Larry Vasquez offers us an other fantastic Ianimate interview this time with none other than The Animation Podcast host, long time Disney staffer and Angry Birds director Clay Kaytis.
This transcript is a "2 Mics accuracy" as I went through the entire transcript manually!
It is not a "3 mics accuracy" yet as there are few sections preceded by *** which I couldn't understand very well. Let me know if you can help transcribe them, thanks in advance.
Show notes:
25:35 // Roger writing on the wall
28:35 // you gotta, you gotta go all in look at like, look at like someone like Quentin Tarantino knows more than anyone about movies
41 // it's a simple shaped character but they should look detailed, the complex vs the simple
47 // it's really the six people I just named, we're the creative team Diff with Disney
50 // Iteration. Clay's process, put something down on paper and make it better
54 // On Critics
59 // New life has a director in Hollywood
1:04 // Working with people from all over the world
Date of the podcast : 2016 09 27
Transcript:
Larry Vasquez 0:04
Hello. Fans and welcome to another Ianimate podcast.
I'm your host Larry Vasquez and you're listening to Episode 47. You should recognize that music if you've been around animation and podcast for any number of years. That is music from the animation podcast with Clay Kaytis. And that should give you a hint of who our guest will be tonight. We as we do we have Clay Kaytis is the director of Angry Birds and longtime Walt Disney Animation Studios animator. If you go to Clay's IMDB he worked on Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000, The Emperor's New Groove, Treasure Planet, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, Tangled, Wreck-It-Ralph, and Frozen, just to name the feature films. He worked on many of the shorts as well. So it is a great, great privilege to have him on this podcast, but a longtime fan of his podcast back in the day when he was doing those. And so it's just great to be able to take some of his time, busy guy, to sit down and get him on the other side of the seat and talk with him and pick his brain a little bit. So I really do appreciate him taking the time here. We had a little bit of technical difficulty on the recording so I do apologize for the quality of the podcast. Mine, mike, for whatever reason did not come in that great, but fortunately Clay's did and that's who you're here to listen to anyway so without further ado, let's bring him on.
I appreciate you taking the time. It was always neat to get you guys in here and just the wealth of information you've been in the industry for quite some time and, as you mentioned in our pre interview. Yeah, way back with Jason Ryan and Fantasia 2000, even the early CG stuff there at Disney so totally, totally. So if you can get in maybe to just how you got into the industry I kind of read a little bit by your bio but how you, what are your thought to get into animation or what kind of sparked that for you. Okay, cool.
Clay Kaytis 2:14
Thanks for having me. It's great to talk with you and all your listeners and I know podcasts and stuff you guys do so, it's awesome. So yeah, I think I was mentioning before that. I've been asked a lot about my career and how I got into it and I think I should have been a smarter kid because all my hobbies, really pointed towards doing animation, as you seem to realize until I was in college, and, you know, I grew up on Disney films, we always had the videos the VHS tapes of all the classic films. My sister worked at Disneyland before I did and when I was 16, I got a job there, and I sold churros, and there's always like Disney connection. When I was a kid I really was into like special effects ILM. My dream and and makeup effects were like, you know, when I was really young, I was like that's I'm going to be a makeup artist I was gonna have this and do monsters and that was my goal, and I just, I just never got into it though I was a big fan of it I read, I got Cinefex, I read Starlog and all those old magazines, but you had to do it. And I just never did it I'd learned all about it though, you know, and then I went to college and in high school too I, I did. Student Government, I did, you know, t shirts for clubs I did float designs for you know parades and things like that, in high school. And so I was always creative stuff but I never really put it together that I would end up doing animations, it's just a strange thing and I love movies too I. My dad is a fireman and in city of orange in Orange County like firemen got free tickets to the movies. So every weekend we would go to the movies. we saw every movie when I was a kid it was a big thing in my family and so I grew up watching movies and I should have just like added all this up and just gone straight to Disney but I didn't realize that's what I wanted to do. So I went to USC for like two and a half years. I started as a biological sciences major I was going to be a doctor,
Dr. Kate.
After about, you know, a semester of that I was like this is crazy. And I took a chemistry class I had no idea what they were talking about. And so I was like maybe I'll be a business major so I switched to that and then I took one or two drawing classes while I was there. But I was just like really confused I didn't know what to do, and I didn't, I never thought I would work in film, I never thought I would work in animation. I just was lost and then I found this animation class at a high school I was at college but there was this high school that had this night course. And this woman and my mom was like hey maybe Clay would like this. And so I went to this class, and it was like the coolest thing it was Dave Master, many of you guys may have heard of him he's probably retired now but he was at Warner Brothers for a little while in the recruiting department, and a lot of students went there like Shawn Jimenez he's a designer on Gravity Falls, I think, Bert client he's an animator at Disney now his wife Jennifer Kline, she went to the class. Mike Belzer, who was head of animation on Meet the Robinsons very cool, was the stop motion guy in the class. So a bunch of kids when John Hashima and or John Kubo you might know him as a lot of kids went through that class and it was just this cool thing where I showed up, 120 students there every night, like, wow, 9 o'clock at night, and I did a bouncing ball on paper. And I was like this is awesome. It's so weird I just like to kind of stumbled into this thing. And I was like I could do this forever. Do that first bouncing ball and it's like, it's like you've done magic. That's right, yeah, yeah, you know, the ball is, it's hard but you know it's it's a good gateway you know for sure, and it gets you kind of hooked and I've gone to the class intending to be a computer animator, because I didn't know how to draw, right, like I said, it took one drawing class in school but I wasn't, I hadn't like set my life and career up to like become a 2d animator. And now the class or the showed us like this as a portfolio. These are gesture drawings, this is animal drawings from the zoo. These are figure drawings, and I was never, you know, done that stuff. And so, the good thing is like they laid it out there like these are the things you need to do to get a job in the industry. At least entry level. And, you know, I guess. People are like, Oh, you must be talented, I think I was just smart enough to like look at that on paper and be like, well I could replicate that portfolio, or at least try, you know, and so I just I went to every drawing class I can find that when I snuck into art center, workshops, I went to these church basement drawing classes. At the time of sefa Hill drawing classes and I did that with Dave Brain. Everywhere I could go, I went to drawing and I basically dropped out of school, I dropped out of USC. I failed all my classes that semester. It was really like this thing where I had to succeed I was, I was in many ways cutting myself off from any other options. Yeah, it was crazy it's crazy when I think about it, and I was 20 at the time. And so I was really starting my education and my career and my art training at the age of 20.
