Andreas Deja (Legendary Disney Animator)

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<v Speaker 1>My name is Jim Cummings and welcome to Tuned In.
<v Speaker 4>Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
<v Speaker 4>Jim Cummings. I am producer Chris, joined as always by
<v Speaker 4>the legend mister Jim Cummings himself.
<v Speaker 5>How are you doing today? Serious?
<v Speaker 3>It's another day at Paradise. I'll say it again, it
<v Speaker 3>sure is.
<v Speaker 1>Couldn't It could not be more accurate and true than
<v Speaker 1>it is today.
<v Speaker 4>Absolutely absolutely, And today we have a very special guest
<v Speaker 4>for you. He is a literal Disney legend. Yes you
<v Speaker 4>heard that right, a literal Disney legend. You may not
<v Speaker 4>know his face, but you definitely know his animations. He
<v Speaker 4>was responsible for Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, ja'far
<v Speaker 4>obviously from a Latin scar the Lion King, and many
<v Speaker 4>many more. We are very pleased to have you today,
<v Speaker 4>Andreas Desa.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you so much for having me. This is an honor, honestly,
<v Speaker 2>big honor.
<v Speaker 1>Well, it's ere to be here, so happy to have you,
<v Speaker 1>so happy to have you here. We were boning up,
<v Speaker 1>so to speak, and listening with you, speaking with Leonard
<v Speaker 1>Malton and all your insights. I mean, it's you are
<v Speaker 1>the new standard bearer. You are the new You're it now.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know about that, but I do. And this
<v Speaker 2>might be what you're referring to, Jim, is I need
<v Speaker 2>that connection to the past. I really, I really need it.
<v Speaker 2>So when I came out over here, I grew up
<v Speaker 2>in Germany, went to art school there. My family is
<v Speaker 2>still there, and anyway made it to Disney via writing
<v Speaker 2>letters when I was a teenager and all that, and
<v Speaker 2>then then got into what they're called the Disney Animation
<v Speaker 2>Training Program, which one of the great animators, Eric Larson,
<v Speaker 2>one of the nine old men started and he was
<v Speaker 2>the mentor and I had written to him, sent it
<v Speaker 2>some artwork, made it got into the program, which lasted
<v Speaker 2>about six weeks to a point where they could see
<v Speaker 2>if you're talented, and if you're if they could offer
<v Speaker 2>you a permanent job, which they did, and then that
<v Speaker 2>lasted thirty years. But while I was not just meeting
<v Speaker 2>Eric Lars and Frank Thomas and Olive Johnston were writing
<v Speaker 2>their first book upstairs, The Illusion of Life at a
<v Speaker 2>Big Disney Bible, so I had access to them. Yes
<v Speaker 2>it still is. And then and then all the others
<v Speaker 2>I wanted to meet. I wanted to meet the people
<v Speaker 2>who drew my childhood dreams, you know, because when you
<v Speaker 2>read the credits on these, it seems like the animators
<v Speaker 2>were always the same name, so it's the same group.
<v Speaker 2>So that was just the timing of that they were
<v Speaker 2>most of them were still around, and I would go
<v Speaker 2>up to la approximately nineteen eighty Okay, he started August
<v Speaker 2>of nineteen eighty, and then you had to be able
<v Speaker 2>to go up to Lucaniata and visit Frank Thomas and A.
<v Speaker 2>Johnson spent hours with him and asking them on BAMBI
<v Speaker 2>how did you do that? How much? How much study
<v Speaker 2>was involved to do Bambi? And how did you It
<v Speaker 2>was just it was just great timing for me because
<v Speaker 2>not only did I have a job at Disney, I
<v Speaker 2>could meet these guys.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, Yeah, you know, I remember it's funny
<v Speaker 1>you say Bambi. I think that might have been maybe
<v Speaker 1>the first movie I saw a period, and I remember,
<v Speaker 1>being strict, it just hit me that that looked like
<v Speaker 1>a baby deer because he couldn't stay his little spindly
<v Speaker 1>legs were he was trying to get up and the
<v Speaker 1>PLoP down and his legs were going display and and
<v Speaker 1>and Thumper was there, and he had that cute little face,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm going, that's it looks just like a rabbit,
<v Speaker 1>but it's a cartoon rabbit, but it's got a face
<v Speaker 1>on it. And he's smiling and he's starking, and you know,
<v Speaker 1>and but I bought everything. I bought everything about it.
<v Speaker 1>It just encapsulated the imagination so completely that you know,
<v Speaker 1>two minutes into the movie, it wasn't there, It wasn't animation.
<v Speaker 1>It looked like the forest. It looked I thought that
<v Speaker 1>the you know, deers could talk. Yeah, you know it was.
<v Speaker 3>It was. It was magic and it still is.
<v Speaker 2>It's interesting talking a little bit about Bambi. When I
<v Speaker 2>wrote my first letter to Disney, I think I was twelve.
<v Speaker 2>The first movie I saw a movie was Jungle Book,
<v Speaker 2>which is still my favorite, maybe for that reason too,
<v Speaker 2>because it was my first one and I'm absolutely mad
<v Speaker 2>about that film. So I was about ten. And then
<v Speaker 2>at the age of twelve, I didn't speak any English
<v Speaker 2>dand but in English teachers at school and to help
<v Speaker 2>you said, I want to write to Disney and ask
<v Speaker 2>them letters. A letter when I ask them some questions,
<v Speaker 2>how I can prepare myself this kid in Germany to
<v Speaker 2>sometime later work for them. And they roll back and
<v Speaker 2>they said, actually, super important stuff. They said, if you're
<v Speaker 2>interested in the kind of animation that we do here
<v Speaker 2>at the studio, we of course we want to see
<v Speaker 2>how you draw and want to see your art, but
<v Speaker 2>please don't send us any copies of Mickey Mouse and Pluto,
<v Speaker 2>because we can teach you that. You know, that's all
<v Speaker 2>I've learned. You've got to be an artists first, on
<v Speaker 2>your own right. And they said, if you're at that age,
<v Speaker 2>now start drawing your brothers and sisters chart, draw your pets,
<v Speaker 2>go to the zoo, draw the animals a lot.
<v Speaker 4>And now I've heard you tell this story and it
<v Speaker 4>started to cut you off. But I was curious while
<v Speaker 4>I was listening to this before when they say draw that.
<v Speaker 4>Are you drawing it in a cartoon version, are you
<v Speaker 4>drawing as realistic as possible?
<v Speaker 5>Or all of the above.
<v Speaker 2>They said, draw the real thing. You have to draw
<v Speaker 2>a realistic natural way, so it shows us that you
<v Speaker 2>understand the skeleton of a deer or an elephant, you know,
<v Speaker 2>to study that and see how they move. I said,
<v Speaker 2>the cartoon stuff. That's why they said, Mickey out and
<v Speaker 2>PLU don't know, because that we can teach you, and
<v Speaker 2>as a kid, you don't really understand that. At first,
<v Speaker 2>I said, well, but it's a cartoon studio, the biggest
<v Speaker 2>in the world. You know. Of course you got to
<v Speaker 2>draw cartoon characters. But then then I did see Bambi
<v Speaker 2>in a re release, and I saw those very scenes
<v Speaker 2>him wobbling, and almost like a light bulb went on,
<v Speaker 2>I said, well, whoever animated that, that person had to
<v Speaker 2>know where the ripcage is and how it connects with
<v Speaker 2>the head and the legs. And the heat. So of
<v Speaker 2>course it's all about anat academy. You have to know that,
<v Speaker 2>you have to know the real thing. So then it
<v Speaker 2>really made sense and I said, okay, that's exactly what
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to do. All the local zoos and visited
<v Speaker 2>them and learned how to draw animals. And later on,
<v Speaker 2>when I was older, actually I was fourteen or fifteen
<v Speaker 2>when I started life drawing in front of nude models.
<v Speaker 3>I was going to ask you, was that how that?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you have to, but yeah, for my parents, that's
<v Speaker 2>a little young only you know, so I remember, and
<v Speaker 2>my parents really are not artists, and bless them, they
<v Speaker 2>have a totally different background. But when I came home
<v Speaker 2>the first time and I had these big drawings of
<v Speaker 2>nude people, that so, so you had some photographs that
<v Speaker 2>you drew this from, And I said, no, there were
<v Speaker 2>actually people who took their clothes off and we we
<v Speaker 2>had to learn how the body functions. And and then
<v Speaker 2>I told my parents talk to my art teacher at
<v Speaker 2>high school, because he knows about what artists have to
<v Speaker 2>do young artists, and so they talked to him and
<v Speaker 2>he said, yeah, Andreas has some challenge. He can do this.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, it's okay, and it's okay, it's okay.
<v Speaker 5>Oh my god, that's funny. True wow.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. But then it all made sense. And then later
<v Speaker 2>on you read these things that Walt Disney said famously,
<v Speaker 2>we have to study the real thing before we can
<v Speaker 2>animate it and courage and all that makes complete sense.
<v Speaker 3>Well.
<v Speaker 1>I remember when the making of The Lion King, for instance,
<v Speaker 1>the Disney sent a bunch of people to Africa to
<v Speaker 1>draw warthogs and meerkats and and I remember going to
<v Speaker 1>Africa after having been in a movie, and the war
<v Speaker 1>dogs really run like that with their tail. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>they're going that's exactly. Oh my god, there's bumba.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>It was unbelievable how well they did it. And the
<v Speaker 1>slinky ah like with scar right, with those slinky shoulders,
<v Speaker 1>the way they moved through the glass, the grass, it was.
<v Speaker 3>It was amazing.
<v Speaker 2>And again, studying the real thing, it's just so important.
<v Speaker 2>I wasn't on that trip. I was. We were no
<v Speaker 2>animator wind because we were finishing Aladdin at the time.
<v Speaker 2>And I remember one day in the lobby, this was
<v Speaker 2>on the airway where we drew Lion King. They were
<v Speaker 2>all these other artists with suitcases, and I said, where
<v Speaker 2>are you going? And they say Africa, and I said, well,
<v Speaker 2>can't you wait. We still have to do a few
<v Speaker 2>more scenes for I have to do a future far
<v Speaker 2>scenes left to do and they said, no, we have
<v Speaker 2>to go now because the raining season is going to start,
<v Speaker 2>and I said, oh great. You know, so we didn't
<v Speaker 2>go on usually we do go on this trip. I
<v Speaker 2>went to France for Beauty and the Beast. Then I
<v Speaker 2>went to Hawaii fully loaned stitch, but Africa didn't work out.
