Don Bluth Interview.

[Dave]

Last week, Don was interviewed by Raul Aguirre jr for a Podcast on the website, Man V's Art...

Here's the link:
http://manvsart.com/man-vs-art-episode-28-animation-legend-don-bluth-interview-part-1/

[Seth]

Awesome Interview! Thanks for sharing, Dave. Hmmm, I might need to clean the wax out of my ears, but did Don say he was doing this website with his son, Dave? Did I hear that right?

[Rodney]

Thanks!

That was refreshing.

Thanks not only for the interview with Don but the introduction to Raul's podcast.

...and this is part I of II in his interview with Don! :)

[jeremyhopkins]

Interesting podcast! Is Raul on the forum? If he is, he should post some of his animation and drawings - show us how it's done!

I've posted this before but to let everyone know, you can find a ton of radio plays online at the internet archive: http://www.archive.org/details/SUSPENSE

[C. Siemens]

Mr Aguirre mentions his website in the podcast which you can find here (http://www.studioraul.com/).

[jeremyhopkins]

Thanks, I saw some of his paintings there but I couldn't find any animation or animation sketches(besides the one on twitter). Are they there? Do I need new glasses? :P

[C. Siemens]

There's his reel (http://www.studioraul.com/raul_aguirre_jr_animation_reel.html) with some scenes from Treasure Planet that ended up in the movie ...

[jeremyhopkins]

Nice assisting and clean up work! Glad to see others sharing their passion for animation!

[samuelvictorjones]

Hmmm, I might need to clean the wax out of my ears, but did Don say he was doing this website with his son, Dave? Did I hear that right?

I caught that as well, made me do a double take. Funny how Dave didn't answer when I asked before how he met Don & if it was when working in Ireland. I wonderred why an Irish employee would follow Don back to the states :laughing: I assume that personal life is very private in the Bluth household, I never see reference to family etc on websites or biography, so I'd say we should dig no more :rolleyes:

I concur that its a great interview, downloaded & saved, really interesting chat between two people so clearly passionate about traditional animation. Some fascinating inside stories from Don about working at Disney too. I'll definteily listen to it again & make notes, it brought up a few things to further research, as well as some potential questions for future seminars :)

Was it just me who was annoyed by the random music in the background? Its the first of these podcasts I've listenned to though, probably become a part of Raul's "style". Overall I really liked it & look forward to hearing the second part.

I've said it before but will do so again, I think its absolutely wonderful what Don & Dave are doing with this site. Its inspiring that Don has so much passion for the artform & teaching it to future generations to keep it going. He's an inspirational person & a fantastic teacher also. I'm learning such a lot under his guidance here, & this interview shows so clearly his enthusiasm for continuing the good work & spreading the word :)

[Rodney]

Was it just me who was annoyed by the random music in the background?

I was going to comment on that but figured that might be something to send to Raul personally. It seems to be a signature style of his podcasts so I'm not sure he'll change it but it did make listening difficult at times.

One might almost suspect Raul of being crafty here in forcing his listeners to play the interview over and over again. ;)

If you are reading this Raul... the parts that I could hear... great stuff!!!
I will be listening to Don's interview again. ( I wonder if a noise filter would chill out that background music a bittle lit)

[samuelvictorjones]

I agree it made parts of the interview less clear & I often rewound to listen to bits i'd missed. If the music was quieter it would have been less of an issue. It sounded like most of it was unliscensed commercial music so n idea why he'd want to include it tbh. Having a generic royaltly free latin style background at about half the volume would have been better & still inkeeping with the style.

I tried commenting on the blog, mostly to say I enojyed the interview & to recommend this website & Don's teaching, but the comments aren't showing. When I try to repost it says "you already said that" :confused: Perhaps Raul has to approve a comment before its shown, although there's no indication of this. Has anyone else tried to comment?

[jtq3]

xxxxxxxxxx

[Richard Willimot]

Very interesting interview and I like his loose interview style,but I agree the music was not necessary. And I wish after the Don's biography he wouldve started the interview instead of putting all that other minutia in.

[C. Siemens]

The music and some of Mr Aguirre's ramblings, although I can tell he meant every word of it, were a bit hard to sit through.