Larry Vasquez 7:20
Okay. Did you feel like you took to drawing pretty well you said no
Unknown Speaker 7:28
such a struggle I mean drawing is hard and I think because I started so late in life. Like a lot of look at Eric Goldberg he's dealing with books at the age of seven, you know, and he's a master and like all these guys when I eventually got to Disney It was like so intimidating and so kind of a soul crushing because it was inspiring you know but I just, I compared myself to those guys for so long. It was like, kind of really devastating like like artistically and personally would be like I want to be like these guys, but I'm this guy, you know i i did enough to, you know, obviously, I got an internship but to the class there was this great connection with Disney I got an internship at Disney and got into, you know being a cleanup in-betweener around Hunchback, became Breakdown then I moved into Rough-inbetweening and eventually became an Assistant animator and an Animator in 2d. So I kind of crawled my way, you know, to be there for a while and that was five jobs I just described that took me. 12 years. Okay, I was a slow slow learner. I was tenacious and I held on and I didn't get fired thankfully, I was very close many times just not because I was a bad guy but because like they do these like we called them the shame sheets where it would be like the footage and Mark Hen was always at the top and then it goes down and like at the bottom. The productions look at that and they're like well this is worth keeping around right and I had heard, I'm just rambling on, stop. I'd heard at one point that Ron and John, they saw me on the list of like he's out of here. And they're like, there may be something about this guy. So I don't know if that's true, I had heard that and so if it's true. Thank you, Ron and John for saving my career. Yeah, yeah I animated on Treasure Planet, that was. I guess my first animation was on Fantasia 2000. Okay, a couple of shots in the Red Sea and blue sequence and then I rolled straight into Emperor's New Groove, I worked with Doug Frankel on Chicha, who was the wife of Pacha and then Bruce Smith on Pacha. And then on Treasure Planet I worked with Ken Duncan on Scroop the spider guy on the introduction. And that's when Ron and John knew my work and I think they're just like, well, this guy's got potential he's just not there yet. Gotcha.
Larry Vasquez 9:50
That's an interesting ability, I think, to have that kind of eye to catch that,
Unknown Speaker 9:59
too. Yeah, I mean it's just taking a chance I guess and that's I think that's a really important thing and it's, you know, I've heard Ed catmull talk about this and it's really critical to kind of look at a person and understand their trajectory. They're on a point in time, but that's not the end of it, and are they going up, or are they going down and even like when I was working at Disney and we, you know, we're reviewing people, it was always about the uptick or a downtick. And that's really critical you know and it's like you know that some persons just on the downswing and they're gonna bring it back up. Other times it's like well they're down and they're down last time in their downtime before that so they're, they're plummeting, you know, how do we pull them up and how do we help them so seeing people's trajectory is really important. And thankfully I guess they saw something Yeah. That's awesome, always stayed on, and eventually my dream of being a computer animator started to happen, you know, at the time, was in 96/97. Toy Story was coming out, and they showed the first act, actually, maybe not even first act it was, it was the whole toy soldiers, the green army man scoping out the birthday party sequence and it was just storyboards and it was awesome. And I was like this is gonna crush everybody is gonna take over the world. And I really I told myself and some friends I'm like I got to learn this, this is the future.
Larry Vasquez 11:23
Okay, that was my, one of the questions I had Did you take, well, to CG. Yeah. Do you think it was because you struggled with learning 2d later in life.
Clay Kaytis 11:31
Partly, also because like I was always a big computer nerd, my Apple IIe when I was in fourth grade and all the teachers were like what are you guys doing this is crazy. It was it was really when computers were brand new. And so I was really *** fazzled with computers from an early age. Okay, and funny using a mouse and, and like I did t-shirts in high school with Adobe Illustrator and so I was very kind of comfortable knowing hotkeys and it's just, it's weird at that time it was new. Yeah, yeah. Not many people knew computers that well. And so I was just really comfortable.
Larry Vasquez 12:06
That's awesome.
