33:02

So you could get all the way to the point of having a style guide using AI for all the time.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Using AI and say, here's a style guide. Now take it to the next level, right? And and that's all the Vizdev artist wants to do is that clean direction so that we're on the same page and you can go, now your lens comes in to work on that. And it's by my baseball analogy is I got them the first base off of that, right? And now they're gonna steal home.

SPEAKER_04 33:28

I love it. I love it. I mean, I I could argue with you a little bit. Of course, just about the subjective worldviews of all those Vizdev artists, and then the picking and choosing the best of the best to come up with that style guide.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

Right, right. But it's that but what I'm looking for as a director, I'm looking for uh something that I can articulate, and me saying it is still spaghetti on the wall. I'm going, nope, nope, nope, can you tell me more? It's hard to articulate. But if I have images, because I'm an image person.

SPEAKER_04 33:58

And a lot of the artists on the team will be disagreeable.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

I don't want to waste my 40 hours, 60 hours, 100 hours with you on a chase. I want to give you a mission. Right?

SPEAKER_04 34:10

You cut to the chase.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Let's cut to the chase. So here, I've already sat there and it's it's nothing. It's effortless for me to do this. And the idea I'll go until I go, I wouldn't have thought of that. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Or this is close to what I'm looking for. Hey, check this out.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

It's a conversation starter.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

It's a conversation starter, and that's all it's meant to be.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

I love it. Man, you're influential. You need to start a cult.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Uh like yeah, well, we're starting run right here. You can follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn and Mark Andrews.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

You're awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for awful. Thanks for the questions.

SPEAKER_03 34:42

That's really great. Yeah. Great surrounding questionings. Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 34:46

Hello. Thanks for sitting down with us. Oh, you're very welcome. And I do know we just established that we worked together for 11 years but hardly crossed paths. Because the layout of the building.

Craft Over Spectacle: Acting In Animation

SPEAKER_05 34:56

The building was, yeah, I think I was on the second floor and you were on the first floor, right?

SPEAKER_04 35:00

In the dungeon, yes.

SPEAKER_05 35:02

Oh, in the dungeon? All the way vanvelope.

SPEAKER_04 35:05

Not scene. Yeah, scene planning was right next door to backgrounds. And even we wouldn't cross paths unless you were going to the commissary, right? It was a weird layout. But anyway, before we lose our listeners entirely, we did work together, but it doesn't mean we know everything about each other. So for listeners, maybe tell us your name, of course.

SPEAKER_05 35:23

Russ Edmonds. My name's Russ Edmonds. Um I worked at Disney for as an animator, supervising animator for um twenty-four years. Um, then I switched to story, and then I was working on different movies to story. I think total, I think I've worked on about twenty-four features of my in my career so far. Haven't given up yet. Or just in general. In general. Uh Disney I worked on 17, I think, features. Including my my last one was Winnie the Pooh.

SPEAKER_07 35:57

Because I stayed with the poor.

SPEAKER_05 35:58

Last one was Winnie the Pooh.

SPEAKER_07 35:59

Right.

SPEAKER_05 36:00

Well that I I you know I I stayed with traditional animation. I didn't switch over to uh to computer animation like most people uh had done, so I stayed with traditional. And then I switched to story after that because I wanted to draw. I love to draw.

SPEAKER_04 36:15

You know. I like you holdouts. Andreas was a holdout as well, right? Right. And you know, I was already gone by the time Winnie the Pooh came along. Yeah. I was only there eleven years. But I do the lore is that was the last 2D thing really before the transition fully took place. Yes. We had already closed the Florida studio, the Paris studio.

SPEAKER_05 36:36

And Ron and so they Ron and John were asked back to just to do that.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

Uh but would you say they Okay, again, I was there just before the axe fell and all the layoffs happened. Right. And so we would get those town hall meetings, remember the pie charts. So I always felt like upper management didn't, they were attributing the success of the films to the medium and the format, meaning in the fact that it was CG. Right. But it's really storytelling that matters, and you and I probably know that. Oh, it's but corporate, it's all about numbers. So I I just wonder if you would confirm or deny. People thought Winnie the Pooh was like a test to see if they would keep up the 2D, and when seemingly it didn't do as well at the box office as they had hoped, that's when they completely did away with uh the 2D. Is that fair to say or is that a myth?

SPEAKER_05 37:24

I'm not sure. I'm not sure, and I'm not gonna take a side on it. You know, but it wasn't the last one, right? It was the last one, and I knew I felt in my bones that that it was gonna be the last one. But typical of me, I kept to my room. I I didn't get involved with the politics of the company. I love what I do. I absolutely love animating, I love drawing, I love being part of it. I get myself immersed in it. I it's one gigantic uh creative mass to me, and I love being involved in it, and I tried to keep all of that negativity out.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

I love it.

SPEAKER_05 38:10

And so and that allowed me Sorry?

SPEAKER_04 38:15

I'm so sorry. Oh he can't? Oh no. Oh, okay. Um what was I talking about? I don't know. Well, just keeping to yourself and not getting involved in politics.

SPEAKER_05 38:27

What that allowed me to do was to stay excited about what I do. And I'm still excited about it. I love this, I love doing what I do, I love telling stories, I love telling uh I love being creative, and I and I love being able to uh to communicate what I'm is in my head to other people. And I do that through drawing. Right. Right?

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Well you seem to I I my experience is people like synergy or in collaboration or not. There's a lot of solo artists that have a singular vision, but it seems like a unique skill set to love storytelling and want to express yourself through the animation as part of a team. That's kind of a unique challenge, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 39:10

That team actually works in in my benefit in a way because because I'm not an expert in everything. You know? Yeah, you just bring your gift. You do what you do and you're so good at it, why would I not use your talents? Right? And I say, oh, can you help me with this? Can you tell you can you help me with color? Can you help me with composition? Can you help me with with um um storytelling, boarding, um, um just directing, um, voice, music. There are everybody has a specific talent that they're so good at. And uh I kind of found my little niche in in my and uh I'm I'm a I'm a good boarder, I'm a good, I'm good at storytelling, I'm because I can I can relay um what's in my head directly to the drawings fast. So I can I I can show the directors what I'm thinking without them even telling me. Same with my animation. Same with the animation, you know, when you can draw quickly and you and you can express yourself fast, you and it's a talent you learn over years, and and you you end up becoming so good at communicating. And that's what makes I think makes any artist the best, because that's what we do, communicate to communicate to the audience.

SPEAKER_04 40:33

I'm a live action director as well. It's kind of what I did after leaving Disney. Okay. And my thought was if you hire the right people or cast the right people, and they share your vision and they appreciate the story being told, why would you breathe down their necks or you know, apply kind of an iron-fisted management, you let them work their magic. That's right. Yeah. So I I rarely had notes for my actors. I probably should have stepped in more, but I rarely had notes.

SPEAKER_05 40:58

Oh, I I I love that because you you let their creativity add to your creativity.

SPEAKER_04 41:02

Yeah, as long as you have kind of the long conversations at the outset and make sure you're hiring or casting the right people, you let them work their stay within the story, the the story basics, the the emotion of the the the arcs of the the whole story and and all of that.

SPEAKER_05 41:16

You make it.

SPEAKER_04 41:17

Don't you think Disney was really good at that though, like appreciating. I felt so valued there, and it's never happened again in other cultures. It's no we were really valued.

Training, Mentorship, And Subtlety

SPEAKER_05 41:26

Not only were we valued, we were actually trained. Uh you know, Walt Stance Field came in, gave us gesture drawing. We had we had life drawing, we had um I would all the mentors that I had, Glenn Keene, all this and Mark Ken and and and Mike Gabriel, they they would draw over your drawings. They would make you a better artist.

