ACC Podcast - S001 - E010 - Jeff Dickson

In our latest episode “Opportunity Knocks”, Katherine MacDonald and John Lei speak with retired veteran Jeff Dickson. From a start on the floor at the stock exchange, to cinematic craft at Disney on films like “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Lion King” and “Mulan”, Jeff shares his cool and offbeat journey. So grab your snacks and get comfy, this is another fun one!

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:07

Welcome to the Animation Career Community Podcast, where we answer your questions on how to grow, maintain, and transform your animation career at every stage. I'm your co-host John.

SPEAKER_06 0:18

And I'm your co-host, Kathy.

SPEAKER_05 0:20

Today's guest is Jeff Dixon, a veteran of the animation industry who worked on features such as Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. From layout to story art and workbooking, painting, Jeff's story continues. Hang on to your seats. This is a good one. Hi, Jeff. How are you? Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Well, thank you for having me, John. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_05 0:42

Yes, it's quite amazing. I'm very honored, and uh it's such a big pleasure to have Jeff join us on the podcast. Um, I met Jeff years ago. Uh, I think we briefly talked about it. Uh, we met during an interview I had at Core Digital about some workbooking, as a matter of fact. But uh we have worked together. We worked together on, I believe it was nutjob three and nutjob two at Toonbox Animation quite a number of years ago now, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, a few years back. Yeah. Back in the days when there actually was uh a nut job three.

SPEAKER_05 1:18

Um let's uh let's start from the very beginning, Jeff. Um, maybe you could just tell us how you got uh your interest in animation and cartoons. Like, you know, for most people, like for myself, I could easily say as a kid I watched too many cartoons on TV. And that's how for me and probably for a lot of our listeners and a lot of artists, that's probably how it started. But let's let's hear how Jeff started. Like, where did your interest come from?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I wish I wish I could offer you a more unique pathway. But it's it's basically the same thing. I grew up watching um it was mostly it was mostly Warner Brothers that got me seriously interested, you know. Every Saturday afternoon it was the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Hour, and I'd watch those uh Looney Tunes endlessly over and over, you know, and it was Saturday mornings watching Johnny Quest and stuff like that, that just kind of and then and of course back in those days, every every kid would do this, not just me, but every kid would go home at lunchtime and watch the Flintstones, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:21

Yep, the Flintstones, or uh at the time it was also Battle of the Planets.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

But you know, when I was young, I was so naive about it all. I didn't realize that those Warner Brothers cartoons were already then decades old. I thought, oh, they're I'm gonna go work for these guys someday. I really love to. Right. But I but to be honest, that's not actually where it started. That's where the interest came, but the actual prospect of actually seriously considering it came up when I was walking home from uh high school one day with a couple buddies, and we were talking about careers. And one of my buddies said, you know what would be really cool would be to go down to the States and work for Disney. And and I thought, hmm, all right.

SPEAKER_05 3:05

Wow, and that just kind of came out of the blue. Like, were your friends also interested in animation or cartoons?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Or well, I didn't think so. They didn't really show any interest other than that. Um, but maybe privately they were. But I I I didn't grow up being a Disney fan necessarily. I mean, I liked some of the movies. I liked Peter Pan and Bambi and so on. Um, but I didn't really gravitate toward Mickey Mouse and Goofy, those characters. I just thought they kind of paled in comparison to the Warner Brothers. And uh I can say that now because you know I'm not gonna get fired. I agree though. I think that's it. You know, but I I and then when I found out that um uh Sheridan had the its animational program and it was well respected and and local, I thought, you know, I should really try this because I don't know what else I really feel interested enough to to spend the money to go and learn. Um and uh uh my parents were really supportive. They said, you know, well, we'd like you to go to university, but if you'd rather do this, then that's fine. So I I before I did though, I went to uh decided to work for a year so I could put myself through college.

SPEAKER_05 4:25

Oh, amazing.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

So I got a job at the uh stock exchange downtown Toronto.

SPEAKER_05 4:30

You know what? You've told me this story. I completely forgot.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, so I um and I got the job. There were like 50 applicants for the job, and I got it because I wrote neatly on the application. That's the only reason. And uh so anyway, I I I got on the trading floor of the stock exchange for about a year, actually considered becoming a stockbroker for a time. And then I found out that all these stockbrokers, they all they're all alcoholics, you know, broken marriages, kids in jail. You know, these are really damaged human beings.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

And uh I think I can safely say that because I doubt any of them will ever hear this. But uh, and there was there was one guy, one guy there that I thought really had a good head on his shoulders, but it ended up, I found out that after uh after work, he'd go to the bar, get drunk, and start fights with people. So I thought, you know what, this is not the world I want to be in. Yeah. So yeah, let's stick with the original plan, collect the, you know, uh save the money, go to Sheridan. And uh, you know, uh, this might be a bit of a uh a wake-up call to some kids nowadays that are going to Sheridan. But back then, this is in uh 80 year, I hate to say it, the early 1980s. I had to ask them to please look at my portfolio and let me know if I could handle the program because they were just like, come on in, give us your money, you're in. Right, yeah. I don't think I don't think that changed too, too much, but really I thought they had like 1200 applicants a year down there. They do, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:09

Yeah. I'm surprised with was it not a popular program at the time?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Well they were not getting I don't know what was going on. All I know was that they were just eager to get my money and have somebody sign up. So uh, and I thought that seems odd for a program that's supposed to have all this reputation, you know.

SPEAKER_05 6:25

But but I think when you look at it too, like um in that era, because when I went to Sheridan, which would have been late 80s, um, the demographic, like in terms of um the workforce being built up for animation, still wasn't very big. Like, yes, there were a lot of people interested, but it certainly didn't experience the boom that we kind of saw kind of late early 2000s and even up to the mid-2010s. That's when it really kind of skyrocketed, I think. Yeah. So I think even though it was a well-known program and it was still one of the few schools during that time. So obviously there were still people clamoring to get in, but I think the overall um uh number of people trying to get in were still kind of on the low side, I think.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah, I think you're right. I think we had uh overall, though, we did have I think it was a hundred and close to 120 students in that year. They had to break it up into four classes. At that point, you know, it was pretty early on um during the process, uh uh maybe the first six months or so, and they were asking people what specifically they wanted to do in the industry, and everybody was saying animator, animator, animator. And I thought, that's a lot of competition.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Um so I said, you know, I think I'd be more interested in being a layout artist. And uh I think it was one of the smartest decisions I ever made because I don't think I was a great animator. Um, but I love the uh the meat and potatoes of of film structure, the composing of the shots, the camera angles, the cutting, and all of that kind of thing. I really, really took uh an interest in that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_05 8:13

Actually, if oh sorry, go ahead, Cassie.

