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ON DIRECTING |
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The death of Chuck Jones has brought the animation community together. I have received phone calls and emails from people I haven’t heard from in years, just wanting to chat, and I have reached out to others for similar solace. I’ve always said Chuck Jones was the greatest animation director of them all, and I well remember the times we have talked together in person or over the telephone. His passing got me thinking about directing. It has just occurred to me in recent days that those who enjoy animation, even those in it, probably know the least about that aspect of it than the rest. Every making-of video goes on and on about character design and animation, but directing is hinted at, touched on very little directly if at all. Well, here is what I’ve come to think about directing, after doing it for over thirty years now: I guess I believe in the single vision theory. Give five directors the same script to bring to screen and you’ll get five very different films. Each is drawn to the material in a different way, and brings his or her own style and point of view to the film. Oliver Stone would see the conspiracy in it all, Alfred Hitchcock the inherent suspense, Barry Levinson the irony, and Woody Allen the personal hell each character is going through. Give Bugs Bunny to five different directors, as they did, and we got Tex Avery’s wild Bugs and Bob Clampett’s screwy Bugs. Fritz Freleng told us his Bugs story with gags, Bob McKimson told his story as situations, and Chuck Jones gave us the psychological Bugs. The directors
were the creative boss. The film’s color, pacing, art style, taste and
tone was theirs. A good director also knows to vary an animator’s work to keep him fresh and challenged. Bill Tytla went from animating the threatening devil character Chernabog in FANTASIA, one of the most powerful and dynamic sequences ever done, to the innocent and charming Dumbo. When Walt Disney, pleased with Marc Davis’ handling of Alice in ALICE IN WONDERLAND, told him he wanted him to next do Wendy in PETER PAN, an almost exact same character, Frank Thomas piped up “That’ll kill him!” and he was right, and a different character was assigned. A director will therefore recognize individual talent and let it run free within his vision. He must keep his people motivated over the long haul of animation production. That isn’t as easy as it sounds. Everyone must constantly do their best in every scene. A weak scene is devastating to the whole. Magic and charm are broken, and in an animated film, that means believability is broken. The director must also be able to get people to work as a team. That’s even harder to do. Artists are, well, artists, with all that implies. Individual free spirits with different ways of working. How to maintain that without crushing them or hurting the film? There must be trust. There must be respect. I have worked for years at times with people I didn’t especially like, and the feeling was mutual. Yet we did some fine things together without a raised voice. We respected each other artistically, and made a great team, and it was all professional, by mutual unspoken agreement, and it was stress-free. Accordingly, I have had to let go good friends when their work on a picture was not satisfactory. In almost all cases we remain good friends many years later. The five
commandments: The film comes first. There can only be one director.
There can only be one vision. You listen to everyone, incorporate what
helps the film, but it all goes through the director’s strainer. A
film by committee is death. A film by compromise is death. |
Making an animation film is the most difficult of all types of directing. You have to know in all its detail and scope what everyone else knows and does—animation, layout, design, music etc. And you have to know how each of those contributes to achieve your vision of what you want. Directing his first film, Tom Hanks said it was a full day of answering questions on the most minute details possible, and you were expected to instantly know the answers that would make your film the one you wanted to make. So you have to know what you want onscreen and the feel you want onscreen and how to get it. Why does TITANIC’s music have a haunting theme in its music? Because it reflects the director’s vision. A pure epic movie about a ship sinking would have had a purely dramatic music score theme, something like the STAR WARS music. But James Cameron’s vision included the humanity of the sinking and so a haunting theme brought that out. Directing is complex. The director has to be sure of himself or herself, his talents, his abilities to lead others, to be a strength during the production, and an inspiration to his team. He has to be able to rally the forces when things bog down. In the final analysis, a film is just a series of strips of films, individual scenes, edited together. That’s all it is. Get those individual scenes onto strips of film, cut them together and your film is done. But each individual scene has the potential to illuminate your vision of the film. And if they do, then when they are all joined together a creative miracle occurs. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. A scene is a scene but put together they have a feel and tell a story. Directing is editing in reverse in a way. You have to know how to take this story, this vision and how it should feel watching it, and break it down into individual scenes so that when it does get put together it will add up to the film you envisioned. You also break it down into style, design, color, music that similarly add up to the film you envisioned. We watch two
dogs eat spaghetti and experience the pinnacle of character animation in
their romance. We watch a puppet come to life, a rabbit outwit a hunter,
a mermaid get her wish, a princess get her prince. The directors and animators who created great films were ordinary mature persons with faults and foibles, operating in the same cold, cruel world, beset by personal problems be they financial, marital, illness and every other kind of problem, fully aware of mankind’s folly (so they could caricature it.) They were as we are and in their work directed and animated with artistic honesty, sincerity and integrity, believing not that their characters were real, but in the reality of their characters. A mere stringing together of scenes? I think not. No more than music that moves us is the mere stringing together of notes. You must first feel the music to hear its notes. A good director feels the film before seeing the scenes. The director creates an environment that allows, that encourages greatness to happen. And if he does, the animators and all the other creative people, and even the audience will follow him anywhere---to Neverland, or Wonderland, or Under Da Sea. I wish you good directors to work with. Peter Adamakos is an animation producer and director who founded an animation company 31 years ago. Peter has also been a collector of original animation artwork for over 35 years. His collection has formed the basis of major museum exhibitions in cities like Montreal, New York, Toronto, Tampa, Paris, Atlanta, Brussels and many more. He also teaches in animation. Peter can be reached by e-mail at peter@disada.com or by snail mail at: Peter Adamakos
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An animator may work on only a few scenes in a film. He
or she trusts the director to see that their scenes fit seamlessly into
the whole. The director trusts that the animator will breathe not only
life but meaning into the scenes so that they contribute to the whole.
Directors of animation cast artists as directors of live-action do
actors. Some animators are great doing fast scenes, others do best
slower scenes, filled with character and personality.
Mere drawings make us
laugh or wipe away a tear. As overworked as the word is, it IS magic. If
the director dreams---and works his ass off---then the audience can
dream along. Sincerity, clarity, belief in the story, the characters,
and the vision. Cynics and pessimists need not apply.