SPEAKER_04 41:47

Right. Well, you know Dave Zaboski, right? Right. Yeah, he regularly says, I mean, that the torch was dropped a little bit here and there, but you're basically learning from the nine old men because it is a legacy and a tradition, and yeah, there's a lot of training. Right. I mean, I sorry, as a background painter, I spent six months on Lion King before doing a single production background. And it wasn't just learning the techniques, but it was literally going to the ARL, like you're saying, and doing direct copies, doing um using a layout, but not seeing the color reference, but kind of guessing what you would do on production. It was intense.

SPEAKER_05 42:19

Right. And my feeling is that it's getting it it is lost, it's being lost.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

The training aspect.

SPEAKER_05 42:27

Yeah, because in order to get trained on something like that, it's it's gonna take you five to ten years to really understand how it all works and how all those details work to make it flow uh the Disney style.

SPEAKER_04 42:41

Yeah, I remember again it was intensive training, but of course when my first production background came along, I froze up a little bit. It was too much pressure because I knew it was gonna appear on screen. Yeah. But I remember saying naively straight out the gate, like, what's my quota? And Lisa Keane, I'm sure you know Lisa. Yeah, I know Lisa. Well, we have a department quota, but not a personal one, and she said, Let's just worry about quality on this first film. Maybe on your second film we'll start worrying about numbers. I was like, What?

SPEAKER_05 43:08

Isn't that amazing?

SPEAKER_04 43:09

The Debbie has the luxury of doing that, right?

SPEAKER_05 43:11

Right, they do have the luxury of doing it. Um, but they had the studio built over decades uh too.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

I look at the block, by the way, from Gelson's where the original studio used to be. Yeah. In Silver Lake, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. The little cottages, you know, the an animator cottages. Yeah, yeah. It's just a fluke that I live there. But for our listeners, sorry, I I loved that was a great conversation so far, but can we backpedal a little bit and maybe rattle off if you want to do a dog and pony show? Some of the titles again. Yep, yep, and then maybe a silly silly rote question is like a cookie cutter question. It's like, what did you have a favorite?

SPEAKER_05 43:49

Yeah, okay. Um well you know, I was never an animate people don't know my face. I was never an animator that was that was thrown out in in public. You're right? I was kept in them in my cave. And uh get to work, Russ, get to work. Um, very busy. Um gotta finish it by the end of the week, you know, that kind of a thing. No. I'll anyway. I was I just I was an introvert.

SPEAKER_04 44:16

Yeah, a lot of artists are.

SPEAKER_05 44:17

Right? So I kind of kept going to myself. But yeah, I'm I'm um I'm um now uh three cups of coffee.

SPEAKER_04 44:24

You can't shut me up. And poke you with a stick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:27

So but um you know I so I ended up supervising a lot of characters. I ended up supervising a lot of characters. Um uh Max for Little Mermaid and and uh Philippe for uh uh uh Beauty and the Beast, uh Sarabi the Lion King, which is Mother. Yeah, yeah. And uh uh uh Phoebus was for did Phoebus the the Oh from Hercules? Hunchback, he was the the guard. Right he was the main the main love for Esmeralda Phoebus is his name yes it was it was been so long the guy with the Prince Valiant Bowl goatee Page Boy Yeah that was Goate is Phoebus okay I believe you and he had uh and then Kala. I did Kala, which was Tarzan's mother.

SPEAKER_04 45:19

A lot of these have a crush on Kala. Have you noticed that? I've seen people confess that was my childhood crush. Really? Yeah, you're gonna be a good idea. Of all weird things, reality there.

SPEAKER_05 45:31

Um I did some female mothers, I gotta say. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_04 45:36

Yeah, well it was people do get typecast. I mean, Andreas largely got the villains or the really idealized male characters. I yeah. Is that your specialty, the female animals?

SPEAKER_05 45:46

Um not necessarily. I didn't have a specialty, but I I do have I did they liked my subtlety uh and emotional uh because I throw so much emotion into it that a lot of that emotion gets onto the screen.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

And so What is that magic uh skill set though? I mean, we all know the fundamentals squash and stretch, anticipation and action, right? And that leads life, right? But what would you say charges it with emotion?

SPEAKER_05 46:14

I think putting yourself into it and and not being afraid to not animate.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

Explain that not animate. Subact to subtlety.

SPEAKER_05 46:29

Subtlety. It's a lot of things. I've never been uh I've never been a fan of of overacting. I've never been a fan of, you know. Um I think uh I just uh I've never I never liked even in movies seeing characters overact. So maybe that was part of it.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

So the authentic emotional impact.

SPEAKER_05 46:53

And then I always set things up. I always made sure the characters were were founded in reality. I have a degree in in mechanical engineering. Physics was a big part of my of of my career of being in the. I'm kind of in the middle. That's what I could do. I could do all the X sheets and everything like that real easy, you know.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

Yeah, you got the ideal. Well, uh I'll put you in really good company. It's Leonardo da Vinci was firing under the filters, you know. Now that's good. You have a large corpus colossum, is what it is. Oh. A lot of passage of the I try to hide it in my pants. Good policy. Yeah. You don't want to end up on a watch list or anything like that.

SPEAKER_05 47:36

No.

SPEAKER_04 47:36

Um so But I want to go back to the subtlety idea because again, as a live action director, you know when somebody walks through the door during auditions if they're new, if they come from theater, right? Or because a little twitch can read on film. So when I'm auditioning actors, I half the time I'm just saying less, less, less is more. Right, right, right?

SPEAKER_05 47:57

Exactly, exactly. So many animators that like to animate. I mean, that's the whole point of animation, right? It's it's it's motion, it's uh it's squash and stretch, it's it's the change of shape. That's what makes it all work.

SPEAKER_04 48:12

So when you I know you're being a little facetious when you say they like to animate as opposed to I don't want to put words in your mouth, but act. I don't I didn't I don't know. But they're fixated on the technical aspect of it.

SPEAKER_05 48:22

Is that yes, especially when they're when they're green. Right, right. Yeah, well, there's a lot to learn and master. I mean, it's excited about it. So so when you actually get down to really doing subtlety stuff, you know, it takes a lot of uh it takes a lot of things. You have to hold back. Because our whole what we're supposed to do is exaggerate, right? We have to exaggerate to see it on film because it goes by 24 frames a second.

SPEAKER_04 48:48

Well maybe caricature the key poses? Is that what you mean? Like exaggerate.

SPEAKER_05 48:52

Exaggerate the key poses, make sure the straights are straight and uh and the curves and and then you're you're you're working straight against curves. So all of these um technical things that all of these technical things are are important to making sure that everything moves properly.

SPEAKER_07 49:08

Right.

SPEAKER_05 49:10

Once you know that, then you can resist it. Right. Okay, and then you can pull back.

SPEAKER_04 49:16

I would say that is the key to acting. Right? You don't show everything, you know Stanley Kowalski, right? Uh-huh. If you analyze well, I'm I'm a huge uh I'm easily distracted. Uh I'm a huge fan of um Tennessee Williams. Uh-huh. So Stanley, I've seen many theater productions, of course, I've seen Marlon Brando and the film version. But Stanley has to do almost nothing.

unknown 49:39

Really?

SPEAKER_04 49:40

It's everybody walking on eggshells around him that make him seem powerful, right? He really doesn't raise his voice. Brando does not raise his voice, but everybody reacting to him. So that's a beautiful restraint right there.

SPEAKER_05 49:51

It's exactly the the way um some of my animation plays against the against other animation. Because if everything is subtle, then nothing is subtle.

SPEAKER_04 50:02

And right, and if everything is overacted, nothing is iconic.

Why Story Works On Culture

SPEAKER_05 50:07

Exactly. So you have to you have to find that middle ground and who's good at what. And that's where that all comes in. That's where that's where picking the right cast comes in. If every animator has his his his uh genius that he can do, and every animator has has his the the things he can't do or he's not good at.