Clay Kaytis 12:07
Sit down. Read the manual, go through all the tutorials and like just get it. The technical thing is a huge hurdle. You know, at that time, like when Chicken Little was starting. You know, we brought all the 2d animators and some people just didn't really take to it because it was, there's the first technical hurdle of using a computer and then translating your, your animation mind into a computer and I was just lucky I. The computer was easy for me, the animation was always hard, but I was kind of at this point where I was just kind of getting animation in 2d. And then I stepped over to CG where it was like a whole drawing aspect of it was taken away. And I was just like I can run I can fly. I wasn't a fantastic animator, in the start of doing CG but I like my learning accelerated really fast.
Larry Vasquez 12:54
That's fantastic. Very cool.
Clay Kaytis 12:56
I just got it you know so I worked on Chicken Little and I think Eammon Butler recommended me to be a supervisor on at the time it was "American dog". Well, so you know when when CG feature and after struggling for so many years in 2d. I was like okay I'm, I can finally I could actually just focus on performance and animation and actually try to become a good animator I don't think I was even good at that time but you know just learning. Got a lot easier.
Larry Vasquez 13:21
Was there any guys,
Clay Kaytis 13:22
that's 12 years into my career, maybe 15/13 years in so it took forever. And I'm okay with that.
Larry Vasquez 13:31
You know I saw a meme for Pokemon Go, and it said something that was from the CEO and it said it's taking us 20 years to make an overnight success. Yeah, and it's just it for me it just helps put things in perspective that we want instant discerns to that and yeah it takes grinding it takes
Clay Kaytis 13:47
I always meet a lot of students and kids and they always want to be in a different place and I get it you know you always want to improve and get better and reach for something higher but at some point you really accept like you're where you're at because of what you've done, and who you are, and it's okay, as long as you're not stagnant and getting worse and crusty and learning and growing. You got to be happy with that you know. Yeah, it's good to be ambitious but, you know, I could talk for a whole hour just about like comparing yourself to other artists and feeling down and I went through that for years. And I kind of after a while learns like it's okay to be who you are, and as long as you're doing your best it's like, it's weird it's like it's like a poster on the wall but it really,
Larry Vasquez 14:32
really helps me because like you have been in it for a while because, particularly for students who are still kind of working through it. You don't see that light at the tunnel or, you know, it's hard for you to look back and hear from you, you're like wow they struggled with that. Or it's like you know you
Clay Kaytis 14:47
want to be Glen Keane it's like no one is Glen Keane, Glen Keane is Glen Keane and no one's gonna be him. Right. And you can strive to emulate him and be as good as him but at some point you have to kind of be yourself. And I think that's the strongest animator to be that's why you have the James Baxter and Glen Keane and old timers all these 2d guys were like that's where my mind was like I was these guys but it's like, one, that's impossible. Just like, just, focus on yourself you know it's not a race it's not a competition as long as you're doing work that makes you happy. And you can keep a job that you like, that's important too. That's great. That's all that matters, you know, very cool.
Larry Vasquez 15:22
Was there any guys that you're that were there that you've kind of gravitated to and really kind of learn from,
Clay Kaytis 15:30
there's kind of two phases in my career one is the 2d stuff obviously and then the CG in 2d Ken Duncan was always kind of a mentor to me. Okay, we always got along really well he you know Duncan Studios is his thing and
we just got along, and he's a he's a kind of,
well he will smile at this, he's a cranky guy, but you get him or you don't. And I really just got him, we got along swimmingly. He just really helped me he really supported me and I still, you know, when I'm doing reviews and animation and thinking of things that he taught me, you know, he just really took his time and told me the things that people told him and it was a great mentorship when I was training in animation, Doug Frankel again taught me a lot of stuff, and then CG, you know, Nick Ranieri was on Chicken Little and he just really taught me a lot of the way he looks at animation, you know, it's weird how
so much of like who I am as an animator comes from my early career especially cleanup I think I learned. So 70% of animation from Brian Clift who is the cleanup lead on Clopin on Hunchback just, he really cared and wanted to impart the stuff that was important when you're doing good cleanup and it was all the basics of animation I just didn't know it at the time.
Larry Vasquez 16:48
Did you feel like in that environment that people were willing to share information and everybody just wanted to grow. Oh yeah,
Clay Kaytis 16:54
yeah and I've never seen an environment where that wasn't so I'm, you know, granted, I did work at Disney for 19 years. That's all I know, you know, and I don't know how different things are but you know, going out of Disney to direct Angry Birds, it was great. It was, it was refreshing and different, but it was all the same animators are the same all over the world, they just all want to do great work they want to entertain and see their stuff on the screen and make people laugh they're all the same. Yeah. It wasn't like "oh I have to learn how to talk to these guys", it's like oh, they're the same blood.
Larry Vasquez 17:32
Let's go a little bit more into your CG era, Disney. That was a big I'm assuming transition for Disney as well because there seemed that they were kind of learning and growing even in that portion of time. There's a, there's a bit of a, what's the word I am looking for, I guess just growth.
Clay Kaytis 17:52
Yeah, totally. And it was interesting because you know i mean CG was growing, you know, studios had, I would say a good head start on us you know DreamWorks had done Ants already and working on their, you know, maybe third movie by the time Chicken Little came out and obviously Pixar was going wild. I think Blue Sky was making films so Disney got into the game kind of late, and you could see the learning curve, I mean, Chicken Little it's pretty rough and meet the Robinsons what's next, and you look back at that and you are like yukki... it is not the prettiest but it was like one of those things where it was for me and other people is frustrating that, you know,
the 2d stuff could look so amazing and so kind of crafted and beautiful and controlled and the CG stuff didn't have that and it was always like how do we do this how do we how do we make it feel like a Disney movie, you know, and I think for me it was a great step forward. Yes, appeal and understanding angles and things like that and then Tangled was like I was like we did it.
