One Reassuring Thing About The Internet...
No matter how much you geek out over something, there’s always someone else on the internet geeking out even more. And they aren’t shy about letting you know about it!
Like, okay, I was excited to see the original Wall-E trailer that played before Ratatouille. I’ve been looking forward to Wall-E ever since hearing the unspeakably awesome SplineCast with Andrew Stanton… but there I go again. And yet, see, when I watch this, I’m clearly not in the same place about this movie:
Wow. I love how it’s in two parts.
Of course, this brings me to the alarming thing about the internet:
It makes you think you’re not geeking out that much… when you totally, totally are. And even more so for having fed your interest online. And yet, on the internet, it’s okay. You’re somehow, impossibly, among friends.
From Wikipedia to World of Warcraft to Facebook to Twitter, I think that the great social accomplishment of the internet is to make it okay to obsess over things because there’s always someone, or indeed many people, close at hand that are even more obsessed than you. I think I may even be being serious. In any case, it never ceases to amaze me.
So the Finale
In the summer of 2000, I was sitting in a classroom at Universal Studios CityWalk. I was taking a class in writing for animation – yes, doing scripts for cartoons. Well, we had a couple of guests this particular night, Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley.
They were the producers of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, which hadn’t even aired at that time. After they talked about Buzz, Mark mentioned that they had an original show they had just started working on. Mark kind of looked at Bob and asked, “Should we tell them?” Bob shrugged, “Sure.”
Mark said, “Well, we’re not really supposed to be talking about it since it’ll be a long time before it airs. But we’re just so excited that we can’t not talk about it.”
That show was Kim Possible. They explained that it was a kind of cross between a female James Bond and a high school comedy. That Kim and her inept friend Ron Stoppable would take down super-villains but still have the same problems as anyone in high school. And their eyes lit up and they got excited. It sounded really cool, even if we didn’t fully get it yet.
And, Mark added, “There’s something that I’m proud about, which is that we made the decision right from the start that Kim would never pick up a gun.” She wouldn’t even point something like a gun at anyone. I was really impressed by the resolve with which he said it, and they of course made good on that promise (with a little help, in the first season, from a grappling hook launcher which cleverly let Kim strike a secret-agent profile).
Well, more than six years and eighty episodes later, Kim Possible has become something really great. But I have to tell you, I could tell that it was going to be something special, not because I have any sixth sense for good TV shows or can pick a winner. It’s because I saw the intensity and excitement in Mark and Bob as they were telling a classroom of strangers about this show they’d thought up. The premise sounded interesting, the characters sounded fun, but most of all, the creators, who had just been through the grind of a 65-episode series, were bursting at the seams with excitement. Anyone could tell something great was coming.
So now the fourth (and final) season of KP is coming to a close. Mark and Bob are moving on to things beyond the Wells building, the cast met for the last voice session last week, and things are being put in their place to wrap up everything on the series. I’ve been following along by reading director Steve Loter’s blog which counts down to the series end with some behind-the-scenes access. Check it out here:
Blackwing Sketchbook From Paris
Jennifer Lerew’s Blackwing Sketchbook has a great series of sketches from a trip to Paris. Très formidable! Her sketches are as amazing and expressive as usual, plus there’s the backdrop of a wide-eyed first-time trip to Paris. Irresistible.
MSPW Trumps Technique
First, check out this post on startups and animation I saw at News.YC. What can I say, a post about startups and Pixar, right up my alley.
It reminded me, I got a kick out of hearing Brad Bird interviewed by the Spline Doctors (q.v.) when, near the end, they asked him about Glen Keane’s impressive technical ambitions. He was like, yeah, fine, but come on, the audience doesn’t care about that! “Hey kids, you want to see some sculptural drawing this weekend?” Classic.
So yeah, the director’s priority isn’t to advance the technique or the technology, but to tell a great story well. You could just as well say it’s to make something people want, since he’s a guy who really fights for what the audience wants. So technique is good but not gold.
Technique and experimentation is the focus in academia, film festivals and so on, and there’s some pretty lively subcultures that follow that kind of stuff. But if your goal is to make something people want, then that’s what’s got to be in the driver’s seat. All that push-the-boundaries, show-everyone-how-I-can-do-it, expand-the-art-form, make-cool-technology-for-its-own-sake stuff has got to be in the back seat.
So if you want to MSPW, don’t fall in love with technique. Make it the servant, not the master. Value what it does for the art, not how it reveals your cleverness. Keep it in the back seat. And when it gets out of line, go ahead and kill your darlings. Don’t hesitate to delete “cool” code. Smash the amazing hands off the sculpture.
"Who knew what they would do? These were the people that put out 'Cinderella II.'"
What superlatives can you say about John Lasseter and Pixar that haven’t been used already? All I need say is that this is a director and a group of artists who are truly story-driven and it shows.
Here are some interviews for those of you who also aspire to be story-driven in what you create:
First, for those not up to speed, Entertainment Weekly gives an overview of Pixar circa 2006. (Bonus: at the end, John picks five of his inspirations when making Cars. I love hearing what works have excited and inspired people who make great works themselves.)
LA Times on the details behind Cars (Sidebar on the new Pixar/Disney relationship)
In Fortune, John Lasseter gives his story himself (Sidebar interview with Bob Iger on Pixar)
I have to give a lot of credit to Bob Iger for his observation on Pixar:
One thing that you detect right away is there is not an ounce of cynicism in Pixar’s films. And in a world that I think is more cynical than it should be, that’s pretty refreshing. I think it’s a critical ingredient to the success of Pixar’s films. It’s one of the reasons why people love them, and not only as much as they do but for as long as they do.
That’s not a revelation, but it’s something Bob Iger thought was important enough to focus on in a business magazine article when he easily could have praised a dozen other things about Pixar. It seems to be something that truly has value to him.
To me, this is yet more evidence that he is a guy who really gets it, is enthusiastic, has a definite critical opinion and focuses in on the right things. Those are the things you see in great animation directors like John Lasseter and Walt Disney, but they’re also the skills you want from any leader of a creative enterprise. No wonder Steve Jobs likes him.