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Animation Process Part 1: Thumbnailing, Keys, and Extremes

[chipsandsolstice]

A week or so ago I finally finished this little dance animation that I’ve been chipping away at in my spare time! In the end it took me about 45 hours over the course of 8 months.

I documented each stage of the process in gifs and wanted to share in order to give anyone just starting out an insight into my workflow and how I break a complex motion into digestible, accomplish-able chunks so that I don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of work that’s ahead.

In this first part I’m going explain a little bit of my approach to thumbnailing. The great thing about this part of the hand drawn animation process is that I would approach it the same way in ANY piece of software. This stage is just about drawing and timing. Even the lowest tier programs can do that. It’s not until the cleanup stage that any of the bells and whistles matter.

The Research Stuff

Before starting any drawings I like to search around youtube for inspiration; especially if it’s an action I’m not entirely familiar with. I had just watched the webseries The Earliest Show in which Lauren Lapkus and Ben Schwartz do a lot of really great dancing, so I studied a couple of those frame by frame. I also looked at some swing dancing competition videos to get a feel for the basic steps.

https://youtu.be/plOMomN9F5g?t=25m25s

For stuff like dancing or even playing an instrument I’m not familiar with I like to sometimes look up a couple beginners’ tutorials just to get some ideas for how to approach the movement.

This isn’t days of research. It’s just half an hour to an hour to get a feel for what you want to accomplish. Anything more than that and it can easily turn into procrastination.

The Drawing Stuff

Once I’m satisfied with my research I begin the thumbnailing process. As you can see, my drawings at this point are only slightly more detailed than a stick figure. I’m not worried at all about mass, I’m just trying to nail down some simple, clear poses.

The Animation Stuff

In order to not be overwhelmed by everything I like to approach scenes in a very systematic way. I’d say 90% of the animation I do is Pose to Pose meaning that I break actions up into 4 different types of drawings

Keys: The main storytelling poses. If the story of the shot is “Man hears news and is disappointed” then you only have two keys to do - the man hearing the news, and the man being disappointed. I’m not thinking about how he’s going to get from pose to pose at this point, I’m just thinking “What’s the best drawing to show that this man is really disappointed”.

Extremes: These are all the poses that have to be there in order for the action to work. If someone is walking across the room it’s every drawing where their feet make contact with the ground. If someone’s jumping in the air it’s the anticipation down and the highest point of their arc. The way I think of them is that they’re the furthest up, down, left, and right the character is going to go as well as any drawing where they make contact.

Breakdowns: These are the poses that establish or reinforce the physics behind the motion. If an arm is swinging forward and the hand drags behind this is the drawing that shows that. When a character does a high kick and puts the entire weight of their body into it this is the drawing that shows the hips shoving forward as the foot just starts to lift from the ground.

Inbetweens: The drawings that smooth out and polish the movement. Here I’m focused solely on the spacing of the drawings. Is it slowing out or slowing in? How far do I want to favor one way or the other? What’s the shape of the path of action? Are the drawings following a nice arc?

This is one of many ways to categorize the drawings. I’ve seen a lot of people who combine extremes into their keys phase, and others who combine extremes into their breakdown phase, and others still who do breakdowns while they’re inbetweening. This is just what works for me.

(For a more thorough explanation of Keys, Extremes, Breakdowns, and Inbetweens see pages 64-68 of Richard Williams’ The Animator’s Survival Kit)

For the thumbnails I’m only focusing on the Keys and the Extremes.

First I do the keys which for the first dance involve these four drawings:

As you can see there’s no thought about the weight of the movement. That’s fine. I’m just establishing how he’s going to hit each accent.

From there we go to the Extremes

Here I start to add a little bit of weight to it. The main things the extremes (in green) are establishing is the foot pattern. How is he passing his weight from one leg to the other?

With the torso I wanted to loosen it up a little bit. If you look at the keys they all have a really similar line of action. I reversed the line of action for the extremes which adds more change of shape and helps it feel more lively - even at this early stage

The arms are just establishing the passing positions of the arm swing. They’re fairly straightforward.