SPEAKER_06 8:16

I'm curious because uh a lot of uh people who are playing for Sheridan now have to spend a lot of prep time getting skills to like compete now to get into school. I'm curious how much drawing and art skills you had when you applied. Did you go?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Very little.

SPEAKER_06 8:30

Oh, really? So are you doing it on your own?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Like I was just doing it on my own, yeah. I mean, I took um an uh film arts class in high school, but I ended up doing uh uh my project was ended up being a cutout animation thing. So um I didn't even do a lot of drawing in that. And uh we never really studied uh film composition and visual language in that course either. It was very, very basic. So yeah, I just did this stuff on my own, and I I had I had previously applied to OCA, didn't get in there, and and was grateful down the road that I didn't because that was the wrong path for me.

SPEAKER_06 9:10

Yeah, it was kind of two choices if you were living in Ontario, like it was it was Sheridan or OCAT, I remember. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, pretty much it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, that's about it.

SPEAKER_05 9:20

And OCA was a bit more of a look, I think they consider more technical animation.

SPEAKER_06 9:25

And did you feel like the other students in your year were also coming from a similar level?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Um, are you talking to me?

SPEAKER_06 9:34

To you, Jeff.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Uh you know, I think I think so. I think a lot of people that I knew they had just drawn on their own. And uh, and that's why I approached this the college and said, you know, please look at my portfolio. I got turned down at OCA and and and I want to know if I can handle this. And uh so but I think a lot of people were in the same shoes. It was a good crop of students that year. A lot of them are still in the industry, some of them, and um, directors now or whatever. We we did a group film in what was that second year, I guess was the group film back then. We uh our group produced the longest uh animated student film they'd ever had at the time. It was like seven minutes. Wow. Yeah, yeah, it was a lot of work. Um we didn't actually finish it until third year, but it was probably because of that I didn't even finish my third year project. But uh still managed to graduate though. After that, I um I there was couldn't get a job anywhere, so I had to freelance. Uh I was freelancing in the uh old audiovisual industry, which was an industry that was built on uh multiple slide projectors, all um timed with computer. So it was kind of a sho kind of a film. It was like, you know, um something between film and just stills. So I was doing art for that for a while, and then uh uh I walked some of my friends were working at Nelvana at the time, and they were working on uh Ewoks and Droids for Lucasfilm. And so I went in and I I got a layout test, and um I didn't even actually finish the test, I brought it in halfway done and said, Am I doing the right thing? And the guy said, Yeah, you're fine. Start Monday. Oh wow, okay, great. No argument there. So, you know, I started out on um ewalks, and I tell you, it was the funnest time. It was it was the the crew were a bunch of um characters, interesting, interesting characters, yeah. And and there was a lot of antics and and craziness going on, and in between that I thought I uh I applauded myself. I'm working on Star Wars, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:03

Sort of, and uh had a greatest time. And is that where you eventually got into Disney then? Like did you leave Nelvana kind of the No, I was still in I was still at Nelvana.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Um I was working on uh I think it was Beetlejuice, and now this is an interesting story, and it's gonna make some of your listeners probably cringe at at how this went down because how I got into Disney was um entirely unique and will never happen again. So it's not gonna help out anybody, but it's but nevertheless, uh so the 1980, uh let's see, now this would be 1989, uh, Disney took out an ad uh in the Globe and Mail across Canada, a page-size ad saying, we are looking for artists to join our animation studio. And I saw that and I thought, oh, that's weird. I thought you'd have to be an American to get a job there. Right. I thought, you know, this is never gonna come up again. I I have to I can't ignore this. So I I spent three weeks working on a portfolio, and uh I sent it down, and from what I understood from that ad across all of Canada, they had 60 applicants. Of those 60 applicants, they offered jobs to 13. Of those 13, two accepted. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 13:36

Yeah, that's so wild. Uh what a what a strange time.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

I know. I mean, that was just it was just, I don't know what it was. The universe was just smiling on me at that point. Yeah. And it's uh so yeah, I I I was one of the two. And uh this is I shouldn't really admit to this because this is embarrassing, and people are going, what are you, an idiot? And yes, I'm an idiot. But now I've started, I can't stop. So they wanted me to come down to LA, uh, I think in early uh 1990 January or something like that. And I said, Well, I had a I had a ski trip planned to and paid for in Austria for February. And I wasn't gonna tell them that. Uh so I said, Is there any way we can delay this till just till March? I'm kind of busy on on something uh now. And they go, Well, we're not happy about it, but okay. I understand. Like, okay, so I went to um I went to Europe on my ski trip. There's no snow that year in uh on the slopes. So I took a day trip uh from we were in Innsbruck and I took a day trip to uh Venice, and so we had to get up at like four or five in the morning and get on this bus. And so driving through northern Italy on this bus, and you know, the sun's barely even coming up, and um, there's these two girls sitting behind me chatting about LA, and uh so I kind of interjected and said, Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm gonna be moving to LA in a month or two. Can you tell me something about it? What's it like there and so on? So we chatted for a bit, and they said, Well, what are you gonna do there? I said, Well, I'm going down, I'm gonna be working for Disney. And um, one of them says, Oh, I got a friend who works at Disney. She knew the guy that I had told that I couldn't make it by their deadline. I had to come later. And she goes, Um, I'll have to tell them I ran into you. Thinking, my God, what have I done? This is this is like this, like what, six billion people on the planet? And I run into probably the only person in Europe that knows this one guy, you know, the one person that I did not want to know that I was in Europe.

SPEAKER_06 16:14

But animation, the industry is like that. Like I've had similar weird instances where I've been on holiday in like a tiny town in Italy and run into a co-worker randomly. Like it does feel like we're all sort of connected across these weird.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

But you know what? She wasn't even in animation.

SPEAKER_06 16:32

I know, but yeah, just still.

SPEAKER_05 16:34

But you just happen to know the guy. It's like the six, six, what is it, the the six separations of Kevin Bacon there?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

It was freaky. And so anyway, and and and the weird thing is when I finally did get down there, you know, you go through orientation, and uh there's a guy who's in charge of bringing uh welcoming all new employees, and there were four of us starting on that particular day, and we're all lined up and we're introducing ourselves to him, and and he gets to me and I introduce myself and he goes, Jeff Dixon, I've heard about you. And then he moves on. And I'm thinking, what does that mean? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_06 17:16

So did they ever find out?