Larry Vasquez 18:58
Was there any. I can imagine, or if there was a new studio maybe saying we haven't worked on Chicken Little or even meet the Robinsons. Your would have been less of a standard I guess versus Disney actually doing that, you have a history of beautiful animation was that, did that weigh heavily on you guys or was it just hey we got to learn this here.
Clay Kaytis 19:24
Yeah we did and even like when they decided to do me the Robinsons I was like that's crazy Why would you do a movie full of humans when you can't even, you know, do chickens. So, it was, but you know, it's one of those things where you. I think the studio was like, we can take on this challenge you may not be, you know, perfect, but it's like, it's, it's better than playing it easy, right. Okay. And so, you know, I think it was probably a good thing in the end but it was, I thought it was premature at the time to like really, I can't we're gonna make a movie full of 50 different humans. It's a tall order you know it's it's weird stuff and I felt like we needed to build up to it but, you know, it's all, you know, it's all said and done so it's you can't take it back and right right i think it's like you gotta
Larry Vasquez 20:12
be accepted on it and like it. Yeah. Well no, there is definitely that's why I guess I bring up that question because there was definitely stuff to like about it but I just wonder how sometimes if there's a stigma because it's Disney that you can compare it to versus if it was just a brand new studio doing that kind of work you know.
Clay Kaytis 20:28
Yeah. You know, at least I do I kind of have to look through look at all films through the same kind of filter of like, is it good and entertaining and, you know, I don't really care who does it but, Like, it's got to be good. Right.
Larry Vasquez 20:46
Okay, so do we move to Bold and move to Tangled, now Tangled was like you said that kind of but we get it moment there. Yeah. Um, what were some of the things that you learned during that process for that movie.
Clay Kaytis 20:58
Well early on, on that show. I remember Glenn was on vacation and John Kahrs is on vacation. Those are the two other heads of animation on that show. And there's this like, you know, monthly get together and heads of departments talking about what they're working on and. And I just made a decision to go in front of the studio and say this is going to be the best human animation and CG that's ever been done. And I said it, people were kind of like stunned like whoa this is like you know throwing down the gauntlet but, hum the thing I learned from that is kind of like if you call out like, it's like Babe Ruth pointing at the fences. We're gonna do this, and people like align themselves to that vision. Even if you're kind of full of crap. But I wasn't I mean we really were like this, we're gonna do this we're gonna do everything we can to make this happen.
Larry Vasquez 21:47
What made you so confident because it's funny because I was talking with my brother here recently as well. And that is still for him that one, that's what he would say right now that's probably his favorite one even from Disney still where he's looking, the humans he goes it's just fantastic. Yes No, I mean here you did you called it out and why many critics that would be an accurate saving even now, what was it that made you so confident. At that time, well
Clay Kaytis 22:10
you know when you have Glenn Keane in your pocket, that helps but, part of it, you know, I've met artists that can draw
or animate amazingly, but they don't know how to explain it they're almost like savant ish, where they just they just do it and it's natural and they just, it just comes out of them and they can't explain how. Then you have an artist like Glenn, who can point and explain what he's doing and a lot of it was, you know, me and John kind of probing him and prodding him and really getting in his head of like you know we would point at lines on his drawings and say, why did you do that thing, and he's like what adds energy, you know, and why is that why it will give that hook in that thing. That's like the muscle tension it's like okay so now we're understanding like why he draws what he draws. And he can actually verbalize and articulate what he's thinking as he's drawing. And then you can take those ideas of 2d images and start to put those into the model and in the rigs and it was just having him as a tool to kind of like, pull all this information from it and then find a way to translate that into you know the models and the rigs in the animation that actually works.
Larry Vasquez 23:21
Okay, so that was my next question here. When he is drawing that he's drawing those curves and lines of purpose in that. Whereas in CG we are not doing that so how did you translate that what was it that made you translate it to x for CG.