If you notice, these extremes have a lot of qualities of breakdowns in them. If I had to label them more precisely I’d say that what I’m calling the extremes are the contact drawings of the legs combined with the passing positions (breakdowns) of the upper body. I call them extremes instead of breakdowns because the legs are the most important part of these drawings and I wouldn’t consider those legs broken down at all; they’re just contact drawings. These hybrid drawings are the reason that so many animators categorize drawings differently. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what you call any of this stuff as long as it makes sense to you and the end result looks good.

The Technical Stuff

At this point the entire animation is just a rough drawing on one layer. I would do this exactly the same in Harmony, Flash, Photoshop, or TV Paint. As long as you have drawing tools and a timeline you can thumbnail out animation like this

Extra Pro tip: It’s really helpful at this stage to establish some kind of basic ground plane or perspective - even if it’s just a character dancing in a void. This really helped keep the 3 Dimensional space in mind while planning his footwork. It also reminded me to have the character lean a little forward and backward in Z space as he’s moving. It’s easy to forget that kind of stuff when a character’s facing camera. Without it the animation will always feel a little flat.

That’s it for my thumbnailing process! If you found it helpful check out the next posts in the series!
Part 2: Rough Keys/Extremes and the Shift and Trace Technique

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1970 Hanna-Barbara licensing guide

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31 of The Most Beautiful & Profound Excerpts in Literature That Will Make You Fall In Love With Life

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culturenlifestyle:

Topic: Literature, Books, Lists || by STAFF

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Whenever we are feeling down, we tend to crutch to our favorite songs, films and our favorite words. As cliche as it seems, reading quotes helps us to psychologically process the events we experience in our daily life. We feel better because we realize that other people have the same emotions we do and share our reality. The power of empathy makes us feel fulfilled and provides us with closure. We encourage you to have a look at these 31 literary excerpts, which will feed and soothe your soul.

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1.“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

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Keep reading

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[theartofanimation]

Ramón Nuñez  -  https://www.patreon.com/ramonn90  -  https://twitter.com/ramon_n90?lang=es  -  http://www.pictaram.com/user/ramonn90/1904461226  -  https://www.instagram.com/ramonn90  -  http://nl.ink361.com/app/users/ig-1904461226/ramonn90/photos  -  https://www.behance.net/RAMON_N90  -  http://rnn90.tumblr.com  -  https://plus.google.com/100045573225526707840  -  https://vimeo.com/ramonn90  -  https://www.artstation.com/artist/ramonn90  -  http://cargocollective.com/RamonN90  -  https://www.facebook.com/RNN90  -  https://es.pinterest.com/ramonn90  -  https://www.youtube.com/user/neydryu

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[the-disney-elite]

(Note: This is part 3 of the interview. To here to read part 1, click here. To read part 2, click here.)

Stephen Anderson began his career at Disney as a storyboard artist on Tarzan. He then served as Head of Story on The Emperor’s New Groove and Brother Bear, before making the leap to director on the criminally underrated Meet the Robinsons.

So what has Stephen been up to at Disney since MtR, and what advice does he have for others hoping to make art and animation their livelihood? Let’s let him explain in the third and final part of our interview…

Part 3: Modern-Day Disney (a.k.a. Keep Moving Forward)

The Disney Elite: After Meet the Robinsons, you co-directed another one of Disney’s overlooked gems, Winnie the Pooh. How did that come about?

Stephen Anderson: I went into development after MtR.  I pitched a few ideas and then focused on one for about a year. Then late in ‘08, John Lasseter called me in to his office and told me that Bob Iger wanted to embark on a company-wide crusade to bring Winnie-the-Pooh back into prominence, and he wanted it to start with a feature film. Would I be interested?

I was initially not, feeling like I didn’t really have any connection to Pooh or the other characters. But then I started remembering that I had a Winnie-the-Pooh record album that I listened to constantly, and my family had the all four of the A.A. Milne books on our shelf that I used to read and I had Pooh jammies and I watched the original films on The Wonderful World of Disney, and suddenly I realized I DID have a connection to the Hundred Acre Wood. So I agreed to do it. [Lasseter] also told me that I’d be co-directing with my good friend Don Hall, who had just come off of being head of story on Princess and the Frog. So it all came together like that. Pretty simple.