The bits I didn't quite like were the ones about likening CG to just puppetry and a point-and-click way to animation. For one thing - I love puppetry and that includes stop-motion. To this day I admire Jim Henson and his work at least as much as any master animator's and I'm crazy about Aardman. Also, and this is coming from me, a "2D animator" who has never really CG-animated before, if the performance is good the medium becomes secondary to me.
I admit that given the choice between two sterling performances in classically hand-drawn and CG I will very likely enjoy the hand-drawn more because of what it is. I daresay I'll also always enjoy drawing more than animating digitally. (The last two projects I worked on were in Flash so I'm not completely talking out of my, erm, 'behind' here.)
However, I can't get myself to regard hand-drawn as intrinsically better because it is in a way harder and more work. At least that's the vibe I got from Mr Aguirre's words. Stop-motion animators, not unlike CG animators, work with solid if a bit rigid designs that will take care of their own volumes and shapes. (Plus, CG takes care of its own inbetweens, too.) I deeply respect the extra skill required in hand-drawn to keep characters solid and dimensional and I personally take more pride in properly inbetweening my hand-drawn stuff than using Flash tweens right. Digital animation comes with its own pitfalls, pratfalls and problems and I problem-solve in Flash at least as much as when I'm slaving over a difficult inbetween. At the end of the day I can be as proud of a digital scene done well than of a hand-drawn one.

The part I liked immensely, on the other hand, was Mr Bluth's bit about radio and audio plays and how they stimulate the imagination. I was read bedtime stories all the time as a kid and listened to stories on my cassette recorder. Today I know how valuable that was for developing my visual imagination. Back then I filled in the missing pictures in my head just like I do today before getting started on a scene. "Close your eyes to see" will always be one of my favourite animation quotes thanks to Mr Bluth!
So if you are a parent, read to your kids! They'll thank you for it later. ;)

[samuelvictorjones]

To this day I admire Jim Henson and his work at least as much as any master animator's and I'm crazy about Aardman.

I heartily agree with both those examples.

As far as CG vs 2d there's no reason why they can't co-exist perfectly well as stated in the interview. I liked what Don said about oil paints not "killing" water colour etc. Personally I'd prefer that scripts/ideas were sorted first, & then the best medium to render the story chosen. for example, Wall-E or Finding Nemo would not have worked as well in traditional animation. However, I'd venture that of the Pixar films, perhaps the Incredibles or Ratatouille would have been even more impressive if, shot for shot, they had been made in 2d.


If you are a parent, read to your kids! They'll thank you for it later. ;)
Re-quoted for truth. :cool:

[C. Siemens]

As far as CG vs 2d there's no reason why they can't co-exist perfectly well as stated in the interview. I liked what Don said about oil paints not "killing" water colour etc. Personally I'd prefer that scripts/ideas were sorted first, & then the best medium to render the story chosen. for example, Wall-E or Finding Nemo would not have worked as well in traditional animation. However, I'd venture that of the Pixar films, perhaps the Incredibles or Ratatouille would have been even more impressive if, shot for shot, they had been made in 2d.

I agree, Wall-E needed to be 3D. Finding Nemo, I could see it work either way. Imagine it with lavishly painted underwater backgrounds. Incidentally, I always thought they should've done Shrek classically. The first one, that is, and be done with it. I just have this hunch that if you're going to spoof the Disney fairy-tale tradition, why not meet them head-on in their own medium? (It might have also spared us some of the eerier CG humans that sprang from the movie ...)
The Incredibles would have been the pinnacle of awesome hand-drawn, I agree. I think (but I have no sources to prove this) in some earlier stages of development when the project was called "Ray Gun" or something like that, someone at the helm of the production actually toyed with the idea of a hand-drawn Pixar movie. Too bad Lasseter had to wait years to make a big-budget, classically animated feature happen, and that it had to be done through Disney and a little too much in their old tradition.

