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Episode 84: Kevin MacLean and Bert Klein
49 Plays25 days ago
On this week's episode we chat with animators Kevin MacLean and Bert Klein!
DISCLAIMER: We are not an affiliate of the Walt Disney Company nor do we speak for the brand or the company. Any and all Disney-owned audio, characters, and likenesses are their property and theirs alone.
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Transcript
Introduction to Sharing the Magic Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Sharing the Magic, the podcast that takes you on a journey through the enchanting worlds of Disney. Each week, we're joined by a special guest, whether they're a magician creating moments of astonishment or a Disney expert sharing the secrets behind the magic of the happiest place on Earth. Together we'll uncover the stories, inspirations, and behind-the-scenes tales that bring these worlds to life.
00:00:32
Speaker
So, get ready to be spellbound and transported to a place where dreams come true.
Episode Overview: Disney Insiders Impact
00:00:54
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Sharing the Magic, the place where you can hear each week a different interview with somebody in the Disney know and how they have impacted Walt Disney.
00:01:07
Speaker
And not even to Walt Disney, also the pictures, the parks, and also different historical things and things like that. And tonight... It's no different. We have a couple very incredible guests joining us.
00:01:21
Speaker
But first, let's say hello to our co-host. We'll say hello to Dawn. Dawn, how are you doing the tonight?
Hosts' Disney Passion and Introduction of Guest
00:01:27
Speaker
Hi, doing good. And happy Super Bowl Sunday, everybody. and looking forward to talking Disney, as that's my true love. i'm Super Bowl is not so much, but here in spirit on my TV in silence. So okay welcome.
00:01:42
Speaker
All right. Next up, we have Brandon. Brandon, how you doing the tonight? Pretty good. Hope everybody's doing well. Also, as well, I have a little screen over here watching at the same time.
00:01:52
Speaker
But i'm I'm actually curious to see, you know, what had our friends, you know, interested in Disney, what sparked the magic and actually how they take that magic and transpire it to others to enjoy. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited about that, too.
00:02:07
Speaker
all right. And last, we have Lisa. Lisa, how are you doing tonight? Yeah. Hi everyone. i am excited to be here. i would love to thank Disney on this chilly February night um here in Indianapolis. It's it's cold. It's bitter.
00:02:23
Speaker
So I would love to thank Warm Thoughts and lots of love for Disney. um I have a special friend that has been in Disney animation for a number of years and I love to talk to him so I cannot wait.
00:02:38
Speaker
So but without further ado, you know, I'm kind of excited about this, but about this interview because think animators are incredible people. And I think, you know, every time I see a movie, you know, compared to the first movie I remember seeing was The Jungle Book to where we are now with with how movies are.
00:03:00
Speaker
i'm just I'm just baffled. and i i think I think it's an incredible
Guest Insights: Kevin McLean and Bert Klein
00:03:05
Speaker
job. and i can't wait to to talk to Kevin McLean and Bert Klein. How are you guys doing tonight?
00:03:12
Speaker
Doing great, thank you thank you allie thank you. Thank you for having us. Awesome. all right The first question I've always asked, and I ask every guest that comes on here, and then I'm probably thinking that the majority of them hate this question, but a simple question and we'll start with you, Kevin, first and then Bert, you can answer.
00:03:35
Speaker
Tell us about um how you fell in love with Disney. Well, um I grew up in Oregon, Portland, Oregon area. um I guess my first exposure was maybe the magical world of Disney on Sunday sunday nights in the 80s and 90s. And I also went to like Disney on ice shows, that kind of thing. My mom had a subscription to Disney magazine she'd always bring home from her office. And so I would just ah go through those magazines. And I still have them to this day, actually. um i love those old issues. and
00:04:08
Speaker
So yeah, i just fell in love with it, I guess, that way. and i loved ah I grew up in the kind of i guess the new that Disney renaissance of Little Mermaid. ah The second renaissance, I should say. Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King. So I fell in love with those films. But also, I really love the Walt era films.
00:04:27
Speaker
Probably even more so, I would say, ah discovering those. Going back 30s through the nineteen sixty s Cool. I got an answer. and the first thing that pops into my head. The 1981, it's probably Wonderful World at Disney special about the Illusion of Life book. And it was about the making of Fox and the Hound and Black Cauldron where Hayley Mills was a host.
00:04:49
Speaker
And that was my first exposure. and You know, they were working on Fox and the Hound and John Musker's on there, Ed Gombert doing all these great drawings while Pearl Bailey is like singing his big mama and singing the song. But the part that really got me was they had a bit where Hayley Mills goes into the camera room and they actually did this in some other specials too, but this time they did it with her. It's where they have Donald Duck and he's the farmer and he's walking and it shows like how they put the platen down on the cells and take a picture and put the platen down and take a picture.
00:05:19
Speaker
And I was probably about six or seven at the time, and I had a color forms test, a color form set with like characters on it. And I thought, oh, maybe if I move them around and shine a light bulb on it, something will happen.
00:05:31
Speaker
Well, that didn't happen. But what ended up did happening is I ended up getting ah the book The Illusion of Life probably when i was about nine or ten. And i read the whole thing several times. And that was my ah that was my real entryway into the love for Disney animation.
00:05:47
Speaker
So looking, but you know, how you both got into into where you are now, you know, the big emphasis was on television and movies. And, you know, like like the majority of us growing up, it was um looking at...
00:06:04
Speaker
you know, going to the movie theater or seeing, looking on TV and seeing a Disney movie. So what what were some of the, well you mentioned some of the shows that kind of inspired you to actually fall in love with it. What what kind of inspired you to get into becoming um animators?
00:06:25
Speaker
ah Well, for me, I started off as a stop motion animator.
Career Journeys: From Animation Inspirations to Disney
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah. And although I love Disney, I never really thought I would work there as an animator because they were doing 2D animation. And a kid, my interest was in clay animation. And being in the Portland, Oregon area, ah there was a studio there called Will Vinton Studios. And they did the they were famous in the 80s for the California Raisin commercials and the Domino's Noid.
00:06:50
Speaker
They did a claymation film, The Adventures of Mark Twain. So that really inspired me to get into animation. My dad's the one that told me, oh, there's this studio here in Portland that does this. So... um So yeah, all throughout middle school, high school years, I would make short films, clay animated films.
00:07:04
Speaker
And I'd send my work to Will Benton Studios and just kept bugging them. And amazingly, like I think a month after I graduated from high school, I got a call from them. They said, we have found a spot for you.
00:07:15
Speaker
and uh yeah so i just that was i sort of skipped college and just went right into my career and it was a great experience i worked there for six years working on like a lot of commercials stop motion spots through musketeers uh m m commercials the the pj's tv show that was an eddie murphy stop motion tv show that we did um So, um and then my first feature was Monkeybone with Henry Selick, another stop-motion live-action film.
00:07:47
Speaker
And so, yeah, it was just never really something I thought possible to end up at Disney, you know, because they were a 2D studio up until, you know, the early 2000s or so. and But then everyone in my family, they left Portland My parents moved down to San Diego, my brother and sister moved away, so everyone abandoned me there in Portland by myself. So um I thought maybe I'll you know check out Southern California, see if there's any opportunities down there.
00:08:18
Speaker
And so I sent my work to DreamWorks. I had friend, Webster Colcord, who had worked there before. yeah They offered me a job, and they're the ones that moved me down to California, and I ended up working there for 10 years. And and ah you know I enjoyed working there, but...