The Disney Elite: In the years since Winnie the Pooh, you’ve worked as an “additional story artist” on Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Zootopia and Moana. (That’s quite a run!) But the IMDB credit that really fascinates me is “creative leadership: Walt Disney Animation Studios”. What does this mean, and how did you come to it?

Stephen Anderson: That ‘creative leadership’ credit is one that all of the directors at the studio receive on our films. We’re all part of what we call the 'Story Trust.’ We give each other feedback on our scripts, outlines, screenings, etc.  We’re as honest as we can be with each other about the strengths as well as where things could be improved. This is our way of making sure that each film is the best it can be. This is a practice that was started up at Pixar many years ago. They call their group the 'brain trust.’ When John came to lead our studio, he brought this concept with him.

The Disney Elite: I know for a fact that my personality was partially shaped by the characters and story-lines in old Disney cartoons. As a writer, director and “creative leader” at Walt Disney Animation, how does it feel to go to work every day knowing you are helping to craft the stories that MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF CHILDREN – FOR DECADES TO COME – will look to for laughter and life-advice? (No pressure.)

Stephen Anderson: All of us have an enormous sense of pride to be making films at Disney and we know it’s a huge responsibility. We know that our work can have quite an impact on people, and we take that very seriously. A lot of discussion goes into the statements that our movies make. How can they make positive statements yet not be over-simplified or feel falsely optimistic. We always want to lean into universal truths. Create stories and characters that can comment on what it means to be human. The more our stories are about the core of humanity, the more universal they are because human nature never changes. These are the stories that can transcend gender, race, culture, etc. and that’s what we have to do because we make movies on such a global scale.

The Disney Elite: In a 2016 interview on The Tiara Talk Show, you teased, “I can’t talk about specifics, but I am developing a new feature film. It’s many, many years away. It’s still very early. I’m very excited about the idea. I think it has the potential to be a really great movie – of course we’re all going to say that this early in the process, but I really do think it can be a great movie. It feels like classic Disney, but at the same time feels very fresh and new and like something we haven’t done before. So I’m pretty excited about that. Since right now it’s still pretty early in development, there’s no storyboarding being done. I’m just directing this one.” Okay, so…IS THIS STILL A THING?!?!?!

Stephen Anderson: Yes, my development project is still a thing. I just had a check-in with John Lasseter yesterday morning, and all is going well on it. If all goes as planned, our writer will be writing a script starting late summer-ish. Wish I could tell you about it, but sadly, I cannot. Hopefully it will be officially announced soon and then I can.

The Disney Elite: I know I’m probably pushing it, but can I ask if it’s a musical?

Stephen Anderson: Yes, we are discussing the possibility of a musical. And that’s all I’m going to say :) :) :)

Part 4: Advice for Aspiring Animators

The Disney Elite: LAST QUESTION! What words of wisdom can you share with our readers hoping to make art their life?

Stephen Anderson: Well, I always tell people that in order to be successful in animation, you have to be open to collaboration. It may sound like a cliche but it’s so true. Hundreds of people make these movies and you get nowhere if you’re hesitant to share your work, accept critiques, and let other people into your process. It’s tough because so many animation artists - and artists in general - are introverts and would rather just do their work at their desk and let it speak for itself. But that’s so opposite to how the animation process works.

For me as an artist, my lifelong pursuit is conquering fear. I tend to let my fear of judgment, criticism and comparison affect me and I am constantly trying to overcome it. I’m trying to get to a place where I can create with total freedom and fearlessness. There are moments when I can do it. Most of the time, it’s a struggle. Will I ever get to that point? Probably not. Is it a journey more than a destination? Probably so. So I guess that’s what I would say to others as well. Strive to create without fear. Remember when you were a child and art was fun and free? It was because you didn’t know there was a 'right’ and 'wrong’ way to do things. You hadn’t been told about the do’s and don'ts yet. I wish and hope that all of us can reclaim that feeling of childhood creation.