SPEAKER_04 50:27

Sorry for a little transition, but you know, this is nuanced stuff. Yeah, and animators will really benefit from hearing it, and they are.

SPEAKER_07 50:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

Yeah. But what is the general public's kind of greatest misconception, would you say, about animation and the the misconception?

SPEAKER_05 50:44

I don't understand what you mean about that.

SPEAKER_04 50:45

I don't know, because I'm listening to this going, well, I was actually trained as an animator during my internship. Uh-huh. It's a fluke that I ended up coming in as a background painter. There happened to be a position, but really I was supposed to come in as an in-betweener and go that route and work my way up. Yeah. So, you know, I taught fundamentals of animation once. I while it was still fresh, you know, I would have no business doing that now. But uh anyway, I'm following everything you're saying. But I'm wondering if the public appreciates what goes into this is the another way of putting it.

SPEAKER_05 51:12

No, I don't think it's necessary for them to appreciate it. I think it's more necessary for them to enjoy the story.

SPEAKER_04 51:18

I like that. I Yeah, you should be invisible, really, as an animator, right?

SPEAKER_05 51:23

And you know, we are. We're we are invisible. And uh because the art form itself is about communicating a story. Without so without a great story, without great characters, um you don't have anything.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

See I want to see if this is a parallel. Post-American Idol, everything is about the vocal performance and the gymnastics. It's all about the vocal performance. Uh huh. But you may remember like in the early 90s, you had, well, Kate Bush, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, you had people who let the song speak for itself and breathe and and move people. Wasn't about the vocal performance. So I kind of feel like this nuance is lost a little bit. Letting the work or the story trusting it, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 52:09

Right.

SPEAKER_04 52:10

Is that a parallel or not?

SPEAKER_05 52:12

I think it is. Woo!

SPEAKER_04 52:17

Anyway, we can't keep you forever. Uh this is good stuff. Believe it or not, for our listeners, it's right on topic. Is there anything you would want to impart to our listeners are lovers of story. Some are into the literary realm, some are into the um cinematic cinema realm. But it extends to, you know, life is story, we say. Politics, um, political campaigning, propaganda, advertising, story is huge. So assuming our audience is mainstream, I guess. Anything you want to share with them.

SPEAKER_05 52:47

Yes. A picture's worth a thousand words. Okay. Heard it before. Are you telling me to shut up? I'm saying no. What I'm really saying is that if you're if you can put what is in your head on a quick sketch and show somebody and communicate your ideas, you're you're well above the others. If you can keep doing that and train yourself to do that, to take what's in your head and put it down on paper real fast. Um do that sketch. And I always say, because you need to observe life, you need to understand what you're seeing, and you need to sketch it.

SPEAKER_04 53:34

Are you a big fan of drawing live on location? Gesture drawing?

SPEAKER_05 53:38

Gesture drawing is like the key to my success. It's the key to a lot of people's success.

SPEAKER_04 53:44

If you can capture it in a couple strokes in a couple seconds, you're ahead of the game, right?

SPEAKER_05 53:48

Right. Because people see visually, people think visually. If we can uh take a story and put it down on five pieces of paper that will tell tell an audience more than writing a book.

SPEAKER_04 54:05

My favorite films are the ones, you know how they say a minute per page on a screenplay? Right. Minute per page. My favorite 90-minute films are like this thick. They're just dialogue light. Because it becomes Theater dell'arte, you know. Right. I think you're moved viscerally in a kind of nonlinear way when you experience it without language, because that's the other half of the brain. Right. Yeah, I happen to love films that are really dialogue free.

SPEAKER_05 54:29

I do too. Although there's time like the illusionist, right? There's time for the comedy, and I love to that's that's when I break free of the subtlety. Oh, right. That's fun.

SPEAKER_04 54:41

Dude, the word I mean, we use the words broad and naturalistic in animation a lot.

SPEAKER_05 54:45

Is that kind of what we're talking about? Sure. That's exactly it. Naturalistic. Yeah, that's a good word.

SPEAKER_04 54:51

Well, thank you. Uh let's end on a real on a with a bang, as they say. Okay. Um, but I want to go more general because you are speaking to animators largely if you don't know that.

SPEAKER_05 55:00

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 55:03

Assuming our audience are mainstream. And I'm not trying to um throw a monkey wrench too much, but we're very much just about story. You know, what does it serve us as artists, right? What drives us? But also what's the impact on culture? So two questions. What makes you a storyteller? What in your makeup makes you a storyteller? But then I would also ask you, what does story serve in culture? Or what's the role of storytelling in culture?

SPEAKER_05 55:33

You know? I don't think I can answer that, because all I can do is tell you what drives me, what makes and what makes me think creatively, and I put it down, I can't say it verbally, but I put it down on my my page the way I can express it. What was the first question? That's an answer.

SPEAKER_04 56:02

No, that was a good answer because you're expressing yourself and it doesn't it's really not meant to be a cognitive process, right? But we're here to analyze what it's serving. The other question is what how does it serve culture? Like traditionally, if we told stories around the campfire, and then that extended to the latest, greatest action-adventure, effects-driven film, we've been doing it the whole time. Right. Why do we tell stories? That's another way of saying it. Why do we tell stories?

SPEAKER_05 56:27

You probably know better than I do. But you're invested in it. You're passionate about it. But the the stories I tell are my stories from my head. Um I'm not concerned with how it affects the audience. Um I'm more concerned let's put it this way. I've got directors to help that with that. Um, no, that's not a good answer. You have to cut that.

SPEAKER_04 56:55

We ask every episode. So no, it's not, it's cool. I mean, I love that's an answer because we do have a lot of uh artists who just self-express, and there is this idea, even in academia or in elitist circles, that you can't be concerned with outcome. You do it for yourself. You tell and that's how it reaches people. But here's true to yourself.

SPEAKER_05 57:15

Here's the other thing is I'm part of the of the cogs of the wheel. The who? The cogs of the wheel of the whole industry. I'm I'm part of it. I'm not I'm not alone. And I think it's important for me to understand the story someone else wants to tell.

SPEAKER_07 57:37

Right.

SPEAKER_05 57:38

And kind of join them and put my own expression into what they wanted to do. When it's time to tell my story, I can do that on my own. And I can bring in people that that want to join me with my story. I'm not sure how that all fits together, but it takes a village to make a film. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 57:59

So I especially that's kind of where we started out with. It's collaborative, it's synergy, and um I do think it's a unique gift to be able to work in that context and express yourself through your character as a cog. Right. Yeah, I like it. I do that. Anyway, very inspiring stuff. Um, I guess that's it for us, unless you have anything you're dying to say to listeners. No.

SPEAKER_05 58:22

No, I just I just love what I do. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Seth Kirsley: Never Wonderland

SPEAKER_04 58:27

Hello, thanks for sitting down with us. Yeah, of course. Welcome to Language of the Soul Podcast. Yes. Um, I've heard a little bit about you, but I don't know everything. Okay. So let's start from scratch for our listeners, if you don't mind. Can you tell us your name and then what brings you to CTN this year?

SPEAKER_06 58:43

Uh, name is Seth Kirsley, uh, and coming to CTN, um, I've been working in animation for a long time. Um, I've never tabled at a thing like this, so this is my first time tabling. And uh I have um a graphic novel that I've been working on called Never Wonderland. Um Never Wonderland? Never Wonderland, yeah. Um and uh I have heard of that. Where did I I don't know, maybe here.

SPEAKER_04 59:08

I was gonna say, did you say the title a couple minutes ago? Uh no, I've heard of it elsewhere.