<v Speaker 2>But I did the same thing afterwards. I went on
<v Speaker 2>my own on safari and did all that. But the
<v Speaker 2>way we learned about lions, well, first you go to
<v Speaker 2>the La Zoo, but then you know, if it's summer,
<v Speaker 2>you go there and the line is asleep for half
<v Speaker 2>a day, and that's the only post we're going to get.
<v Speaker 2>We did go to San Diego a little bit better
<v Speaker 2>down there, and then somebody at the studio set, now
<v Speaker 2>we got to bring these animals in. So in a
<v Speaker 2>conference room on airway Englen and boy, they actually had
<v Speaker 2>a they got in touch with with a group of
<v Speaker 2>people who train animals for movies, all kinds of animals,
<v Speaker 2>bears and lines and tigers, and so they brought those
<v Speaker 2>in these people. These animals were supposedly used to people,
<v Speaker 2>and we were there on our benches, you know, with
<v Speaker 2>our with our big drawing pads. And then I remember
<v Speaker 2>the first animal that brought around the corner just with
<v Speaker 2>a little chain. There was no fence or anything.
<v Speaker 5>Today.
<v Speaker 2>You couldn't do that with no insurance. You couldn't, you know.
<v Speaker 2>There was no separation, no, no nothing. Oh wow, So
<v Speaker 2>the line cup was half a year. Oh it was cute,
<v Speaker 2>you know, you draw that.
<v Speaker 1>And then the second second one was a mom came
<v Speaker 1>around the corner and it wasn't so cute.
<v Speaker 2>It wasn't so cute. An we all gassed. And then
<v Speaker 2>then the last one was I remember a fully grown
<v Speaker 2>male called Joseph, and he had been in some Michael
<v Speaker 2>Jackson video and you were told you he'd been fed,
<v Speaker 2>so don't don't worry. But again, there was no security
<v Speaker 2>or safety barrier at all.
<v Speaker 5>Were scared at all.
<v Speaker 2>I was scared and excited. It was, oh, I'm never
<v Speaker 2>going to get close like this to a line, and
<v Speaker 2>it was yeah, that's that's when you're really when you're
<v Speaker 2>so close to them and not their way down there,
<v Speaker 2>you know, far away under trees. This is this is
<v Speaker 2>where you get it. And you see how they walk
<v Speaker 2>and really how big they are. And yeah, it was
<v Speaker 2>a really really important day for us.
<v Speaker 3>I touched a lion once, Yeah, but she did. Was
<v Speaker 3>it was okay with her. It was it was a girl.
<v Speaker 1>And I was in Africa and an open air jeep,
<v Speaker 1>open air, and I was saying to the guy and
<v Speaker 1>they were trying to catch these gazelle and you could
<v Speaker 1>see I've told this before, there's like six or eight. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>the ladies do all the hunting, the women, you know,
<v Speaker 1>so and uh, they're all sitting there and you can
<v Speaker 1>see the wind is blowing this way, and the gazelle's
<v Speaker 1>are right over there and they're sneaking up like this.
<v Speaker 1>The wind stops. Now it's going that way. So now
<v Speaker 1>the gazelle's can smell the lions and they're sitting there, eating, eating,
<v Speaker 1>and they were gone, they disappeared, and the lions all
<v Speaker 1>stood up and it's just like they're like big cats.
<v Speaker 1>They oh, great, you're never gonna kid eat now, and
<v Speaker 1>let's keep come on, come on, we gotta find something else,
<v Speaker 1>you know.
<v Speaker 3>And it was the craziest it was a circle of life.
<v Speaker 5>You know.
<v Speaker 2>The interesting thing about when you go to a park
<v Speaker 2>like Krueger National Park, while the others that the animals
<v Speaker 2>are so used to the jeeps, they don't even pay attention.
<v Speaker 2>I think, like you're moving rock or something. They don't
<v Speaker 2>look even if it's an open jeep. And yes, they
<v Speaker 2>don't attack. You know, they grew up with these wheel
<v Speaker 2>type things coming around. They don't even look at you.
<v Speaker 2>They do hunting and mating and eating and as if
<v Speaker 2>you're not there, which is which is kind of cool.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I know, and I asked him. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know if I said.
<v Speaker 3>This, but I said, okay, stupid question.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to jinx anything, but why aren't they
<v Speaker 1>eating us? They could catch me, they have no problem.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, there's a gazelle. You have to run like
<v Speaker 1>hell to catch me.
<v Speaker 3>Not so much.
<v Speaker 1>Just I'm right here, and they go, well suh. If
<v Speaker 1>you exit the jeep, you into the food chain. And
<v Speaker 1>I'm sitting right here. I ain't gone nowhere. And apparently
<v Speaker 1>that had happened.
<v Speaker 2>I was told there was There was some tourists and
<v Speaker 2>one woman was a little over excited to get to
<v Speaker 2>some cubs. But the parents, but she walked out and
<v Speaker 2>she was attacked, and it does happen. But I mean
<v Speaker 2>you just know better, right you stay inside?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, no kidding, Yeah, I had no problem sitting inside there.
<v Speaker 4>So for the people watching, could you describe, like what
<v Speaker 4>your job actually consists of, like for the title of say,
<v Speaker 4>supervising animator, Like, what does that look like when you're
<v Speaker 4>working on say, you know, the Lion King or Aladdin
<v Speaker 4>or whatever Disney movie? What does that daily process look like?
<v Speaker 4>Because I don't think a lot of the public really knows.
<v Speaker 4>I mean I know, I don't know what that really
<v Speaker 4>process really looks like, like what are your specific roles?
<v Speaker 2>Well, by the time I come onto the picture, so again,
<v Speaker 2>we had finished Aladdin, I did ja'far and.
<v Speaker 4>So like, let me pause you there when you say
<v Speaker 4>I did Jaffar, Like, what does that supervising animator?
<v Speaker 2>I didn't do every scene, but I do probably the
<v Speaker 2>most important ones. So you do like the personality acting ones.
<v Speaker 2>And then when when Jaffar is is a beggar digging
<v Speaker 2>for the lamp in the sand and he's eccentric, somebody
<v Speaker 2>else can do that, you know, But when he is
<v Speaker 2>suddenly interacting with Jasmine and saying, well, Aladdin is going
<v Speaker 2>to be beheaded and death is whatever. Interesting, I have
<v Speaker 2>to do those close ups acting.
<v Speaker 4>Scenes, so they trust you to really get the personality
<v Speaker 4>out of the character.
<v Speaker 5>Is that correct?
<v Speaker 4>The voice the voice, of course, of course, I mean
<v Speaker 4>in terms of animation.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, But then maybe most people don't even know that
<v Speaker 2>that the voice is always recorded. People probably about yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's right, and that that gives us everything. And funnily,
<v Speaker 2>you know, before you'far I had done Gaston, another villain,
<v Speaker 2>and so by the time it came to Lion King,
<v Speaker 2>I thought, well, it's not my turn, because all the
<v Speaker 2>animals want to do villains, and those are really juicing hearts.
<v Speaker 2>You can do more, that's true.
<v Speaker 5>The same thing about voicing, Yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Because you can roll up your sleeves and go to town.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And I thought, well, I've done to look at the story.
<v Speaker 2>So so coming onto Lionking, I look at early storyboards
<v Speaker 2>and see how they drew Scar or how they do
<v Speaker 2>the characters, because I wasn't even thinking about Scar then.
<v Speaker 2>And then there's some visual development art. These are people
<v Speaker 2>who do early design ideas give you a whole range
<v Speaker 2>of ideas for characters, and settings, so I can already
<v Speaker 2>look at something. I don't have to look at a
<v Speaker 2>blank sheet of paper, and I can listen to voice tracks.
<v Speaker 2>So but so again I was thinking I should probably
<v Speaker 2>maybe do Rafiki or or maybe adult Simba, because you know,
<v Speaker 2>of the villain situation. And then somebody said, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and Andrea Jeremy Irons was just here and he tested
<v Speaker 2>for a scar, and I said, I have to listen
<v Speaker 2>to this. So I got the tapes and this is
<v Speaker 2>this is the kind of thing where you close your
<v Speaker 2>eyes and you can just see pictures come in. It
<v Speaker 2>just happens. It seemed easy, you know, with the with
<v Speaker 2>a sense of humor, these evil and smartly sly it
<v Speaker 2>was to me it would almost be easy to animate
<v Speaker 2>that because it was so clear. So I went into
<v Speaker 2>the director's room and said, I know it's not my turn.
<v Speaker 2>I've done two villain, but I just listened to those
<v Speaker 2>tapes and I think I can do something with this.
<v Speaker 2>And they just looked at me and they said, well,
<v Speaker 2>we kind of had your mind anyway. And then that
<v Speaker 2>was and I was just so happy. So it was
<v Speaker 2>a privilege to do that character, even though it wasn't
<v Speaker 2>my turn. It was Yeah, in terms of voices, was
<v Speaker 2>probably the richest voice i've I've had it. It's the
<v Speaker 2>straightforward voices where there's not much range, where you maybe
<v Speaker 2>struggle a little bit as an animator, but when you
<v Speaker 2>have a voice like, lines are not all that. No,
<v Speaker 2>we lines are not all that. I mean, you just
<v Speaker 2>hear it, you know you know how to raise the
<v Speaker 2>character up or now you know the expression. It was
<v Speaker 2>absolute joy and the privilege.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I would imagine.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I think villains in general, I've always said around
<v Speaker 1>a little more fun.
<v Speaker 2>The only one I had trouble with, at least getting
<v Speaker 2>started with guest On because that was the first one.
<v Speaker 5>And why is that?
<v Speaker 2>Well, again, I looked at the storyboards and the visual
<v Speaker 2>development art as I always do when I start, and
<v Speaker 2>I and I did a scene that ended up in
<v Speaker 2>the movie. It was a test scene, but it made
<v Speaker 2>it in the film. Where he's singing at the beginning
<v Speaker 2>and it's still doing the bell song at the beginning
<v Speaker 2>of the movie, and he's noticing his reflection at some
<v Speaker 2>parts and pants that aren't hanging there at one shop,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and he kind of adores himself. And so
<v Speaker 2>that was my first scene and I remember Jeffre Katzenburg
<v Speaker 2>who was on the Boss. Then he said, well, he said,
<v Speaker 2>he said, the animation is fine, but he's not handsome enough.
<v Speaker 2>And I said, handsome he's the villain, right, and caricature
<v Speaker 2>and the design, and and I didn't really understand why.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it goes against the grain. Wait, a good looking villain.