Yes, hand-drawn and 3D at their best are of equal artistic worth, but the overall business-thinking about animation seems to be too pigeon-holed to allow for really bold creative changes in either medium to happen fast. I think we've understood during recent years that 3D got assigned to deliver pop culture innuendo-filled buddy pictures as much as "2D" was to give us mostly fairy-tales full of animal sidekicks and songs ...

[samuelvictorjones]

I agree. But, I think attitudes can change, if enough people are bold enough to try & break the mold, & 1 or more of them are succesful enough to enter the public consciousness.

I've seen some beautifully hand animated underwater sections in films, but still think a lot of the lighting in Nemo was "better" suited to CG. I entirely, wholeheartedly agree that Shrek should have been traditionally animated, that would have been awesome, & actually helped the parody of the old films better than the cg styling. I love the Incredibles, but the 2d illustrations on a lot of the merchandise show how amazing it would have looked in a modern 2d style, with the same huge set-pieces. :cool:

[Rodney]

The bits I didn't quite like were the ones about likening CG to just puppetry and a point-and-click way to animation.

It's easy to read into the statements but there is good reason to compare CG to puppetry. This is not a bad thing and I believe we have to take statements of the sort expressed in the interview in proper context. They are talking about hand drawn animation and how that craft cannot be manipulated as easily. I supppose an argument could be made that the efforts to blend methods and mediums of traditionally crafted art with the computer is also akin to digital puppetry.

I love CG animation. (Hash Inc just released the new Beta version of Animation:Master with Netrendering and that makes me really happy!)

I prefer traditional animation. (God Bless Don Bluth!) There is nothing quite like those hand drawn images that appear to be living and breathing.

For me its mostly a matter of degrees.
Bad stories mostly suck.
Bad computer graphics mostly suck.
Bad drawings mostly suck.
All have the potential of sucking the life out of me.
But without the insights gained (through CG, traditional... whatever) most of us can only expect to produce the sucky-type things.

I do find myself wondering... if all we had to look at in hand drawn animation was the old black and white rubber hose gag focused cyclicly limited silent movies would it be any easier to see where we are and appreciate where we are going?

Strictly speaking, one of the reasons CG is so popular is its novelty.
It is fueled by an industry that seeks to explore, exploit and better understand that novelty.

[Solium]

Thanks for posting the interview. In general I agree with what was discussed. I think the best comment was from Mr. Bluth when he said traditional animation is still widely accepted in Europe and Asia.

It would be hard pressed for me to say a 3D artist is less of an artist than a 2D artist. But I think there is some truth to the puppetry comment. My biggest issue between 3D is that it has the puppetry plastic look. 3D films look like stop motion animation and you just cannot get the nuances in expressions like you can in a 2D character.

I also think one of the thing that makes animation so spectacular is its "atmosphere". You can give an atmosphere a personality and style all its own that looks really cool in 2D. The ship explosion in The Little Mermaid was far more impressive than any of the 3D explosions in The Incredibles.

The interview itself was what you would call, "over produced". I really don't understand how a seasoned professional thought he could so freely use those scores as background music. If he was going to do that then he should have at least used scores from Mr. Bluth's films!

[Dave]

Raul has posted part 2 of the interview with Don on his website. Here's the link.

http://manvsart.com/man-vs-art-episode-29-don-bluth-interview-pt-2-plus-webcomic-diva-onezumi-hartstein/

[samuelvictorjones]

Wonderful to hear the rest of the interview. Many inspiring words from Don as always, nice to have a copy to keep & listen to again & again (Although I'll edit out the intros & silly voices :laughing: Raul seems like a really cool guy though, his enthusiasm is genuine & infectious)

I was particularly interested in the discussion of artists working hard & putting their soul into projects that in their heart they don't really believe in.

I find it very hard to criticise animated films, even those that aren't truthfully very good, because I know how much work goes into them, & just because some element of the film, like the script, voice acting, music or whatever isn't up to scratch, doesn't mean the individual animator doing a 10 second section didn't craft it lovingly & do the best job they could with what little they were given!