SPEAKER_06 59:13

Yeah. Um Yeah, so I started um originally working on this uh 23 years ago after directing Eight Crazy Nights. Um and uh it was the film that I wanted to do next. Um and then Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was announced, and I was like, I'm gonna have to hit pause. Uh and so now this year I'm circling back to it, and so I have uh the first of four books that will ultimately be bound into uh the graphic novel. Um that it's a dark Alice in Wonderland sort of reimagining um uh that uh you know the the graphic novel will see her going into Wonderland and becoming across a very different Wonderland and ultimately finding her way back out. And uh I love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

So just to be clearer, did you say it's a comic book that will be compile to make a graphic novel? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:07

Comic okay So I'm you know, it's my first time doing a comic book, and so I'm putting it out as Ashcans um uh as I get to the graphic novel, um, but ultimately it'll come out as a graphic novel.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:20

Uh yeah, the only reason I asked is I did the exact same model with this guy, but I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I don't either. No, I lived I learned a little bit, but it was right after the Batman graphic novel where they premiered a different artist with every installation, which is new at the time. But I thought, oh, mine's the first one that's an original IP where we do the same thing and we premiere a different artist with each one. So I use some of my Art Center students. Nice. Who were amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:48

And now they're superstars. They've done really well. Yeah. But nothing's happened with the graphic novel. But I just didn't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:54

Is that a thing now where the launched uh launched people? Yeah, well. Yeah, I I know a lot of people in animation, you know, because it's really dry right now in animation. So I know a lot of uh people that are directors or story artists in animation that are doing comics. Um just because like you want to get your own idea out there, and right now in animation, it seems like the only things that get greenlit are things that have already been made. Um so it's just reboots.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

Uh well, we need to reverse that trend where everything needs a built-in plush choice.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:25

Yeah, I think that's that's part of like everyone sort of like picking up on that vibe that like if you want to do something original and everyone wants to do something original, no one got into this to do a remake of a remake of a remake. Um so um so doing your own your own thing is something that you can control and get it out into the world and um you know not have to have endless pitch meetings with endless executives who may or may not be at that place in three months. And uh so this is a way like you can control it and get it out into the world and out of your head. So that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:02

Do you see that as what are your options? Doing it independently, or do you feel like there's a trend where now studios are green lighting things that are more niche or more, you know?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:11

Uh I know that there are comic book companies that are sort of seeing comic books now as the pilot and seeing if there's interest in the comic to then take it into animation.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:23

Um for a while it the hub, it's it right, the hub of the IP, yeah, with all the spokes and the different, you know, the happy meal of the film and uh the board game, all of that. For graph a while it was graphic novels. Yeah. But um I didn't know I was gonna ask you. Oh, is Dark Horse kind of do they still have a corner on the market of niche indie?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:48

I mean, Dark Horse is like definitely where I think of for this, um, but also um uh Skybound um, you know, is Skybound Entertainment. Yeah. Um so you know, they have Invincible and The Walking Dead, and they have like a hundred other titles that they're maybe I'm confusing it with something else.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:08

Do I think of them as a film production company.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:12

Are you thinking of Sky Dance? Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:14

Okay, so Skybound is graphic novels, comic books.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:17

Yes, they they have a comic book arm and an animation arm. Um so um so yeah, it would be that would be a good place. Um, or you know, if um if none of those things happen, then doing a Kickstarter and getting the fans to fund like making the book um and getting the fans engaged in um you know making the pilot or the trailer or you know or whatever else. Like um just think that there's this like hunger for original stuff right now. You're not wrong.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:50

You have well, you're preaching to the choir, number one, but uh you have no idea how many times that's come up this weekend. Yeah, it's time to reverse the trend.

Original IP, Crowdfunding, And Fans

SPEAKER_06 1:03:59

Uh yeah, uh it's um the pendulum couldn't swing further in that direction when you're making the live action remake of the animated thing that's a origin story of the yeah, like you know, the snake can only eat its own tail for so long.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:15

Um, exactly. Wow. Well you're part of the avant-garde, you're part of the movement. I love that.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:23

Uh I think everyone's just fed up. Um so and I think of it for me, like um uh you know, um Miyazaki did Nausuka when he was fed up with the kind of work that he was getting in animation, um, and that started a whole different movement for him.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:39

A lot of it too, though, is like the climate. You know, the early 90s when Disney started uh releasing or distributing the Miyazaki films, it was a moment in time same thing where people were cons sick of consumerism and materialism, and there was a grittiness and a rawness and a realness to Il Postino, like Water for Chocolate, Life is Beautiful, in live action. Right. Yeah, yeah. Distributors were like, oh my god, there's actually a market for art. How about that?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:07

You know? Well, even now in animation, like the biggest movie of the year was K-pop Demon Hunters, and um, you know, that's an original IP. Um, you know, so that blew everything else out of the water, and you know, hopefully it wins the Academy Award for best animated feature.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:23

And so is it a critical reception or like kind of audience response, or what attributes to the uh the uh uh needed attention to get these people to wake up?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:34

I I think it's definitely audience response, like where the audience goes, that's where the money goes. Um and so yeah. Um uh I I wish that K pop uh had come out in theaters so that you could be like, you know, uh well it was released on Netflix, um, and then uh they did do a theatrical release, and so when it came out for like the couple weeks that it was out, it was the number one movie. Um uh and it was already the highest streamed movie for Netflix, um and broke uh records for uh the having the most songs on the Billboard top ten. Um like it was since Saturday Night Fever was the last time that a movie had four songs in the top ten. Uh so you know I I think all of that speaks to the the hunger of the audience for original stuff. Uh so I agree. Just getting the uh the suits to see that you know it it pays to go for uh original IP.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:39

Well that's kind of what I was getting at with the early 90s example, is it's all about the bottom line as it should be, you know, in a way, it's all about the bottom line. So when they saw, wait a minute, it's not just the Lemleys, yeah. Mainstream audiences are going out to see Il and they won the Oscars. That's what really woke them up. Like Il Postino, Life is Beautiful. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:59

Well, that's last year with Flow. Um, you know, Flow was$4 million. You should watch that one. It's animated, yeah. Flow,$4 million, very small uh team that made it, um, and it won for best animated feature last year. So uh if that isn't a wake-up call to the studios, then you don't have to spend$200 million in five years, like, you know, uh give some like directors a small budget and creative control, um, and you're gonna get better uh content um and a wider variety. Um so you know, um spread that money out instead of putting it all into one movie, like spread it out across a bunch of different genres and a bunch of different films.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:42

And you see that happening? You're hopeful?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:45

I'm hopeful. Uh um, you know, I see um in independent uh animation um uh that there's a a big push for um uh original stuff um uh that are being crowdfunded by the audience. Um and so, you know, um if that's happening for like pilots and things, like you know, it's just a matter of time before that's happening for features.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:09

Well, the way my brain works, I see there was a democratization in a way when social media really took off, where you get your Justin Bieber's and you get people that built a following and a platform, then record label pays attention.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:23

Well, like that in animation is um uh glitch with the amazing digital circus, where they uh crowdfunded their pilot, and then the pilot got so many views that Netflix was like, we want this on our platform, and they're like, Okay, you can have it. The same day we drop it on YouTube, you can put it on your thing. Well, that's what I'm saying. But you don't get to give us any notes. We're doing it, right, and you get to uh play it. So, like the fact that an indie can have that much clout, um you know it's creator driven, they call it, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:59

And that actually on a weekly basis, you hear. I mean, I did hear recently, oh, Netflix is no longer doing creator-driven content, they're going back to what the public wants. That's literally the wording I heard. But I was just saying a lot of forces collide when you have this confusion about hybrid streaming. You know, the pandemic didn't help.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:19

Is it theatrical? Is it a hybrid release? Is it streaming only? And so people, even I don't know if you like Quaron, the filmmaker, Roma had come out. Uh-huh. And he was like, oh no, I'm excited about the hybrid release. I'm fine with people folding their laundry while watching my movie. I was like, Yeah, that doesn't sound like you. But I just think the the waters got really muddied for a while. Yeah. And now maybe we're so tired of that.