00:08:34
Speaker
I still love Disney, and then I saw that they kept making better and better films there. Tangled came out, Bolt. And then, am I talking too much about all this? No, you're almost there. You're almost there. You're almost at Disney. you're like You're like one phone call away.
00:08:49
Speaker
yeah And i I should say, yeah, I did go back to Oregon for one film at Leica Studios, Paranorman, and another stop motion project, and then came back to California to work on one more film at DreamWorks. And then they did a big, massive layoff there. And...
00:09:05
Speaker
So I was a part of that and then I freaked out briefly. I thought I'd be like living on the streets or whatever because I never had that happen before to me. But before I finished the DreamWorks, Disney was hiring for Frozen.
00:09:19
Speaker
So they picked me up right away and you know, I didn't have to move or anything. It was just right across town. And so I started there with Frozen being my first film. And actually, it's funny because my story is ah kind of similar to Kevin's. We had
Disney Projects: Frozen, Zootopia, and More
00:09:33
Speaker
a lot of similarities, just a childhood love for animation.
00:09:37
Speaker
And in high school, I made ah independent films. As a high school student, I was part of this wonderful animation workshop that no longer exists. And i it was just at a you know a public high school, and they allowed kids and adults to come in the afternoons, and it was maybe $25 a semester.
00:09:54
Speaker
But the amazing thing is the teacher of that He was the most gutsy person I knew because he would just go out and meet Chuck Jones and have him come to the class.
00:10:06
Speaker
he got He befriended Frank and Ollie. Frank and Ollie would come to the class. He didn't know any limits. He had no fear. I think he had Stan Lee. Yeah, Stan Lee came one time. But Frank and Ollie were regulars, and he would actually have Frank and Ollie look at mine and the other students' work, and he told them to be real critical and be serious. And they did. mean, they told me, I showed them some of my first animation, and they said, well, you got a lot of stuff moving around, but it's not really making any sense, you know?
00:10:37
Speaker
And I was hearing that at like at the age of 14. And sometimes that doesn't happen until maybe you're already in college or CalArts. So I was able to get a lot of really great information early from some of the greatest people.
00:10:50
Speaker
And um I continued to make films, sort of like Kevin did. And there was actually a local studio that my dad ah knew about, sort of like your dad knew about Wilbent, and it was called Film Roman.
00:11:02
Speaker
And that studio was owned by Phil Roman. They called it Film Roman because I think they liked the ah ring to it, but they did the Garfield specials, Garfield commercials, lot of fun stuff. And they were working on a feature, Tom and Jerry, the movie. And they saw my work at a film festival.
00:11:18
Speaker
And they said, hey why don't you come here and ah work for us over the summer? I hadn't graduated high school yet. So worked for them over the summer and I did it the following summer. And then when i graduated, i thought, oh, I'm just going to continue to work here. And I did work there for a bit.
00:11:33
Speaker
But unbeknownst to me, there's an and also I have to mention, too, when I went back to school, I made films and there was a film that I had done. At the request of my animation teacher, he said, you know, Disney's working on a film called the King of the Jungle, which became Lion King. Do a film with some animals in it.
00:11:52
Speaker
And I said, are you sure? Wouldn't that be kind of like pandering? He just goes, trust me. So I did a film with animals, naturalistic animals, had a little bit of a story and maybe won a couple of awards. But it was in ah the Ojai Student Film Festival.
00:12:06
Speaker
And at that time when it was in the festival, I was working at Film Roman and on a show called The Critic. I had worked on The Simpsons the year previously, and The Critic is kind of like an interesting story unto itself.
00:12:18
Speaker
But I was working on that show, and unbeknownst to me Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg were... at the Ohio Film Festival. It was just, you know, Providence that they were there and they liked my film. and they started talking to the teacher and kind of found out that he was my teacher. I was his student. And they said, hey, I think we could use this kid.
00:12:38
Speaker
send his film to the review board and we'll have all the folks ah review it. So I didn't know this had happened. So I'm working over at Film Roman and I get a phone call. There were no cell phones back then. You pick the phone up off the wall. There was intercoms. It was those kinds of times.
00:12:53
Speaker
This is probably in 93.
00:12:55
Speaker
And it was the recruiter from Disney, Bill Matthews, beloved figure of Disney animation, very sad that he's no longer with us. But he said, hey, you know, ah he told me what happened. you where we We looked at your film on the review board, and we want you to come on board. we want to let you know what some of the people have said. Glenn Keane said this about your work. John Pomeroy said this about your work. Like, they had a lot of positive feedback, ah you know. And then they said, would you like to come and work here? And I did.
00:13:25
Speaker
And that is how I got my start at Disney Animation. I am started working there, what was it, October 4th, 1993. And I've had two separate runs there. I don't want to get ahead of myself. I left in, think, 2002.
00:13:40
Speaker
think two thousand two And then i came back on and I've been there since. But I was primarily a hand-drawn animator for all of my first run and probably the beginning of my second run because I came back there on Princess and the Frog and worked on the Winnie the Pooh feature and got into CG animation full-time on Wreck-It Ralph.
00:14:02
Speaker
So those are sort of like in a nutshell how ah how I got into working at Disney and I'm still kicking And Bert's one of the few animators who sort of successfully transitioned to CG.
00:14:15
Speaker
As you are one of the few stop motion animators that successfully transitioned stop motion.
Transitioning to CGI: Challenges and Triumphs
00:14:21
Speaker
And you know it's it's a really tough thing for a traditional artist to to cross over because there's a certain amount, they call it polish or finesse,
00:14:30
Speaker
that you need to take advantage of of all the tools of the computer in order to give it that smooth look that everybody likes. That sometimes, that didn't really matter as much in the traditional arts, like stop motion or hand-drawn.
00:14:42
Speaker
So sometimes I think a lot of other a lot of artists maybe didn't quite have the same sensibility that CG needed you to have to make it super smooth. and i did not at first either, but I had some friends that kind of steered me in the right direction and and helped me get the get it going.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's funny because, Kevin, as soon as you started talking about Will Vinton, the first first thing that popped in my head was Claymation Christmas. but every every year Every year I have to watch that. Especially the the the bit with the camels when they do We Three Kings.
00:15:22
Speaker
Now, you know you both ended up coming to coming to work for Disney you know in the into the the California section. and So how did a you two meet?
00:15:36
Speaker
And what's the big thing that got you two started together? Well, we've worked on a lot of the same shows. I mean, Kevin's first show was Frozen. I worked on Frozen. it was actually one of my favorite projects to work on. Bert did a lot of great Olaf.
00:15:53
Speaker
As did Kevin. In Frozen. up I didn't really, but yeah, he did. Yeah. yeah and Well, thanks. you know yeah I had a fun time working on that show. But yeah, Kevin and I have worked together on a lot of projects. I mean, pretty much every feature there.
00:16:07
Speaker
And ah one of the most interesting work that we've done, and Kevin's done it a few more times than I have at this point, But in between the movies, when we're animating on the features, in that span of maybe four to five months, they'll grab the animators that work on the features to do animation for the parks. And Kevin and I have both worked on a lot of parks projects.
00:16:29
Speaker
um One of them, as of this date right now, Super du Bowl Sunday, um is ah nominated for a Visual Effects Society Award, which I'll be going to the awards on Tuesday. it's called Peter Pan's Neverland Adventure.