SPEAKER_00 17:18

I have no idea. I have no idea. I ran into that guy many years later, and I and I asked him, so why did you say that? And he didn't remember the incident. Right. Um, but yeah, that was uh anyway. That's hilarious. I ended I ended up there anyway. That was the that's the main thing.

SPEAKER_05 17:36

I still managed to get hired. So having ended up at Disney then, I mean, uh, as we mentioned in your intro, you you worked on all these amazing films, which a lot of us have kind of grown up with, or like for myself, I was already in the industry more or less at the time of some of the films you've worked on. Um, can you tell us a little bit about your experience on those films? Like, and maybe you could just explain to our younger audience members, too, how you know working on features of that production level can differ than your experiences on, let's say the TV production you worked on previously at Nelvana. It's a lot more terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:18

Yeah, I can I can suck in this uh payment as well. That's my experience as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, yeah. That that's mostly what I remember is fear. Uh you know, it's um yeah, it was daunting. Um so when I got there, it was also very strange, uh like it hadn't been strange already, but when I got there, this is in Los Angeles, and uh so I'm going to the main Disney lot and I'm told that I'm going to be working on a new production. Uh they're starting up, Beauty and the Beast. And so I go to the place they tell me, and there's no one there. I look around, there's no, there's no where is anybody? And uh then this art director shows up and one other artist, and it turns out that it was just the three of us working on Beauty and the Beast. And I'm thinking, how did I end up here? I mean, I I'm doing development on a on a feature that doesn't make sense. I I'm hired as a I was hired as an assistant layout artist. Right. You know, and I expected to be working with a mentor or something like that, and and all of a sudden I'm I'm just thrown into being a development guy on this new feature. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 19:44

Was it was this because uh they were crewing up like I remember there was like a huge demand at that time. Uh was it because they were having a hard time finding people?

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Well, that's the only reason I can think of that I got hired is because they were having trouble finding people, you know. Um which is odd because they had Cal Arts. I mean, how many Yeah. Um, but anyway, they um it was also they had uh they were trying to finish off Rescuers Down Under at that point, and uh they also had a secondary production, um, a Mickey Mouse featurette, Prince and the Pauper, going on. Right. And the whole crew had been moved off the main lot into another studio in Glendale, and uh so that's why there was nobody around. So I sp after about two weeks, they decided that to move us uh to postpone the Beauty and the Beast thing and just move us over to help out on the other shows. So I ended up being on Prince and the Pauper to help with that. And then um, but you know, overall, I think I've been so very, very fortunate in my career, and and I can only ascribe it to just good luck because it was just around when I got to Disney, it was just around the time that they were hitting that that new wave. Yep, you know, uh that started really with Little Mermaid. Um the studio they almost shut down animation entirely, like gave up on it. Yeah, and the only thing that saved them was um uh Roy Disney going to uh Michael Eisner and saying, you know what, the the animation studio is halfway through Great Mouse Detective, let them finish it, because otherwise we'll have wasted all that money. And so Eisner said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, all right. And then it started to make Mouse Detector made a bit of money. And uh and I guess Roy just pressuring Michael Eisner constantly saved the the studio, and so um anyway, so when I came in, um this new wave was hitting, and uh I just got lucky, you know. I mean, working there, I'll tell you, although politics are everywhere in this business, you can't really avoid it in any studio, I think.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

The politics in the LA studio was ten times worse than at least in the department I was in in layout, was ten times worse than anywhere else I've ever seen. The the the department was divided into two camps that just hated each other. And uh I wanted nothing to do with either one. I just wanted to survive.

SPEAKER_06 22:33

Yeah, that actually really it sounds like my experience too. Like, yeah, we we tried to avoid that politics, but there it was like well, I mean the shoot the studio I worked at got shut down in California. So the politics was really intense. Um, but the and the but we just you know we tried to stay out of that stuff on the article. You try to, yeah, as much as you can.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah, keep your head down, smile at everybody. Yeah, and uh but it's it's such a high stakes environment that the politics just get more ratcheted up than I think, even in uh I uh uh more so than I ever saw in any studio here in Toronto.

SPEAKER_06 23:11

Yeah, going back to like your the question, John, about like differences between television and film, that was something I noticed, and maybe and that sort of sounds like what you're saying, Jeff, is like the stakes were so high because the budgets were so big, or there was so much more riding on the projects that the intensity of uh decision making was like way more intense uh than a lot of the studios I've worked at here. But not that there isn't that here, it does exist here too, just differently.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

It absolutely does. Like I said, I think in any studio you're gonna find that, you know, people have their own personal ambitions and they're not gonna let anything get in the way. And uh and those ambitions might be um uh a position in the studio or it might be artistic, you know. Um but yeah, I think it's it's just it's just unavoidable. And of course, once you add artists and their temperaments into the mix, it gets even more uh um it's a very polite way to put it. Yeah. You know, yeah, that's a whole nother tangent. But to get back to your original question, so I don't get too off track, and thank you for bringing this up again, Kathy. The differences between television and and feature work. I mean, television is a high turnover rate as far as the work that's passing in front of you on your on your desk. Right, yeah. It's it's a little bit more um, I want to say relaxed, but it's it's a bit of a slower pace with the the feature stuff because you're spending just spending more time crafting and and testing and that kind of thing. Um, and there's not as much uh reuse of of backgrounds and that kind of thing. So um, but it's also the scrutiny is much more intense, you know. Uh yeah, you know, drawing your drawing has to be much you can't allow, there's no margin for error, you know. Right. You're dealing with people who are really good.

unknown 25:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

So then there's the whole um imposter syndrome thing that comes up. And we can talk about that as well, but I'd like to leave that till later if we have time. Um, but yeah, just just the work itself, but it was invigorating at the same time, you know. Um you're forced to really reach down into yourself and and and pull out the very best. Yeah. And uh uh you have to be very professional about it all. And it was uh it it was a little bit of a wake-up call, but it was one I was expecting. I I knew what I was going into. It wasn't going to be like Nelvana where everybody's like cracking jokes and pulling pranks on each other all the time. Uh I've heard Nelvana wasn't really like that toward the end. In the beginning, it was, it was insane.

SPEAKER_05 26:11

Yeah, when I when I started Nelvana, it was exactly what you're describing. A lot more, not that people didn't work, people worked very hard. Oh, yeah, and you because you had to crank a lot of stuff out.