Creator Control Vs Notes Culture

SPEAKER_06 1:09:45

I also think that uh, you know, Gen Z really wants to get out of the house and go to a place to do a thing. Um, you know, so like they're bringing malls back, they're gonna bring movie theaters back, you know, like they're sick of everything being on their computer screen. Like Gen Alpha. Gen Alpha, but also Gen Z. My daughters are um, you know, part of the Gen Z and you know are really sick of all of the time they spent uh in classes during the pandemic on the computer, and uh so they want to get out into the world and you know, do the things.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:21

I love it. I'm uh you've renewed my hope in the younger. I have 22 nieces and nephews, and I've seen it all. Yeah. And yeah, one of my nephews didn't get a high school graduation because of Yeah, one of mine also, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:33

But you know, like now they're watching like Stranger Things and they're seeing like all this stuff that we used to do in the 80s, like going to an arcade to play video games.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:41

I think the indoor tell me indoor malls aren't coming back, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, Third Street Promenade, you know, are you from the area? Uh huh, yeah. Like it saddens me. You know they were gonna serve alcohol publicly in the third street promenade just to bring people back? Like I'm out there.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:55

I mean, they always had they always had uh, you know, bars and clubs and stuff. But you can carry it.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:00

I remember they were like, Oh, they were I don't know if it passed, but they were trying to bring that back.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:06

I'm just saying indoor malls were so distinctly 80s that I'm not sure we need to bring those back. The galleries.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:13

I know I know kids that are going to the mall, like because they can go to the mall and they can walk around and you know, there's you know, there's some security, um, so um whether it's indoor or outdoor, I mean I definitely would prefer the outdoor um uh because you know but you know, we do live in uh a desert here. Um so you know the summers are hot. Uh that's true. That indoor mall, that AC is nice.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:38

Um I'm just thinking of uh Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Sherman Oaks Galleria. Yeah, yeah. Are you my age? How old are you?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:45

Uh probably your age, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:47

You think?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:48

Uh 54.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:50

54? Yeah. Yeah. We're all similar in age. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that was very formative. All the teen sex comedies were made for my generation, you know. Um where have we gone? Um but I was curious, you seem to be headed, you know, if nothing else, you said you'll crowdfund. Yeah. In the meantime, how do you build that fan base? Is it all social media or how do you build it? Social media, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:13

And and things like this, you know, like actually talking to people and you know, telling them about the book and you know, uh actually giving a book, like handing a book to someone, uh that's like a you know uh a big thing, that it's like a real something. Well it's a connection too with the artists. That's how you have true fans.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:34

They're they connect with the artists.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:35

Yeah, yeah. Um so I I think it's all of that. Um but at the same time, um I'm less focused on like the how it gets out and more focused on like what it is that I'm doing. Um and I just figure that the how it gets out will sort itself out.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:52

Um they say build it and they will come. Yeah, exactly. But truly if you honor the in the vision, then you would hope everything else follows, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:00

Yeah, I I listen a lot of um uh Rick Rubin um and um you know he talks a lot about putting the audience last um and putting your creative process first. Um and as long as it rings true to you, it will um ring true to uh the audience. Um but you shouldn't make something thinking just about the audience.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:19

That's that's the thing that's well outcome and the creative process, being concerned with outcome is death. Yes. But also I heard it's come up a lot today too, where um you don't you have to if you're thinking commercially, you do think about your patronage, your readership, or your audience. But within reason there is that irony that the more personal you make something, the more universally it lands.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:45

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's authenticity, I guess. And also, like so much of what we do in animation goes through a committee of people that all feel like that they have um of a reason to give notes when a lot of times they're giving notes just to give notes to validate their role in the room.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:03

Thank God at Disney at Disney there was none of that. In other cultures, I'm like, oh my god, I was so lucky at Disney because ever ego.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:13

I don't know how you um escaped it at Disney. Um because uh I I see it just as much at Disney.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:18

Um but uh I just think there was collaps you know, it's as good as it gets with a collaborative synergetic sure. Uh directing by committee model. Yeah. Do you know? I've seen way worse in startup companies and gaming companies and things like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:32

Yeah. That's why for me, with my own thing, that's like as personal as I can make it. Um so I don't have to explain why it's an orange dotson. Um it's an orange dotson because that was my first car. Right. And so that's why it's an orange dotson. And no one's gonna question why is it an orange dots in? It just is. Um, and you know, but if that was in uh, you know, a show that I was trying to make, people would be like, I mean, orange, should it be orange? And also should it be a Dotson? Um, you know, it's like, who cares? Just let it be.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:02

And you're the janitor, by the way. Yeah. No, you did get it.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:05

Well, you were a month ago. Then you became someone's assistant, and then now you're an executive.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:10

Right. Well, there was that too. People would take one certain higher-ups at Disney would take one class in cinematography and come back and tell scene planning how to move the camera.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:19

Uh I have been uh I had a meeting on my last thing where some junior executives talked to me and another director who between us had 50 years of directing experience, and they went down this bullet point list of what they were looking for, and it was like directing 101. Like, keep it exciting, no, no, no, not overwhelming. Have a beginning, middle, and end. Yes, exactly. It was that kind of thing. Like, okay, I can top that.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:46

Can I can I jump in? Go for it. Um I was working at Moon Scoop. I'll go ahead and say it. Uh, do you know Moon Scoop? And it was the closest I ever came to selling out. It's in the eye of the beholder, but they borrowed me to paint a care bear one day. And I had to call my sister, and I'm like, I guess this is a new low. Like, I've never painted a care bear. And here we but I didn't know they could borrow me to another production.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:09

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:09

But anyway, at one point the art director was telling me one thing, yeah, yeah, and then the literal wife of the owner was absolutely defying him and whispering in this ear, so I was like, Who do I please? And then the the topper was the daughter came in with her vacation photos and told me, put these mouldings on your tutor cottage because they're in my vacation photos. So now I have to please the daughter. But you know, I mean it's not coming, it's not story driven. When I say I was spoiled at Disney, all my design decisions were story driven.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:39

Right?

Alice Reimagined And Research

SPEAKER_04 1:16:39

Yeah, yeah. No, not at Moon Scoop.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:43

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I have had things where it's the it's the streaming service or the network and the brand, and you know, everyone wants to like put their two cents in.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:56

And uh so they say opinions alike, because everybody's got one, you know what I mean? Can you quickly pitch do you mo do you want to pitch the concept behind the graphic novel?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:08

Um so it's a modern reimagining of Alice in Wonderland. Um but I can do it again. Um uh and um uh our Alice in the book is the great granddaughter of the original inspiration for the Lewis Carroll books, Alice Liddell. Uh and so her family hits hard times and she moves into the Liddell family estate, which is this like broken down Victorian mansion, and she's like, My life is over, I'm gonna choose the basement as my um as my room, might as well live six feet under. Um, and down there she finds an original handwritten manuscript for Alice in Wonderland. Um, and so she reads that, and that's her gateway into Wonderland. Um and she finds a completely different Wonderland than her great-grandma went to. Um so I don't know, I probably did the whole pitch before, but uh I love it. That's that's the basic premise.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:00

Was it the uh sorry for my ignorance, but the original girl that Lewis Carroll met that was the inspiration? Yes. Do did you research her? Like what do we know about her?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:12

So uh Lewis Carroll, or Charles Dodgson, Lewis Carroll's a pen name, um, uh lived with the the Liddell family. Um and um uh he was a early photographer. Um and um uh we'll just say that there are pictures that he took of Alice Liddell that are the kind of thing that if someone took that kind of picture of my daughter, um uh, you know. Um so at a point the Liddell family like kicks him out um and never has any contact with him again. Um so like pretty widely believed that there was like some pedophilia going on there. Um and um so it didn't go into any of that stuff in the book. Um but um but you know, we just want to honor like that original um girl, uh Alice Liddell. Um uh uh so you know that's why I kind of like you know using her as the um uh the basis for the story.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:13

I love it. Yeah, I was just asking for clarification because the Elon Sheilay story gets conc conflated in my mind. Yeah, yeah. There was some controversy around that too. I think he took her away on a train or something. Yeah. Anyway, uh well you seem like the type of person that I can ask this question. We have a rote question that we ask all of our guests, so I don't want to keep you forever. So um, if there's anything you want to impart to our listeners about, you know, your property or how they can best support you, let us know. But I want to end with a general question because clearly we're all about story, yeah, which is very vast. I'm sure you might already have that opinion. Life is story. Yeah. The premise is our podcast is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and then like the stories we tell about our national identity, yeah, yeah. And then how the stories we internalize by default literally shape our worldviews. Yeah. And then by the ripple effect, affect society. It's it's just everything. And every week we're like astounded by how far reaching when you really think about it, you know, the power of story is. Yeah. So so do you have any feelings about what makes you a storyteller? And then secondly, what do you believe is the role of storytelling and culture? Traditionally, what has the role of a story been in culture?