Clay Kaytis 23:35
Yeah, I mean, he was invaluable. You know, he just drew over everything. Okay, a lot of it was like him just looking at an image and saying well it just it should look like this. And some of it was just like just in contours of like puffing a cheek out to give it a nice three, three quarter view,
Larry Vasquez 23:52
okay okay,
Clay Kaytis 23:52
the other stuff was just you know like why would youm or you wouldn't draw it that way, and you would draw it this way and the animators would, you know, luckily, it wasn't like crazy tweaks on the, on the rigs, it was just like you know put the wrist here and put the little bender there. Okay, just adjusting things to feel a little bit more organic and, and the way you would draw it basically okay and I mentioned this to a few people sometimes but like Glenn will draw something in, and it's like, it's very interesting watch him draw, and there's videos online of him talking about it and stuff but he'll he'll look at something and say that "the hand wants to be here", and it's like, from that I got that he's got this relationship with the image he's creating, you know, and it's like talking back to him. It's not just like him just like projecting onto the page, it's this drawing is like telling him what it wants to be and "the back wants to do this" and it's weird way of looking at it but I shifted the way I think about stuff you know, you don't. I always like, when I tried to surf I was trying to push the board around and make it do what I wanted and I never realized like no no you you the board wants to do its thing and you want to go along for the ride and you do these two things working together and that's how he was with his drawings and it's a good way to think about like what is this thing want to do and am I forcing you to do something that's unnatural. It's weird and it applies in CG animation, in drawing and figure drawing and all these things but like what is this drawing trying to say, you know
Larry Vasquez 25:22
How would you say that you develop that eye, and , from your standpoint, with the experience you have now how would you see it as an artist, an animator. What helped you to develop that eye, yeah, it's
Clay Kaytis 25:35
like I guess I have the benefit of, like, my slow ascent. Well it was 15 years of doing this but it's like repetition and studying and I found for me, a good way to kind of analyze animation and learn from animation is, I would just find scenes that I liked, I would watch a movie, 2d or 3d or whatever, live action and just like, "Oh, I like that scene, there's something about that scene I liked like", oh I'm looking for this or that I would just watch a movie like that was a cool scene. All right, stop. Let's grab it let's go back, make a Quicktime of it and start breaking it down like, what is it? That way, mark in the magic and then you start to find these things you know and it's it could be like I was just looking at like, you know, at the time a 101 Dalmatians scene with Roger walking down the stairs writing the music and he stops and puts the paper on the wall and writes the notes on the wall. He holds the paper against the wall and writes on it and it's just like this character is using the environment, and especially in a 2d film where there's not even a real environment it's an image. But it's like his characters living in that space. okay, I would just feel like that's a cool concept, this character, lives in the world they touch the wall and the banister and, you know, they pick up the glass on the table, it's like it's real to them they look around and they see things that was just like okay that's a good level above like character walks down the stairs. And so it's just like breaking down to every scene that is interesting to you and it might just be movement and like well, freeze framing through it and look at the squash and the anticipation and that's a cool shape and that registered in my mind, it is like, that was a beautiful visual, but when it plays you don't see it but you feel it, it was just like going back over things over and over and then you start breaking it down into like you know eye direction, and squash and stretch, and the principles of animation, but it can be so much more, just like, you know, these animators allowed themselves to make ugly faces and that's entertaining and fun and so it was, you know, years of doing that, you know, and also reading and studying and learning from these guys and Glenn obviously was a huge influence. Just like talking about like this is appealing and and lectures and talks it's it's. I can't pinpoint what it is like it's so focused and also, like I said when I was a kid we went to tons of movies when I started at Disney like I saw every movie, I went to the theater. Every week, and I saw the worst movies and the best movies, and it's just like understanding there's a there's a whole language of film and building that vocabulary and, and a reference of like whatever movie it was like, did you see that scene and being able to point something say that's, that's what I'm looking for. You know, it's like building that reference and also at the same time I read every handout I could get from animation in every lecture that was transcribed everything you know it's just like just soaking in it. After a while, it just starts to sink in,
Larry Vasquez 28:34
become part of your DNA.
Clay Kaytis 28:35
Yeah, yeah. That's great. It's being I think being obsessive is really important. It really is. It's like if you want to be a pro. If you want to be good at this thing. You have to be crazy. You have to be a fanatic and I really respect that excitement. I used to think like what are these you know these people are crazy but it's like now looking back and it's like you gotta, you gotta go all in look at like, look at like someone like Quentin Tarantino knows more than anyone about movies, you know. And it's because that's what he does. That's what he lives for. If you're going to be an animator, you might as well go for it.
Larry Vasquez 29:13
Okay, so from Tangled here, what was the next one that you worked on from that.
Clay Kaytis 29:17
Well, it's funny because I finished Tangled, and we did a Tangled short, and then I was supposed to be head of animation on a film called King of the Elves, it was a fantasy movie that Disney was developing and I forget. At the time I don't know if, he's in Florida he teaches drawing. I'm sorry I'm blanking on the name.
Sorry I was Aaron Blaze.
And Bob Walker were directing this film, and eventually it went into the hands of Chris Williams and that's I think when I came on. I was gonna be head of animation on that. And maybe a year into it I think Chris Williams decided like he's, this wasn't the movie he wanted to make any kind of step back from it and it kind of dissolved in our fingers in allowance I was without a show. And, which was, I think, really great for me because at the time, Wreck-It-Ralph was being made, and I just went on to that show, and I just animated. That's cool. It was great. I hadn't sat and animated for a long time you know I did things here and there Tangled but not like, you know, trucking scenes or anything like that so I got to do a bunch of stuff and Ralph, I did a bunch of 2d, you know a bit video game animation. Eventually, I worked on the end credits with Malcolm Pearce and Zack Parrish and Nathan Engelhart. We did those end credits, which are great we just kind of broke them up and handed them all to animators they just were just like it just animated. And I went on to Frozen again I just animated. Okay. because, you know, these movies take a while and a new one coming along to be Head of Animation is not that frequent so it's great that it really happy, I think I was just talking to Nathan Engelhart yesterday I saw him yesterday and I think it's really important for supervisors to kind of step back down and join the ranks, and just do the work. It just keeps you fresh. Yeah, you understand the tools that people are suffering with, you know, the new hire. Yeah oh yeah that is really wacky so we should fix that. And also, at the time I hadn't really animated for probably two, three years because I was supervising on Tangled and there's all these new guys that never saw me animate and you know I'm like this boss and quotes quotes and giving him advice and they're probably like "Who the hell is this guy?". So you know you get on the box and you do some scenes and like oh, okay.
