“The Wild Robot” Head of Story Heidi Jo Gilbert on Motherhood’s Many Meanings
No one is more delighted that The Wild Robot has surpassed all expectations at the box office and with critics than director Chris Sanders. Receiving almost perfect reviews upon its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film is headed towards record-breaking box office numbers for DreamWorks. Buzz has begun for The Wild Robot as a strong ...
Animation Director Jason Boose on Creating a Madcap “Garfield” for a New Generation
Chris Pratt voices the iconic, lasagna-loving star of director Mark Dindal’s The Garfield Movie, which uses Garfield’s love of Italian cuisine and the indoors as a jumping-off point for an origin and adventure story in one. A sweet-faced kitten gloms onto lonely Jon (Nicholas Hoult) at a restaurant and doesn’t let go until an unexpected ...
How the Animation in John Krasinski’s “IF” Came to Live Seamlessly Among Live-Action
Written and directed by John Krasinski, IF is a fantastical inverse of Krasinski’s A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II. A contemporary fairy-tale journey inspired by Krasinski’s own daughters, IF pairs live action and animation to bring us Bea (Cailey Fleming), a tween who learns she can see everyone else’s imaginary friends, and ...
Best of 2023: How the “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Visual Team Created a Mesmerizing Multiverse
*It’s our annual “Best of the Year” look back at some of our favorite interviews from the year. When Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was released five years ago, its web of 2D and 3D animation became a box office hit and went on to win the Oscar for best animated feature. Incredibly, the return of ...
“Wish” Head of Character and Animation Avneet Kaur on Populating a Richly Diverse World
This Thanksgiving, the new animated musical comedy Wish premiered in the midst of the studio’s 100th anniversary, and the inspiration for the film can be encapsulated by “When You Wish Upon a Star,” a song made famous in Disney’s second full-length feature, 1940’s Pinocchio. Wish takes place in the magical kingdom of Rosas, in the ...
Best of Summer 2023: How the “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Visual Team Created a Mesmerizing Multiverse
*It’s our annual “Best of Summer” look back at some (not all) of our favorite interviews from the past few months. This non-comprehensive look back includes the Barbenheimer phenomenon and the wonderful interviews that followed those two history-making films, chats with the talented folks behind Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, our profile of MPA ...
Best of Summer 2023: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Look of Picture Supervisor Bret St. Clair on Spider-Punk, Mumbattan & More
*It’s our annual “Best of Summer” look back at some (not all) of our favorite interviews from the past few months. This non-comprehensive look back includes the Barbenheimer phenomenon and the wonderful interviews that followed those two history-making films, chats with the talented folks behind Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, our profile of MPA ...
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Look of Picture Supervisor Bret St. Clair on Spider-Punk, Mumbattan & More
Not bad for a sequel. Following on its 2018 Oscar-winning predecessor, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ranks as the best-reviewed wide-release movie of the year, boasting a 96 percent approved rating on Rotten Tomatoes while grossing $390 million worldwide since its release earlier this month (at the time of publication). Critics have hailed the film’s ability ...
“The Magician’s Elephant” Creative Team on Netflix’s Warm, Wondrous New Animated Film
If you’re looking for a wonderful, feel-good movie to cozy up to, The Magician’s Elephant on Netflix is a beautiful story whose animation springs to life an ensemble cast of characters you’d want to befriend. The film is a re-imagination of a novel by Newbery award-winning author Kate DiCamillo and follows a young boy named ...
Best of 2022:”Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” Animation Supervisor Brian Leif Hansen Packs Puppets With Emotion
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list. Inside a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Portland, a little boy made of wood galvanized efforts by stop motion filmmakers for three years before emerging now to wow moviegoers in Guillermo del Toro’s ...
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” Animation Supervisor Brian Leif Hansen Packs Puppets With Emotion
Inside a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Portland, a little boy made of wood galvanized efforts by stop motion filmmakers for three years before emerging now to wow moviegoers in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. This dark stop-motion iteration of Carlo Collodi’s 1882 tale, in theaters and streaming on Netflix, takes place in 1930’s Italy, ...
Disney Legend Floyd Norman on the New Doc “Mickey: The Story of a Mouse”
As Walt Disney once famously said, “It all started with a mouse.” Steamboat Willie, which starred a mouse that became an icon, was released on November 18th, 1928. To commemorate the anniversary of that historic short, Disney+ is airing a new documentary called Mickey: The Story of a Mouse, which examines the character’s continued cultural ...
Legendary Animator & Oscar-Nominee Glen Keane on his Kobe Bryant Collaboration Dear Basketball
In light of the tragic news of the death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna Bryant, 13 (the second oldest of Bryant’s four daughters with his wife, Vanessa), and seven other people in a helicopter crash in California, we are re-posting this interview with animator Glen Keane, who worked with Kobe on their ...
Legendary Animator & Oscar-Nominee Glen Keane on Teaming up With Kobe Bryant, his Disney Past & More—Part I
In light of the tragic news of the death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna Bryant, 13 (the second oldest of Bryant’s four daughters with his wife, Vanessa), and seven other people in a helicopter crash in California, we are re-posting this interview with animator Glen Keane, who worked with Kobe on their ...
Frozen II Head of Special Effects Marlon West on the Sequel’s Epic Ambitions
Frozen II co-director and screenwriter Jennifer Lee says that if the Disney Oscar-winning blockbuster Frozen was about a happily ever after, then Frozen II is about the day after happily ever after. Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf are back, and fans get to see this found family take on new challenges and learn more ...
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World‘s Creators on the Trilogy’s Epic Conclusion
Director Dean DeBlois always knew How to Train Your Dragon would be a three-part series where fans would see its main character Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) grow up and bond with a loveable dragon named Toothless. Now in its final chapter How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World illustrates how the animation has matured in ...
The Lego Movie 2‘s Animation Director on World Building Brick-by-Brick
Five years ago, the first Lego Movie surprised audiences with its nimble moral-dealing in the importance of flexibility and independent thought. Also the song “Everything is Awesome.” The sequel (not counting two in between spin-offs, Lego Batman and Lego Ninjago), director Mike Mitchell’s The Second Part, is back to address sibling rivalry and the value ...
How Avengers: Infinity War’s VFX Animation Director Micro-Managed Thanos’s Facial Expressions
Phil Cramer doesn’t watch films the way most of people do. When the man who directed VFX animation for Avengers: Infinity War goes to the movies, he studies the characters’ cheeks. “I like to stare at the actor’s face and see what moves and why does it move,” he says. “You’d be shocked by how ...
How the Isle of Dogs Animators Drew Life from the Characters Frame By Frame
Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox was an incredible feat of animation. The storytelling transcended the inanimate objects and you can hardly believe the characters are mere puppets. A new featurette for Isle of Dogs dives deep into the artists’ methodology, giving us an incredible 3-minute documentary of the life of a stop-motion animated film. Breathing ...
Legendary Animator & Oscar-Nominee Glen Keane on his Kobe Bryant Collabroation Dear Basketball—Part II
In this second of a two-part interview with veteran Disney animator Glen Keane, creator of such beloved characters such as Ariel in The Little Mermaid and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, discusses what went into his latest solo project – the Annie-winning and Oscar-nominated short Dear Basketball. Were you into basketball? I read ...
