Quote of the Month

“This is our best ‘last season ever’ ever. There are a bunch of episodes that I think are going to be classics. The series finale is a tasteful, emotional gorefest…There’s a lot of death, but there’s also a lot of time travel, so that makers an interesting combination!” 

— Futurama co-creator and exec producer David X. Cohen, on the final season of Futurama

“I believe that engaging people emotionally is easier with a freehand drawing. There is something in that analog process, something more emotional and engaging. There is much more work to do to convey the same emotion with the characters in CGI.” 

— Chris Sanders, co-director and co-writer of DreamWorks’ The Croods

“I had kind of given up, you know? The movie came out in March, after all. I’m just delighted. We were very low key and (the movie) wasn’t shoved down people’s throats. I’m happy people remembered it fondly from when it was out.” 

— Peter Lord, director of Sony/Aardman’s The Pirates! Band of Misfits, on hearing about his film’s Oscar nomination.

“The two best animation studios in the world, DreamWorks and Pixar, are in a transition period where they are obliged to invent new things so that they don’t repeat the same film all the time. More than ever, even in its business aspects, animation needs inventiveness and artists. I’m very curious to find out what will happen in the coming years.” 

— Joann Sfar, co-director, producer and writer of The Rabbi’s Cat

“They [Disney animators] are used to classic, realistic animation, and this style goes against everything that they’ve ever learned about what makes good animation. I told them: ‘It’s going to work out great. Just trust me.’” 

— Wreck-It Ralph director Rich Moore on convincing his team to rely on 8-bit animation techniques to depict the cruder visuals of some parts of the movie.

“People get worried and they go, ‘Oh my God, the dog gets hit by a car.’ It’s funny how people are afraid of their emotions. I remember the original Frankenweenie short was supposed to go out with [re-release of] Pinocchio, and they got all freaked out about it, like kids would be running, screaming, from the theater.” 

— Tim Burton on how the emotions and incidents in Frankenweenie aren’t usually associated with Disney films.

“In a strange way, two of the stories that fascinate me the most are kind of related, which is Frankenstein and Pinocchio. They are both about creatures that are created and then get lost in a world they don’t understand. And they are both journeys of understanding, and journeys of evolution of the spirit. When we started working on Pinocchio we knew very clearly that we wanted to make it different in the sense that it is not just a fairy tale but a fairy tale that actually moves you and emotionally affects you.” 

— Producer and co-director Guillermo Del Toro on his upcoming stop-motion adaptation of Pinocchio.

“All you need is a goat and a camera!” 

— LAIKA’s CEO and animator Travis Knight, discussing the lead character Norman’s hair in ParaNorman, which is made out of goat hair during the film’s hilarious Comic-Con panel.

“I wanted a real girl, not one that very few could live up to with tiny, skinny arms, waist and legs. I wanted an athletic girl. I wanted a wildness about her, so that’s where the hair came in, to underscore that free spirit. But mainly I wanted to give girls something to look at and not feel inadequate.” 

— Brave director Brenda Chapman on creating the lead character of Pixar’s latest movie.

“There is a certain slickness and symmetry to a lot of traditional animated and contemporary CG movies. But we wanted to find the coarseness, the asymmetry, the broken edges. And everyone we roped in along the way in some way added to that.” 

— Chris Butler, writer/co-director of LAIKA’s upcoming feature, ParaNorman.

“Merida just happens to be, by default, a princess. We don’t really call her Princess often in the movie. And she’s trying to reconcile this difference between how the world wants her to be, and how she sees herself. Ultimately, she’s going to have to look inside herself, and what she finds in the mirror is not exactly what she expected. That’s kind of our definition of ‘brave’ in the movie — looking inside yourself and coming to grips with who exactly you are.” 

— Mark Andrews, director of Pixar’s upcoming movie, Brave.

“I find that the discipline of directing an animated film, or watching someone direct an animated film, is so different, there’s such a different feel for the staging, it’s almost like a different medium entirely, and you get a fresh perspective on the visual approach, on the design. Just learning the fortitude and patience the directors on these projects have to have — they go through years, plural, shepherding these projects – is inspiring to watch. I have a very eclectic idea of how to tell a story, and nd every tool comes in handy, but I think that it really is becoming more and more permeable.” 