<v Speaker 1>He's supposed to have a hook nose.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And so I was messing with. I did some
<v Speaker 2>some design looking like a prince. Basically, I said, is
<v Speaker 2>that what they want? You know, like a soap opera star?
<v Speaker 2>So I didn't really know. And then Katzenberg did call me.
<v Speaker 2>I remember the one time he caught me into his
<v Speaker 2>office and explained, you know, the movie is really about
<v Speaker 2>don't judge the book by its cover. So we have
<v Speaker 2>the beast who is scary and frightening when we see him,
<v Speaker 2>and we find out he has a hot of gold
<v Speaker 2>through the story, and Gaston has the opposite qualities, is
<v Speaker 2>a handsome dude, and maybe the audience should think, oh
<v Speaker 2>he's handsome, he should maybe marry well, But then you
<v Speaker 2>find that he's only it's all all about himself, and
<v Speaker 2>he's a male chauvenist. Then it becomes a murderer in
<v Speaker 2>the end. So these are the opposite qualities to the beast,
<v Speaker 2>and that's why he has to be handsome. And I
<v Speaker 2>remember telling saying to Jeffrey, but handsome is so much
<v Speaker 2>more difficult to animate. And Jeffrey just said, nobody said
<v Speaker 2>it was going to be easy. Yeah, that was the
<v Speaker 2>end of that meeting. But I did I didn't understand
<v Speaker 2>the concept he had to be handsome being evil. There
<v Speaker 2>are handsome people being bad that they do exist. Oh sure, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>so he was one of them. But then you walk
<v Speaker 2>that fine line how much caricature and expressiveness cannot put
<v Speaker 2>in because if I don't put any of that in,
<v Speaker 2>he's going to look like a puppet, you know, always
<v Speaker 2>nice drawing, but not really emmoting. So that was he
<v Speaker 2>probably was the most difficult character because of that.
<v Speaker 5>Interesting.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I know.
<v Speaker 5>I know.
<v Speaker 4>In like recent times, I've heard stories of like animators
<v Speaker 4>and they'll you know, capture on video the actor, the
<v Speaker 4>voice actors performance so that they can Did they do
<v Speaker 4>that back when you were animated?
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yeah, we have a I don't know if they
<v Speaker 2>recorded you when you did your bit for Scar I
<v Speaker 2>don't remember.
<v Speaker 1>Oh gosh, that might have they did here and there.
<v Speaker 3>You know sometimes, but it with me.
<v Speaker 1>When I was doing ed for the Lion King, it
<v Speaker 1>was just all I did was stand there and laugh
<v Speaker 1>like an idiot for an hour. If you're a fan
<v Speaker 1>of everything we do here at tuned In with Jim Cummings,
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<v Speaker 2>But famously, you also did some of Scar because Jeremy
<v Speaker 2>Uh doing the song, you couldn't do certain singing passages.
<v Speaker 2>And then Jim jumped in and we talked about this earlier.
<v Speaker 5>That you did it.
<v Speaker 2>You gave me a very very good piece of singing
<v Speaker 2>at the end of the song be prepared. He doesn't
<v Speaker 2>end up singing me prepared. You did be prepared, And
<v Speaker 2>I want to do something with that. Yes, you did,
<v Speaker 2>because that's it sounds different and I have half scargo
<v Speaker 2>up on that rock. Be prepared and I animated, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and that's what made the scene That gave me chills,
<v Speaker 2>because that image comes right. I would have never done
<v Speaker 2>that if Jim hadn't. Heaven't hadn't.
<v Speaker 3>I wanted to bite off the end of it exactly.
<v Speaker 2>Was the end of the song exactly then?
<v Speaker 1>Because you always laugh, yeah, at the end of the
<v Speaker 1>sub bad guys laugh.
<v Speaker 2>Because they yeah, no, they think they have the upper hand.
<v Speaker 2>But it was one of those unique things where Jim
<v Speaker 2>thought about something special and I realized that it and yes,
<v Speaker 2>you did want to make something special out of that
<v Speaker 2>and just grab onto those little extra things.
<v Speaker 4>Whenever I hear you talk, what really fascinates me about
<v Speaker 4>you is your attention to detail. And I think that's
<v Speaker 4>what makes you such a Disney legend, is your attention
<v Speaker 4>to detail. Do you do you focus on that? I mean,
<v Speaker 4>of course you have to write detail.
<v Speaker 2>You mean in drawing, or in the performance.
<v Speaker 5>Or everything, even in the way you talk.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I just and I still do that. Working for Disney.
<v Speaker 2>You compare yourself with the old guys, and they had,
<v Speaker 2>my god, their level. Look at Lady in the Tramp,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, look at Peter Pan. And there were times
<v Speaker 2>where not just me, but my colleagues were thinking, like,
<v Speaker 2>who are we kidding, and we don't do that level,
<v Speaker 2>you know. And I remember when Mermaid came out and
<v Speaker 2>was a big hit, and there was this teenager. He
<v Speaker 2>was the son of a contractor who did some work
<v Speaker 2>for me. He came up to me and said, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I heard you worked on the Little Mermaid and I
<v Speaker 2>said yeah. And a minute of father try and and
<v Speaker 2>he said, I saw the little Moment with my girlfriend
<v Speaker 2>and we snuggled up and it was a great date,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and we're like, oh my god, we got
<v Speaker 2>the teenagers back up. Until then, that was no Disney
<v Speaker 2>animated films. You just don't go with your girlfriend to
<v Speaker 2>a Disney film, you know, that's not adult stuff. And
<v Speaker 2>all of a sudden they really liked the film and
<v Speaker 2>watch it as a young couple, and so yeah, that
<v Speaker 2>signaled to me, well, we had their teenagers back. But
<v Speaker 2>in terms of were we as good as the old guys?
<v Speaker 2>And I asked that question, and sometimes when when people
<v Speaker 2>did compliment our films, I said, yeah, but have you
<v Speaker 2>seen Lady in the Tramp lately, because that's the good stuff.
<v Speaker 2>And then you know, somebody said, yeah, we like that too.
<v Speaker 2>But whether it's a little Moment or beauty and the Beast.
<v Speaker 2>Those characters speak to us. They were kind of more modern,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the girl girls were independent with Cinderella and
<v Speaker 2>snow White were of another era. And then I started
<v Speaker 2>to understand why, you know, why these these characters that
<v Speaker 2>might not have been done as well as the old guys,
<v Speaker 2>but the concept spoke to them and the stories to them.
<v Speaker 2>So then I had an easier time to accept compliments really, because,
<v Speaker 2>let's face it, the old guys were just it's almost inhuman,
<v Speaker 2>you know when you even now after having been in
<v Speaker 2>the industry for so long, I just look at anything
<v Speaker 2>that they did and it's just it is so good.
<v Speaker 2>It's forever you do something that well and it doesn't
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't age.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I agree, it's just so good. I agree. Well,
<v Speaker 3>all those those movies.
<v Speaker 1>That's why they they re released them, you know, they
<v Speaker 1>and to great success, you know, time and time again.
<v Speaker 1>There's a timeless quality too, and I think that's what
<v Speaker 1>Walt understood, and that's what he brought to to all
<v Speaker 1>of his things, the rides, the all the way us,
<v Speaker 1>the board, you know, the artwork is phenomenal, and the
<v Speaker 1>acting and the music, the music. Anytime that the music
<v Speaker 1>can grab you. Yeah, you know, that's you know, and
<v Speaker 1>I think that I would imagine as an animator, that
<v Speaker 1>gives you something to hang your head on.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it gives you a rhythm, It gives you a rhythm.
<v Speaker 2>I did some scenes, not all of them, doing the
<v Speaker 2>Gaston song to be a drinking song, and there was
<v Speaker 2>one scene where he had two waltz with Lafou through
<v Speaker 2>the tavern there and I remember, I remember it is
<v Speaker 2>a teenager. I had dance lessons and knew how a
<v Speaker 2>waltz one to three, one to three, one to three,
<v Speaker 2>so I could do that without live action reference. So
<v Speaker 2>you kind of draw from your own experiences. But you
<v Speaker 2>really shut the door to your office and you do
<v Speaker 2>these steps and you're trying to figure out how that works,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and so so yeah, you try to be
<v Speaker 2>as authentic, you know, as it can be.
<v Speaker 3>Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.
<v Speaker 2>That that that that's what animation is. You have to
<v Speaker 2>be a little crazy to do that. Yeah, yeah, twenty
<v Speaker 2>part of being able to put off the instant gratification.
<v Speaker 2>It's not an instant, there's no instinct that comes later.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, but there is also nothing like it. And
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure you feel the same way when when you
<v Speaker 2>when the film is done and you see it with
<v Speaker 2>an audience, not studio audience, but a regular orientine theater.
<v Speaker 2>You're in the middle of the theater and nobody knows
<v Speaker 2>who you are. And I just watched yeah, yeah, oh
<v Speaker 2>that's my stuff is coming up. I wonder if they're
<v Speaker 2>gonna and then you get a reaction, it's like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>it's just it's just like, you know, it's just like
<v Speaker 2>all that hard work.
<v Speaker 5>I agree.
<v Speaker 2>There's no feeling like.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I agree, I agree. Nothing like seeing that the
<v Speaker 3>end product.
<v Speaker 1>No, and especially when you put so much time into it,
<v Speaker 1>so many I mean, did you always know? Because I
<v Speaker 1>knew I was going to do what I do when
<v Speaker 1>I was five. I've said up before, when did you
<v Speaker 1>no for sure?
<v Speaker 2>The day I saw a Jungle Book, it was book,
<v Speaker 2>was that it was ten and I saw that, and
<v Speaker 2>there's no other way to describe it. My head was spinning.
<v Speaker 2>And there was my life before Jungle Book and my
<v Speaker 2>life after. Because I just there was this gravity toward it.
<v Speaker 2>I felt like I need to And then that's why
<v Speaker 2>I wrote to them. I didn't even have the address.
<v Speaker 2>I just was Walt Disney Production's Los Angeles, USA.
<v Speaker 5>Really and it got.
<v Speaker 2>There wow way yeah, you know, and and they wrote
<v Speaker 2>me back, and I still have that letter, but it
<v Speaker 2>became real at that moment it there really exists because
<v Speaker 2>they wrote to me, you know, but excuse me.
<v Speaker 4>Wow, wow, that's fascinating. And then so you're the first project,
<v Speaker 4>if I'm not mistaken, that you worked on for Disney
<v Speaker 4>was the Black Caul Drink.