SPEAKER_06 26:22

It was not like that when I was there. I was there when they were part of chorus, and it was very corporate, like it was very, very different than that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:32

I think you know, my experience with some feature work as well, kind of exactly as you describe it, Jeff. You you really do have to dig down. You you're forced to take time to criticize your own work and keep iterating on your work and keep finessing it to get it to the right stage at the a minimum level of quality, really. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Well, I was fortunate. Sorry, Kathy, please go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 26:57

Well, I I was curious about your experience working on those projects, uh, like Aladdin and and uh Beauty and the Beast, and like what it felt like at the time. Did it feel like, oh, we're crafting like these classics? No, or did it no, it just felt like another project. We weren't sure whether it'd be successful or not.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Nobody knows nobody had any had any clue at all. You know, when um uh after Aladdin, um the crew was gonna be divided into two crews. One was to handle Pocahontas, one was to handle the Lion King. And all the top animators, artists, art directors, and so on, they all wanted to be on Pocahontas because they said that's the one that's gonna be the big hit because everybody knows Pocahontas. Right. Lion King is an unknown entity, it doesn't exist anywhere. You know, I mean, American kids grew up in school, they all know Pocahontas, right? The stories, right? So, and little did they know that this Lion King, this little secondary production, was going to be the biggest hit they'd had since God knows when.

SPEAKER_06 28:08

Yeah, and uh I mean it had an impact on me. I know you don't want me to make you feel a little older, but uh I love The Lion King. It inspired me to get into the industry.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

You know, I'll be honest, you know, to this day, I I I have a hard time listening to the Lion King soundtrack. Oh, yeah, because it so brings up so many emotions and memories. Umwhat bittersweet, but only bitter in that they're gone forever. Um but it's so it it it hits me so hard that it it almost brings tears to my eyes, you know. It was such an incredible, incredible experience.

SPEAKER_06 28:51

Yeah, that sounds really positive, at least. Because when when you started talking about not being able to listen to it, I can think of productions that I can't I can't watch those shows for. No, no, it was nothing like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

No, it's the exact opposite. It was because it was so incredible that it it it I don't know, the feelings it evokes are just the music is so powerful, you know, um that um oh god, what's the theme called?

SPEAKER_05 29:20

Oh, um the Elton John one, right? The main one.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:25

Um you're talking about the opening?

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:30

I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

When they're looking out over the plains or uh the circle of life one, that one is that circle of life or is it called something else? I can't remember. See, it's been so long now that I've listened to it. I've kind of I'm terrible with Disney soundtrack. So it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. So um yeah, the um uh so when Beauty and the Beast hit the Oscars, I can tell you another funny story about that. I don't I don't know how I ever managed to not get A get hired and B not get fired. So um Beauty and the Beast got nominated for an Oscar, and so there was a party Disney held on Oscar night, and uh it was in Hollywood, and uh so we drive to the um the location, and Hollywood's kind of a dump, you know, and it didn't look very nice at all. Um and so I'm pulling into the parking lot, and uh get out of the car, and I said, you know, you think a company that made like 800 billion dollars last year would be able to afford a a rap party in a in a better place than this. And I look over and not three feet away is um Roy Disney sitting in his car with a window rolled down.

SPEAKER_06 30:54

He's probably thinking the same thing, couldn't he?

SPEAKER_00 30:56

It could be, yeah. He's just slowly cruising by.

SPEAKER_06 31:00

What is this?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

I swear if I robbed a bank, it would be on a police parade day. Right, yeah. Anyway, so um, yeah, uh and and I think we realized at that point there was a feeling in the studio, though, that with Little Mermaid's success and now Beauty and the Beast's huge success, that we were on to something. Like there was a momentum gathering, and people were excited. What's the next Disney movie to come out, you know? And so um uh when we got onto Aladdin, I was fortunate to have a supervisor who was willing to give me a chance to um grow a little bit and uh move from just being an assistant layout artist to actually trying workbooking for the first time. So I'd like to pause here and ask you guys a question because it's something I've never really been able to pin down. Um now, workbooking is a concept that came they come up with, they came up with at Disney, I think on Fox and the Hound. But I don't know if it was ever a concept that was ever done anywhere else at other studios. Would anyone does anyone know what workbooking is unless you look at Disney?

SPEAKER_06 32:14

Yeah, I was gonna ask that was gonna be my next question. Could you explain what workbooking is?

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah. Okay, well let me do it for for those who don't know. So the one thing that at Disney, the storyboards, I'm not gonna, this is not a criticism of the storyboard artists. They're chink cranking this stuff out, but they don't, they're mostly ex-animators, and they don't put a lot of thought into the setup and the and the uh at least the ones that I guess maybe back on Fox and the Hound. I'm not really sure. I wasn't there then, but uh they didn't put enough into it to satisfy the layout artists that those concerns were being addressed. So they came up with this idea that, well, why don't we have some layout artists go in and go over the storyboards, redraw them if necessary, and put all of that cinematic thinking in there, the visual language, the the composition, the um the camera angles, and and how do we tell the story or best support the story that's being told with you know camera angles, um lighting, uh uh cutting, framing, you know, all of these visual tools, those aren't being thought of. And uh you can kind of see that in some of the earlier films, like Robin Hood and and so on. There's not they're not that strong from a compositional sense. Right.

SPEAKER_06 33:41

Yeah, so um that's changed over the years.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Well, it has over the years, you know. I mean, it since they started workbooking and we were able to start doing that thing, and Leia, that sort of thing, and Leia would have its input. Yeah, um, and they would so we would they would go in and they would literally they wouldn't always change the boards because sometimes the board art the boards are pretty damn good, you know. But if they felt the need to, they would change the camera angle, or they'd merge two shots, or they'd separate a shot into two, or they'd add a camera move, or um uh some such thing. And um, it made the movies more and more cinematic. Yeah, and I think that's one of the reasons that um it it helped make Beauty and the Beast and some of those other films of the New Wave stronger for it. So I was I finally got a chance to do some of that on Aladdin, and um looking back on those bookbooks, now they're pretty crude, I wouldn't show them to anybody.

SPEAKER_05 34:42

But no, they look great. I remember you showed you brought them in that one day when we were at Toonbox, and uh I was looking at them because I had always, you know, I was always an app. Aladdin ones? Uh no, I think you had some of the um probably Mulan. Mulan and I think you had some of the stuff from Brother Bear.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Okay, yeah, that was the late later stuff that I I started to learn more about what I was doing at that point, and uh yeah, but my my early stuff was pretty crude, and uh but I I managed to keep on doing it, and um, so after uh Aladdin, I decided I didn't want to be in LA anymore. I didn't like the politics, I didn't like the city, uh, and I I really didn't like uh the prospect of uh being there with earthquakes constantly rocking the the city. So um I quit and I said, I'm sorry, I'm going back to Canada. And I had just signed a new contract, like the week before.