00:16:43
Speaker
And it's a brand new Peter Pan ride at Tokyo DisneySea. And I worked with Kevin on that. And Kevin did some absolutely phenomenal work on that on that show. Some of the best looking um CG animation to feel like 2D Peter Pan animation. And to add to the challenge, the show is ah done in Japanese.
00:17:03
Speaker
We also worked together on the Zootopia ride that is in Shanghai, Disneyland. We worked on that. a year later. This is in between the movies, like, you know, you work on Encanto, and then they say, hey, do you want to work on this stuff over here? And Kevin worked on the Tiana's Bayou Adventure, Mama Odie Animation.
Disney Park Animations and Easter Eggs
00:17:23
Speaker
i was on something else, so I did not get to work on that.
00:17:26
Speaker
But yes, we've ah we we we enjoy working on those projects, and we've worked on a number of those. Yeah, was excited to work on Bayou Adventure because, ah like Bert said, the other ones were for the overseas park. And that was the first one we can connect I can actually go to Disneyland or Walt Disney World and see my animation on the ride.
00:17:44
Speaker
It's the part where she says I'm about to, what did she say? ah let's have time Time to get tiny. Time to think big. Yeah, time to think big, time to get tiny. And and then she shrinks you down to Frog's Eyes on the ride. and So that was fun to do.
00:17:59
Speaker
I love that part. That's a great, adds to it, the mystery and you are shrunk down and all the flowers are big. So it's a really neat effect. yeah Oh, yeah. Coming back to me, there's some other parks projects I've worked on. Let's see.
00:18:15
Speaker
I worked on the original Mickey's PhilharMagic that we did around 99 or 2000. And i don't know if you've seen it, but in recent days, they did ah and an update where they added a section with Cocoa.
00:18:28
Speaker
And I worked on that section as well with Donald Duck. so I worked on the old PhilharMagic and the new PhilharMagic overlay. And some of my favorite parks work that I've done is was actually for Epcot.
00:18:40
Speaker
um There was ah the Mexico Pavilion. There is the Mexico Pavilion. And there's a wonderful ride called the ah Grand Fiesta, starring with three cavalieros. hu That's a favorite of ours.
00:18:51
Speaker
And I did a lot of animation on that ride and it was a lot of fun. And it actually was just a really, really special time to get to animate those characters. Eric Goldberg was the animation director on that and I got to work really closely with him. When you go on to that ride and you go down the long corridor and you see Jose and Panchito enter the screen and they do their bit.
00:19:12
Speaker
I animated Jose and Eric animated Panchito. So that was really like a special thing to share the ah screen with him. And then as you go into the ride, you see the various screens in which I animated several of them.
00:19:25
Speaker
ah Eric has a scene in there where Donald Duck has a taking pictures with a lot of hats where he's like a tourist. And I think it's some of the best Donald Duck animation ever done. um I have one really long scene that is in the show that is not politically correct anymore because Donald Duck is trying to kiss the girls and chase after them. It's still on the ride.
00:19:46
Speaker
But it was sort of like 45 second loop of Jose and Panchito stopping Donald to, you know, get go on their magic carpet to get to the girls. Sort of like it was a tie-in to the original Three Cavalieros movie.
00:20:00
Speaker
ah So, yeah, not not politically correct, but it was very fun to animate and it was all on ones and I enjoyed that. And on the very, very last show scene, no one can see it anymore. I mean, maybe if you look at a ride through from the ride first opened, but right now there are three animatronic figures of a Donald, Jose and Pancho, but I think we're from the Mickey Mouse review.
00:20:22
Speaker
When I worked on the ride, and I never saw it in person, I only saw the ride after they had swapped out the swapped in the animatronics for the ah the animation. But originally it was more screens at the end, and we, Eric and myself and a bunch of people, had reanimated the Three Cavalieros song to different staging.
00:20:42
Speaker
And it was some of the most fun animation that we've done. so it's kind of a little bit of a lost Disney thing. I also worked on the when I was away from Disney. Actually, I worked on ah another Disney project. and And I want to mention, too, I was away from Disney when worked on the three Cavalieros. I did that freelance.
00:20:59
Speaker
There was a Steve Martin thing, Donald's 50th anniversary that when
Legacy and Impact of Disney Work
00:21:04
Speaker
the 50th came out, ah Steve Martin and Donald Duck. i I did a lot of fun work on that. And did little work on Stitch's Great Escape, too, but i've never I never got to see the ride to see it in there.
00:21:16
Speaker
ah could it have had a little bit of 2D animation effects in there. think I covered my park stuff. but Yeah, we both love doing the park ah legacy projects. It's just a chance to work with these characters, you know, from...
00:21:28
Speaker
lot of times from decades and decades ago before we were there. And I walked on some commercials of Tinkerbell. That's always fun. And the Peter Pan ride we did for Tokyo DisneySea, I got to animate the Lost Boys in that, sort of marching through the waterfall like they did in the film.
00:21:44
Speaker
Some of the most beautiful CG ever done. and I recommend, like, if you ever go on any ride-throughs, check it out and keep your eye out for Kevin's shot there. It's right after you pass TikTok the crocodile. And he Kevin animated that scene where they cross the waterfall and did all these great gags with the waterfall, cutting a hole, looking your head through, then they all find the boat that they're going to fly on, and they're all scrambling to get into the boat.
00:22:11
Speaker
Really fun stuff. I also mentioned, too, that if you can watch the ride-through, there's a really great pre-show. and The pre-show before you get into the boat is quite a... those pre-shows are hard. It's almost like a non-stop minute long shot and several people had to work on it at the same time.
00:22:28
Speaker
And i Kevin did an especially fantastic piece of animation in that part where the Lost Boys are scrambling and fighting and then Peter Pan tells them to come to attention. And really another terrific animator, Nathan Englehart, he animated the Peter Pan in that section. So it's a really special part of the ride, even though it's not in the ride.
00:22:47
Speaker
But I guess the point is, is whether it's the pre-show or the ride, we always try to do our best no matter what. And it's exciting that our to think our animation is there every single day, and people are seeing it every day for possibly decades and decades, you know. So that's why part of the reason I like working on those projects so much. Yeah, and the very fact that you mentioned the Three Cavalieros ride is your favorite. I mean, that makes me very happy to hear that I've worked on something that's some a part of somebody's favorite ride, you know. I mean, yeah i love hearing that. That's fantastic.
00:23:19
Speaker
We actually head to Mexico each time. That that is my partner's favorite. He he loves that at Epcot. So we go every single time. Yeah, it's a fun project to work on.
New Projects and Future Aspirations
00:23:34
Speaker
I wanted to say PhilharMagic, that Coco scene, if anyone has ever seen it, because it's 3D, it is very immersive.
00:23:45
Speaker
I mean, I don't even know how to explain it. You're definitely there. And, you know, do and we we know that Donald Duck's adventure, it's very yeah difficult for him, you know.
00:23:57
Speaker
But, you know, that whole that whole scene, it sticks out more than than most of the others to me because Coco is, you know, it's my thing. That's that's what i love But I will say that, you know, whenever I leave there, no matter if I've seen it one time, two, three, because, you know, I live right next door to Walt Disney World, I can sit there and watch it every day and be like, oh, you know what?