<v Speaker 2>It was, Yeah. They were finishing Fox in the Hound,
<v Speaker 2>and I remember them saying, we don't need you on
<v Speaker 2>that now that you have a full time job after
<v Speaker 2>the training period. We're almost done with Fox in the Hound.
<v Speaker 2>But they said we're going to do this Black Caldron project,
<v Speaker 2>which I knew about because there had been a Live
<v Speaker 2>magazine article with early development art from the from the
<v Speaker 2>Black Cold and by Meltshaw. As I knew about it,
<v Speaker 2>and even while I was still in Germany getting getting
<v Speaker 2>ready to come to the US, I bought the books
<v Speaker 2>and read all those Lloyd Alexander books about the Black
<v Speaker 2>Holdren and just out of curiosity, I did some sketches
<v Speaker 2>of the of Terran alon Win how I might visualize
<v Speaker 2>them inward style, And I remember I had a pack
<v Speaker 2>of drawings. And when I got to Disney, I showed
<v Speaker 2>them to management. I said, I just fooled around with
<v Speaker 2>some designs and they said, oh, they said, we don't
<v Speaker 2>have any designs it can we buy them from you?
<v Speaker 5>What?
<v Speaker 2>So it was like it was like two or three
<v Speaker 2>thousand dollars, but it was enough for me to buy
<v Speaker 2>some furniture for my rental.
<v Speaker 3>Yah.
<v Speaker 2>It was a really it was really nice.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And then they said later, a little bit later, they said,
<v Speaker 2>we like to continue to do some character development because
<v Speaker 2>we don't have anybody doing that. We're going to put
<v Speaker 2>you with another person who also is your age and
<v Speaker 2>who just graduated from cal Arts and he draws very
<v Speaker 2>differently from you. You draw very Disney. This guy's name
<v Speaker 2>is Tim. He draws, you know, sort of a freaky
<v Speaker 2>not freaky, but has his own style and maybe we
<v Speaker 2>can mix the two of you. And that was Tim Burton.
<v Speaker 2>Oh that was my It was a full full year
<v Speaker 2>in one office with Tim Burton.
<v Speaker 3>So we have you to blame for Tim Burton. Is
<v Speaker 3>that what your.
<v Speaker 2>He got? He got frustrated in terms of the studio
<v Speaker 2>wanting to blend Disney, the Disney style with your style
<v Speaker 2>and and and I tried it because they asked me to,
<v Speaker 2>and it wasn't really working. It was you you sing too,
<v Speaker 2>so disneyfire Tim Burton drawing and you lose the Tim Burton,
<v Speaker 2>you know. And yeah, and I remember Tim getting increasingly frustrated.
<v Speaker 2>And then one of the last assignments for the film
<v Speaker 2>that we were asked to do, where these for those
<v Speaker 2>few of you who have seen the film, these flying
<v Speaker 2>monster birds then kidnapped the pig dragon type birds, you
<v Speaker 2>know that type. And so I'd done some and Tim
<v Speaker 2>had the idea of a flying hand. So it was
<v Speaker 2>it was a hand with an eye here and an
<v Speaker 2>eye there and would kind of fly and then the
<v Speaker 2>hand would grab two hands to birds and it had
<v Speaker 2>bad wings, I think, but it was a hand human hand.
<v Speaker 5>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>And the management said, well, that's interesting.
<v Speaker 3>But there's a nightmare for you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but then he said that's a bit too abstract.
<v Speaker 2>That's more like the movie Yellow Submarine, you know, where
<v Speaker 2>crazy things happened, and that's a little too crazy for us.
<v Speaker 2>And then Jim said, well, then let me just leave,
<v Speaker 2>and then maybe he left and became Tim Burton and
<v Speaker 2>I and I stuck around and yeah, oh, Tim was
<v Speaker 2>I guess you can call it without He was a
<v Speaker 2>little odd. He was also fun, you know, but he
<v Speaker 2>he lived in his own world, you could tell, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>And he liked practical jokes. And I remember one time
<v Speaker 2>he came from the dentist and he had one or
<v Speaker 2>two wisdom teeth pulled and he was still bleeding and
<v Speaker 2>he wasn't even trying to stop that. He walked through
<v Speaker 2>the hallway and blood was coming out, and people were
<v Speaker 2>like him, what's the matter with you? And said, what
<v Speaker 2>what you know?
<v Speaker 5>People?
<v Speaker 3>Oh man, Wow, with the real stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, with the real stuff this time, my god. But
<v Speaker 2>I adored his style, but I couldn't. I couldn't Disney
<v Speaker 2>find I just couldn't do it. Yeah, I couldn't be tough.
<v Speaker 4>It's got to be tough if it's anything like what
<v Speaker 4>we what we all know, you know, and see then
<v Speaker 4>he was style.
<v Speaker 2>And stopped motioning. But he was able to do his
<v Speaker 2>style all the way and maybe for Christmas exactly some
<v Speaker 2>of the others. So I think Disney wasn't ready for him.
<v Speaker 2>And now sometimes I wonder, all those years later, if
<v Speaker 2>I could take a crack at it now, and now
<v Speaker 2>that I really know more about his style and the
<v Speaker 2>Disney style. But yeah, you kind of wonder maybe I
<v Speaker 2>could do it now, why don't you try?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>I should, I should.
<v Speaker 5>I mean, there's enough of his artwork out there.
<v Speaker 2>Is there is. And I had a little I had
<v Speaker 2>a little reunion with him after the winning the poor
<v Speaker 2>feature was was done because Disney sent me and Mark
<v Speaker 2>heent to London and to talk about the movie and
<v Speaker 2>in the media. And I remember the producer of Tim's film,
<v Speaker 2>franken Weenie, stop motion film about a dog, a dead dog. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>it was done in London, and Don Haunt said, if
<v Speaker 2>you have time on that Sunday, they have a press tour,
<v Speaker 2>just hop on over to the studio and see what
<v Speaker 2>they're doing. I've never been on a stop motion set,
<v Speaker 2>which is fascinating. And so I went over and somebody
<v Speaker 2>told him who was there at the time, that I
<v Speaker 2>would be amongst the press people. And when then once
<v Speaker 2>once the tour was done, he came, he came to
<v Speaker 2>me and he gave me a big hug, and we
<v Speaker 2>hadn't seen each other in decades, and he said, he said,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I just had a dream about the two
<v Speaker 2>of us still being in that office on the third
<v Speaker 2>floor of the mission building, you know, trying to do
<v Speaker 2>black cordon drawings, and all that came out of me
<v Speaker 2>was like, I hope it wasn't a nightmare, and he said, no, no,
<v Speaker 2>no it wasn't, but I think it was. But it
<v Speaker 2>was processing the frustration.
<v Speaker 5>Oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Jesus's funny. That's well, that's back. And Jeffrey would
<v Speaker 1>have been your producer.
<v Speaker 2>Jeffrey Katzenberg. Yeah, he was doing after or doing the
<v Speaker 2>winning of the Pool movie days. He was already gone.
<v Speaker 2>Remember Jeffrey left after Lion.
<v Speaker 3>King, That's what it was, Okay, left right.
<v Speaker 2>After Lion King and dream Works, and then dream Works happened,
<v Speaker 2>and then he tried to lure Disney animators to join him,
<v Speaker 2>and some did go, and I was also asked, and
<v Speaker 2>I decided not to. But then that was a lucky
<v Speaker 2>situation because all of a sudden we went demand and
<v Speaker 2>we were compensated a lot better, all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 2>a lot better. Not a bad situation. Yeah, that helps.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's good to be the king.
<v Speaker 2>It's good to be wanted.
<v Speaker 3>It's good to be wanted.
<v Speaker 4>Kind of jumping topics here, but I'm curious to ask you,
<v Speaker 4>you know, obviously a lot of the projects that you
<v Speaker 4>worked on were done traditionally, you know, and you know,
<v Speaker 4>since we've seen Disney kind of move to like more
<v Speaker 4>three D animation, did you learn how to animate digitally
<v Speaker 4>as well?
<v Speaker 2>For a day or day and a half.
<v Speaker 5>For a day and a half.
<v Speaker 2>At the time, I enjoyed it, huh that much? Yeah? Yeah, Well,
<v Speaker 2>Disney said, you don't know what it's like until you try,
<v Speaker 2>and they had a point. So I had a tutor, Disney, tutor.
<v Speaker 5>Were you against it?
<v Speaker 2>I I was not in love with it. I saw
<v Speaker 2>the appeal, and I liked toy Story. Of course I
<v Speaker 2>love Toy Story, but whether it was for me, I
<v Speaker 2>wasn't quite sure. But Disney said, try it. Have to
<v Speaker 2>find out for yourself. So I had this tutor from
<v Speaker 2>Disney come to my home and be all comfortable. And
<v Speaker 2>at the time, I remember the the program was called Maya,
<v Speaker 2>and so I learned Maya and how to move these
<v Speaker 2>electronic puppets. You know, I think I was trying to
<v Speaker 2>have a guy jump over something and and I did
<v Speaker 2>that on a Saturday, and but it was so calculating.
<v Speaker 2>You have to almost use math instead of instead of spontaneity,
<v Speaker 2>because when you draw, you know, you just the accidents
<v Speaker 2>that happened and your hand does something. Oh, I didn't
<v Speaker 2>know sure that this could be good, you know, And
<v Speaker 2>it's just the it's the opposite of being spontaneous and
<v Speaker 2>spontaneity none. And and then I said, you know, this
<v Speaker 2>is somebody else's party. I'm going to still have stuff
<v Speaker 2>to do and drawing these things. And I talked to
<v Speaker 2>Disney about it, and and we parted in very good ways.
<v Speaker 2>They understood me, and I understood them.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I remember seeing and I guess maybe I bet
<v Speaker 1>it was the making of the behind the scenes for
<v Speaker 1>Princess and the Frog when you were you were talking
<v Speaker 1>about you know, John and Ron and they toy story
<v Speaker 1>had come out a couple of different things, computer generated
<v Speaker 1>and uh and when they came to you, obviously, and
<v Speaker 1>and so at that point, you know it's going to
<v Speaker 1>be animated, animated, and you you really said something very
<v Speaker 1>interesting about something about the coldness of the one aspect
<v Speaker 1>and but this is going to be all hand drawn.
<v Speaker 1>So I'm in, I'm in, I'm there, I'm get out
<v Speaker 1>of my way.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 3>It's like, well that was I got.
<v Speaker 1>To believe you were happy at the development and the
<v Speaker 1>way things were going.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that was pent in the Frog, wasn't it. When
<v Speaker 2>John Lassiter came back.
<v Speaker 3>Uh huh?