One last bit of thanks to Stephen Anderson:

Honestly, Steve…THANK YOU FOR AGREEING TO DO THIS INTERVIEW! I am not exaggerating when I ramble on and on about how much MtR means to me! It’s not only a silly, sometimes sappy, always extremely pleasant world to lose oneself in for an hour and a half, it’s also a sort of salve for those of us who have lived through (and are living through) family situations that weren’t always as smooth as 90s CG surfaces. There’s a real depth to MtR, and the emotions it portrays – both tragic and ecstatic – are never less than fully relatable. Pretty effing amazing for a candy-colored cartoon about time-traveling science geeks and their singing frog!

Now that I’ve gotten the chance to get to know – just a little – the man behind the movie, it doesn’t surprise me to learn that you are just as smart, funny and endearing. Needless to say, I CANNOT wait to see your next film. Best of luck, and ‘Keep moving forward!’

All art via Stephen Anderson’s Instagram

NOTE: This interview would not have been possible without the kindness and assistance of tumblr user Morgan – a.k.a. that-guy-in-the-bowler-hat. Morgan runs the internet’s PREMIER Meet the Robinsons archive and fansite. If you are a fan of MtR, you MUST check out his tumblr a.s.a.p.!

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[the-disney-elite]

(Note: This is the part 2 of the interview. To read part 1, click here.)

Stephen Anderson began his career at Disney as a storyboard artist on Tarzan. He then served as Head of Story on The Emperor’s New Groove and Brother Bear, before making the leap to director on Meet the Robinsons.

So how did Stephen first hook up with Disney, and how many Meet the Robinsons-related anecdotes can I squeeze from his brain? Let’s find out in the second part of our EXCLUSIVE three-part interview…

Part 2: Working at Disney

The Disney Elite: You started your career at Disney as a storyboard artist on Tarzan. How did that come about?

Stephen Anderson: I got to Disney through a colleague at Hyperion. I became friends with Kevin Lima, who came to Hyperion to direct a feature adaptation of Thumbalina. His co-director was Chris Buck, who had been my animation teacher at CalArts. I helped out on that film as much I could because I loved the idea and I loved working with those two. Eventually the project got shelved and those guys left. Kevin went to Disney and directed A Goofy Movie and after that, Disney wanted him to direct Tarzan. He chose Chris Buck as his co-director and so, because of those connections, I was able to become a part of their story team on Tarzan. We’ve all heard that cliche about how so much of success is who you know? This was a perfect example of that.

The Disney Elite: After working in Story on Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove and Brother Bear, you made the leap to director on Meet the Robinsons. Would you explain how you made that huge transition?

Stephen Anderson: First off, the only thing I wanted to do more than be an animator was to be a director. In fact, directing (and screenwriting/filmmaking in general) really took over the older I got. As a teenager, I started seeing more diverse kinds of movies, learning about filmmakers, reading about how movies are made, about screenplay structure, about what a director is, and I grew to love the idea of moviemaking. It was really the films of Steven Spielberg that changed my path and made me want to be a director. First off, the level of emotion and audience reaction that I saw and felt when I watched his films was something I wanted to be able to give to an audience someday. Loving his films then made me want to learn more about him so through reading articles and interviews and watching ‘making of’ specials, I decided that that’s what I wanted to do. So this was always the goal beyond the goal.

After Tarzan, I became interested in pursuing the Head of Story role and was fortunate to be asked to fill that role on Groove and on Brother Bear. I had asked, before Brother Bear, if I could be considered for a directing position in the future so we were already having that conversation. Since I’d been performing leadership roles, they were open to the idea. I helped develop a project for the studio on the side, during the last year of Brother Bear, with the thought that if it continued, I’d be the director. It did NOT continue. I finished Brother Bear, moved back to California (because we had to relocate to Orlando for that project), and was then handed a script for A Day with Wilbur Robinson. 

The Disney Elite:Meet the Robinsons was one of Disney’s early entries into CG animated features. While Pixar had already released such brilliant films as Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and The Incredibles, over at Disney there was just Dinosaur and Chicken Little. Was Meet the Robinsons always intended as a CG film, and were you at all nervous and/or hesitant about making it one?