SPEAKER_06 1:20:35

Um, I mean, I think it's like uh it's imparting wisdom through like relatability, um, you know, and and that as different as we all are, there are universal truths that come through in the stories. Um so and for me as a you know, like what is story to me? Like, um, you know, I was um uh I have cystic fibrosis and I was very sick um all the time when I was young, and so my imagination was the thing that I had to keep myself occupied, and so I was kind of always making these little stories. Um and uh uh so you know for me it's just uh like a a form of expression and you know like a little window into uh my imagination.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:21

Yeah, I had that I mean i my own take on what makes me an artist changes regularly.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:27

But I did have that exact thought. Like for me, it wasn't just any one thing, but it was comfort food. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like it redeemed the world.

Aaron Blaise: From Disney To Snow Bear

SPEAKER_06 1:21:37

It was play, and then everyone grew up, and then now it's stories. Right, right. You know, but the play was a story that you improvised um while you were playing, and so you know, um that's that's really kind of all it is. And you know, I don't really like um I don't flesh out the story like in nitty-gritty detail um until I'm actually doing it. Um and uh so even though this is something that I wanted to do 23 years ago and I did a bunch of development for it 23 years ago, it's not like I wrote the script that I was like, it must be this. And so you know, it sort of enables me to every day as I'm sitting down to do whatever part of it that I'm doing to invite like some you know uh spontaneity and some improv um and let it kind of organically be what it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:27

I love that. Yeah, you gotta in the moment allow the universe to provide what's needed and then it in real time.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:34

Don't try to control it too much. Uh just get in the flow and let it come out.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:39

So then on a macro level, do you feel like if we've told stories since the dawn of time around the campfire, up to the latest, greatest action adventure, effects-driven movie, why have we been doing it all this time? It must serve us somehow, you know?

SPEAKER_06 1:22:54

Yeah, I mean I I uh just go back to like it speaking to like the human condition and uh all of that, yeah. Um so um I think that we all we all want to find a way to relate with each other and that stories are a way that like you can inhabit someone else's story and like you know relate to them uh that way.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:18

And that means compassion and empathy, actually, if you can identify with the other. Right. So more needed now than ever, yes?

SPEAKER_06 1:23:25

100% more needed now than ever, and in this fascist and new stories. Yes. Not the same old, regurgitated, even though there are only so many stories. Like, you know, in in storytelling, there are only so many stories, but it's what you bring to the story, you know. So, you know, there are so many Alice in Wonderland stories, but I'm doing it the way I would do it. And so it doesn't matter where you start from, uh, you know, it's the story is coming through the prism that is you and it's coming out in a different way because you're you are doing it, which I think is something that like AI will never be able to do. You know, that um if you're tying all of our episodes together. You're confirming all of our episodes. If you gave all of the different learning models the same components, they would all eventually come up with the exact same story, versus if you gave a half a dozen or a dozen different um artists the same prompts, they would come up with um each one would be different and unique. That's the subjective because you're bringing part of yourself uh to put into it, a point of view.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:33

Thank you. I agree a hundred percent. Beautiful words, thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:39

Thank you. So, yeah, my um thing, um did you stop it? Um uh dojo productionsinc.com is my website, and so that has my book and like you know, um prints and originals and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:50

So yeah, we'll put links with the episode in the description. Uh anything you want to put in there, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:55

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:56

And she's gonna take your email address in case you want to add anything later to your metadata in the description. Cool, cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:02

Okay, this is Virginia Grenier, and I am here with Aaron Blaze. Hey, Aaron, so tell me a little bit about your background in animation, and I know you also have done some director work as well. So just kind of so our audience knows who you are.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:16

Yeah, so my name is Aaron Blaze. I've been an animator for 38 years. I've been an artist for almost 50 years. Uh I was with Disney for 21 years, so during that time I worked on films like The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, uh, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan. Uh I directed Brother Bear. Okay. And uh and then uh 2010 I went out on my own and I just finished my own short film called Snow Bear.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:44

Oh wow. So what's it been like going out on your own away from a big big company to independent work?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:51

It's uh it's scary. It was really scary. So I I left Disney, like I said, after 21 years. And when I started at Disney, I started right out of college. So I had that, you know, right from the beginning, that that job. And uh I I lost my wife 20 years ago, 19 years ago to breast cancer. And that really kind of sent me into a tailspin to where I really I would kind of I took I reassessed my life and what I wanted to do. So that's why in 2010 I left and decided to start over, and I wanted to do something, I wanted to redefine myself and find myself again. And I wanted to give back, and so I started, I decided I wanted to teach, and I knew I could do this on a worldwide level through my uh online business. So I started my business Creature Art Teacher.com, and it's all geared towards animation, traditional art, because I actually come from an illustration background. Okay. I was trained as an illustrator before I became an animator. I actually wanted to work for National Geographic.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:51

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:52

And um so I teach traditional drawing, painting, digital drawing and painting, storyboarding, but also animation and and store uh writing and everything else. And so I did that for, oh my gosh, I've been doing it for almost 15 years, and it was about halfway through that that I decided I want to get back into filmmaking, and that's when we started making our own films.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:12

Wow, that's a journey.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:13

Yeah, and it was it was really scary to start out. And uh, but I just was determined, I decided I didn't want executives deciding my fate anymore, and I wanted to do something good, so that's what I did.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:25

No, that's that's really the amazing. And I've heard a few people tell me that they they are breaking out into doing their own thing because that's exactly it. They want to be able to tell the stories they want to tell. Yeah. Versus trying to understand the story they're being told to tell through the art.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:42

Well, it's interesting to me because so many people will, you know, that are on the glasses half-empty side will tell you how 2D animation is dead, and you know, this is such a terrible time in the industry, and there is a lot of struggle. But then the other side, and I happen to be on the other side, I see, you know, there's never been a better time to be an independent filmmaker and to do your own films than now because there's so many great tools to do it with, and there's so many platforms to to get them out there to be seen.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:13

Yeah.