Unknown Speaker 31:49
Talk about yeah
Clay Kaytis 31:50
yeah so I think it's really good for all those reasons and then you know, feeling backed up and you do the supervising, but I think it's a nice thing to cycle through and allow, then the *** fourth thing is it allows other people to step up and try the role and see if they like it and see if they're good at it and if they don't, then they can kind of ease back into the *** rank. I think it's a really healthy thing.
Larry Vasquez 32:14
19 years. It's a significant amount of time, particularly at such a high level of a studio where some of the things that you learned throughout that time remember I was a tweet that you'd done or something back at the time when you first mentioned you left after two decades, it was just with the bittersweetness of that.
Clay Kaytis 32:34
Yeah, it totally was, I get asked all the time. "Do you miss Disney?" it's like well of course I miss Disney Disney is awesome, awesome studio and an awesome place and it was my home and I really intended to kind of retire there, you know. But, what did I learn I mean, I learned everything I learned everything I learned management. I learned recruiting, how to hire good people. Storytelling is everything, you know, Jeff. It set me up, to be able to go. Leave Disney and direct a movie.
Larry Vasquez 33:12
How did that come about just out of curiosity, like you said this was such a great place What was it that made you feel like an opportunity to go, do something.
Clay Kaytis 33:21
It's interesting because, I can probably keep saying it's interesting,
but doingHead of animation on a show you, you end up working with a lot of departments like, as an animator you get your scenes and you do that and sometimes you might go to layout and talk about the camera or you might go to effects and say what are you going to do here, but that's it as an animator, and then you go to rigging as well. But then you become head of animation and you have to deal with layout, you deal with lighting, you deal with editorial, you deal with all these departments. And as I did that, and you're actually influencing the movie you're like what if we put the camera here that might help the shot or the lighting should be like this or you're filing the shots in tech anim and they're doing the cloth you're like well this, you know, I found that I really liked all that stuff. Everything you know and I was like wow this is like, like filmmaking. More than animating. And I just, I started to shift my mind to think like, well maybe one day I could direct something.
Larry Vasquez 34:14
Gotcha.
Clay Kaytis 34:15
And, and it was just from having more experience and more influence almost like I like this and it's not a a power thing it's just like, it's fun to do cameram it is fun to do lighting, storyboarding and all of it. And so, I really, at the end of Tangled I was like, like, somehow I want to move into this and actually went to the studio, I remember talking to *** Andrew Milstein and I was like, I want to direct one day, I don't know when, I was like because I don't know when, I don't know how. Little Mermaid.
Yeah, I was like I I just I feel like this is where I want to go and so hopefully the studio can support me and they did they were like yeah we'll get you some, you know, just kind of set you up you can do some board some shorts and, you know, pitch those nothing's guaranteed you got to be there, we're gonna give you time and space to to work on that so like the last I don't know five months that I was at Disney that's what I was doing I was boarding some shorts and I was going to pitch them and just say, Paul Briggs and Mark Kennedy were mentoring me and storyboarding because I had never officially done storyboards before and so that's kind of where I was heading until you know another stroke came along I was gonna be Head of animation on but it's like I would just want to spread out a little bit. And, and then
actually at one point I had a month off. And I was gonna rest. A friend of mine called me, he was like I hear you have time off, do you want to go work on some commercials. That's like, Oh man, I want to rest I want to sleep. I think that was after Tangled I was exhausted.
Larry Vasquez 35:51
was a pretty big. Short production in the amount of animation.
Clay Kaytis 35:55
Yeah, yeah, it was amazing. And so yeah, it was like yeah I'll go do these commercials and it happened to be at Illumination they had just done "Hop" that Easter Bunny movie okay yeah and I met John Cohen who produced that movie and they were just doing like there was a Burger King commercial there's a Kodak commercial like Comcast commercial, and we were to like a house and film the couch and then I directed the characters on the couch, you know, and in a month it was really quick, and we jammed through this work and it was exciting and fun and just different, you know, hanging out at Illumination and, you know, talking to Chris meledandri and doing all this stuff and while I was there you know John was really demanding, in a good way, you know he was is this funny enough, is that, you know, the animation good enough and I was like, oh, this guy's pushing, this is nice you know, that's what I'm used to. You never know you go somewhere else and you're like, what's it going to be like and I just remember it was a good experience. And then after a month I went back to Disney, and I didn't really tell them about all this because I don't know
it is my own time and I guess it was maybe for the competition but
no harm no foul. And so I went back to Disney and then two years later, I was literally sitting there reading the press release that John Cohen was producing the Angry Birds movie and my phone rang and it said John Cohen. I was like damn. That's really like people are : "How do you become a directors?" like, I don't know, I, I took a chance I met someone I tried something new. And it turned into two years later, an offer to direct a movie
Larry Vasquez 37:32
that's, that's crazy.
Clay Kaytis 37:34
Yeah it is crazy.
Larry Vasquez 37:37
A month window of a gap in yeah that's phenomenal. That's very very cool.