SPEAKER_04 35:47

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Oh wow, yeah. I signed a two-year contract, and they said, and then I went in later and said, I'm going back to my country. And for what I understand, because I'm a foreigner, you can't stop me. Contract notwithstanding.

SPEAKER_06 36:01

Would they have tried would they have tried?

SPEAKER_00 36:03

They didn't. They said, if you don't want to be here, we don't want you.

SPEAKER_06 36:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

And I mean that's the that's their attitude. And but they actually that's not quite that's not that's a little that's a little harsh. They they actually did want me because they they said um, well, instead of quitting, would you consider moving to Florida? We have a studio in Orlando. And I was kind of hoping they would come up with that. Okay, really want to leave Disney? So I said, Yeah, I'll go to Florida, and uh so I went there for Lion King. And uh uh again, I think it was one of the best moves I ever made because it was a very, very different atmosphere in Florida. Right. Uh they were they were they were like this little side studio that was trying to prove itself, and everybody was kind of like all on the same team, you know. Um, if there were any politics, it was like the others, the the the enemy was LA. We gotta prove to LA that we can do we can do uh we can hold our own. So it was kind of fun to be a part of that, and uh uh there were great people there.

SPEAKER_06 37:11

And um how long were you in uh Florida for?

SPEAKER_00 37:15

I was in Florida for was it about 12 years?

SPEAKER_06 37:18

Oh wow, okay, so uh quite a while ago.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

That's quite a long time. Yeah, yeah. I started in 9 uh two or three or something like that, and then I was there until the studio was shut down in 2000.

SPEAKER_05 37:30

Actually, if I might ask, because you you talked about the politics, obviously, and yeah, you kind of wanted to get away from all of that. Right. Um, you you've mentioned in the past to me as well that you you supervised as well, right? So, how much of the politics that did you feel affected you as a supervisor? As a supervisor? I mean, it you know, I've been a supervisor and director as well, and we all know generally that you know, when you're in those lead roles of any level, they're going to affect you in some way.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

So yeah, that's true. That's true. Uh well, they they changed the nature. Before you're a supervisor, the politics are about people trying to get to that middle management level or to get from whatever tier they're at to the next one. Uh as a supervisor, the politics are more interdepartmental. Right. So uh everybody's looking to cover their butt and uh are can be quick to blame and point fingers you know at a at another department if they can. Right. But it really wasn't too bad in Florida, honestly. It it was much better than in LA. Uh we had there was more respect, I think. And being a smaller studio, there was at its height, the Florida studio had maybe 400 people.

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Whereas LA, you know, it was probably 1,500 or so. 12 to 1300, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_06 39:05

Um there was correct me if I'm wrong, but the difference, at least my experience supervising, uh, is that you're just exposed to more of the politics than you would be as an artist on a team. Uh like you're right, interdepartmental politics, but I feel like you also get uh you're included in emails or or whatever conversations that uh that might have higher tension in them that you that just don't filter down necessarily. Not not that you want them to, but um I found that was a difference in politics.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Uh that's probably more true in animation, I think, than it was for us. We were a small department, I think I had maybe 10 or 11 artists under me uh on um Brother Bear and Pocahontas. And there was I don't know if I want to call them politics. It was just people's have ambitions, and you have to then deal with those ambitions uh on on a different level because now you're the one making the decisions about who gets promoted and right. And you know, I had a everyone in my department was so talented, they all deserve to be promoted, and but I you can't promote all of them, right? So uh yeah, it's it it gets a little tricky, and and and I can't say that I handled it all that well, you know. Like I'm not I I wasn't I tried to avoid those kinds of things as much as possible, but that might have been unfair too, because that means some people didn't get promoted as quickly as they probably deserved. So I could have been a a more open as a supervisor, probably.

SPEAKER_06 41:00

That's something that you know, as artists working in uh like a very commercial field, we don't necessarily build that skill set or have that kind of training. Exactly. Uh so you kind of learn by making mistakes. Not that that's not like the right way to do it, but um I I've always felt there's a lack of instruction in that area uh when you get absolutely hired into those positions.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Absolutely. They uh management was only concerned about oh, you've been here longer than so-and-so, so you're probably a better choice than they are. Uh they didn't really, as far as I know, really look at your temperament or skill set and management. They didn't even run classes in it or courses and and how to how to manage people.

SPEAKER_05 41:50

Yeah, I think still a lot of studios today. Like I know from the ones I've worked uh at here in Canada, you know, mostly, you know, there were never really any of these kind of training programs or management training programs until more recently, you know. I did experience that at a couple studios now, which is nice. I think it's really important because it's not something that I think people don't really think about that as an artist. You're like, oh, I'm just gonna go work it as an animator or a board artist or whatever. And when they're offered the chance to be in a lead role as a supervisor or whatever that role may be, um, you just assume you would just kind of get plugged into that role and things would just be kind of the same until you realize you have to manage and you have to do more tracking and communicate more across not just your department, but as you say, now with other departments.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Yeah, that that's exactly it. Yeah, that's very true. Uh, you know, one thing I I would like to talk about in case I it doesn't come up in conversation, though, is about the skill set in storyboarding that um I feel I at least in my experience I always felt was a little bit lacking. And I kind of touched on it earlier when I was mentioning how a lot of the boards at Disney are done by ex-animators. Right. So I realized early on when I got to Disney that I was never going to be the level uh um on the level as an artist with some of the people that I saw around me. So I decided that I was going to concentrate on the principles, the underlying principles of what makes film work. Because those are not based on any particular subjective skill skill set, artistic skill set. So I got very interested in visual language, uh, visual composition, and uh how how best to manipulate a viewer's eye and that kind of thing. And uh we we took a we had a series of lectures from a guy named Bruce Block, who's a film instructor from UCLA. And he really went into depth about breaking down the elements of any image, moving and still. And uh so I really learned a lot from that and just kind of really applied myself into that. And I think that's what allowed me to do the workbooking, and then which propelled me, acted as my foundation actually, when I got into storyboarding after the whole concept of workbooking kind of fell apart when CG came along, because you can't really workbook. It just doesn't work when you're using a camera inside a CG environment to compose beforehand exactly what the image is going to look like. Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