Grief, Empathy, And Environmental Themes

SPEAKER_02 1:28:13

And so there's there's some really great opportunity out there.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:16

Yeah, I agree. So um Snow Bear was is the one that you're that you're out doing on your own. So tell me what inspired that story.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:25

So it was really, you know, like I said, I lost my wife in 2007, and um uh, you know, we had this wonder, you know, we met in college, we had this wonderful life together, and when she was diagnosed with cancer, it was uh it was a horrible, really difficult time for for her, obviously for me, for both of us. And then after I lost her, I went through this, I was just adrift, emotionally adrift. And so all of that kind of came together when I decided to make this film about I I I love animals, I've always drawn animals. Okay, so I wanted to tell this story. Oh, first of all, I wanted to do a film that I could do myself, so I picked one character and I thought a polar bear in the Arctic. It's a cold environment, they live this lonely existence. It was kind of what I mentally was going through. And so snow bear became this metaphor of this last 20 years of this character that builds this, he's looking for companionship, so he builds a snow bear, but it's just it's delicate. And it's and it, you know, it's fragile, and life is fragile, and so this he ends up losing the snow bear, and he he's literally adrift in the ocean on an iceberg. And so all of it's, you know, it's it's it's this visual metaphor for what I went through.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:44

Yeah, a w a way to to basically visualize your grief that you went through.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:49

And it became therapy for me. It became this uh cathartic process of doing this, and uh and it was it was really great, to be to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:00

And I've I've heard that from a lot of artists that have told me, you know, no matter if they're like writing a book, if they're, you know, pencil to paper, you know, type art, it's very cathartic when you're able to externalize what you're feeling, especially feelings like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:17

Yes, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:17

And and get it out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:19

Oh, I mean, like I said, they were therapy sessions practically, because I I would sit there and, you know, depending on the shot I was animating, I would cry, I would laugh, I would, you know, because they're all they were all memories that I was trying to get onto the page. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:33

Yeah, in a in a very visceral way.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:35

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:37

No, I love that. So you also are teaching and and and of course inspiring the the new generation that's you know coming up. So what's that like trying to teach them like how to pull from literally that empathy, right? And get that to be on the page to make what they're drawing and I mean whatever they're doing to like actually have what we've got human emotion.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:05

Well you just nailed it, it's it's human experience. Yeah. And so many of them are young, they haven't had the experience yet. Right. So that's what I'm really preaching. And so I talk about my life experience and how diverse it's been and all the things that I've done, and it's it and it requires getting out there and putting yourself at risk. And you know, emotional risk, physical risk sometimes. But you know, just really putting yourself out there and experiencing life. So there's that part of it, so that you can create the experiences to then bring back into the studio. And as you mature as an artist, as you mature as a human, um uh and as a writer, if you want to write, uh these experiences kind of boil to the surface and and and it makes the worlds that you create that much richer, that much more believable. And um and you have something to say. You know? Um you can't, you don't really have much to say unless you get out there and live it. And so that's that's what I really try to get across with a lot of young artists, especially nowadays, because it's so so much of what young artists do and and even what I'm doing now is digitally driven. You know, we've lost touch with, you know, the pencil and paper and paintbrush and canvas and all of that. And um, and and I'm you know, it's nice to be able to get outside and and take those those tools outside and but also bring it back into the studio. And so, you know, break away from the monitor and and just get out there and experience stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:30

Yeah, so what's it been like going from, like you said, the original like 2D to more of the digital type animation? Because I know that's got to be a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:38

It's been it's actually been really cool. I I'm I love learning new technology, I always have. I'm 57, uh I'm still trying to learn learn stuff, and and I always will be. Uh I love paper animation, that's where I started.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:52

I love doing it, I love drawing on paper, but I made Snow Bear digitally. I I it's all hand-drawn, but I drew it on a Cintique. And it was way more efficient than drawing on paper. And so I was able to, you know, get it done. You know, I was able to do more as a single artist drawing digitally than I would have been able to do on paper. And uh but that being said, the next one I do I might do on paper. So I'm, you know, it's you know, just because I love that medium as well. Yeah. But um, you know, I like I said, I love learning new hardware, I love learning new software, and and uh and I get excited about things like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:29

Well let's say I think also learning new stuff and always having that open mind allows you to We should all be students. Yeah to and and I think it helps keep us young in our own way, too. Yeah. So you know, you can look at everybody and go, yeah, you know, I'm not I'm not an old dog, you know, learning new tricks. I'm still a young dog. Yeah, exactly. Learning tricks because I love that. Um so you're here and I know you've done, you know, here at CTN and you've you've done some stuff. What what has been one of some of the feedback you've gotten from some of the people you've heard here about, you know, what's has inspired them that that's been touching for you to hear?

Teaching The Next Wave

SPEAKER_02 1:34:04

Well for me, it's it's the I you know, I've been doing the the the business I have now, I've been doing it for 15 years. And so what I love is I have a lot of young people that are in college, that have just gotten into the industry, that come up to me and said, Hey, I got into animation because I watched your videos and I was inspired. Or I just got my first job and I couldn't afford to go to college, but I could afford your classes, and I took your classes and I just got my first job in animation. Those are the things that I really love and it puts a out, you know, it it chokes me up. Oh I think that's it. And uh that's why I did it. And so that was my goal starting out. You know, one of the things that not only was I trying to find myself, but I was also motivated by the fact that private art schools have gotten so uh incredibly expensive and cost prohibitive. You know, you have schools, some of the top schools that kids are trying to get into are$200,000 for a four-year uh you know time in that to school.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:12

Yeah, so even if they get in just cost effective, it's it's ridiculously expensive.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:17

It's it's obscenely expensive. Right. So I wanted to provide uh at least a supplemental route for people to go to that they could afford training and and get it from somebody that's been in the industry for a long time and still and still practicing in the industry. Everybody that I have on my site still practices in the industry. So there's that. So you know, having people come up to me say and saying, I couldn't afford to go to college and I took your courses and now I have a job, that makes me happy because that's exactly why I did it.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:50

Yeah, that's a lot of what we talked about here on the podcast is and it's why we started the podcast. You know, a lot of people are like, oh well it's because you know you're trying to, you know, whatever, make make your mark, you know, make money, and we're like, no, it's really we want to get back.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:04

You know, and and share and get people like yourself on the show to sh to really get back and to give to our audience information and to inspire them that you know you don't have to be the top, you know, this this top school student to do what you want to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:23

Exactly. You can't. Yeah, my wife Karen, she uh she was an incredibly generous person. And so when I started this, I, you know, I wanted to do something that would make her proud, you know, for lack of a better way of putting it. And so I knew, I knew that she would she would dig this. And and it's interesting, you know, you're asking me about Snow Bear and and its origins. So, you know, at the end of Snow Bear, he he finds, he finds companionship. And it's funny, my business partner, you know, eight years ago, I I met my business partner's sister-in-law, and we fell in love, we got married, and so it's the whole the whole cycle, you know, and it's really it's been really really great.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:03

That's that's so good to hear. So, one of the things we've been asking everybody as they've been here is uh what does story mean to them? And then on top of that, how do they see that story as part has played out in culture?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:18

So I'm kind of wondering where your.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:20

For me and what I want to do with stories, story for me has to be honest. I love stories that that have irony, that have uh a message, that have something to say, obviously. Um but for me personally, I want to inspire action. You know, Snow Bear, on top of having the emotional element to it, uh also has an environmental element to it. Okay. And so uh there's a global warming um aspect to it. And so I hope it inspires people to think a little differently. Yeah, the awareness. Yeah, and so I want I want story, you know, you can put out statistics about global warming or any other cause that you might have, and statistics are just that, they're statistics or they're graphs or whatever they are, and they don't they don't have a lot of emotion to them, and it's hard to get people to to act on those things alone.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:13

But if you can tell a story, an emotional story, you can get people to empathize. Yes. You can you can get them to feel emotionally for a cause, and that that breeds action. And so, story is empathy, getting people to empathize with whatever it is that you're trying to say. I love that. And so, an empathy is created through universal themes. Right. You know, you you tell stories that everyone can identify with, and so that's what I try to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:44

Yep, that's and that's why we do this podcast, because that's exactly what it is. We feel like that there's this you know the universal collective, and we all contribute to it, yeah. Just you know, at varying degrees. And it's very much um the concept of, you know, we're all individual cogs in the wheels, right? So it's the the um individuals, the you know, some of its or the holes of some of its parts, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:06

Well snowbear, snowbear uh is about loneliness. And I purposely made the film with no dialogue because I wanted it to play across linguistic and cultural barriers. But I knew, I knew, I know that everybody in the world, no matter what culture you come from, no matter what language you speak, experiences loneliness, seeks companionship. They look for a human connection. And so that's what that story is about, and so it becomes universal.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:38

