Making a sequel isn’t easy, especially when you are tasked to end a very popular and beloved franchise.   That was exactly the challenge Director Mike Mitchell and Head of Story, Walt Dohrn had to face with Shrek Forever After.  You will also recognize Walt as the voice of the villain in the film, Rumpelstiltskin.  We recorded this interview right before the movie premiered, just as Mike and Walt were going all over the world to help promote the film.   We were very fortunate that they found some time in their busy schedule to sit down and talk to us.

Besides being incredibly smart and talented, Mike and Walt are extremely funny guys.  This interview was way too much fun and you will see that it was hard to go five minutes without busting up laughing.  Ben, Jacob, and Stephen all worked on the film and are very proud of it.  We all agree it was one of the funnest productions we’ve ever worked on.  We also agree that this interview very accurately portrays what it felt like to work on the film.  Lots of really great creative discussion mixed with lots and lots of laughs.   So sit back and enjoy this very fun interview with Director Mike Mitchell and Head of Story, Walt Dohrn!!

We should mention that Mike brings up something called “RLO”  that we never explain in the interview.  RLO stands for Rough Layout, and it is the process we use before animation to previs the action and camera.  Also when Mike uses terms like “Yong Dukery”  he is referring to the beautiful camera work of our Head of Layout, Yong Duk Jhun.

I hope you’re excited, because we are super excited to bring you our Jason Schleifer interview!!  Jason was very kind to sit down with us and talk about his amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, journey into animation.  From his very beginnings at Wavefront, all the way through The Lord of the Rings, and straight on to being the Head of Animation on DreamWorks Animation’s Megamind; we covered it all.  Jason was really great to talk to and we had so much fun.  Way more fun then should be had in an interview.  So thanks again Jason!  Enjoy!

In this interview we sat down with an amazing animator and supervisor, John Hill.    John was really fun to talk with and had so much to share.  We discuss how he got his start, working at Don Bluth,  animating Bartok in Anastasia, and most recently Rumpelstiltskin in Shrek Forever After.  We also dive in deep about his thoughts and experiences as an animation supervisor and his process as an animator.  This interview is packed full of great advice.  While prepping for the interview we noticed that John’s IMDB page wasn’t entirely accurate so to start we decided to clear up his history.  Have fun and enjoy the interview!

We are excited to bring you our podcast with Jason Ryan!

Jason has become a well-known animation supervisor and teacher.  In the past few years he has made a name for himself in animation education with his Jason Ryan Animation tutorials and Webinars, and is in the midst of starting his next educational project – iAnimate.net.
He sat down with us to speak about finding his path into the animation industry and the events that led him to his career at Disney and subsequently DreamWorks.  We talked about how he learned animation, his transition from 2D to 3D, and his philosophies on animation education.

We sat down with Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois to talk about How to Train Your Dragon. Chris and Dean have long been a creative team; their brief history includes writing together on Mulan, writing/directing Lilo and Stitch, and writing/directing How to Train Your Dragon.

The two were gracious enough to spend time speaking with us about creative decision making and articulate their thought processes while making a film. It was very inspirational to hear such talented people discuss how they bring their visions to life. We talked with them about story structure, design, cinematography, character animation, directing, and much, much more.  A lot of very talented people came together to create the film, and these wonderful directors are never shy about handing out credit! Among many others, they discussed the amazing contributions of Simon Otto (Head of Character Animation) and the famed cinematographer, Roger Deakins. You can find a larger crew list here to search for any other names they bring up.

Enjoy!