INTERVIEW:
Question 1
A Bug's Life is a real film, not simply a technical exercise. Do you think this
film could have been made using other techniques?
Answer
I believe that each of our stories, Toy Story and A Bug's Life, could only have been made
with computer animation. As an artist, I am very attracted to this medium, I love this
medium of computer animation and I have been working with it since 1981. What has happened
is that my taste in stories and even artistic styles has evolved into things that are
appropriate for computer animation. So the choice of toys for Toy Story and insects just
lends itself to our medium. And my hope is that after wehave finished the movie you look
out and think: "this movie, if it was live action, it wouldn't be the same, if it was
self-animation, it wouldn't be the same, if it was puppet animation, it wouldn't be the
same." These stories are meant for this medium of computer animation..
Question 2
What are the stories that you want to tell to children and adolescents, and also to
adults?
Answer
I love to tell stories in my films that have a message. I don't like to hit people over
the head with a message. I like stories of character growth, of characters finding out who
they are and becoming content, becoming happy with who they are. No-one is perfect. In A
Bug's Life none of the characters are perfect, they all have flaws. But through the course
of the film they don't solve those flaws; they actually become comfortable with the flaws
and say: "Hey! That's who I am and I'm OK with that". I think that is a really
important message to tell kids. Everyone is unique. You are OK. Everybody's great, no-one
is better than anyone else. It's what you do with yourself, with your life and how you
affect other people. I think that's a great thing.
Question 3
There are some great themes in A Bug's Life, for example the theme of fear, which is dealt
with in several of your films. Do you deal with this in order to exorcise it?
Answer
In both of our movies, Toy Story and, especially in our new movie, A Bug's Life, there are
scary moments. Because I believe children like to be scared up to a point and I believe in
showing children a way to overcome their fears. In A Bug's Life the grasshoppers are very
scary, one grasshopper in particular. And we have cinematically paired the scariest
character in the film with Princess Dot, the character that most children will relate to.
They have three meetings in the movie. In the first one she is a victim and she is brought
closer and closer to this character that scares her the most. The second time she is
scared of him but she gets away and overcomes that. The third time she stands there
proudly, she is not scared of him, she whacks him on the nose. And so children can look up
there and relate to her and see that here's someone that scares her and she becomes brave
and overcomes it. I think it is nice thing to give kids that redemption from things that
are scary and for them to overcome it.
Question 4
What is the strongest aspect of A Bug's Life, in particular compared to Toy Story?
Answer
First of all, the basic story line in A Bug's Life is that of a classic good-guy-versus-
bad-guy epic film. It's more of a classic story. Toy Story was a buddy picture. There
wasn't that much of a bad guy as much as two character that didn't get along, who were
forced together and that relationship changed their lives. A Bug's Life is about this
character who means well and ends up changing the world around him in a wonderful way and
defeating the bad guys. Technically, the difference is phenomenal, huge. It's 3 years
since Toy Story came out. And in those 3 years the advancement in computer technology has
been dramatic. But, as you know, in each of our films technical development is driven by
the story. And the story of A Bug's Life takes place in the natural world. A natural world
is so much more difficult to do than a man-made world. So we had to come up with
technology and software and even hardware to do A Bug's Life. There's no way we could have
done A Bug's Life 3 years ago when we did Toy Story. We had to invent new technology to do
it. I think that as an audience member you will see the difference. I love to put the
audience in the position of knowing it's not real up there on the screen. It is an
animated film, a fantasy world - they know that. But it looks so real. I think that's part
of the entertainment value that we can give to the audiences using this medium in the way
that we do.
Question 5
How was your passion for animated cinema born?
Answer
I think the passion in me to be an animator, to make these kinds of films, actually was
born within me as a child. I used to sit and watch cartoons all the time in front of the
TV. I was 3 feet away from the screen just eating cereal. That was my life. And I found
out that people could make cartoons for a living and I said that's what I wanted to do.