<v Speaker 2>Because even just before that, Disney had thought about not
<v Speaker 2>doing handtorn films anymore. And then Lassiter was made the
<v Speaker 2>boss of Disney Animation as well as Pixar, and last
<v Speaker 2>I said, no, we all off to the animation. Let's
<v Speaker 2>let let's do at least one more or it turned
<v Speaker 2>out to be two more, and I did MAMAOUDI for
<v Speaker 2>Princess and the Frog. And yeah, it was all still
<v Speaker 2>pencil on paper on these old animation desks from the forties.
<v Speaker 2>And then but of course then and this had happened
<v Speaker 2>a few picture prior to Prince in the Frog. We
<v Speaker 2>scanned the drawings in and then the people who add
<v Speaker 2>color to the characters, they see these our drawings on
<v Speaker 2>the screen and then they have a touch and bleed
<v Speaker 2>they call it. You know, they would pick a grape
<v Speaker 2>or like a wine red and they just touch it
<v Speaker 2>and it bleeds to the edge of the.
<v Speaker 5>Edge of the So did you have to make sure
<v Speaker 5>to do hard lines for that?
<v Speaker 2>Well, the assistants have to do that, Okay, I can
<v Speaker 2>still draw in my own way loose, but we always
<v Speaker 2>have what we call clean up artists. We take a
<v Speaker 2>new sheet of paper and trace it very carefully. And
<v Speaker 2>even though I checked those drawings, but they have to
<v Speaker 2>close those lines, of course. And then then it was
<v Speaker 2>a very a lot. It was a lot faster to
<v Speaker 2>give those those characters color than the old way of
<v Speaker 2>having celluloid sheets and inking them and painting them as
<v Speaker 2>beautiful as they were to look at. But that process
<v Speaker 2>had to happen, you know, because the look was still
<v Speaker 2>the same. You still saw drawings in color on the screen,
<v Speaker 2>you know. But that's where the computer really helped, you know.
<v Speaker 2>But then of course it went a lot further. And
<v Speaker 2>then the animation was done with the with the computer,
<v Speaker 2>and I really would have done it, but it had
<v Speaker 2>to have to do this, and it didn't, you know exactly.
<v Speaker 2>I was more fascinated by it, like in a way
<v Speaker 2>I would react like, look what they can do these days,
<v Speaker 2>isn't that amazing shadows and all that details and all
<v Speaker 2>those camera moves, you know, But but it didn't. It
<v Speaker 2>didn't call me. The passion wasn't there, And so I said,
<v Speaker 2>now I'm going to still be doing this. I still
<v Speaker 2>have some work to do, and then I did my
<v Speaker 2>own film.
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<v Speaker 3>Do it Now.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so it was a few months after so we're
<v Speaker 2>talking twenty eleven. I thought, what I really need is
<v Speaker 2>my own project, and then just ask myself a series
<v Speaker 2>of questions. What do you like to draw most? Well,
<v Speaker 2>probably animals. Animals are really fun to draw. Then what
<v Speaker 2>kind of animal would be fun that I haven't done.
<v Speaker 2>I'd been used to drawing big cats, you know, studying
<v Speaker 2>linking starting lines. I said, by the tiger is really
<v Speaker 2>a cool animal because you got the stripes on the
<v Speaker 2>tiger defining defining the form and that I mean, So,
<v Speaker 2>how about a story of a tiger and a little
<v Speaker 2>girl that could be contrasting and they become friends and
<v Speaker 2>she raises him, and then when he gets big there's
<v Speaker 2>trouble because there's some bad people around the two of
<v Speaker 2>them who want to kill him and sell the body
<v Speaker 2>on the black market or something like that. So she
<v Speaker 2>finds out about it, and then she wants to save
<v Speaker 2>him because she wants to save his life. But she
<v Speaker 2>realizes she has to take him back in the forest.
<v Speaker 2>But she found him as a cub, and hopefully he'll
<v Speaker 2>be a while, he'll become a wild tiger. So that's
<v Speaker 2>all I had. And that's not really a story with
<v Speaker 2>a beginning and end. But then I have no problems
<v Speaker 2>asking for help. And so it's particularly one friend of
<v Speaker 2>mine who is one of those free reading artists. He's
<v Speaker 2>not famous, he but he has written novels and poetry
<v Speaker 2>and he writes music and just everything artistic. I said,
<v Speaker 2>you can probably help me with this, And then he
<v Speaker 2>came up with the idea that the whole thing starts
<v Speaker 2>on a train ride, and that the whole film is
<v Speaker 2>a flat back to this young woman's youth and she
<v Speaker 2>was a child, and then it ends up again when
<v Speaker 2>she is an adult, and and I thought, oh, that's
<v Speaker 2>also and he invented the grandmother that raises the girl.
<v Speaker 2>And because she has a father, but she never knew him.
<v Speaker 2>And then grandmother becomes ill and sends her to her
<v Speaker 2>father who she never knew, to eastern Russia, and and
<v Speaker 2>so there was that dying dynamic, and I thought, well,
<v Speaker 2>this is a novel. Yeah, really, this is a Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>flexted out big time, so it wasn't just about the
<v Speaker 2>tiger anymore. But then of course once she's out there
<v Speaker 2>in Siberia and finds this cup, then then it's about
<v Speaker 2>the two of them. But yeah, he kind of turned
<v Speaker 2>it into a novel. And first I thought, well, it's
<v Speaker 2>a little serious. But at Disney, usually what we would
<v Speaker 2>do when we have a story real like this, we
<v Speaker 2>have gag meetings and see how we can put in gags.
<v Speaker 2>And I said, I the tone of it is just
<v Speaker 2>doesn't call for a gag. There's some humor in it, definitely,
<v Speaker 2>but not really gags, And so it has a call
<v Speaker 2>a tone to it. And I thought, why not would
<v Speaker 2>do one like that? And so I did, and I
<v Speaker 2>was aiming for twelve minutes, but it turned into almost
<v Speaker 2>half an hour. Oh and was the title. Sorry, it's
<v Speaker 2>called mushka. Mushka, this is ushka, yeah, and which is
<v Speaker 2>Russian for sweetheart something like that. And and the reason
<v Speaker 2>why we went to Russia because my my friend, the
<v Speaker 2>screenwriter started in India because when you talk about tigers,
<v Speaker 2>India comes to mind, right, So he was developing this
<v Speaker 2>Indian village with this girl and she goes into the
<v Speaker 2>jungle and finds the tiger cub and he calls me
<v Speaker 2>and he says, there, it just sounds too familiar this'
<v Speaker 2>it's like Mowgli and there is already is a story
<v Speaker 2>about that. And then it was my idea. And again
<v Speaker 2>this is about ten years ago. I said, well, which
<v Speaker 2>country has the biggest tigers in the world. It's Siberia.
<v Speaker 2>Let's go there winter, you know, and rough weather. And
<v Speaker 2>then it became about that, you know, not knowing stuff.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well that's very different because you're usually in the
<v Speaker 1>jungle sweating.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but there is something fascinating about Siberi and it's
<v Speaker 2>tigers in the snow. And that was a remember even
<v Speaker 2>the title of a national geographic special, Tigers in the Snow,
<v Speaker 2>which of course I studied, And so then we located
<v Speaker 2>the whole story there.
<v Speaker 3>Wow.
<v Speaker 4>Wait, so I just have one more question about this.
<v Speaker 4>Online it says that this came out in twenty twenty three.
<v Speaker 4>But you're talking this is over a decade, so was
<v Speaker 4>it released.
<v Speaker 2>We did the festival circuit in twenty twenty three and
<v Speaker 2>went all over the world and showed the film Festival,
<v Speaker 2>won some nice awards. But now it's time for it
<v Speaker 2>to be released. So we're looking toward the end of
<v Speaker 2>the year before the holidays. So oh, perfect on a
<v Speaker 2>streaming service and then my own website maybe, but it
<v Speaker 2>just needs to be seen now, aiming before the holidays. Mushka, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 2>it's m ushka.
<v Speaker 5>Oh, that's exciting.
<v Speaker 2>I'm interested. They can go on YouTube. We released a
<v Speaker 2>whole bunch of music videos.
<v Speaker 5>It was great.
<v Speaker 2>That's the one thing. Also, Richard Sherman wrote a song
<v Speaker 2>for a film o his last movie song No because
<v Speaker 2>I told him ten years ago. He asked me at
<v Speaker 2>a lunch of what I was doing, and I said,
<v Speaker 2>I think I'm going to do this my own film,
<v Speaker 2>and here's the story about the tiger and the girl.
<v Speaker 2>And when I was finished, Richard's fingers tapped at the
<v Speaker 2>table and he said, maybe maybe somebody at this lunch
<v Speaker 2>table with some musical background can write a song. And
<v Speaker 2>I was just like you gotta be tell me if
<v Speaker 2>it's not true. You know, Oh my god, that is
<v Speaker 2>like the major theme, not just a song, but the
<v Speaker 2>theme in the score. It's all based on Richard's theme.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, that's magnificent.
<v Speaker 4>And you want to fill in the audience for anybody
<v Speaker 4>who doesn't know who the Sherman Brothers are.
<v Speaker 1>Well, the Sherman Brothers wrote your favorite song probably you
<v Speaker 1>know you thought it was the Beatles, Well it you know,
<v Speaker 1>they wrote the Beatles' favorite songs too, No, but I
<v Speaker 1>mean everything from Mary Poppins, everything from uh, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I almost said Princess and the Frog, but it's.
<v Speaker 5>A small.
<v Speaker 1>I was going to say, there's a there's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of ear you know what they wrote. They wrote earworms.
<v Speaker 1>And I've told them that and uh and and I
<v Speaker 1>told them. And then one of my I met I've
<v Speaker 1>worked with them many many times over the years, and
<v Speaker 1>I said, I I dadvertently, I didn't. I don't think
<v Speaker 1>I've flat out and insulted them, but close. And I said,
<v Speaker 1>by the way I should, because after I'd gotten to
<v Speaker 1>know them, we worked on any number of projects. And
<v Speaker 1>I said, by the way, I should let you guys
<v Speaker 1>know that I found that. I know the cure for
<v Speaker 1>it's a small world. And they looked at each other
<v Speaker 1>and busted up laughing. He goes, and you know, you know, Dick,
<v Speaker 1>he was sitting there.
<v Speaker 3>Goes, he found the cure for it's a small world.
<v Speaker 3>What pray tell is the cure.
<v Speaker 1>And I said, well, you know how mom, and you're
<v Speaker 1>stuck in you He goes, believe me.
<v Speaker 3>I know, I know, I know all about it. I
<v Speaker 3>wrote it.