Clay Kaytis 37:42
Yeah, so the lesson to studios is don't ever let people take a break. Ever. And it was a thing where I said I plan to be at Disney for my life. This was just one thing that I was like this is a great offer. If I don't take this offer I don't know if I will ever get an offer again Yeah, there's a big line at Disney it's not a bad thing it's just like there's a lot of great directors and a lot of great movies that are lining up for the next seven eight years, and I was like this I think I have to do this, you know, and and it was a really hard decision and, you know, I cried when I left Disney, and they made me cry,
Larry Vasquez 38:23
Almost two decades,
Clay Kaytis 38:25
... Trying really hard and I loved them and I still love them and it's like they're my family but I was like I gotta go do this I got it, I got to see what it's like and see if I like it, and see if I can do it. And I'm glad I did it. No regrets.
Larry Vasquez 38:39
Absolutely. Definitely when I mean, my kiddos. And really liked it, it was a lot of fun. The animation was just phenomenal. And that was kind of one of the things I wasn't sure going into the movie. We don't have them maybe the big budget, or as big of a budget, as someone like Disney or Pixar or DreamWorks you know it's interesting to see how they'll, they'll do it and from the animation to the effects to the lighting everything else, it's top notch.
Clay Kaytis 39:08
So yeah, yeah. And it's funny because, you know, despite the beautiful work, I was when we were talking about studios that could make this movie we didn't know, apparently at the beginning. And when I found out that it was SPI, Sony Pictures Imageworks I was overjoyed, you know, because if it's not DreamWorks or Pixar or Blue sky or Disney, like, Who's gonna do like that level of filming, right. It was Imageworks so I was like oh my God, thank you so much I was really so relieved and then I found out that Pete Nash was going to be the animation supervisor and I was trying to get him to go to Disney, when I was their, come on or be a supervisor Come on, and he was like I'm okay. I'm okay then he moved to Vancouver and he's like I this is where my hometown so that I'm happy. But when I heard it was him I was just like, oh my god this is like two in a row I'm working out you know so the team was great and then Danny Dimian was the VFX soup and he wasn't officially on the show, but he tells me that over the Christmas break I wrote him an email was like I really want you to work on the show and I convinced him to stay on so emails are good, asking for what you want is good thing on and he was fantastic and really the whole team just just overdid it you know they did an amazing job and you know for a movie I think they the budget at the end was like 73 million or something like that. It was incredible. And I think a big part of that is just like the 20 years of doing it from my angle where it's like, I didn't want to waste money, I knew where to kind of spend the money you know where to put the detail, the feathers are super important to me. I think the characters should look High Tech High quality. And that's just it was a design thing over the whole movie where it's like it's a simple shaped character but they should look detailed, you know it's like you put those two things together and it's somehow special, and the environments that are stylized but beautiful and kind of rendered in a way that was a little soft and pastely and so we always looked for like the complex versus the simple and, and I think that helped our production value, a lot where it's just really focusing on what matters on screen and so I smile when I think about the process because it was it's a huge challenge you know and going from animation supervisor to director. It's a lot of the same decisions and choices and calls but it's just huge. Much bigger. Yeah.
Larry Vasquez 41:38
Was there anything during that process that surprised you each movie is different each.
Clay Kaytis 41:46
Yes. I just again I just go back to the crew and you know I'm obviously an animator at heart but just to see the, the amount of not just work but extra work people put in that wasn't asked for, because like I said people just want to do excellent work animators and artists and technicians and all the people that work on these films they work on movies because they love movies, and no one's forcing them to and no one should be forced because it's hard, you know it's hard work and it's long hours and hopefully it's a good life, but like that's not even guaranteed sometimes and. And so the people that do this stuff are really dedicated and they really just want to make good work because when their family goes it's like they can point and say that's my work on the stream. Yeah, it's gonna be there forever I when it comes out on DVD it's like, that's still my work. And just something about it. There's pride in it, and I was just really. I guess I shouldn't be surprised I was really touched and overjoyed at like how much extra stuff people put in there's there's background animation going on all the time in this film it's like really well done. gags that happened that I could really just do a DVD commentary like leave the show, and that guy over there but it's like they just, they overdid it in such a beautiful way and I was like, sometimes I thought well maybe it's just because I'm an animator, and they know I'm an animator I'm one of the, one of them and they want to please me as like Yeah, he's one of us, but I think they would probably would have done it anyways they were just such a great crew and I really had a great time working with everybody on that show.
Larry Vasquez 43:17
That's awesome. And you know, Sony Pictures Imageworks, is that completely distinct from Sony animation.
Clay Kaytis 43:25
Not completely because it is all the same people. So I guess
Larry Vasquez 43:29
my question was seen from Sony Pictures is more than VFX type
Clay Kaytis 43:37
action yeah Mo, you know, Alice all that stuff right, a lot of the same people cross over but some don't. Some are strictly like creature, you know robot it kind of procedural effects kind of guys. But then there's a character guys and most of the people that worked Angry Birds had come off of like Cloudy together.
Larry Vasquez 43:55
Right, right.
Clay Kaytis 43:56
Nash was head of animation on. I think the first but definitely the second. I'm pretty sure Cloudy. The whole crew knew him and they knew how to work with him and so they were all, you know, seasonned 2d guys but there were there also a lot of young kids that this was their first film. That was cool you know is interesting. And for me, going into this movie, and Pete was the only person I knew. Out of 70 animators like I didn't know any of these guys, and I was like wow there's a whole world out there. Outside of Disney there's more animators. Of course there are there is Dreamworks, Blue Sky, ReelFX and Mac Guff.
And they're all out there and it was really cool to see like this whole swath of people that I never knew there's one other animator Scott Peterson who was on the show he was on Tangled with me, but he left after a month. So I drove him back to his home country.