Stephen Anderson: Boy, the memory is getting hazy but, as far as I can remember, MtR was always intended to be a CG feature. Yes, in fact I remember that while I was still on Brother Bear, the announcement was made that the studio was transitioning out of hand drawn. I was slightly anxious about doing CG just because it was something new I had to learn on top of already trying to learn how to be a good director. But to me, the creative stuff is always the biggest challenge and the thing that occupies my mind most of the time. Disney has the best people in the world so I’m always confident that the movie will look good, sound good, etc. And I was lucky to have such great artistic and technical leadership surrounding me. I trusted them to help me out if I was confused or uncertain about the technology. They all gave me a boot camp in computer animation at the beginning so I felt like I had a pretty good foundation starting out and I felt safe asking about anything I didn’t know.

The Disney Elite: Meet the Robinsons was the first of Disney’s CG films that made me think, “Now THIS is the perfect pairing of film and format!” The slick, shiny surfaces of the CG at that time really served to complement the futuristic, retro/moderne look of your film. Not only that, but while Pixar was aiming more and more for a photorealistic approach to their animation, your cartoon was, well, CARTOONY! And not just the backgrounds and characters, but also the animation itself. For a relatively early CG film, you got some gorgeously goofy character animation in there! If you wouldn’t mind, would you make a list of the films – animated or otherwise – that you used as inspiration for Meet the Robinsons?

Stephen Anderson: Well story-wise, we looked at the movie You Can’t Take It With You. It’s also about an eccentric family with quirky personalities and passions. Bill Joyce, the author/illustrator of the book that MtR is based on, told me that You Can’t Take It With You was a huge influence on him when he was creating the Robinson family. With our art director, Robh Ruppel, we talked a lot about The Wizard of Oz and how that movie goes from a sepia palette to a Technicolor palette and that influenced the look of the distant past (when we see Lewis’ mother giving him up it’s sepia) and the future (bright, bold and Technicolor). With the animators, we looked at scenes of Jim Carrey as inspiration for both Wilbur and Bowler Hat Guy. Also a lot of Looney Tunes. We used to say that Lewis is a Disney character and Wilbur and the Robinsons are Warner Looney Tunes characters. Lewis moves in more of a solid, natural, Disney-type of animation and the Robinsons are zippier and invade your personal space more like Looney Tunes characters. Those are some of the main influences I can think of.

The Disney Elite: Another wonderfully cartoony element of the film is your choice of voice-actors. The voice-work often reminds me more of 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoons than anything Disney was doing at the time. I mean, there are some really unexpected picks in there (Batman’s Adam West, Roseanne’s Laurie Metcalf, There’s Something About Mary’s Harland Williams), all of whom do an AMAZING job. Oh, and then there’s YOU – voicing not one, not two, but THREE characters, including the mustache-twirling Bowler Hat Guy! Care to share the story behind that bit of kismet casting?

Stephen Anderson: Thank you for saying that about our voice actor choices. I’ve always been such a fan of those classic voice actors and I liked approaching our casting that way. We thought it best to not go with big names, but just solid character performers. To me, actors who have experience in theater, sketch comedy and improv are really best for animation because they know how to create strong and clear characters.

As far as my involvement goes, it’s pretty simple. I’m sure you know about the work-in-progress reels that we create, where we take our story boards and cut them to temp vocals, music and sound fx. Well, I did the temp voices for those characters and, after several screenings with my voice in there, folks just got used to it and eventually I became the voice of those characters. It was the same with other members of the team. Frankie the Frog, Uncle Gaston and Lewis’ coach, Lefty the butler, the t-rex that BHG unleashes - those were all voiced by members of the story crew.

The Disney Elite: Meet the Robinsons is one of those rare movies that makes me tear up every time I watch it. This is all the more rare seeing as how for most of the film, it’s funny, funny, FUNNY. It seems to me like this kind of emotional punch can only be created when a writer/director is willing to put their own emotions and experiences into their work. Was this true for you? And if so, would you mind sharing a bit of your personal story that effected the story being told in Meet the Robinsons?

Stephen Anderson: The adoption part of the story was not in Bill Joyce’s original book. That was something that two development executives and a writer had built in to the first draft of the script, long before I’d come on to the project. When the studio handed me that script, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. While my story differs from Lewis’, I still totally identified with his quest to know who his mother is and to find out why she gave him up. And the studio had no idea that I was adopted so it was a complete coincidence. Because I understood Lewis so well, I was able to bring out that emotional side much more. It was there in the original draft, but I felt we could strengthen it.