<v Speaker 1>I go, yes, you did, and I said, well, it's
<v Speaker 1>the Beatles. The Beatles are the cure for the Showman brothers.
<v Speaker 1>I said yes, And it's the Long and Winding Road,
<v Speaker 1>because if you go the long and Winding road, if
<v Speaker 1>you make it that far, it's it's not quite a hook,
<v Speaker 1>but it's kind of a hook. And all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 1>you know, it's a small world's gone forever. And see
<v Speaker 1>in the Long and Winding Road, you're welcome.
<v Speaker 5>Uh.
<v Speaker 3>I saved you from the Showman brother But that was
<v Speaker 3>that was my story. But they knew what they were doing.
<v Speaker 2>That people telling them that they can't get that small
<v Speaker 2>out of their head. And the people complain, but they
<v Speaker 2>don't mind. The Shermans didn't they think it's funny. They
<v Speaker 2>think it's thought it was great. It's also un honored.
<v Speaker 2>Remember this, you know, and like, along with the rest
<v Speaker 2>of that song said just amazing songwriters.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, absolutely, yeah, I was. I was very you know.
<v Speaker 1>One of my favorite things was was from the last
<v Speaker 1>way of the Pooh I'm busy, busy, busy doing nothing
<v Speaker 1>and nothing is good enough for me. And that that's
<v Speaker 1>a play on words. That's beautiful, busy doing nothing and
<v Speaker 1>nothing is good enough for me. Yeah, you know, you
<v Speaker 1>gotta love those guys.
<v Speaker 2>I want to talk about one other scene that where
<v Speaker 2>we overlap the winning of the poor feature and of
<v Speaker 2>course you did not only Pooh but also amazing work
<v Speaker 2>on Tigger. They gave me all this beautiful material to
<v Speaker 2>work with. And then towards the end of the film,
<v Speaker 2>remember they all end up in that hole and Tiger
<v Speaker 2>is really happy to see uh, to see his friends,
<v Speaker 2>and he gives e or this big hug and I
<v Speaker 2>don't remember the exact line, but oh, I'm so happy
<v Speaker 2>to see you, and he does this snort. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 2>I more like that is interesting. That's the same thing.
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to do something with it. Tiger has never
<v Speaker 2>snorted previously. And I lift up his head and I
<v Speaker 2>put her big nostro in there, just for that moment,
<v Speaker 2>and the directors thought it was funny. And you gave
<v Speaker 2>me that, so thank you.
<v Speaker 3>Oh my pleasure.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I'm I can't tell you how honored I am.
<v Speaker 1>Right now, I'm getting goosebumps. Yeah, I give good snort.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And somebody wrote online, I have to find this
<v Speaker 2>source because you want to know about this. Somebody just
<v Speaker 2>rediscovered recently a young person. I guess we need the
<v Speaker 2>poor feature and she said, and Jim Comming, so did
<v Speaker 2>both characters Pooh and Tigger did such a and she
<v Speaker 2>described it really well, sensitive insight for character rich. He
<v Speaker 2>knew those characters are soul full, that he should be
<v Speaker 2>given an Academy Award for this. And I was thinking
<v Speaker 2>about this. I'm more like, it's true. Yeah, you know,
<v Speaker 2>Academy are you watching?
<v Speaker 3>Well, I'm right here if you need me. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>it's just well, that's nice.
<v Speaker 2>You know, you give the acting performance with your voice.
<v Speaker 2>I try to catch up with my drawings. But what
<v Speaker 2>you brought to those two characters, it's nothing else but astounding.
<v Speaker 2>Oh you go years.
<v Speaker 1>Later, thanks shocks incredible, you have ten minutes to stop that.
<v Speaker 1>Oh well, thank you coming from you. That's that's quite
<v Speaker 1>quite nice. I appreciate it. And you know, I'm looking
<v Speaker 1>at my notes and I realized, runaway brain you were
<v Speaker 1>that was an interesting departure from Mickey Mouse and the looks,
<v Speaker 1>the faces that, I mean, just the whole thing.
<v Speaker 3>It was pretty cool.
<v Speaker 2>I I like it, and it's it's just a shame
<v Speaker 2>that the company sort of like puts it on hold.
<v Speaker 2>At least. Yeah, they're just a little bit didn't know
<v Speaker 2>really what to do with it of the image, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I mean he turned into characters other characters before, but
<v Speaker 2>then as long as he turns into the old Mickey
<v Speaker 2>at the end, I think it's okay. But sure, but
<v Speaker 2>he we we really made a monster out of him.
<v Speaker 2>And but that was the fun part because you take
<v Speaker 2>the most the cutest, most famous animated character and tournament
<v Speaker 2>into a monster and how much more fun can you have?
<v Speaker 2>And so yeah, it's a sat tire on the Frankenstein story.
<v Speaker 2>And and I we would We did the animation in France,
<v Speaker 2>in Paris because they that was the group that had
<v Speaker 2>done the Goofy Movieka and that was done for Disney Television.
<v Speaker 2>Even though on a really high.
<v Speaker 1>Level and the Disney Tune Division it.
<v Speaker 2>Was, and then Disney Future Animation saw it and they said, no,
<v Speaker 2>these guys are pretty good. They should work for us
<v Speaker 2>and help us out because we're always behind on usually
<v Speaker 2>behind on our features. So then that crew ended up
<v Speaker 2>ended up doing sequences for a Hunchback of Notre Dame
<v Speaker 2>for Tarzan Hercules for.
<v Speaker 5>A few years.
<v Speaker 2>But their first project for Disney Future Animation was Runnaway Brain.
<v Speaker 2>So I had the absolute pleasure of going over there
<v Speaker 2>for half a year and working in Paris on a
<v Speaker 2>Disney film, you know, on a short film. But it's
<v Speaker 2>a good short.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, but you didn't have any time to do any
<v Speaker 4>sight seeing, did you.
<v Speaker 2>You know that was really hard because there you have
<v Speaker 2>Paris and all the cultural offerings and you have to
<v Speaker 2>go to work into your nine to five, you know,
<v Speaker 2>a boy, But no, it was it was really fun.
<v Speaker 2>There's one funny dialogue store. It has to do with dialogue.
<v Speaker 2>If I can't bring this up, I think so. A
<v Speaker 2>lot of the people the animators didn't speak English very well,
<v Speaker 2>some not at all, and we were taught a little
<v Speaker 2>bit of French. I had some school French so I
<v Speaker 2>could get by and we met in the middle. So
<v Speaker 2>there's this girl who was an animator and she did
<v Speaker 2>a scene with Mini Mouse at the beginning of the short,
<v Speaker 2>and she was upset because apparently Mickey had forgotten about
<v Speaker 2>the anniversary, of course, and because he was playing video
<v Speaker 2>games at the beginning of Oh No and didn't even
<v Speaker 2>think about the anniversary. And Mini comes in the joy says, Mickey,
<v Speaker 2>you forgot, oh anniversary acrosses her arms. So this girl
<v Speaker 2>had animated that, and the animation was fine, But I
<v Speaker 2>looked at the dialogue and she said she I said,
<v Speaker 2>you never opened really her mouth very big, you know, Mickey,
<v Speaker 2>you forgot. You just have a forgot, you know, you
<v Speaker 2>keep it all in here. I said, you need to
<v Speaker 2>put the vowels and the strong vowels and make them
<v Speaker 2>very big. And and she says, well, I have I
<v Speaker 2>have a mirror in my office. I look into that's
<v Speaker 2>what you know. And I'm like, well, you have to
<v Speaker 2>have an American say that for you to open them
<v Speaker 2>ucause friendship don't do that.
<v Speaker 5>That's funny, Okay.
<v Speaker 1>At least she wasn't using sign language. That would have
<v Speaker 1>been that would have been a little too interesting. Oh god,
<v Speaker 1>well there's a.
<v Speaker 2>This is an interesting issue that came up. Yeah, using
<v Speaker 2>her mouth in the mirror and it didn't apply.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, no, kidding, Shadow puppets. It's not to say no.
<v Speaker 1>What's keeping you the busiest these days?
<v Speaker 2>Gosh, some really really unusual, exciting projects. I still want
<v Speaker 2>to do another short film and more which is a
<v Speaker 2>little bit on the back burner now because I ended
<v Speaker 2>up co producing right now a documentary film on Woolley
<v Speaker 2>Ryderman with his son Bruce Ryderman, who is the original
<v Speaker 2>voice of Mowgli and Christopher Robin. His father directed The
<v Speaker 2>Jungle Book and Winning the Poor Movies as well as
<v Speaker 2>starting Stone. So yeah, so he wants to leave something behind.
<v Speaker 2>He's a year or two older than me, and I
<v Speaker 2>kind of nudged him like a couple of years ago,
<v Speaker 2>I said, your father had such an interesting life. He
<v Speaker 2>was one of the nine Old Men. Then he became
<v Speaker 2>a director. Then Walt passes in the middle of Jungle Book,
<v Speaker 2>and your dad kind of took over and was really
<v Speaker 2>heading up the animated program from then on until even
<v Speaker 2>Folks in the Hound, you know, all without Wald. So
<v Speaker 2>so that that that's a story, you know, and why
<v Speaker 2>was he picked to do that and not others? And
<v Speaker 2>then even during World War Two he was a pilot
<v Speaker 2>to transporting goods from China over the Himalayas to India.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, just a really big adventure. And and he's
<v Speaker 2>pretty famous for having done a lot of action scenes.
<v Speaker 2>He did Monster the Whale. He he did the also
<v Speaker 2>in Snow White, the Mirror, the Guy in the Mirrors that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and he did what else did you do? Later on
<v Speaker 2>Lady in the Tramp to fight with the dogs, So
<v Speaker 2>he was into action and then he started directing. He
<v Speaker 2>did the Dragon fight with the Prince and oh, Sleeping
<v Speaker 2>Beauty and the Dragon and Sleeping Beauty and then directed
<v Speaker 2>from then on. So yeah, we're right in the middle
<v Speaker 2>of it. We interviewed everybody who is still around or
<v Speaker 2>who overlapped with Woolly Wyderman's life because he died in
<v Speaker 2>eighty five, I think, and I was just had zoom
<v Speaker 2>meetings with him. Now I'm doing a little piece of
<v Speaker 2>new animation for the film, like an animateds tribute, and
<v Speaker 2>I think Glen Keen is going to do one and
<v Speaker 2>is like John Palmer, So it's a tribute, but also
<v Speaker 2>it talks about his whole life and it's an adventurous
<v Speaker 2>life that he that he led. So that's one of
<v Speaker 2>the projects I want to do. I just got the
<v Speaker 2>verbal approval from Disney to do a project which I've
<v Speaker 2>started thinking about in the late eighties. Even they have
<v Speaker 2>to do a book on Milk Call again one of
<v Speaker 2>the Nine Old Men, because he really really his style,
<v Speaker 2>his drawing skills were really finding the Disney style for decades.