00:24:26
Speaker
I see something new. Haven't seen that before. Oh, I see this now. Yeah, it's very rich. There's so much. And it's it's good for everybody. that's That's absolutely amazing. That has blown me away.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah, to give credit where credit is due. It was done by two studios, by Pixar and us. We did the Donald Ducks, and they did everything else. So want to give Pixar the credit for that. But yeah, I have a kind of a strong emotional attachment to that project for an interesting reason. um I was working on that project at the same time that we were doing the the tokyo and the not the tokyo the Shanghai Zootopia ride.
00:25:06
Speaker
And they gave me that to supervise the animation on as well, just sort of like as ah as an extra bonus. And um I animated the scene where Donald first appears and he lands and he points and he he chases off after the dog.
00:25:22
Speaker
And not to get too emotional, but when i was working on that shot, my mom passed away and it was very sad. And I cannot...
00:25:34
Speaker
And every time I hear like the opening guitar for that song, like for that that ah Coco song, it just takes me right back to that very, very strange time. And also it was during the pandemic. We animated that at home, you know, um and it was 20. It was a strange, strange time. So my dad passed away when I was animating the Lost Boys marching through the waterfall. So every time I see that, I think of that.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that sometimes when that happens, we just throw ourselves into our work because, you know, you just, I think maybe you did that. You just threw yourself totally into it and was was all in on that ride and and touched a lot of other wonderful parts on it as well.
00:26:12
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I guess it's interesting. Our work is very, um you know, it's a lot of work. It's a very personal. It takes a lot of hours. And sometimes I think of stages of my life as to what I was working on and during that time.
00:26:26
Speaker
So yeah, it has a, I don't know, just like a random thing. I just think of when I was working on Pocahontas and I was an animation assistant, an assistant animator. just remember during that time, what music was I listening to? I was listening to the the soundtrack of Pulp Fiction during that time on an audio cassette tape on a Walkman, just listening to that while I was working on scenes of John Smith with John Pomeroy. It's just weird, though. I guess, I don't know if that's like that for you, Kevin, but sometimes for
Reflecting on Past Projects and Growth
00:26:54
Speaker
me, the work experience and what's going on in my life
00:26:58
Speaker
I think of in terms of the projects I've worked on. And by this point, it's been it's been quite a number for both of us, I'd say. you know Yeah. Are there any projects that that you would like to revisit that have not came across your your desk yet?
00:27:15
Speaker
oh well, you mean. OK, hold on. So when you say revisit, do you mean projects that we wish we could have done over again or projects that we we remember fondly? um Well, it could be either one. I was thinking, you know, projects that, you know, could be revised or redone again. But like I said, it could be either one.
00:27:35
Speaker
I'd rather talk about stuff that we've worked on so we don't fuel any speculation for future projects or talk about stuff in development. But I would rather just talk about stuff that that we've currently worked on. but I always look at old stuff I've worked on and i'm like, oh, I wish I would have done this differently I cringe when I see some of my shots. Oh, I do too. I mean, and and it's funny too because there's like some stuff where, you know, it's fairly iconic, but there's mistakes in there.
00:28:01
Speaker
You know, I'm trying to think like, I don't know, Frozen, like I animated the scene in Frozen where Olaf's talking about Elsa going, she's the kindest, nicest, gentlest, you know, and he um you know becomes impaled by the icicle and he says, oh, look, I've been impaled.
00:28:19
Speaker
And everybody knows that shot. But, uh, It's funny, there's ah there's a mistake in there. and there's There's like a weird little pop that never got out of there. But I'll tell you a funny story about that shot.
00:28:30
Speaker
um His body continued to walk and it stopped and stumbled um when it hit the wall. And his head and torso were saying, oh, look at that, I've been impaled. And I just had his body walk over, stop and stumble.
00:28:43
Speaker
And one of the co-directors on that said, Jennifer Lee, and when Olaf laughed, she said, oh, you should make his disembodied body laugh separate from the head.
00:28:54
Speaker
So I took his disembodied butt and his feet. So if you see that movie, it has a little subtle up and down laugh. And those are like an example of the collaboration as to how maybe you take something to a certain level.
00:29:07
Speaker
The directors look at it, give you an idea, and you build upon it. I'd also say one of my favorite projects to work on, because I came back to Disney after working on a lot of other projects like Simpsons movie and i'm trying to remember some other other odd projects, but...
00:29:22
Speaker
I was Princess and the Frog, and i had I had a blast working on that project. I was an animator on that show on the character of Louis the Alligator. And that was very special. The supervising animator on that character was Eric Goldberg.
00:29:35
Speaker
And that character, and don't think he's a minor character. He's in the movie quite a bit. But that character was animated by only three people. Eric, myself, and another animator, Hyunmin Lee.
00:29:47
Speaker
Another co-worker of ours, to have full disclosure, Mario from Manchik. He did a really, really quick short shot of him when he walks into Mom Odi's ah house. But other than that, that was a special character because we had some ownership on that because it was a small team and the three of us animated, you know, practically every scene of him. So that was a nice adventure and a nice sub memory.
00:30:11
Speaker
For me, I'm very nostalgic about my Wilbenton years. It was my you know first job. and i was Growing up in Portland, I was obsessed with that studio and the claymation work there. I wish I would have been there in what's considered the classic claymation period of the eighty s But working on the PJs, that was probably a time of huge growth for me. We were shooting four seconds of animation, stop motion animation a day.
00:30:36
Speaker
you know, 125 frames a day. and ah that was directed, the supervising director was Mark Gustafson, who just, he passed away a year ago, and he won an Oscar for the stop motion Pinocchio film, Guillermo del Toro's film.
00:30:51
Speaker
Two years ago? Yeah, he was a very nice person. got you got to meet I only met him once and he made such an impact on me. I mean, I remember seeing him at an, actually at the Annie Awards and he had just won the award with Guillermo del Toro for Pinocchio.
00:31:06
Speaker
And, you know, He was a really rare, special person. Sometimes, you know, not putting anybody down, but sometimes when you go to these events and and show business and a lot of stuff, sometimes people will talk to you for a little bit. And then if they don't think you're super important, you kind of see them kind of looking around for somebody more important to talk to.
00:31:25
Speaker
And especially probably at events like that where there are a lot. of really terrific important people like oh so and so you know go go talk to them you know but mark i'd only met him once and he was so generous with his time he just looked at you intently i remember his eyes very clearly and gave so gave us wonderful full attention and was just a delight to talk to and he made an incredible impression on me and i'd only met him once but yeah i was very sad and shocked when he passed away
00:31:58
Speaker
I can certainly say he was one of the the nicest people that I'd ever met, especially someone, in a you know, that ah would had such an achievement and we just talking to to an animator like me. so wonderful person I wanted to mention. Yeah, he's such an amazing talent and that most people probably aren't aware of him, but...
00:32:15
Speaker
I love that Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. I think it's fantastic. I think that the imagining of a lot of the how they handled Pleasure Island and the coachman and Lampwood was was very dark and very bold and really, really unique. I i enjoyed that movie.
00:32:32
Speaker
So I wish I could have worked with him and knew him more. But I was really fortunate to meet him on that one occasion. If I had to pick a film during my DreamWorks years that I liked a lot, that would be Kung Fu Panda.
00:32:44
Speaker
That was a fun one to work on. I think you worked on Kung Fu Panda. Yeah, 1 and 2. Really? um I animated on the first film when he has the sticks and the bowls and he's... can't even remember what he's doing. He's just like... you remember that section? Did you work on Bee Movie?