One of the wonderful things I was blessed with was that my mother was an art teacher. For
38 years she taught art in a high school. And she always believed that to be an artist is
a noble profession. You know, in this day and age all over the world schools have smaller
budgets. The first thing that goes away is any education about the arts. To me the
creative thinking in an artist, in anybody, a businessmen, a lawyer, a politician, a
football star, is that creativity. That thinking unlike anybody else that is so important
and makes people great and makes you do things you've never done before. And so to me it's
like going into animationÖ It's that creativity is what drives me. It's doing things no
one else has ever done before and I think that's part of why I got excited about computer
animation, because it was new. Look at all you could do that you've never been able to do
before. My mind started racing with the possibilities. I also learned that with creativity
you must trust your instinct: "This is right. I know it's right." And everybody
else around you may say: "No, no, no. That's wrong." But you trust your own
feeling.
Question 6
You worked in Disney, you left, and now you have returned with this great film. What do
you find new about Disney today?
Answer
I love working with Disney. I think it's great. I worked very closely with two brilliant
executives in the feature animation division of Disney, Tom Schuhmacher and Peter
Schneider. Geniuses. I love working with them. What they do for me creatively is that they
are a fresh set of eyes. You work so hard on something and you get so close to it. And
they are the ones I go to, and they can look at it and tell me how to make it better and I
really admire them for that. I love working with Disney. It's so much a part of me because
the types of stories they've always told are the types of stories I like to tell, you
know, that are for children and adults, that have a lot of heart and are really funny. And
the company now is so energetic, taking and helping us push things to new levels. To do an
animated film and to have the Disney name put on it, you can't ask for anything better
than that.
Question 7
What elements of your short films turn up in your feature films?
Answer
If there are similar themes, they probably come from my subconscious. I think that, one, I
love great characters. I love within a film, whether it's a short film or a feature length
film, to have character growth, because I think that is where the audience can feel for a
character, when they can see a little bit of growth in the character. To make appealing
characters who the audience immediately like. I also love the inanimate object: that is a
recurring theme. To give life to and a personality to man-made objects is something that I
really enjoy doing. But in the wonderful case of A Bug's Life it's the insect world which
is taking the audience. There's another recurring theme that I love to do and that is to
show the audience something that on one hand they're very familiar with but on the other
hand you show it to them in a way that they've never seen before. I think that's great.
Question 8
What do you have planned for the future?
Answer
The next film that we're doing is Toy Story II. It's exciting for me as a director to go
back and do a new story with characters I already know because it takes so long and it's
hard work to create these characters. When we're done with the movie, they're not
creations anymore, they're like friends. So it's fun to revisit our friends in Toy Story
II. And it's exciting working with this medium of computer animation because the computers
are our tools. The computers don't create computer animation, people who do - artists,
animators, directors - working with the computers that make these films. What is exciting
about this medium is that we are just at the beginning. We all know computer technology
and how fast the technology is developing. Every year, every 2 years, every 3 years new
computers come out. More power, cheaper, more memory. Those are our tools. So what is
going to be the future? Well, it is definitely going to be much more complex imagery. We
are going to be able to do things in the future that we can't do now. I can't predict what
it is going to be because the stories are what drives me and waiting for the inspiration
for new stories is exciting for me. But I know that in future we will be able to do
imagery that is beyond the imagination. When Toy Story came out it was something no-one
had ever seen before. A Bug's Life - you've never seen anything like this before. Ten
years from now you're going to look back at Toy Story and A Bug's Life and the imagery is
going to seem so simple in comparison to will be done in the future. But you will still be
entertained by the story and the characters just like when you look at a Buster Keaton
movie or a Charlie Chaplin movie. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is 60 years old. It
looks dated. But my boys still watch Snow White even though it's 60 years old. That is
what I hope our film is are going to be like. It is the story and the characters that make
it live on forever.
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