<v Speaker 2>He designed the final design for almost all characters from
<v Speaker 2>pinoc Pinocchio on because nobody dorew as well as he did.
<v Speaker 2>And so that's deserving of a nice coffee tail work.
<v Speaker 2>And I also know him a little bit in the
<v Speaker 2>eighties and so I can I'm in the in the
<v Speaker 2>middle of that, and.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, just projects like that. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's for that one. Do I get a copy signed?
<v Speaker 2>You? Got it?
<v Speaker 5>Got it?
<v Speaker 2>You got a lot of witnesses here. And I sat
<v Speaker 2>down with Disney and I said, look, I I know
<v Speaker 2>how Disney books are. They're often small and you want
<v Speaker 2>them to fit neatly in the bookshelf. But this Milk
<v Speaker 2>car he was like the Michael Angelo of Disney. It's
<v Speaker 2>got to be it's got to be a size oversized.
<v Speaker 2>I can't do it small. And and look, they looked
<v Speaker 2>at me. And then I did bring some sample pages
<v Speaker 2>that I had done it, and then that got the idea.
<v Speaker 2>I said, no, we should do this.
<v Speaker 5>One deserves size.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that there's so much explosive talent and that you
<v Speaker 2>it needs a scales. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, wow, well nobody does it. I mean you're you're
<v Speaker 1>like the bridge between the Old School, the Nine Old Men,
<v Speaker 1>and tomorrow.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. That's why I also started my blog way back
<v Speaker 2>because I thought I had I'd known these guys and
<v Speaker 2>I could tell the stories that they told me two
<v Speaker 2>people and they never heard, you know, And so that
<v Speaker 2>was part of my blog.
<v Speaker 4>Continue you still post like weekly yog Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>It's just the it almost isn't working, even though I
<v Speaker 2>might be animating stepping over to my computer and scanning something.
<v Speaker 2>It just gives me a break. But it's still in
<v Speaker 2>the same world, you know. And I just don't want
<v Speaker 2>people to forget what these guys did, you know, And
<v Speaker 2>it's just it's too important and so yeah, yeah, you're
<v Speaker 2>right about that.
<v Speaker 1>If you're a fan of everything we do here at
<v Speaker 1>tuned in with Jim Cummings. You could support the show
<v Speaker 1>on Patreon for bonus ex lusive podcasts as well as
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<v Speaker 2>Do It Now.
<v Speaker 4>What would you say to anybody that's young, a young
<v Speaker 4>child these days, that wants to be an animator, what
<v Speaker 4>would be your advice to them?
<v Speaker 2>Well, if you know what kind of animation you're gravitating
<v Speaker 2>to it, then you can be a bit more specific.
<v Speaker 2>If you like computer animation, there are certain skills you know.
<v Speaker 2>You don't have to be a great draftsman. If you
<v Speaker 2>know a little bit of drawing and sketching, it helps
<v Speaker 2>to visualize on paper or on your tablet what you're
<v Speaker 2>going to do. So I even CG for upcoming CG animators.
<v Speaker 2>I said, learn how to draw it. It really helps.
<v Speaker 2>And if you want to do to the animation and
<v Speaker 2>you wait for that medium to come back, which I
<v Speaker 2>think it will because people people really want it success
<v Speaker 2>and it's just a question of time, then do that.
<v Speaker 2>And I would tell them the same thing that Disney
<v Speaker 2>told me to go to the zoo and study anatomy,
<v Speaker 2>study how people move and all of that, and yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I think drawing it's because you're a visualizer. And also
<v Speaker 2>study acting. You know, I've never taken an acting class,
<v Speaker 2>but you watch people behave in a certain situations, and
<v Speaker 2>sometimes I watch a whole movie just observing the acting
<v Speaker 2>of a certain character, because that's basically what you are.
<v Speaker 2>You know. The drawing is almost secondary. You know, you
<v Speaker 2>think about the emotion and what's going on your character's
<v Speaker 2>head's that's the thing.
<v Speaker 3>So study approach it. What are they thinking? What are
<v Speaker 3>they feeling?
<v Speaker 2>And my big break came because Disney told me, you
<v Speaker 2>have to learn how to draw well and then we
<v Speaker 2>teach you the rest. So I did, and then my
<v Speaker 2>first animation was stiff because I didn't have the experience yet.
<v Speaker 2>And then one of the older animators, Olie Johnston, came
<v Speaker 2>and gave a lecture which was very cool, and one
<v Speaker 2>thing he said, you young whipper snappers, you know, young guys,
<v Speaker 2>you shouldn't animate drawings, you should animate feelings. And you
<v Speaker 2>think about that for a while, you think, well, what
<v Speaker 2>is he talking about? Of course, your animate drawings, but
<v Speaker 2>he was talking about his philosophy that the feeling and knowing,
<v Speaker 2>getting into the feeling of the character is actually more
<v Speaker 2>important than nice drawings, because once you feel what the
<v Speaker 2>character is feeling, that will tell you how to do it.
<v Speaker 2>And that was to me, was like, whoa, this is
<v Speaker 2>big stuff. It's one sentence, but it's big stuff. And
<v Speaker 2>I knew then that I shouldn't really focus so much
<v Speaker 2>on drawing anymore. I drew well enough, but you crawl
<v Speaker 2>into the character. And I don't think I ever crawled
<v Speaker 2>deeper than into a character than with Lilo. And Lilo
<v Speaker 2>and Stitch. She was such a complex character and you
<v Speaker 2>couldn't express it in broad ways.
<v Speaker 5>You know.
<v Speaker 2>Tigger is one thing, you know, expresses himself that he
<v Speaker 2>would be the opposite physically. But with Lilo, she is
<v Speaker 2>like so withheld and you know she does little subtle
<v Speaker 2>things and yes.
<v Speaker 3>But cute as can be.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, really, And I remember noticing that, Oh, you're really
<v Speaker 2>in there in her head right now, very very deep,
<v Speaker 2>you know, because there's so many things that she doesn't
<v Speaker 2>have parents anymore. She doesn't get along with her older sister.
<v Speaker 2>They have arguments, and she has trouble at school and
<v Speaker 2>processing all those things, but still having hope. She has
<v Speaker 2>his new friends Stitch, you know, which gives her reason
<v Speaker 2>to be happy.
<v Speaker 5>You know.
<v Speaker 2>There's a lot of things going on, and that it
<v Speaker 2>was a very unique character, very unique and different and villains.
<v Speaker 2>But I'm also very grateful that I had a chance to,
<v Speaker 2>you know, switch gears because after a scar, after Lyon,
<v Speaker 2>King Ron and John were starting Hercules, and they said, well,
<v Speaker 2>do you want to do Haides for us? And I said,
<v Speaker 2>if I have a choice, I said, if I have
<v Speaker 2>a choice, I probably shouldn't do it. Really should be
<v Speaker 2>somebody else's turn, because I might end up repeating myself
<v Speaker 2>in terms of a concept of a villain. And I
<v Speaker 2>am so happy and I really mean it that Nick
<v Speaker 2>Ranieri ended up doing Hades because his take is so
<v Speaker 2>different than what I would have done, and fresh, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and then I ended up doing it was great. It
<v Speaker 2>was wild and and and punchy, you know, and.
<v Speaker 4>And James Wood James.
<v Speaker 2>So Nick did that, and then I asked to do
<v Speaker 2>the hero Hercules because just to try something different, different
<v Speaker 2>character concept, and and that's that. That was the great thing.
<v Speaker 2>You could really not not pick and choose, but you
<v Speaker 2>can if they know that you really have a passion
<v Speaker 2>for a particular character. Chances are you going to get
<v Speaker 2>that character because they know you're going to do a
<v Speaker 2>good job.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because yeah, of course. Yeah, you can just stay
<v Speaker 1>aim and fire. That's wonderful.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So I was weak and uh, did you not do
<v Speaker 1>Nessus the center where you know that was con Duncan
<v Speaker 1>did that.
<v Speaker 2>I did Hercules, messing with Nessus and him, like like
<v Speaker 2>facing him and arguing with him. And so I did
<v Speaker 2>some of those scenes like Ken Duncan DIDs.
<v Speaker 3>Okay because I was nesss.
<v Speaker 2>Right right, Yeah, So I reacted to some of the
<v Speaker 2>I remember one scene that I snuck in where he's
<v Speaker 2>addressing him at the beginning and he's standing in the
<v Speaker 2>water and says, hey, god, how does the lingo? Pardon
<v Speaker 2>you my good? And he looks underneath to see what
<v Speaker 2>he is is he made of Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
<v Speaker 2>And I added that, oh yeah, to take that out.
<v Speaker 2>It's kind of subtle too, you know, pardon me my good, sir,
<v Speaker 2>you know, yeah, yeah, you put those things in.
<v Speaker 3>Oh god, yeah, see if anybody catches him.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. One one other time I did that on Jafar,
<v Speaker 2>and I thought, are they're going to take that out.
<v Speaker 2>At the end of the movie, he was dealing with
<v Speaker 2>Princess Jasmine and Aladdin and the Genie were watching hiding
<v Speaker 2>and he has his final wish. She says, Genie, I
<v Speaker 2>want my final wish. I want Princess Jasmine to fall
<v Speaker 2>desperately in love with me. And I put the tongue
<v Speaker 2>out love. And that's a little naughty, yeah, but I
<v Speaker 2>did it desperately in love with me, And I said,
<v Speaker 2>I'm just just waiting for the phone call, you know,
<v Speaker 2>shut the tongue back inside, you know.
<v Speaker 3>Didn't get it, didn't get it, you know, I have.
<v Speaker 1>I had a couple of those. It was when we
<v Speaker 1>did timooned Pumba and a Cereal on Saturday Morning, This
<v Speaker 1>is the Guy, like twenty years ago, and I played
<v Speaker 1>I think there were coyotes that were coming up and
<v Speaker 1>they were supposed to be hillbillies or anyway, and the
<v Speaker 1>and the line was it's a well don't look at me,
<v Speaker 1>it's not my and I think it's yours. So instead
<v Speaker 1>I said, well, don't look at me, it's not mine.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's urine and and and they they kind
<v Speaker 1>of went, what do you say? Did he say replying
<v Speaker 1>that back, you know, and I think it's urine and
<v Speaker 1>it sounded kind of hillbilly, it sounds like. But anyway,
<v Speaker 1>I had to go in and do it, redo it.