The theme of ‘Keep Moving Forward’ evolved out of early discussions about adoption and my personal feelings about it. My parents were very open with me about it and told me I was adopted at a very early age. They used to tell me that when I became 18, I could access my records and find out who my birth parents were and that they would support me in that. So for many years, I looked towards that age as a big milestone and I was determined to find out where I came from. Then one day, I realized my 18th birthday had come and gone and I’d totally forgotten about starting this search. I’d gotten distracted by life, CalArts, starting a career, getting married, etc. And I was so lucky to have been adopted by such a loving family. What would finding my birth parents change? Nothing really. In fact, I’ve heard stories about people having very negative experiences reconnecting with birth parents and that sometimes it makes things worse for them. So the important thing was to not focus on the past but on the positive present and the promising future. And that helped us all realize that that’s exactly what Lewis is going through too.

The Disney Elite. Wow. I’m damned near speechless. That right there made my day, my week, my YEAR. That was incredibly moving and inspiring, Stephen. Thanks so much for sharing that.

Thursday: In Part 3 of our interview, Stephen Anderson tells us about his life at Disney post-Meet the Robinsons. There’s his work as director on Winnie the Pooh, his place in Disney’s famed ‘Story Trust’…oh, and his upcoming, TOP SECRET animated feature film project! He’ll also offer some GREAT advice for folks hoping to make art their life. If this sounds like YOU, make sure to come back and check it out. I hope you’ll join us!

All art via Stephen Anderson’s Instagram

NOTE: This interview would not have been possible without the kindness and assistance of tumblr user Morgan – a.k.a. that-guy-in-the-bowler-hat. Morgan runs the internet’s PREMIER Meet the Robinsons archive and fansite. If you are a fan of MtR, you MUST check out his tumblr a.s.a.p.!

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[the-disney-elite]

There are very few films that took me by surprise as much as Meet the Robinsons. As a huge film/animation nerd, I tend to know a lot (too much?) about a film way before it ever hits theaters. As such, I’ve usually got a pretty good guess as to what my reaction will be before I even sit down to watch a movie. But there are exceptions. Those films that didn’t get much of a push in the press. Those smaller, more personal films that the big studios don’t quite know how to market. And those films I was just too clueless to pay the proper attention to. Disney’s Meet the Robinsons was a combination of all of these. Ah, but when I finally DID see it? Tears of laughter! Tears of sadness! Tears of joy! The tear duct trifecta!

Films about ‘family’ are my favorite made-up film genre. Lilo & Stitch, Summer Wars, The Royal Tenenbaums…maybe it’s my own less-than-stellar early years that has me gobbling up these masterpieces like Reeces Pieces, but I LOVE these films’ portrayal of the ups and downs of family life. Meet the Robinsons is definitely on that list, too. That’s why I’m DELIGHTED to get the chance to interview Stephen Anderson, Meet the Robinsons’ director, co-writer and the voice of three (THREE!) of its most memorable characters – Tallulah, Grandpa Bud + Bowler Hat Guy!

But before I drown Anderson in minutia-laden questions about MtR, let’s take some time to find out a bit about the man himself…

Part 1: The Early Years

The Disney Elite: Would you please tell us a bit about your background? I’ve read that you were adopted as a baby, and that this was one of the things that attracted you to Meet the Robinson. I’m curious: Where did you grow up? Was your family full of artists, or were you the uncontested King of Crayons?

Stephen Anderson: My family is from central eastern Pennsylvania - from a little coal mining town called Shamokin. I was born, and then adopted, in Byron, Georgia but don’t remember a thing about it because my family moved away when I was still an infant. My Dad was a mechanical engineer in the baking industry and he was transferred to different plants quite a bit. As a result, we moved from Georgia to Arvada, Colorado. Then back to Pennsylvania, to a suburb of Philadelphia called Hatboro. He’d been working for Keebler but then got a job with Frito-Lay and was transferred to their corporate headquarters in Plano, Texas. I was in Plano from 8th grade through high school graduation, and then I was fortunate to get accepted into the Character Animation program at CalArts in Valencia, California, so I went out there in the fall of '88 and have been living in CA ever since.