— Producer Guillermo del Toro (Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss In Boots, The Rise of the Guardians and Day of the Dead).

“I directed the Liz Taylor episode when she did the voice of Maggie saying, ‘Daddy.’ I asked her for 15 or 20 takes. At the end she said in the cute baby voice, ‘F– you!’ It was really funny.” 

— Al Jean, The Simpsons show runner in The Hollywood Reporter.

“What happened to the Ralph Bakshis [the director of such adult-oriented animated movies as 1972's Fritz the Cat] of the world? We’re all sitting here talking about family entertainment. Does animation have to be family entertainment? Audiences want something new; they just can’t articulate what.” 

— Rango director Gore Verbinski in The Hollywood Reporter.

“Everyone in Hollywood says they wish they could do it like Pixar, but they really don’t. There’s no secret at Pixar, but there is a belief in letting people pursue something with passion and take chances, and most of Hollywood, really, doesn’t like that. It’s too scary.” 

— Director Brad Bird in a recent Los Angeles Times interview.

“I don’t know, they [Disney] got freaked out or something, but they still allowed me to make the film,” Even though I was frustrated about the release — or not release of it — it was still a great experience, and did a lot for me, so I couldn’t really complain.” 

— Director Tim Burton on his 1984 short Frankenweenie, which has inspired the Disney feature of the same name, set for an October 2012 release. (Entertainment Weekly)

“Why is Caillou bald at four?” 

— Internet response to research showing that watching fast-moving shows like SpongeBob SquarePants may destroy children’s attention span while slower toons like Caillou are harmless.

During last month’s D23 Disney fan expo, Pixar revealed a few details on its upcoming features:

“At Pixar we love to explore new worlds. We’ve taken you from the depths of the ocean, to the mountains of South America, from Monstropolis to outer space. We’re excited to take you somewhere everyone has been to, but no one has ever see: The world inside your own mind.”  — Director Pete Docter

“We can’t wait to tell you more about it … As soon as we’re out of psychotherapy.”  — Producer Jonas Rivera

“I just adored working it [motion capture]. It made me more like a painter than ever before. I got a chance to do so many jobs that I don’t often do as a director. You get to paint with this device that puts you into a virtual world, and allows you to make your shots and block all the actors with a small hand-held device only three times as large as an Xbox game controller.” 

— Director Steven Spielberg on using performance capture technology for The Adventures of Tintin

“The story of a puppet who wants to be a real live boy also serves as an allegory for the work of the Disney geniuses — and all the great animators whose works are included here — who start with pencil and ink, or pixels, or silhouettes, or plasticine figurines, and create vivid characters that live forever inside the small, enthralled child that is every moviegoer.” 

— Time magazine critic Richard Corliss on why he picked Pinocchio as the best animated feature of all time

“I think 3D is right smack in the middle of its terrible twos. We have disappointed our audience multiple times now, and because of that I think there is genuine distrust—whereas a year and a half ago, there was genuine excitement, enthusiasm and reward for the first group of 3D films that actually delivered a quality experience. Now that’s been seriously undermined…The audience has spoken, and they have spoken really loudly.” 

— Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation CEO

“In light of recent events, A Squared Entertainment, POW, Stan Lee Comics, and Archie Comics, have halted production.” 

— Andy Heyward, CEO of A2 Entertainment, on whether changes will be made to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new animated series The Governator in light of recent revelations that former Calif. governor fathered a child with a member of his household staff.

“The film does gather inspiration from classic, legendary characters. There is a little bit of Clint Eastwood in there, but also Zorro, and Indiana Jones. Even James Bond, to an extent.” 

— Chris Miller, director of Puss in Boots

“What if Cars 2 is the first Pixar movie to bomb? And what if it’s because of my performance?” 

— Director John Lasseter on voicing the all-American pickup truck named John Lassetire in the upcoming Pixar movie Cars 2.

“I had been turned down so many times. But I kept my pitch for this short very simple and just used 12 drawings and John (Lasseter) said, ‘Oh, this is going to be great,’ before I was even finished.” 