<v Speaker 1>But there is one thing and it's in the movie
<v Speaker 1>Christopher Robin and I've just said this before, and it's
<v Speaker 1>when h little Maddie, she's carrying the dolls around Pooh
<v Speaker 1>and Tigger and and the policeman uh is called. There's
<v Speaker 1>a guy who sees them talking, sees the animals speaking
<v Speaker 1>the stuff. He's talking with her and he's going, wait
<v Speaker 1>a minute, oh, something's up, you know, he's suspicious, and
<v Speaker 1>he calls the police over and he says them little girls.
<v Speaker 1>That little girl she was talking and this bloody target
<v Speaker 1>thing he it was talking, and then and then the
<v Speaker 1>bear he was talking, and he.
<v Speaker 3>Goes, oh, so you're having a little spot. Are you
<v Speaker 3>drinking your lunch? Are you you know? This and that?
<v Speaker 3>And he said, we don't worry about it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I go on, little gayl you can go on right away.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, officer. And I go, thank you, orifice. And
<v Speaker 1>instead of saying officer, Pooh said thank you, orifice. And
<v Speaker 1>it's in the movie. They left it so now you
<v Speaker 1>guys are gonna have to go out there exactly, ya,
<v Speaker 1>And I just made ten cents on residuals maybe who knows.
<v Speaker 2>So Jim, yeah, thank you. Rifice do you get to
<v Speaker 2>at lip a little bit like that?
<v Speaker 3>Every time?
<v Speaker 2>Every time?
<v Speaker 3>Perfect, every time.
<v Speaker 1>I always I'm notorious ad Liver, dark Wing, Doug dark Wing. Well,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know about that, but dark Wing Duck has
<v Speaker 1>this thing. I am the tear of the Flaps in
<v Speaker 1>the Night. I'm the winged skirts of picture in the Nightmares.
<v Speaker 1>I am dark Wing Duck. Well, the first line the
<v Speaker 1>third line are always the same, and we're about seven
<v Speaker 1>shows in. I've told this before. I'll probably tell them
<v Speaker 1>a million more times. It said, I am the tear
<v Speaker 1>of the Flaps in the Night. It does matter what
<v Speaker 1>I write here. You know Jim's going to say something
<v Speaker 1>else anyway.
<v Speaker 3>I am dark going down. So they were right.
<v Speaker 2>So you know, we throw in our little yeah, little
<v Speaker 2>bit makes someone and we want natural you know that
<v Speaker 2>gives us stuff.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah yeah, speaking speaking of natural, I have to ask
<v Speaker 6>you about this, just because you're such a profound artist
<v Speaker 6>and so true to the artistry of using your hands.
<v Speaker 5>How do you feel about this? Ai? Art.
<v Speaker 4>How do you feel about these AI animations that come
<v Speaker 4>from a prompt, not even digitally animated.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I am so cautious when when it generates the
<v Speaker 2>Ghibli style, for example, I think it's cheating. It's actually stealing,
<v Speaker 2>you know. But AI is a tool to help you
<v Speaker 2>get started. I've dabbled a little bit in it. I
<v Speaker 2>have jat gipt on my phone actually, and if I
<v Speaker 2>do a sketch, and I just played with this there
<v Speaker 2>the other day and I said, take a photo of it.
<v Speaker 2>Put it in. I said, what would the sketch of
<v Speaker 2>a person or an animal look like as an oil
<v Speaker 2>painting or as a as a maybe unfinished watercolor. As
<v Speaker 2>I'm developing maybe a project. It will give me all
<v Speaker 2>these options. And it actually can be helpful to stimulate
<v Speaker 2>your because I'm not going to make an oil painting
<v Speaker 2>of my character. I don't painting oil, you know. But
<v Speaker 2>it gives me another point of view, another visual, so
<v Speaker 2>to get you going and stimulated. I think it could
<v Speaker 2>be a very good thing. And people friends of mine
<v Speaker 2>have used it for text you know, they have to
<v Speaker 2>write a form letter to an insurance company, but every
<v Speaker 2>word is really important. So it helps you with that,
<v Speaker 2>but keeping your own sensibility or the way you talk.
<v Speaker 2>And so I think for stuff like that it can
<v Speaker 2>be good. But the whole stealing thing is is unfortunate.
<v Speaker 2>You know that it's just grabs something that it seems
<v Speaker 2>and repackages it. I think that's that's kind of awkward.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I totally agree with you, though I think it
<v Speaker 4>could be a great tool. I don't think it's the solution.
<v Speaker 4>I think it's a tool to help, you know, like
<v Speaker 4>how a paint brush helps you paint. You know, it's
<v Speaker 4>a lot better than a finger or a stick. You know,
<v Speaker 4>it's that in between.
<v Speaker 2>It's not the Yeah, you see your character maybe depicted
<v Speaker 2>differently that you maybe hadn't thought of, and then you
<v Speaker 2>pick it up from from that and take it someplace else,
<v Speaker 2>and it just gives you gives you options instantly, and
<v Speaker 2>that's kind of a cool thing.
<v Speaker 3>So it's a tool.
<v Speaker 2>It's a tool.
<v Speaker 3>It's just it's just a tool in the end.
<v Speaker 5>And hopefully it stays that way.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Yeah, we'll see what happens. It's a little scary,
<v Speaker 2>you know. So listen to some of the people who
<v Speaker 2>work in AI, and some of them say the world
<v Speaker 2>has no idea what's coming. It scares me a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>we'll see, we'll see what.
<v Speaker 3>Happens, yeah, Norkwood.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well they don't as we stay human and grounded,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and humanity is something you want to We
<v Speaker 2>don't want to have a fabric humanity.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, right, yeah, the terminatory past.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah yeah, hopefully that'll be fiction for a long.
<v Speaker 2>Time, for a long time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, science fiction always becomes science fact.
<v Speaker 2>Though, I know, you know, I know, I know. I
<v Speaker 2>remember seeing that Kid Winslet movie about the virus and
<v Speaker 2>that was science fiction way back fifteen years ago. And yeah,
<v Speaker 2>thing happened, Yeah, it has a way.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well on that happy note, Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Leg it, subscribe and all that, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So what will I be seeing you at any
<v Speaker 1>conventions upcoming or any lectures or are you on?
<v Speaker 3>Are you out there not?
<v Speaker 2>Because I know not specifically. I did get an Instagram
<v Speaker 2>note from somebody who said, oh, would you ever consider
<v Speaker 2>coming to this town for we have our own cons
<v Speaker 2>right now. So I'm considering that and yeah that's good,
<v Speaker 2>love to do that. And there's some signings a good time.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, yeah, well that sounds good, But I think
<v Speaker 2>my main focus right now among those projects that I
<v Speaker 2>is to have my film out there so people can
<v Speaker 2>see it. And because I get those questions absolutely on
<v Speaker 2>those little clips that we did post where can I
<v Speaker 2>see it? Where can I see it?
<v Speaker 4>And so now I'm excited that Mushka is coming out
<v Speaker 4>so soon. I didn't expect that.
<v Speaker 2>Well it's been it's been a while that we've sort
<v Speaker 2>of been no, i know, been available to us. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's time. It's time. I just want people to see
<v Speaker 2>it and like it, not like it whatever.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, but good.
<v Speaker 2>You just make these things for an audience, yeah right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and we'll put.
<v Speaker 4>The links to the clips that are on YouTube in
<v Speaker 4>the description of this video. Yeah, so people can just
<v Speaker 4>easily click over and watch those. Yeah, of course, of course.
<v Speaker 4>And thank you so much for being here. It's a
<v Speaker 4>really good, an absolute pleasure. We could go on, you know.
<v Speaker 5>Thank you.
<v Speaker 6>Well, feel free to come back anytime, all right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 6>we'll be here.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I would like to get your reaction once the
<v Speaker 2>film is out, like past the holidays early next year,
<v Speaker 2>if you've seen it, what do you think of it?
<v Speaker 2>Maybe that way guys? Yeah, and alization, then you will
<v Speaker 2>have heard the Sherman song and you approach graphically I
<v Speaker 2>have in the film because the first Disney films I
<v Speaker 2>saw were those Xerox films where the lines were black
<v Speaker 2>and lively under one domnation. So my film is in
<v Speaker 2>that style. Oh wow, that's interesting to get your take
<v Speaker 2>on it. Yeah, that's good stuff.
<v Speaker 5>Let's do it. Yeah, fantastic.
<v Speaker 4>Thanks again, very much much, and thank you guys all
<v Speaker 4>so much for watching another episode of Tuned In with
<v Speaker 4>Jim Cummings. I'm producer Chris Jim Cummings, the legend himself
<v Speaker 4>in the other Legend Andreas Desha, thank you so much
<v Speaker 4>for being here. If you guys like that content, be
<v Speaker 4>sure to like and subscribe. It helps us, it helps
<v Speaker 4>you find more content like this. Did you know that
<v Speaker 4>on YouTube you can actually watch a video and it's
<v Speaker 4>never ever recommended to you. Again, I know, the algorithm's crazy,
<v Speaker 4>so make sure that doesn't happen. If you like this content,
<v Speaker 4>and if you like it so much you want to
<v Speaker 4>see more good news, you can go subscribe on page.
<v Speaker 4>That's right, Jim Cummings tuned In. On Patreon, you can
<v Speaker 4>find bonus content, additional content. A little behind the scenes,
<v Speaker 4>we have the cameras rolling for a little longer than
<v Speaker 4>on YouTube, so you can get a little sense of,
<v Speaker 4>you know, the friendliness and the camaraderie between.
<v Speaker 5>The guests, the stuff. You know, you get a little
<v Speaker 5>peek behind the curtains, so to speak.
<v Speaker 3>There you go.
<v Speaker 4>If you want some merchandise, you've got to shopify Jim
<v Speaker 4>Commings closet. And I think that just about does it
<v Speaker 4>for all of that good stuff. Convention dates and the
<v Speaker 4>description of course, and until next time, I'm producer Chris
<v Speaker 4>once again, Jim Cummings, Andreas Desha, Thank you so much,
<v Speaker 4>see you in the next one.
<v Speaker 3>But Adi, that's all folks, And you just make it
<v Speaker 3>so comfortable. Oh we'll good.
<v Speaker 2>You make it so easy, you know. Thank you so much.
<v Speaker 3>Oh I'm so glad you made it. Thank you.