Fascinating to hear Don talking of having so many people in charge of projects that the artistic integrity of the original vision. I've always adored Secret of Nimh, & it consistantly sounds like the film that Don & Gary felt most proud of, or was most "theirs" to craft. It must have been heartbreaking when it didn't do as well as they hoped at the time. It must help somewhat that its consistently rememberred & mentionned to this day as a shining example of beautiful animation & storytelling. :cool:

[Solium]

I find it hard pressed to criticize the animators as well. Ive always found the Disney animated features from the 90's to be rather superficial and I could never get as emotional caught up in the story and characters as I thought I should have. Yet, there is no denying the incredible talent that brought the art to the screen. If only I had one tenth of that talent.

What I find most dissatisfying about the whole film process today, be it 2D, 3D and even live action effects films is that the art is cold, calculated and redundant. These new crop of artists are expert technicians and even draftsmen, but the art of design and presentation is not there.

The disappointment box office response of NIMH must have been devastating. I do think, the film has gained a lot of fans over the years with its release on cable and video.

[samuelvictorjones]

Yet, there is no denying the incredible talent that brought the art to the screen. If only I had one tenth of that talent.

Thats how I feel. For example to hear Raul's undertones of sadness when he breifly badmouthed Treasure Planet was a shame, as his own pencil tests I've seen from that film were really, really nice, at the time he obviously put a lot of love & effort into them. The fact the finished film wasn't universally liked shouldn't detract from the fact he personally did a great job.

One almost reverse part of this for me is films which have one or two standout elements, but the animation was cheap (usually sent out to korea or china I guess) ruining the effect somewhat. I remember the first time I saw "Sebastian Star Bear" - a feature with, for the most part, awful, sub saturday morning animation. It made animation on things like "CareBears" look like a Disney Classic. The script was very poor also, although based on some lovely inital ideas. I can imagine the same characters & story, if having more attention lavished, turned into a far better film. Finally the soundtrack, by Henry Seroka was amazing. Actually moved me to tears, haunted me for years. So a terrible film, but with SOME elements that people had clearly worked very hard on. The fact other people didn't pull their weight (or more likely, the budget/timeframe just wasn't there) shouldn't detract from the work of the few people who made the project there own, but to be honest, it kinda innevitably does. Perhaps one day when I'm super rich I'll commision a remake :P

Another example that springs to mind is "The Water Babies" (the feature, not Disney's short). It was a mix of live action period drama & animation. The live action sections were excellent, clearly big budget for the time, excellent sets, costumes, actors. Plot was also excellent (although probably should be, based on the "classic" 1863 Reverend Charles Kingsley novel. Be warned by today's standards the novel is fairly repugnant in some of its values, at the time it was actually very socially & politically progressive!) The animated parts, um, yeah. Not so much. But again, perhaps the people animating were really trying their best & cared about the project. I don't know. But it didn't come off well.



What I find most dissatisfying about the whole film process today, be it 2D, 3D and even live action effects films is that the art is cold, calculated and redundant. These new crop of artists are expert technicians and even draftsmen, but the art of design and presentation is not there.
In many cases I agree with you. This isn't always the case though. And often times we look back with rose tinited spectacles - lets not forget how much shovelware pap was released in the 90s, 80s, 70s, heck, any time period. Its just that most of that gets forotten about over time, & the real classics are the ones rememberred. I wonder which films from the 2000s will be rememberred in the future? Most of the CG stuff will be old fashionned looking, so the character design & script will be what makes them still relevant. I'd venture a guess that "Wall-E" will be rememberred. "Space Chimps"? Not so much :laughing:



The disappointment box office response of NIMH must have been devastating. I do think, the film has gained a lot of fans over the years with its release on cable and video.
Oh god yes. it actually upsets me to think about this. Especially as the home video market didn't really exist back then either, & film merchandise wasn't the giant it was now. Cinema tickets were pretty much the sole source of income. It was certainly a sleeper hit though, over the years being syndicated many times & being a success on home video rental & sales, I'm sure by NOW its done very well for itself. I can see no other reason why there would have been a sequel. (Although that sequel itself must also have been heartbreaking to Don, Gary & John. Its pretty much an insult to the love & care instilled in the first one :( Of course, again I'm sure there's still redeeming sections that the individual animators put a lot of love & thought into, but the project as a whole was an entire **** up to make a quick buck off the first film, it seems.)