00:32:56
Speaker
ah Oh yeah, that was interesting too. I could have worked with you it really quickly. I like to tell everybody this, but yes, I was out of work because I'd left it... I'd actually left Disney to go work on Lord of the Rings, or Return of the King, and then I...
00:33:09
Speaker
Worked on a lot of the other projects when i came back and I was out of work and um I actually was interviewed to animate on the B movie They
Comparing DreamWorks and Disney Experiences
00:33:17
Speaker
turned me down. Well, I got turned down by the B movie I was an interesting film because Jerry Seinfeld was involved daily with the animators from his office in New York He was basically the third director on that film.
00:33:30
Speaker
I heard about that. That would have been interesting. Yeah, I guess my path was meant to be different in the B movie. But yes, like I almost, so I, would had they hired me, I would have met you there no at that time and place.
00:33:44
Speaker
me and Bert, we've known each other since Frozen, but we didn't really become probably friends until we started doing the park stuff. I think so, yeah. I mean, I admired Kevin's work um a great deal, but, um you know, I was just very indebted to to Kevin, not just as a friend, but, you know, as a co-worker. i mean, I've As I mentioned before, I was the animation supervisor on um the Zootopia ride and the Peter Pan ride and had a lot of responsibility. And it was a very, very stressful project because it was being done in a very short amount of time and they wanted very high quality.
00:34:20
Speaker
And Kevin, I think, was the first person to complete a shot that really showed everybody what the project could be. And really, it was ah a tremendous boost.
00:34:34
Speaker
and And working together again on the Zootopia ride, he would always take on the the most amazing tasks and do it like nobody else. um One interesting thing is that working on those rides, it's I guess it's a little different for Tiana's and and and other things, but those rides that we work on, they insisted that the frame rate and the animation be 60 frames per second.
00:34:57
Speaker
And um that's just what they'd like it to be. And I think they do that with a lot of their live action stuff and screens. ah The animation process normally for us is we do 24 frames per second, and we're used to how that looks.
00:35:11
Speaker
And the thing about 60 frames per second is it inherently looks bad. It looks like that mode on TVs when you maybe go into Costco or whatever, or maybe your parents and they have it on that mode and it looks like live TV and it and it's moving really smooth because it's playing at a high frame rate and it's interpolating in frames and it looks kind of wired and sped up.
00:35:33
Speaker
And as a medium, animation looks best at 24 frames per second. so We had to find a way to make the Peter Pan ride and Zootopia look good at 60 frames per second.
00:35:44
Speaker
And we eventually got it. But I would say, thankfully for us, it just came to Kevin naturally. It was never a stumbling block for you. You just made everything look great at 60. but Well, we had a button, fortunately, where I could animate it at 30.
00:35:57
Speaker
And then it transferred to 60 frames. So I sort of cheated a little bit. Okay. Not necessarily, too, because to me, 30 and 60 are similar because they're not in a 24 frame time base. You know, it's still different timing.
00:36:09
Speaker
But yeah, so Kevin and I got ah really spent a lot of time on those projects and it was ah really great. And, you know, we have just kind of like an enjoyment for similar things.
00:36:21
Speaker
Sometimes my son joins us, but we like to go look at filming locations and find unique old school places to eat. There's not many left anymore. the ju The Jolly Jug. The Jolly Jug was not a good one. Sometimes. OK, so sometimes I've had hits and misses like the Jolly Jug was a miss and State Corral was a miss. Yeah.
00:36:41
Speaker
But did I have any hits? Did I ever take you anywhere good? Well, we discovered that Moffitt's restaurant. Moffitt's? Well, you discovered that. when you then you You discovered that. I just drove there.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah. But, yeah, we like kind of weird roadside attractions, old restaurants, that kind of stuff. Yeah. So so we kind of and and enjoy that
Personal Connections and Shared Hobbies
00:37:02
Speaker
stuff. And, you know, and actually I have to say we enjoy ah podcasts and blogs similar to these.
00:37:11
Speaker
We do too. Yeah, we we definitely do. Definitely do. But I had a question. I wanted to take it back a little bit, you know, from the beginning, especially with Kevin. You were working on Claymation and I want to know how that transition...
00:37:27
Speaker
has been from just starting with claymation, going all the way up to like the CGI and all of the, you know, working your way up. What challenges have you had along the way? And, you know, how was it transitioning from literally like from the decades before all the way up until now?
00:37:44
Speaker
Well, for me being at Wilburton, you know, they did the CG M&M commercials starting in the mid ninety s And I figured out pretty quickly right away that if I wanted to have a secure job there, work all the time, that I needed to learn CG animation.
00:38:00
Speaker
And they just happened to be training a group of folks. So when I was 18 years old, and I got my foot in the door there. They put me in this training group for about three months and taught me, you know, and I think for a stop motion... And I was going to say, when you were there, did you go back and forth between doing the CG M&Ms and stop motion? You didn't just switch to stop motion? I mean, to CG? No, no, no.
00:38:23
Speaker
It just depended on what projects were coming to the studios. That was great. It was a great variety of projects. i never really got bored. I would work on an M&M commercial, then I'd go down to the stage and do some stop motion for an NFL on Fox commercial or through Musketeers.
00:38:37
Speaker
So for a stop motion animator, i feel like it should be an easier transition to CG. You know, you're in the computer you're working with 3D models in a set you can turn around in 3D space in there.
00:38:48
Speaker
i'm Very similar, I'd say, in a way to stop motion, I guess. but It might be harder for two d folks, I don't know. Or they just aren't interested, that I'm not sure what it is. I think it might might be a little harder in some sense, but... um I would also say, too, that in your particular case, just like, you know, just ah Kevin's a very humble guy. He yeah very his stop motion work was incredibly high level.
00:39:10
Speaker
ah He's probably the only person I know of that was doing high level CG and would go to Leica to work on Paranorman and then go back to CG and do that. Because, ah look, stop motion is hard to do. i mean, if you look and see like Gumby, it's kind of jerky and like it's kind of poppy and jerky and really rough.
00:39:28
Speaker
I think Nightmare before Vincent and Nightmare before Christmas were one of the first ones to really show that it it could be more polished. And it's interesting because Nightmare looks pretty rough now if you look at it.
00:39:39
Speaker
ah But that group just got stronger and stronger. and kevin And Kevin's work was up there with the best of them. Well, I grew up in the sort of frame grabber age of stop motion where you could click through your shot as you're shooting it and play it back you know to get it as smooth as possible. And Another guy that was working there started as a production assistant named Travis Knight on the PJs.
00:40:02
Speaker
He's a now the founder, CEO of Laika. And his dad, Phil Knight, founded Nike. And Travis went from production assistant, he got into animation, and he turned out to be amazingly an amazing animator. And he I don't know how to say this, but yeah, he looked at my work and he liked the quality of the smoothness and keeping things alive, ah sort of.
00:40:25
Speaker
If a hand was in midair, you'd just add a little subtle movement to it and it wouldn't totally lock. you know He sort of picked up on that. and They had a lot of great stuff like that in Kubo, I noticed. There some really subtle stuff that I think Travis might have actually animated a little bit on. I don't want to say for sure.