So uh workbooking kind of fell apart when 2D went by the wayside. But the other principles of visual language and that kind of thing, they all still have to apply because they're up there on the screen, whether you want them to be or not. As Bruce Bloch said, since they're up there on the screen, you might as well control those elements, or you can just let them go wild and do whatever they want to do on their own. So I thought that's that's absolutely true. But I used that as my foundation when I went into storyboarding. And I felt that that was something that was not that common in storyboarding. Yeah. I saw a lot of storyboards where there were no backgrounds drawn in them at all, no um thought as to how does this action work actually in an environment we're dealing with.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

And uh why are we always getting these, why are we never getting a close-up when we need it, or a long shot when we need it? It's always like these medium shots over and over and over again. Right. And so I I use that as the basis for how I approached storyboarding. Uh now, maybe my storyboards wouldn't be as the characters might not be as uh expressive as an animator's, but I think they're probably more solid in the compositional sense than I don't know, that almost sounds like bragging, but the the brag away. Yeah, brag away. Yeah. Um but I always strove to get that in there because I thought that was more important. Who cares if the characters on model? Who cares if the character's super expressive when they're just gonna, it's not gonna end up in the film. The one thing's gonna end up on film is is hopefully the the the composition you've put together, yeah. It works strong enough that somebody's gonna go, no, that's what I want the shot to look like.

SPEAKER_06 46:42

Yeah, even storyboards now, you see, they look almost fully animated sometimes. Yeah, and it does seem like who are who's that for? I guess it's for the client who's approving things.

SPEAKER_05 46:53

Seems to be mostly that way, yeah. Yeah, but I agree, Jeff. Like I find even today, like when I do look at a bunch of portfolios, I do find that I mean there's a better sense of composition now. I think people are learning, and sometimes the younger artists are learning. I guess if I vicariously through other people's work, they see these other films and they're starting to absorb a lot of that naturally. But I still see a lot of work that comes across my desk, uh, my digital desk, I guess. And um, I I do question at times like, what is this composition meant to say to the audience? Exactly right, because in that shot, and that shot may be on screen for like a second and a half, maybe, maybe up to three seconds per perhaps. Um, but it doesn't actually uh convey the message it's supposed to convey through a combination of all those compositional elements.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Exactly. So what the story, yeah, what the animators communicate story through action and speech and expression, you know, we we have to communicate the story through um the camera angle, the composition, the framing of the shot, the tonal relationships, everything that everything else that goes into makeup that image on screen has to support the story in some sense. And uh, you know, the di the distance the camera is from the character, um whether the characters are arranged symmetrically or asymmetrically, or uh and and not just within that shot, but how it relates to the shots around it. Right. So those things are super, super important, and I would highly encourage anyone who's going into storyboarding to study that though those elements um in in great depth. You'll never master them, it's impossible, but be more familiar with them and more aware of them and be able to recognize oh, this is a spot where we need a close-up. Um, you know, I'll give you one small example. Uh, I was on Mulan, and uh the villain, Sean Yu, is chasing the lawn through the palace near the end, and it's this big long chase scene, lots of wide shots, wide shots, wide shots, you know. And then they she she breaks through onto the roof, and there's nowhere left to go. And Sean Yu comes bursting up through the roof. And in the storyboard, it's still just long shots, long shots, long shots. And I'm thinking, no, this is the spot in the story where she's no longer, she's trapped, she's no longer anywhere to go, nowhere to run, and he's right there in her face. We need close-ups here. Right, yeah. To make the audience feel like they're in her shoes. And uh uh, so so that's what I did. Um, and conversely, there's another there's a shot earlier in the film when they go to this burned-out village, and there's uh uh everyone there is dead. And the soldiers that were there to protect the village have been m killed, and there's nothing but charred ruins. And uh one of the main characters, Shang, uh, he discovers that his father was killed in that battle for the village, and so he walks off on his own. And in the storyboards, it just shows him from the back with his cape flying, and he's he's big and central in the frame. And I thought, that no, he looks too heroic. He's not feeling heroic in this moment, he is completely broken. So I I I I recomposed the shot to make him very small. I pushed him way off into the lower corner, and he looks completely overwhelmed now by the the world around him. Right. He's not adequate to to take this on for in in this moment. And uh I think that sells the shot a lot better. But those are two examples of of how doing these things. I'll I'll give you another, okay. Um I'll tell you about the shot that I'm probably the most proud of that I ever did at Disney. It's during the they're up in the mountains in Mulan and they get attacked by the Huns. And uh they're trapped on these these rocks near the edge of a cliff. The villain Shan Yu appears at the top of this rise, and he charges down the rise, and he's followed by his army. And the storyboards, the army was all shown in close-ups going by a camera. And I'm thinking they're gonna feel cheated. The audience is gonna feel cheated. But we we we have no we we've gotta we've gotta sell the the true scale of the danger here. So let's start off in a close-up on these, on them, and then pull way, way, way back. And let's see 50,000 Huns pouring over this rise. Yeah. And I so I drew that out, and it caused uh a big huddle. The directors and the producers and whatever, and they're like, oh, you know, again, this hun huddle going back and forth about it, and they finally come out and say, Okay, we'll do it. Nice because it was a very expensive shot to do. Of course.

SPEAKER_06 52:13

I was that's exactly what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

Uh you just added to the budget. Oh, I did hugely, hugely. And it it meant that the computer department had to be brought in on this too, because they're gonna have to rubber stamp all these funds on horseback. And uh, but that shot, um here we go. I'm gonna brag again. That shot actually got mentioned in um an article, I think it was in Time magazine, calling it David Lean-esque. Oh, wow, amazing. Yeah, and the director told me that um when he went to a public screening, he saw people gasping during that in this in the shrouding shots that uh that were set up.