Yeah, no, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:40

Well, I don't want to keep you too long because I know that you've got a lot going on, but I do think you've come in. Is there anything else you'd like to leave with our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 1:39:49

Well, if you are a creative, if you're listening to this and you want to create, there's nothing stopping you except you, and just get out there and do it. You know, even at 57, I'm discovering things about myself that uh I'm discovering, you know. Yeah, you know, the fact that I created an entire film on my own. Uh I never thought I could do that. And so that was a really great achievement. But it really all it took was, in hindsight, just me sitting down and doing it. And so, you know, I hear so many things from young people saying, you know, I can't do this because of that, or I can't do this because of that. You can do it, you just got to decide to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:25

All right. Well, thank you for that, Aaron.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:27

Great, it's nice to meet you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:30

Thank you for sitting down with us, and welcome to Language of the Solo Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:34

Hello.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:35

Um, I saw your short film a few minutes ago. It's really beautiful, and your dad's a great promoter, so you're very lucky to have him. But uh, I don't know much about you, and for our listeners, maybe you could just start by telling us your name and then what brings you to CTN this year. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:50

Well, my name's Josh Pion. Um my dad um suggested I attend CTN Expo because um it's a smaller convention, and he thought it would be a good place for me to get my name out and to uh like promote myself, like um what what I do, mostly like 2D animation.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:07

Well, I think you came to the right place. It wasn't always a small convention, by the way. Did you know that? Um I don't know. It's been much bigger in former years. Okay. For whatever reason, it's just getting more and more intimate. Yeah. Yeah, it's the place to go. Do you feel like you made some good connections? Or what was the goal other than visibility?

Josh Pion: Festivals And First Steps

SPEAKER_00 1:41:25

Um maybe aside from making connections, um, like seeing other people in the industry, like professionals, and um getting advice on how to get work like within the industry. Uh mostly um they've told me that it's always just like a matter of chance or just like knowing the right people. It's just the same thing over and over. They also say that currently it's a bad time to get employment right now because of all the stuff going on in the animation industry, like AI? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:54

Well, like what?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:55

Like the pandemic, AI. Yeah, it's just it's just kind of hard getting your foot in the door because like these companies and studios just aren't interested in hiring like people out of college.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:07

So that's a consent you heard that from a variety of sources. That's a consensus.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:12

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I a couple of those things sound like conventional wisdoms that are a little bit of a myth. You know? Uh I do think it's a weird moment. Like after the pandemic, nobody was greenlighting anything, and now AI is a big right when there was the uh the strikes kind of impacted everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:33

And then all that stuff with streaming. I still don't really understand it, but I think that it kind of like screwed a lot of people, especially when like um uh animated shows made for streaming were just booted off. Say that again? When when like especially like when animated shows made for streaming services, like they were also removed for tax purposes. Uh I mostly just know the whole controversy with Coyote vs. Adamie, in which like they were gonna delete that film, but then it got like written off for tax reasons and it took years for it to finally get released. Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:08

Yeah, I wasn't aware of that, but I think there's some confusion about the streaming services and what kind of content they want to put out. Uh-huh. I know like Netflix at one point said, We're done with creator-driven content. We want to give the folks what they want so they're going more commercial, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:24

It just feels kind of discouraging sometimes. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:28

I will say it's gonna get better. I mean, the animation industry, we we're very hopeful. Actually, remember the guy that was talking about AI? He's he has a plan, a business model that won't rob artists of jobs, but it'll actually create more jobs. But he's saying it's about getting the higher-ups to share the vision, you know, and stop regurgitating these old franchises with you know what I mean, like a doll attached and a sequel and a prequel, and um, it's about original content. Yeah. So there's some hope, but I will say um it's better than it's ever been. You know, when I graduated, art schools weren't putting out the kind of content that recruiters wanted to see in portfolios at all. Events like this didn't exist. So I think it's competitive now, but the work really isn't going anywhere. It's just an awkward moment, in my opinion. So yeah, I'm hoping this moment stops soon. Are you looking for like streaming distribution for the short or does it have distribution?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:31

No, I was like um just have I'm currently shopping my short uh what a flop to different uh film festivals. Um that's what my uh animation professor um encouraged us to do. Um I'm thinking that like once the festival circuit reaches its end, I'm just going to release it on YouTube, and I'm hoping you can gain an audience um by then. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:53

Yeah, there was one. Do you know the Sick and Twisted festival? Have you ever been to that? I've heard of it. What yeah, there was the it came out of another one, and I'm not gonna remember the name. And you see, yeah, but I mean he's a great promoter. Yeah. Um there was it was A AWN Animation World Network. Okay. And then Animation is I mean Animation Magazine is somehow affiliated with them. They started a worldwide festival and they premiered it in Israel when I was working over there. I just can't remember the name of it. If I think of it, I'll let you know. But it was the biggest. Spike and mics is this is that the same thing? I've heard of it. Sick and twisted? I'm not sure, maybe. Do them all, man. How do you apply for how do you find festivals?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:33

Uh through the website Film Freeway, it's been really helpful. Um, like uh finding uh film festivals, uh discerning which ones would be the best venue for my short, like um how uh my cartoon and would fit with uh other filmography. You know, I recently just got an award from the Route 66 Film Festival from uh Illinois. It it was mailed to me like uh all the way from Illinois to New Jersey, and um, you know, it's really kind of it's really encouraging and it feels nice having people acknowledge uh my short film. Did you come here from New Jersey? Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:12

That's quite a trick.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:14

You know, last month I went to California for the Lightbox Expo. It was alright, but it was really hectic and it was crowded and it took a while to get to places.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:24

Yeah, m Lightbox has grown, well, this one has shrunk. I'll leave it at that. Yeah. Uh but that's the premier expo at the moment. But no, I commend you. I mean, again, when this one was jumping, you'd see people from all over the world with their portfolios. Um but uh I commend you for doing this. Um and congratulations on the award. Where should our listeners find oh there it's not out there yet. Can they go to your website or what's the best way for them to find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:49

I think like it'd be nice if they could visit my portfolio website, uh joshtoons.com and my uh Instagram account. Um also it goes at by at JoshTunes Inc.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:00

Um She's gonna have you write that down. Yeah. But yeah, we'll do the best we can to get eyeballs on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:05

Yes, trying to like promote more of my original content.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:08

It's very funny. Um we were talking your dad and I were speculating about influences. Do you have any distinct in I could guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:16

Um mostly like uh Spongebob SquarePants, and uh the look and feel is kind of like inspired by uh a lot of Cartoon Network shows I saw growing up. Um kind of like Flapjack or Chowder and a bit of adventure time, I think. Um just trying to like do some old school uh like comedy cartoon.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:36

Yeah, I see all of that in terms of the look of it, because I've used Toon Boom Harmony a little bit, and I found it hard to get really fine lines. You got some really beautiful fine lines, and Cartoon Network can be intentionally kind of stiff. It's iconic, but it that can mean stiff. Yours had a lot of organic, you know what I mean, like fundamental squash and stretch and a lot of naturalistic movement in it, which is I tried. It's great, but it also seems kind of mid-century, if does that mean anything to you? Like UPA almost? Um, sort of. Yeah. And then a little Ren and Stimpy, that one moment where the I forgot what happened. It face yeah. You mean the close-up? I just remember it suddenly turned into Ren and Stimpy.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:19

I I liked it. Yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:21

He was shuddering or something?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:22

Um, not really. I was it was it's my favorite frame in the whole like film.

Influences, Style, And Where To Find The Work

SPEAKER_04 1:48:27

That's the one, but I don't remember exactly what was happening. I feel like it's a little bit. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. And um our listeners will too, if they can find it. Um but for now we'll just put whatever links you give us.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:44

And good luck with everything. Thanks, man. Thanks for sitting down, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:48

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:48

Good luck.