00:40:40
Speaker
and he Did he do animation on it? but He directed it. He may have done a few shots. I don't know. There was like one shot I remember talking about in in an interview. I could be wrong. and It was incredibly smooth. but But basically, yeah, they they were a group doing very high-level work, and I think we try and do that now. We have animators that we enjoy, that we're inspired by, that we um you know maybe steal a little thing from once in a while, you know to like a little trick or two. Yeah, I always did these little dippity-doo head movements with my characters in stop-motion, and then Travis started to do a little dippity-doo with his character, and so it was funny. Yeah.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm trying to think. like i You mentioned Olaf before. That was a fun thing to work on. I actually so i did some of the very first test animation on Olaf. I was not the supervisor on that. The supervisor was Hiram Osman, but I did a lot of animation on the character. And I did some developmental work on him, too. i actually animated in a test shot of Olaf when he had a tongue.
00:41:40
Speaker
He had a tongue in that mouth. And i still have it on my ah saved locally. But yeah, I did ah some early test animation of him. And I remember one day they ah asked me, figure out a way to make him melt.
00:41:53
Speaker
And i did a version where he melted and it looks so grotesque. that the director said, you got to change that. It'll scare the children. like So I toned it way down.
00:42:06
Speaker
ah But yeah, i did ah I think I did in the first. i think i've done every i think I've done every time Olaf's melted. Every time he melts in the first film, and know I did a melting in that ah Olaf's Christmas adventure. What's that thing called? Olaf's Frozen Adventure. Is that what it's called?
00:42:23
Speaker
believe so. It's Christmas special he did that actually played with Coco. So yeah, I kind of ah had a, I melted Olaf quite a bit. Another character. Well, some people are worth melting for, I hear.
00:42:35
Speaker
yeah i animmate Yeah, I animated that shot. And I was thinking about that when I was talking about mistakes that I made because I was early on in CG animation and I animated him and Ana in that shot, but it was mostly focused on him.
Learning from Animation Mistakes
00:42:49
Speaker
And if you look at Ana in that shot really closely, I tried to do a blink and I did it way too fast and it looks really clicky and then I didn't really have the hang of it then. But I think it's interesting where that's a very iconic shot that I did animate, um but it does... have has a mistake in there i see my mistakes just like kevin does another character i just remembered that i really enjoyed working on was fred in big hero six oh he did great fred stuff i got to do a lot of early tests with him acting tests and then we did a science spinning test that was maybe going to be used for publicity it never ended up being used but then they cast me those shots in the film where he's introduced to us and he's doing the science spinning and yeah they just ended up uh giving me a lot of those shots
00:43:33
Speaker
When you work on a test early on with a character, you know if they like what you do, they tend to cast you a lot of that throughout the whole film. Yep. And that does happen because sometimes by the time it comes to casting and you're making the film, it's going so fast. You're like, oh What was it? Like, he's done that before.
00:43:51
Speaker
ah You'll be able to pull it off. no Yeah. Yeah. And I'm trying to remember. Kevin animated one of my favorite pieces of animation ever. It's a quick shot.
00:44:03
Speaker
Kevin did great stuff on the Weasel, on Duke Weaselton in Zootopia. and when he was First I animated the Duke of Weselton and the first Frozen where he introduced himself as the Duke of Weselton. Oh, I didn't know that was yours. So that's why I wanted to get the shots in Zootopia where we have Duke Weselton and he corrects him and says it's... What is it? Weselton something. I don't remember. Anyway, there's a tie-in with the two scenes, so I wanted to do both scenes in the film. But anyway. Yeah, my favorite Duke Weaselton shot that you did was on the end credits when they're at Gazelle's concert.
00:44:35
Speaker
And it shows the the weasel and he's doing this little dance and he's sneaking up behind and he steals the money out of the pocket and does this funny dance off screen. it It's absolutely brilliant. And Kevin did some brilliant stuff on... They almost didn't want that dance in there for some reason. like They didn't think he was supposed to be dancing in that moment, but...
00:44:53
Speaker
you did You went with it. Yeah. Kevin did some brilliant stuff too. and the um I worked with Kevin on the Zootopia Plus show. I don't know if you've seen those, but it's on Disney Plus and it's one that we're doing a lot of Disney Plus content and it was about...
00:45:08
Speaker
40 or 50 minutes worth of shorts, like five or six different episodes that took place in Zootopia. And Kevin did some brilliant stuff. I worked on them the Weasel song. I was a supervising animator on that. And Kevin did some brilliant work on that, where the Weasel's like in the courtroom and spinning around and dancing. And he's like a lawyer.
00:45:28
Speaker
But the best thing Kevin did in that show that I worked with him on was this brilliant sequence where It's like a play on what its the Housewives of Beverly
Excitement for Zootopia and Future Endeavors
00:45:37
Speaker
Hills. you know and It was with the shrews and and the mice.
00:45:40
Speaker
and the The shrews and the mice are having a fight and they're like breaking a chair over their head and fighting. That's some of my favorite animation. yeah Yeah, that was fun to work on. Those characters in Zootopia...
00:45:51
Speaker
are so fun to work with. ah I got to do work on the DMV sequence in the first movie with the sloth. had known that yeah I had the shot where Nick tells I'm blanking on his name. ah slash Flash? Flash. loves Flash the joke.
00:46:08
Speaker
But then I didn't get to animate the reaction of Flash. That was done by the brilliant Darren Butters. Yes, the famous time goes. Yeah, where his face just keeps growing and growing as he starts to laugh. Yeah.
00:46:19
Speaker
But it was but that was so fun to work on. And we're actually working on Zootopia too right now. We are working on Zootopia too. Yeah, it's going to fun. I'm excited to see that. Do y'all have anything that you're working on for the Tree of Life transition when Zootopia is taking over?
00:46:37
Speaker
That's actually what I'm working on right now. Bert's working on Zootopia 2. I will be eventually, but right now I am working on that Tree of Life show. And that has been announced. It's been announced. It's been announced. Kevin's doing some brilliant work on that. That's another situation where I would have loved to have worked on that park project, but unfortunately I was on another show. um I'm an animation supervisor on Zootopia 2, and you know sometimes when you're on a project,
00:47:02
Speaker
even if sometimes another one comes along that you really want to work on, you've got to fulfill your commitments to the project that you're currently on because folks are depending on you. So I had to miss this one, but it's going to be great. It's called Zoo Together Day? I don't know. I don't know if they've announced that yet. No, they have. They called it? saw it online. Yeah. It's going to be great. Yeah.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah. so I'm super excited about that. Although, of course, my kids grew up going to It's Tough to Be a Bug. So, um but, it you know, change is good. And that's what we were to expect. And I'm excited to see it.
00:47:37
Speaker
Yeah. and had a big show I love It's Tough to Be a Bug. That was such a great 3D show. and I wanted to ask you guys um Easter eggs. So, like when you said Weaselton and Weselton, to me, that i we I would never know that.
00:47:51
Speaker
except for you telling me that there's a connection on those two movies. Are there any other Easter eggs that you've worked on that you know of of, that you've drawn into other, like license plate numbers and things like that we've all heard? Are there any others?
00:48:07
Speaker
You know, there's this there's a scene I animated on Emperor's New Groove that I did not add the Easter egg into, and I think it's in there. I think i'm the cleanup artist, because I would do the rough animation and a cleanup artist would do it,
00:48:20
Speaker
There is a scene I did of Pacha, a quick shot, where you're in close on his face and he's falling right before he grabs onto something and doesn't die. But I think it was the first frame of the scene was a giant eye.
00:48:34
Speaker
and i think it was yeah I think they did something similar in Gaston where they might have drawn for one frame a skull and crossbones. But I think on my Pacha scene, think the cleanup artist drew like in the highlight of his eye, it was a hidden Mickey.