— Teddy Newton, director of Pixar’s Oscar-nominated short Day & Night

“I can look past Smurfette looking like Snooki after accidentally covering her body with liquid Ty-D-Bol instead of blended orangutans like usual, but I can NOT look past the fact that they completely left Vanity Smurf out of this new picture from The Smurfs movie! That b**** should be front and center, instead he’s completely MIA!” 

— Dlisted.com blogger Michael K.’s reacts to the new image released from Sony’s summer movie The Smurfs.

“With live action you’re going to have actors pretending to be Captain Haddock and Tintin. You’d be casting people to look like them. It’s not really going to feel like the Tintin Hergé drew. It’s going to be somewhat different. With CGI we can bring Hergé’s world to life, keep the stylised caricatured faces, keep everything looking like Hergé’s artwork, but make it photo-real.” 

— Peter Jackson, producer of the upcoming The Adventures of Tintin, directed by Steven Spielberg, in Empire magazine

“I think that we should always be able to say the holes in our DVDs are poked by unhappy unicorns.” 

— Al Jean, The Simpsons’ Exec Producer and Show Runner, on the show’s amazing series credit sequence created by British artist Banksy

“My next movie will have to tell a tragic story about a boy. That’s why I want to escape to Porco Rosso: The Last Sortie. It should be interesting. It’s set during the Spanish Civil War. I can really understand how 20th century literature captured the tragic characteristics of boys.” 

— Hayao Miyazaki on his plans to make a sequel to his 1992 feature Porco Rosso

“That quivering identity seems very ordinary in Japan, which does not have an absolute religion like Christianity, but multiple nature gods and goddesses. I’m sitting in L.A., answering your questions, but in my mind, I may be remembering work left in Tokyo and wondering what’s going to be for lunch today. Other people cannot experience that. So the experiences of the heroines in Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue could not normally be shared with an audience.” 

— Acclaimed Japanese anime director Satoshi Kon (1963-2010)

from a 2007 Los Angeles Times interview

“I didn’t set out to make a ‘successful’ show… 

I tried to make a show that I wanted to see on the air. I figured there was a good possibility that the viewers wouldn’t get it. My attitude was that I’d rather fail trying something new than fail making something old.”

—Steve Hillenburg—creator of SpongeBob SquarePants in Joe Murray’s new book, Creating Animated Cartoons with Character [Watson-Guptill Publications, $24.99]

“It was at a supermarket in Los Angeles. A mother was with her son, and he was, I suppose 5 or 6 years old. And the mother pointed at me and said, ‘Look, look, that is Puss in Boots.’ And the kid just looked at me and said: ‘No, mom. That’s Zorro.’ “ 

— Actor Antonio Banderas on being recognized for voicing Puss in Boots in the Shrek movies.

“You cannot do anything that is of a lower grade and a lower quality than what has just been done on Clash of the Titans.” 

—DreamWorks Animation Chief Exec Jeffrey Katzenberg on the stereoscopic 3-D conversion process done by Warner Bros. on the recent movie.

“Basically, we bring back everyone who’s [ticked off] at us. All the people that are [ticked off] at South Park the town are going to file a class-action lawsuit against the town.So basically it’s going to be an all-star, who’s who. Tom Cruise and everyone’s going to be back.” 

—Trey Parker on what he and Matt Stone are planning for the 200th Episode of South Park [which airs on Comedy Central on April 17, 2010.]

“‘The atmosphere was of a very well-maintained Rolls-Royce that people didn’t want you to drive. They were on autopilot, and if a movie came out halfway decent and didn’t look incompetent, they’d go, ‘Whew, we survived another one!“ 

—Director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Iron Giant) on Disney animation during the ’80s.

“I used to think that . . . 

my shorts were like frustrated feature films. But now having been on a great adventure making two feature films pretty much back to back, each one took about four years to make from idea right through to the end, you think up a joke and you see it on screen four years later. It’s very frustrating, so I was desperate to get back to short films again, to see the ideas on screen a little bit sooner.“

—Nick Park, director, Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death

“Excellent!” 

— Fictional cartoon millionaire Charles Montgomery Burns scored the most write-in votes for mayor of New York, collecting 25, according to Board of Elections data.