SPEAKER_05 53:00

That must be the greatest feeling. Like something you've done invokes some kind of emotional reaction from your audience, right? And I think that's what you know. If there's one takeaway, you know, as you're leading us to the end of this discussion now, that you know, our audiences and the younger generations can kind of learn from and take away from this conversation is like invoking that emotion, telling a story with that emotion, with that intent, using your tools. And I don't think it's not even just for storyboard artists, for every artist, because every artist, yes. Yeah, because the landscape has changed so much. Independent filmmaking is big now, and it's very important for I think every artist in our industry, especially to like keep their minds open to independent filmmaking and take all these tools, whether you're a board artist, animator, designer, use all the tools you have to tell the greatest story you can ever tell.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

Absolutely. You know, one of the greatest training tools um I would recommend to people is to study film noir. You know, once you take the color out, yeah, and you're left with all this stark tonal um uh images that are high contrast and all designed to provoke uh an emotional reaction and mood and atmosphere, there's it's it's really quite brilliant. And and and it'll wake up your mind to that type of thinking that I've been going on about. Um because anybody can learn it, you know. For for people who uh are dealing with imposter syndrome, I don't know if we'll have time to talk about that or not, but um there'll always be artists out there who are better than yourself, no matter how good you are. Right. So just accept that. But the one thing you can do on their level is use is learning and using all of the uh tools of visual language to sell whatever it is you're trying to sell, whatever story you're trying to tell, you know. Um and they're what kept me moving forward at Disney when I was there. They're the reason I I doing that was the reason I got to be a supervisor. It wasn't because I was a better artist than my crew, I wasn't necessarily. But I I studied that stuff and I learned it. And uh that's what made the difference, I think, for me.

SPEAKER_06 55:27

Yeah, well, all those shots that you mentioned, uh, all three of them, for me, the through line of that is thinking about the story you're telling on a very deep level, like taking every scene seriously, like what is this gonna feel like? Like really delving deep into the meaning of it. And that for me is also one of the biggest differences between television and film, is you have the time and you're encouraged and you should think on that level in features. Uh and that's a skill you have to work on as well. Because when I came from television to film, I was like, oh, this is a level of my creative field I've plumbed before. So it was like a new way of thinking, uh, not just drawing, not just creating the art.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

Not just drawing, yeah. That's it's not the that's not the be-all and end all. And and you know, here's a good rule of thumb, especially if you're making an independent film, like you're saying, John. Uh you should ask yourself, look at every single shot, and ask yourself, what story point is this shot selling? What what what is how is the the either character or story being progressed by this shot? And if you can't answer that, probably that shot shouldn't even be in the film. Right. Yeah. It's that it's that simple. And then you have to ask yourself, okay, how do I what visual tools can I use to enhance telling that story point um and make it more emotional for the for the audience.

SPEAKER_05 56:55

Yeah, I think the visual language aspect definitely a bit of a lost art right now. But I think there are a lot of there's still a lot of resources available. A lot. Yeah, like I know for myself, you know, having gone to Sheridan, we had John Wheeler as our visual language teacher, and that kind of flew over most of our heads as students. But eventually it did click. And I think, you know, for anyone that may be interested, they can feel free to reach out to me, let's say, or anyone else, and you know, maybe ask some questions about that particular course because I've compiled some of them into my storyboard workshop as well. But there are so many other resources, including like I think Scott McLeod, who does the um uh comics, he does a lot of comic illustration. He has books on visual language and comic books as well. Oh, wonderful! Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

Um, another another uh good resource is uh our production designer on Mulan, Hans Bacher, is a terrific resource. He's got some books out that you can find on Amazon. Um he was he was a really strong visual compositional guy, and I learned a lot from him. And I I really studied a lot under him to try and get everything I could glean out of his his his images and his head as I could. Right um so yeah, there there are resources out there. Bruce Bloch has a uh book out called uh The Visual Story, I think it's called. And I think you can get that on Amazon too. Right. I highly recommend that. Uh and and just just studying, not just watching films, but studying them, like watching the cuts and and what the images are like between the cuts. Because sometimes that cut says so much. Yeah. One of the starkest cuts in movie history is in uh Lawrence of Arabia.

SPEAKER_05 58:47

I know this one.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

Yeah, you know the one. I know this one where yeah, he he's just sitting in his his uh military uh uh office or whatever, and he's got a lit match. Yeah, and it's a close-up on the match burning and his mouth blowing the match out, and as soon as the match blows out, you cut to the stark, empty, open desert.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

And but it and it's the relationship between those two shots, you know, that's that sell it. Um I mean, I could I could go on for a long time on this, but I'm not gonna get too uh too bogged down in it. There's probably might be a couple other things we might have time for.

SPEAKER_05 59:25

Yeah, actually, um, we are kind of running near the end of our time. Maybe we can just ask you one more question. Um, so basically, so Jeff, can you um tell us like you've had a very notable and amazing career, you've worked on a lot of amazing projects, and obviously through this discussion, we've learned a lot about you and your your journey through it. But is there a particular challenge or obstacle you ran into during your career that you'd like to share with our audience and kind of maybe provide a little bit of advice to as well?

SPEAKER_00 59:56

Yeah, I'd say there were two. Um, one is physical, the physical uh uh repercussions of sitting hunched over a desk or a computer screen for decades. Absolutely. You're going to have some physical uh ramifications from that. Almost guaranteed uh it will catch up with you. Just holding your arm up on a computer tablet for decades um will cause shoulder problems, back problems, posture problems. I I got frozen shoulder when I was uh in my 50s from that. Uh an extremely painful condition. I don't recommend it to anyone. And uh that came from holding my arm up on the computer screen. And that was only uh for about after about five years of doing that. So uh and it's a silent um it creeps up on you silently. So it you feel great, and then one day you don't. Right. And uh it can take years to recover from it. Took me about two to three. Um and just sitting for decades, you know, it it actually forced me into uh uh retirement because I just couldn't sit for eight, ten hours in a day anymore. You know, doing boards. I just it was just too much pain. So I decided that my my health was more important and I and I I decided I'm I'm I'm giving it up. Whether I ever return to it or not, I don't know. But for the and till I get that under control, I'm not doing it anymore.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:45

The other one is is uh the second one is um Oh sorry, just just before you go on to the second one, very quickly for our audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

Um, are there any uh what remedies are you doing for the yeah like literally it's not enough to just working eight hours a day and then going for a 20-minute walk isn't gonna make that much difference. You've got to keep moving throughout the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

Like every hour or two, get up and move around for 10, 15 minutes, even if that lengthens your day because you're not getting that that time in doing more storyboard panels or whatever it is, it's um it doesn't matter because you're expected to work X number of hours a day now, anyway. It's not a nine to five job anymore. So some of that time just needs for your own health, you've got to keep moving. And um specific exercises, everybody is different. So I I can't give you specific exercises. I'm not a physiotherapist, I'm not gonna pretend to be.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:44