00:48:48
Speaker
So I have to look that up again. I remember that at the time. Hope nobody took it out. and know in Tiana's Bayou Adventure, My Mama Odie animation, where she's stirring the mixture in the tub, all this magic's kind of overflowing.
00:49:03
Speaker
And there is a little hidden Mickey that appears in that. But I don't think you see it. You only see it in the Walt Disney World version. ah The Disneyland version, you go through that scene much faster. So I don't think you see it there.
00:49:14
Speaker
It's within the leaves, right? The leaves? Yeah. um You mean down below when theyre when you shrink? or No, she's stirring the pot and you're like going up, right?
00:49:26
Speaker
I think it is? Yeah. It's right before you go down a little bit. Yeah. It's like okay yeah the bathtub scene and maybe the Mickey appears on the rocks. I can't remember it exactly. but I just remembered one, a a hidden Mickey that i worked on, and it's not very hidden. It was on Frozen 2. I animated and a section in Frozen 2 where Olaf is playing charades with ah Elsa and Hans and Sven, and he's transforming into different things, and he's doing a lightning round where he's turning into things really fast.
00:49:56
Speaker
And one of the objects that he turns into is a mouse. And the storyboard had it as a literal mouse, but I just kind of went for it. and kind of took him apart and tried to make him look like Mickey Mouse.
00:50:08
Speaker
And they went with it. Wow. So, so yeah. So I, I literally have Olaf turn into Mickey Mouse for a few frames.
00:50:20
Speaker
i love that. What I did, I think I like took like one of his calls and that was his nose. And then the other two calls were maybe a little bit bigger and those were the ears because Olaf doesn't really turn into Mickey Mouse very easily, but I think we pulled it off.
00:50:35
Speaker
Check it out nate out. Kevin and Bert, let me ask you this, um because you both ended up working for DreamWorks as well.
00:50:47
Speaker
So what are some of the differences between working for another company and, i mean, what's the experience? expectations for working for a place like DreamWorks compared to working for ah Walt Disney Animation? um is there Is there a big difference or is it just, you know, namesake and it's all the same thing? It's just the the movies that are different?
00:51:11
Speaker
I might have a good answer. Really quick, I just want to... I never actually worked at DreamWorks. I tried to work there, and I didn't get hired there. I will say, though, my wife worked at DreamWorks. She was an animator on the road to El Dorado on the the character Tulio.
00:51:24
Speaker
So I would visit her from time to time. And during that time, it was a very nice place to visit where they gave you free lunch every day. And it was... beautiful campus yeah i mean the campus is beautiful dreamworks uh free breakfast and lunch every day i got kind of sick of that though i always had to get out of the studio at lunchtime a lot of times and just i heard it all started to kind of taste alike yeah all right but with disney i think there's that amazing hundred year history that no other studio has what were are you gonna say i'm just gonna say a similar thing where i would say disney
00:51:58
Speaker
Freeper started doing live action and animated, but I'll tell you something about Disney. Disney is the company, the studio started out as an animation studio. That was the first thing they did was animation.
00:52:11
Speaker
And Warner Brothers, that wasn't the case with Warner. is Warner's, all the early Looney Tunes from the very beginning, I think up until the late 40s, were done by Leon Schlesinger Productions, and they subcontracted for Warner Brothers.
00:52:24
Speaker
And I only say this because... I think there's something in the Disney company's DNA with animation. And I and i feel like that's why they you know they've had their ups and downs, but why they're usually always the industry leaders, because it started as an animation studio. And I guess Walt would always say it all started with a mouse. So I guess that kind of plays together.
00:52:46
Speaker
Yeah, and we had Jerry Reese on. He worked on The Brave Little Toaster. and yeah and And one of the questions I asked him, and i tend to ask a lot of the animators that come out, we had David Block on and and some others, but a you know as much as Disney puts puts in the animation movies now,
00:53:14
Speaker
um I mean, there there there's movies that we talk about all the time on here that it just seems like you would just shrug your shoulders at, you know, what what happened? why Why wasn't Bolt successful? why was it Why didn't more people believe in the Black Cauldron or Oliver and Company, things like that?
00:53:35
Speaker
But it seems like um also with the second renaissance, starting with the Little Mermaid and moving up, it just seems like You know, there's more emphasis on productions of movies and the growth growth of movies.
00:53:51
Speaker
So what what's your guys' opinion on why why is it hard on some of some of the movies to be successful and others that you don't think are going to be successful and they actually work?
00:54:04
Speaker
Yeah. nobody tries to make an unsuccessful movie. I think they're in the business hoping it will will be successful. Sometimes it's, ah if it doesn't come together, it's the timing, death by a thousand cuts, you know, meaning like all, maybe the whole bunch of other little things kind of came together in one place for it to kind of not reach its potential.
00:54:23
Speaker
But I would say that, yeah, when I say mermaid was definitely a film that did that and A lot of people went to go see that, and it was a big success, and that success brings breeds more production.
00:54:37
Speaker
ah But I don't think anybody goes out of their way to make a bad project. I think it's just the nature of the business. I mean, there's always these sort of dips, and then there's a period where it's hugely successful. and boom Yeah, the dips are a lot less fun than when it's successful.
00:54:51
Speaker
I mean, it's it's sort of as simple as that. I think everything the intention is for... it to have been good. And, you know, sometimes it doesn't land, you know, sometimes the audience just didn't, didn't, didn't like it. I mean, that wasn't the intent, but that happens.
00:55:06
Speaker
I think I sometimes think that about Disney attractions as well, too, because, you know, some people who enjoy the old rides and when you bring something new in, they're kind of like, Oh, why are you doing this? When the old one was just as, as good.
00:55:22
Speaker
um But going into what what were some of the exciting things? You mentioned some of the exciting things that you were able to work on in the parks. um what What do you think about the the expansion and what is going on with the new, you know,
00:55:40
Speaker
new things that are coming into the parks. You mentioned some of the things you've done overseas and things like that. i mean, are we just going to be totally immersed at with ah new CGI and things like that?
Future of Disney Parks and Technology
00:55:54
Speaker
The only thing I'll say is we always try and avoid talking about stuff that's unannounced or stuff coming into the future.
00:56:00
Speaker
um The only thing I'll say is I hope that there is more animation and attractions and that we get to work on them because it's a lot of fun. So yeah, I sort of like take it as it comes and definitely just sort of prefer just talking about stuff that's either been announced or stuff that we've worked on.
00:56:16
Speaker
But my hope is is that um you know the stuff's popular, people pay to go see it, and they use us to animate more. That's kind of where we're at. I think the animation needs to be used in an effective way for it to blend in with the ride, you know, because I love animatronics and everyone I'm sure loves animatronics. and I know some people are critical of screens, but yeah, I've heard some people that have been critical of the Peter Pan ride for screens haven't actually ridden on it. and the way And the way that that ride comes together in stereo and with the immersive sets, I think really is is very unique.
00:56:52
Speaker
Whereas the three Cavalieros ride is just plain screens. Um, You know, I don't know. I guess it depends. I mean, I will say this. I think there is a popular thing to do to to bash on too many screens. But, you know, lot of work is put into those screens.
00:57:07
Speaker
Those screens do not just appear by themselves, you know. But, you know, you never know because there could be like animatronic that goes down and they could use B mode and need you guys for that. So sure there's always some there's always a backup that is needed for, you know, something that of that nature.