[Solium]

It disappoints me a great deal that NIMH was never the box office success it should have been. However I feel in many ways NIMH has redeemed itself with its second life on television, cable and video releases.

For years after its release I would search for anything NIMH. I would hunt down every video release, the score on LP and CD. Merchandise that was never fully released with the film. There are many things. Story books, coloring books, puzzles, games, the list goes on.

Anyway when ever I purchased merchandise in the stores, clerks would recognized the title and say how much they enjoyed the film on cable. More often than not, they called it a Disney film! If I had a nickel for every time I had to tell someone it was not a Disney film. LOL

Regarding today's films and CGI and its comparison with movies of the past. Sure there were a fair share of "B" movies in the past with poor production values. How many really bad Star Wars rip offs came out in the 70's and 80's?

But today its main stream films that have unimaginative visuals and poorly executed designs and layouts. Are the robots in Transformers an amazing piece of CGI? Yes. Are they exciting on screen. For me absolutely not. They are over designed. Editing today is far to frantic and they have no sense of establishing the shot, keeping a subject in focus and carrying the action threw in a coherent way. Scenes are not well storyboarded. Lack of training in traditional art and filmography is really evident.

[samuelvictorjones]

But today its main stream films that have unimaginative visuals and poorly executed designs and layouts. Are the robots in Transformers an amazing piece of CGI? Yes. Are they exciting on screen. For me absolutely not. They are over designed. Editing today is far to frantic and they have no sense of establishing the shot, keeping a subject in focus and carrying the action threw in a coherent way. Scenes are not well storyboarded. Lack of training in traditional art and filmography is really evident.

And that perhaps is where you win the argument. It hadn't occurred to me that many of the films that are woefully under designed & poorly made are high budget "A" movies.

The designs of the robots in the live action/cgi Transformers are absolutely hideous. Especially in the second film where there are several robots on screen at once I have no idea what's going on for large portions of the action. Hugely over designed. Almost the opposite of the original, simple, clear designs. There were elements about the first film I enjoyed, so I gave it a chance. The second has nothing I like about it (save perhaps the 2/3 second shot lingering on Ms Fox as she leans over the motorbike!). There is nothing redeeming about Transformers 2. Awful, awful, abomination of a film.

[Solium]

Ironically what I enjoyed about the first film was the interaction between the human characters. I was bored to death with most of the robot and cgi scenes because I just couldn't follow it. Total confusion. There was also no sense of awe one should have when seeing giant transforming robots on the big screen. I felt nothing.

[Rodney]

Hey! No fair involking Transformers as an example of bad filmmaking!
There should be some kind a galatic rule against that.

Now that I think of it, I might be able to use that as part of my proof that all art is ugly. Hmmm... Press on. Press on. You may be on to something.

I cannot comment on Transformers 2 as the first film left me to scarred and scared to attempt watching the sequel.

Tranformers is what I'd call 'Shotgun art'.
Shoot everything you can think of at the screen and some will find art in it somewhere.

:)

[samuelvictorjones]

Tranformers is what I'd call 'Shotgun art'.
Shoot everything you can think of at the screen and some will find art in it somewhere.

I think you're right. But in the first film, a lot more was (perhpas co-incidentally) right with it than the second. As Solium said, the human interaction was at least half interesting.

My daughter watches a lot of teen stuff. I always kinda warmed to Shia in "Even Stevens". I'd also long been a fan of Megan Fox since seeing her in an Olsen Twins movie & "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen". I remember thinking she was gorgeous & played the "bi*ch teen queen" role quite well. She was utilised perfectly in the first Transformers film, expanding on that role to someone who's actually a good person, but guarded, & with the wrong crowd. I also adored Sam's mother in the first film, a slightly more subtle version of Eugene Levy in American Pie.

Both these positive elements were obliterated completly in the second. Imagine for example that there is a scene where his mother goes to visit him at College, buys some hash brownies, & runs around acosting all the campus girls telling them to date her son because he's a stud. Its even worse than you could possibly imagine. And as for Sam/Michealas relationship? Or even Sam/Bumblebee's? Almost non existent in the second film, as the douchebag leaves them both to go to college to find the "real him". The only other times he's with them, they are all running screaming from big robots, or jumping away from explosions in slow motion. (Doesn't anyone know that can't actually happen in real life?)