Yeah, but I think that's that's very important. Like the fact is the human body is not designed to sit for that period of time. We're designed to move, we were designed to walk around and move around. So yeah, I think it's really important because I've gone through that myself. Um, not necessarily frozen shoulder, but a host of other injuries as well. And I've learned, you know, like yourself. And obviously, with hindsight being 2020, you you can kind of think back and maybe you now can spot some signs, right? Right. Like, oh, you know, my wrist felt a little weird and I didn't realize what it was, or my my butt muscles have atrophied because I was sitting for so long. Yeah, but um, but yeah, I think a lot of it too is awareness. So just try to be aware of your own body. If something doesn't feel right, listen to that part of your body get out of the chair and and move around as frequently as possible.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

The other thing that related to that is not just uh your your muscles and bones and so on, but spending hours focused on something that's only maybe eight to twelve inches from your eyes is not good. You need to get up and focus on something far in the distance, or you're gonna need glasses much earlier in life. Right, yeah. Or even laser surgery or something like that. Yeah. So uh nothing else for your eyesight. Yeah, we need our eyesight as artists.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:08

Yeah, I've I found that myself too, because I've worn glasses since I started my career. So it happened very early on, and I probably needed my glasses even earlier than that. But I I do find like after working for too long in front of the uh the centique, I have to get up, move around. Sometimes I'll even if I don't have a huge amount of time, I'll go to my front window and stare across the street. Even that changes the distance of my eyesight, right? Yeah, even that.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:34

And Jeff, have you have you come back to creating again? Like now that you're you're feeling more physically able.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

I'm not I well, I I'm doing um, I've done a little bit. I mean, I I've I I do creative stuff on my own from myself. Um, that's a whole nother discussion about retirement that I'm sure that your audience doesn't need to hear about now because they're not ready to retire.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:55

We should talk about it next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

unknown 1:05:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

Uh so but um I'm sorry, what's the question again?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:08

Uh I think we were moving on to challenge number two. You heard you want to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so challenge number two is uh is imposter syndrome. And you know, you may have heard my advice on this before. Probably it's a pretty common answer, but it bears repeating. I mean, everybody gets a imposter syndrome, and um it's healthy, it's a good thing, it's not necessarily a bad thing, it might not feel very nice, but the people there are a few people who don't get it, and they're people who have already reached their peak and will never get better. I knew I knew one artist who was extremely good, didn't have imposter syndrome, but never really grew as an artist beyond college. Right. Because he figured he knew. It all already. He was good enough. And uh it kept him back. He he would not enter into an environment where he would be forced to confront people who were much better than him. So I highly recommend if you if you're suffering from imposter syndrome, embrace it, see it as an opportunity for growth. It's like, okay, I I gotta get out there and I've got to learn this and I've got to learn that, and I've gotta I've got to improve. And like I say though earlier, there's always gonna be somebody who's better, but you have to realize that that they're just providing goals to strive for, and and you can uh only get better as long as you're trying.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:45

You can't get worse. So um think of uh and I have to warn you too that imposter syndrome can get worse even with experience. The older you get. And the the reason I I try to explain it is think of um existing within a bubble, and everything inside that bubble is everything you know. Everything outside that bubble is everything you don't know. Now, as you get older in life and you start pulling in more things and that bubble starts to expand, that's great. But as the bubble expands, it also thins out. So now you can look out and you can see just how much you really still don't know. And and it's daunting.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

And and uh so in that sense, that's that's my way of analogizing how how the system works, because and and then you add in the whole factor of uh technology and how it's progressing and how a younger generation is much generally more familiar and more easily comfortable with the newer tools than you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

And it gets uh it gets even more daunting. So, you know, just be aware that there's nothing just having imposter syndrome does not mean that it's justified. It's a psychological thing and can definitely be used to your advantage.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:09

Yeah, I think the artist ego and the an artist is built up of different facets, right? And that comes from the different experiences. And I think the imposter syndrome and the ego, those are facets on your entire diamond entity. And you kind of have to learn to live with it, but learn to grow, as you say, beyond it, because your your bubble does grow and thin. And as you thin, you learn more about the world around you. And by doing that, you become better. Ultimately, you do become better, you learn more and you grow from that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

It because as that as that veil thins, it also becomes more porous, like you're able to take in more and more and more. So it's it's kind of uh it's just a process that you have to learn to utilize and not let overwhelm you, you know, and it's hard these days when people are working inside their own homes, they're not part of a studio environment. You know, it's the the the demons work on the idle mind, right? So uh it's uh but there's like I say, there's always going to be somebody out there who's who's better. So so what?

SPEAKER_05 1:09:20

Yeah, and you can learn from that person, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

Yeah, they can't do everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:24

No one can do everything at all. Um, yeah, so I think we're uh we're at the end of our time for today. So I just want to say, hey, thank you so much, Jeff, for being on our podcast. It's been a pleasure. Such an amazing discussion, and we really appreciated all the knowledge you brought in today and your your little anecdotes about Disney, all amazing and entertaining, of course. Um, I definitely am looking forward to have you back for a part two because there's always there's tons to talk about, as always.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:54

Oh, I'm happy to.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:55

Yeah, there's always something to talk about. We only scratch the surface.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:59

Yeah. I'm not sure how deep you really want to go.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:04

We can go, I mean, we can go pretty deep. I mean, it it you know, with all of our guests, I think it's it's the fact that each of our guests is unique and again, everyone has a different experience, and any part of that experience can be so beneficial to anyone in our audience, right? Right. I hope they can bring a little bit of something to someone out there, then you know that that would be gratifying at least.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

Well, if I hope they take anything away from this particular interview, I hope they'll it would be to take my advice and study visual language and composition in a film seriously. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:42

And for I know um, you know, with our audience, you can't see anything with this podcast, but uh the the couple of examples you mentioned from Mulan, especially. I remember seeing those in your workbook when you did bring it in, and I was amazed by that too.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

Mulan was something special to me. Yeah, it really was. It was it was the peak of my um uh time at Disney. So um just for the fact that I got to do more on that film, have more input on that film than any other one. So um, yeah, that the one's kind of special to me.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:18

And I I hope like for our audience members again, like I hope everyone in their career has at least one moment like that. I mean, you will have to work for it, obviously. And you will have to try to find that opportunity, but keep your eyes open. And when you have a moment like that, you can cherish it. And, you know, like Jeff did today, you can share it with everybody else and and uh, you know, allow that to help grow other people.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:44

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:47

All right. Well, I think we have to wrap it up, but uh really great conversation. Thanks so much, Jeff.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:53

You're very welcome. All right, thank you again, Jeff, and thank you to our audience members for listening. We'll catch you on the next one. The ACC podcast is created and hosted by Captain McDonald and John Lee. Music by Mike Romaniac, mixing and editing by Kathy McDonald and produced by Kyrene Kim.