00:57:23
Speaker
Oh, here's a fun little Easter egg, B-mode, if you ever make it to China. In the sha Shanghai Zootopia ride, which Kevin worked on with me, there's a part where if your car is like, towards the end of the ride, you pass by like a donutnu screen a great dome with a donut truck, and, you know, Klawhauser has a fun little thing, and he runs off, but if the ride ever stops...
00:57:45
Speaker
And you're there for a while. There's a fun bit where a cop comes around and snatches a donut and eats at a sheep cop and then walks off. And Kevin did that. So sometimes they'll have us do little bits of alternative stuff.
00:57:59
Speaker
And there is actually a name for that, a technical term that i never knew before working on rides. They call those cascades. Whenever the ride is stopped and the screen needs to continue.
00:58:10
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I've never seen a write-through that actually shows that animation, so maybe it's out there. It's got to be, but I mean, it who knows how it may... Maybe it doesn't break down very often. Yeah. yeah I don't think on Peter Pan we had too many of those.
00:58:23
Speaker
But you did the donut cop. That was fun. well There's also another one that that that's fun, in a fun cascade on the Zootopia ride, is that there's a part where you see where Flash pulls up right before you go into Kevin's shot, where you're going through the dome and looking at things, and if you're car is stuck flash i'll just keep talking to you very very slowly you know so kind of funny yeah yeah stuff like that that's that's awesome don you have another question I'm probably older and older than everyone here. I don't know. Barry and I think of it. Anyway, Gumby, I remember Gumby being claymation and watching that and loving that. And it's just such an iconic. Everybody knows Gumby. You know, at one point, people were wearing T-shirts with Gumby on it. I remember because it was so cool. Right.
00:59:13
Speaker
um So did your parents ever like. Wonder, Kevin, like, okay, this, my kid's playing with clay all the time. And then what kind of clay do you use to make the claymation for anybody that's wanting to start out with something like that?
00:59:28
Speaker
My parents were very supportive of whatever I wanted to do. They didn't try to force me like to do sports or anything. I was interested in making little movies. and That's awesome. They just went along with it. But yeah, the clay is called, it's just plasticine modeling clay. you'd like Van Eken clay.
00:59:43
Speaker
You can get it in any art store. and never dries out. I still have figures here from my childhood that I made from like 30 some years ago now. Neat.
00:59:53
Speaker
thirty some years ago now
00:59:57
Speaker
meat What's your favorite thing to work on? Do you still like to go to the claymation stuff or do you, what is your go-to if you could choose anything?
01:00:10
Speaker
a Like as a professional working on stuff? Yeah. I'm happy with what I'm doing right now. i'm working on so many fun projects. um The older I get, the more i think, I don't know if I'd want to do stop motion again. It's very hard on your body, very hard mentally, because you have to, it requires your full attention all day long.
01:00:30
Speaker
Not that CG doesn't require your attention, but... Well, you can be a little more relaxed. Yeah, you can save, you can walk away, you don't have to worry about hitting a light or bumping something. Yeah, but just the standing all day. I'm i'm in my mid-40s now, so I'm sort of at that stage. It's kind of a young person's ah profession, I feel like. There's still a few folks that are sticking with it at this age, into their 50s, too. Yeah, I went back and did hand-drawn animation on this. Did you guys ever see the Once Upon a Studio short they did for the 100th anniversary?
01:01:00
Speaker
guys have seen that. And I, you know, I went back and did a hand drawn animation on a number of scenes there. And the very first things I did, at the idea, it was the whole thing was going to be on paper, but my eyes had deteriorated so much. And so I had drawn hand drawn. I had a really hard time seeing up close on the paper and I had to actually continue the project animating digitally because when you animate digitally, you can use the magnifying glass to zoom in.
01:01:27
Speaker
and you can actually draw something fairly large and then when you go out of that mode it's the size it's supposed to be so yeah that was uh it was sort of like in line with like what you're talking about just kind of like it's hard on your back and you can't draw an animation you tend to be hunched over more don't think this is any better i tend to slouch and lean back when i do the cg animation think in general i just need to exercise more yes it's uh Yeah, it's rough, and I would say that it's ah it's kind of compulsive doing animation, you know, because we want to get it right.
01:02:02
Speaker
I've also been getting into, outside of work, doing little live-action documentaries. I love classic Disney live-action films from, like, the 50s and sixty s into the 70s as well.
01:02:15
Speaker
ah did one on with Michael McGreevy. He was in those Kurt Russell Metfield College movies. other I just interviewed Hank Jones. He was in Blackbeard's Ghost with Peter Ustinov. He played Gudger Larkin.
01:02:27
Speaker
So I'm working on a little documentary um about his experience on Blackbeard's Ghost and the other Disney projects that he did. And Jeanne Russell, she was Margaret on Dennis the Menace. I did a little documentary on her experience. She was also one of the school children in The Birds. So she worked with Alfred Hitchcock on that.
01:02:47
Speaker
and she's a friend of mine and also my chiropractor. So that's how I knew her. Yeah, Kevin's but kevin videos are wonderful and i'll put a little plug for one of my side projects. My wife and i make an animated series of shorts called Pups of Liberty.
01:03:03
Speaker
Some longer ones, some shorter ones, but we do them in collaboration with ah Mark Hen who was just inducted as a Disney legend. And yeah, Mark has been working with us outside of the studio on those for years and Now that he is retired, you know, he's going to be, you know, we he's going to still be animating except on our Pups at Liberty shorts. So yeah if you ever want to say any part of his work, of you know, he's animating great Disney quality work on these fun historical fiction shorts that we do with these animated dogs and cats.
01:03:33
Speaker
um Go to a YouTube and look up Pups at Liberty and you'll see plenty of things on
Promoting Side Projects and YouTube Channels
01:03:37
Speaker
there. Yeah, they're super charming and I've been putting my little shorts on them it's on my YouTube channel, My Location Classic Hollywood. I just started it last year, so but that's kind of where all my stuff has been ending up.
01:03:51
Speaker
Cool. I was just about to ask, you know is there any other social media or is it just YouTube that you guys have that you'll be promoting? or I think just YouTube for me. Yeah, I would say that of Liberty gets a fair amount of views on YouTube, but TikTok gets a huge amount of views. So yes, if you want to look at the Pups of Liberty TikTok channel, that that one is ah probably our most popular platform.
01:04:19
Speaker
That's cool. Thank you. All right, we're going to go ahead and wrap up this episode. I want to thank Kevin and Bert for taking time to – my head is so full. I think I need to go shake it out to start for next week.
01:04:36
Speaker
i it just you animators just just blow my mind every time you guys come on here because it's just it's just the time it takes for you guys to do a movie or even do an attraction it's just it's just my own so i personally want to thank you for that for for um for the wonderful things you've done um Again, we'll have to have you guys come back on again and tell us more about all the wonderful things you guys guys are working on. So thank you for coming on and for for talking with us tonight.
01:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for having us. All right. All right. And that's going to be it for us for tonight. And until next time, keep sharing the magic.
01:05:28
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for another enchanting episode of Sharing the Magic. We are the Thinking Fans Podcast, an edutainment show where education and entertainment collide each week. We bring you whimsical interviews with Disney guests who share their magical experiences and reveal how they are woven into the Disney fabric.
01:05:46
Speaker
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01:06:05
Speaker
Until next time, keep sharing the magic.