The negative points of the first movie are massively over exagerated by the second. I can imagine Michael Bay directing the film, trying to bear in mind the criticisms of the previous film. "Can't tell what the robot designs are supposed to be representing? Why not have 7 of them on the screen at once, moving really fast & swooshing the camera round, frequently doing 180s on all action? Oh & change the lighting so they all look the same colour while you're at it. That should make it better. *muttering under his breath* Racist undertones you say? Man, then lets see what these PC b******s say about THIS!"

The best insight into bad film-making you can get is listenning to a Michael Bay commentary track. Sample line, not even exagerated: "So I thought Prime didn't look bad-ass enough, so I said paint some FLAMES on the side. They came back & showed me the concept with some pu**y-assed flames & I threw it back in their face. I told them MORE flames, BIGGER flames, and get a MEXICAN to do it!" :laughing:

[Solium]

The best insight into bad film-making you can get is listenning to a Michael Bay commentary track. Sample line, not even exagerated: "So I thought Prime didn't look bad-ass enough, so I said paint some FLAMES on the side. They came back & showed me the concept with some pu**y-assed flames & I threw it back in their face. I told them MORE flames, BIGGER flames, and get a MEXICAN to do it!" :laughing:

Wow, I'm speechless.

[Rodney]

Wow, I'm speechless.

I'm beyond the point of being objective when it comes to Transformers (the first film) and my opinion is entirely too biased and my thoughts best kept to myself.

I will give it's creators this: They obviously tried to make it a good film. I see evidence of this. I suspect the film had very heavy editorial interference?

Personally, the elements Samuel sites I found repelling. I found almost nothing in common with the human element in the film. What boggled my mind was knowing that the creators had carefully crafted those elements into the film and directed it to be portrayed that way. Of course they did, they had a sell through demographic to attend to.

I could associate with the military elements but only through my military affiliation (that is to say I recognized the middle east in the film). Its only through that affiliation that I could transport my suspension of disbelief into the film. This is the shotgun effect I mentioned. There is bound to be something of interest to almost everyone... even if only cursory... in the film. Of course there are the everyday built in connections they get for free... you might own a car or know someone who owns one for instance. ;)

Note: I'm intentionally trying to bring some elements from Don's interview into the mix to keep us on topic. ;)

[Dave]

There is bound to be something of interest to almost everyone

Glad they had popcorn and sodas in the joint.

[samuelvictorjones]

Glad they had popcorn and sodas in the joint.

Wow, that actually made me laugh out loud!


Wow, I'm speechless.

lol. Unfortunately I'm not joking. I always listen to commentaries if they are there, to learn more about making films, to hopefully help my own. Michael Bay comes accross as an imbecile at best. He's made one or two half decent films, but judging from the others, I have a strong feeling this may have been by accident. :rolleyes:


Personally, the elements Samuel sites I found repelling.
You find Megan Fox repelling?! :eek: lol. I can see the silliness of the humour/over acting of Shia & his mum wouldn't be for everyone. I certainly found the dog peeing on Bumblebee a good few steps too far.

Actually you have a point that some of the military stuff was at least authentic. However I found very little real human element to those sections, love, trust comeradary between the troops. Phoning for back-up help & getting a call centre was a nice joke, if misplaced. I think the main reason I try to forget about the military parts are the black soldiers running away screaming "you's not gonna belieeeeve 'dis sh*t!". Made me laugh the first time, for entirely the wrong reasons :( :mad: Also the fact that Scorpionok, although semi-cool looking, was about 10 times too small. Grr...

To go back on topic, the animated Transformers movie was actually good. Genuis by comparison. Some (admittedly not all) of the animation is brilliant, & the overall plot & voice acting are exemplary. Don's mentionned liking certain Anime before, & the fact that the Japanese allow a more adult nature to the story telling rather than toning down for kids.

[Poulpette]

Thank you for posting thoose links. Really interesting interview. :)