I did have some art in my family. My grandmother on my Mother’s side was a painter. She took a class in Shamokin, PA and painted landscapes and still-lifes. Her paintings were all over her house and our house, growing up. All of my family was very supportive and encouraging of my drawing but my Nana was a bit more in sync with me because of her talent. I remember she had a collection of books about all the classic artists - Rembrandt, DaVinci, etc. I think that was my first exposure to the masters.

The Disney Elite: Do you remember when you started to take art ‘seriously’?

Stephen Anderson: It’s hard for me to say when I first became serious about art because I can’t remember a time when I didn’t draw. And as fun as it was, I always took it seriously. Whether I was drawing portraits or cartoons or whatever, I poured myself into it and never saw myself doing anything else with my life. I do remember a time in elementary school when I was drawing a poster for a school project and I was really into it and very focused. Some friends were over at my house and they saw my drawing and they all started complimenting my work and telling me that it was really good. When they left, I remember starting to cry and telling my Mom that I was upset because they were saying it was good but I KNEW it could be so much better. I couldn’t accept their praise because it hadn’t met with my own standards. Maybe that was the moment where I suddenly became a true artist, where nothing is ever good enough. :)

The Disney Elite: May I ask who some of your early artistic inspirations were?

Stephen Anderson: As far as inspirations go, there are so many. Obviously the films of Walt Disney started everything for me but later, I learned about the artists who made those films and fell in love with the work of Milt Kahl, Frank and Ollie, Marc Davis, Fred Moore and story artist Bill Peet. I watched Looney Tunes incessantly, my favorites being from Chuck Jones. There was something in his drawings and his style that I really responded to. There are a bunch of artists that I was really influenced by but didn’t really know it, or know who they were, until later in life. Charles Schultz was a huge influence but I didn’t realize it until more recently. There were several Mad Magazine artists who I really loved and still love: Jack Davis, Mort Drucker and Paul Coker. Coker also designed most of the characters for the Rankin Bass holiday specials. I watched those so much but didn’t realize I was absorbing his style until I learned who he was when I got older. Those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

The Disney Elite: What was your first job in the animation industry? Was it ‘everything you’d ever dreamed of’ or an entirely unexpected experience?

Stephen Anderson: My VERY first job in animation was at a tiny animation studio in Dallas called PeelerRose Productions. I got a job there for the summer after my freshman year at CalArts. A man named Dan Peeler was the main guy and the studio was in his house. They did videos and commercials for local places. The first thing I did was paint cels! Seeing where the industry has gone now, I’m kinda thrilled that I can say I painted cels as my entry into the biz! After that, they let me do some animation. They were very kind and supportive but my stuff was pretty awful. I went back to CalArts and got my first LA animation job the next summer at Hyperion Animation in Glendale, CA as an animating assistant on a movie called Rover Dangerfield (starting comedian Rodney Dangerfield as a basset hound). I eventually got some short scenes to animate. My animation was in a feature film!!!  Not a widely seen one, but still.

Was it everything I ever dreamed of? Yes and no. I dreamed of making animation and I was doing it! But it wasn’t quite as glamorous or exciting as I thought. Ultimately, it’s a job. It has it’s ups and downs. Some days you’re feeling it, other days it’s a slog. It was good to quickly learn that it’s not all gag drawings and silliness. A dose of reality. I continued working for Hyperion in different capacities through my third year at CalArts as well as several years after I left. The next step was Disney. 

Tuesday: In Part 2 of our interview, Stephen Anderson tells us about the first half of his career at Disney – first as a storyboard artist on Tarzan, then as Head of Story on The Emperor’s New Groove and Brother Bear, then as director on Meet the Robinsons. Please join us then!

All art via Stephen Anderson’s Instagram

NOTE: This interview would not have been possible without the kindness and assistance of tumblr user Morgan – a.k.a. that-guy-in-the-bowler-hat. Morgan runs the internet’s PREMIER Meet the Robinsons archive and fansite. If you are a fan of MtR, you MUST check out his tumblr a.s.a.p.!

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