Larry Vasquez 44:51
Did you enjoy living up there in Canada. I did, yeah.
Clay Kaytis 44:56
So I was on Angry Birds for two and a half years, which is a pretty quick production and two of the years I was in Vancouver so I went up into December, and then two December's later I moved home. Okay, and it was, it was a great city, I mean, if you're going to be sent away from home, and to live somewhere else like that's a beautiful place to go. I really liked it I lived kind of downtown. And I walked to work every day I didn't want to have to drive anywhere, I took SkyTrain. So, it was great. It was great. My wife, she works at Disney she still works at Disney, she joined two weeks before I did 19 years . And so, you know, she stayed here in LA, she lived here in our house and so we did a lot of commuting back and forth there almost every weekend or she would come up there and so it was a lot of traveling. So I never quite felt like I settled in up there, apartment I had clothes and things but I never felt like a full time resident. I was there at least five days a week most weeks and, but it was great. It was really, really a beautiful city and I love the weather and the in the talent there is really nice. It's really over the, even the two years I was there, you could feel it stabilizing and growing and getting square is. It's amazing. Whatever the reason the tax incentives or just the fact that all these studios are within blocks of each other. There's so much talent out there and the kind of shuffle from studio to studio and the projects need that. It's amazing. It is Hollywood North
Larry Vasquez 46:32
How was it working with the team there at Rovio in kind of working with them to really meet their vision for this movie.
Clay Kaytis 46:40
It was great. You know, Fergal Reilly, I always forget to mention Fergal, he is the other director, and we didn't know each other before this film, and you know all the same people, so strange, but we came together on this phone he's definitely a story camera background and I'm like the animation guy and then we would both do lighting and effects and design and all that stuff. But it was us and then we had two producers John Cohen and Catherine Winder and executive producer David Maisel who had worked on Marvel, he kind of started the whole Thor, Hulk. And, you know, he always talks about Iron Man. He was our executive producer and then the other executive producer was Mikael Hed, who is the guy who runs Rovio basically. Okay. And they're a Finnish company, and so it's really the six people I just named, we're the creative team. Okay, it always gets bigger, and the writer does, obviously. But like that was like the big kind of when we all got together and talked about the movie and figured it out and this needs to happen and that includes just the six of us, you know, again so different from what I know in terms of like Disney where you have the Disney story trust and they have the Pixar brain trust and they all watch these movies together and they go back and forth and they give notes and then you have john Lasseter and it's like a huge thing and then you have all the story artists and this was like the six of us saying like, What movie are we making. And it was cool is really different and fun and being in the room where it happens. Cool and to go back to your question like with Rovio is Mikael was kind of like the guy and he's a really creative guy he's overseeing all their 2d shorts that they do either the app or on YouTube, he has done, you know, 70 of those so he's like yeah he's very versed in cartoons and the stuff that they've done, and, you know, he always has a take and, you know, it's kind of push us to, you know make the humor go a little further and *** make a wisdom is like Mikae, it has came out of his head. It was great and it was never a thing where people were butting heads and like no, we want to make this movie and no, they want to make that movie it was like everyone's really on the same page and it was all about like how do we make, you know, a movie that makes us all laugh, and hopefully has emotion and has great energy and action and that was like the big thing where we're all making the same thing.
Larry Vasquez 49:05
Yes it was. I think it probably the initial. What made you think that would be interesting because one how are they going to be able to accomplish. Full Feature movie based upon a puzzle game. Yeah. And one of the things I liked about it is it did have those things that you're mentioning the story and things that but it still stayed true to the game you know towards the they have made the castle and stuff and so yeah i think i think you're able to kind of merge those two very well.
Clay Kaytis 49:31
Yeah, and when when Fergal and I both came on.
They had a script, then worked out the basic story they had John Vitti would had wrote the script, had written the script. And so it was kind of outlined already it was just a matter of okay let's start boarding, this isn't working, or the jokes are working and so it always be a matter of iteration, but it's great. And that's something I learned onTangled because it was such a big task on backing up a few years but going back to the Tangled It was like we had such a short time. And so much to do in terms of building all these characters in this world and figuring out how to animate it all and I just learned my process is, just put something down on paper, and make it better. Guess where it is we have to build these crowds, how we can do this? Well we need, you know, men. I mean women, we need boys, we need girls. How many of this and then he's just start churning through the work, and you don't stop until you're done, like a weird thing but like it's so easy to kind of like, get overwhelmed by the mass of work that a movie takes but, you know, with the Angry Birds too It's just like, Alright, what do we need to do, what are the goals you know, big thing is like what what do we want to say what do we want to, you know, what do you want to come out of this movie with and you know, like I said, big action comedy, some emotion beautiful animation, like How do we do those things and then you get down to the details of like okay these are birds but they're not birds they're creatures, they're birds, we always talk about them as bird like creatures. Okay. What does that mean and a detail that I'm always happy to talk about because it was a bit of an experiment like what are their arms like and I always felt like like Milt Kahl's bird stuff is amazing, but those thin finger feather things are. They're a little flimsy to me, you know and like if these birds are making fists like what's that gonna look like they're just like sandpaper.
And so,
you know, it's like what if they're like, Oscar the Grouch. When you put feathers on that so there's like this furry hand thing, but it's got feathers on the outside and so I actually took like images of the cookie monster and I drew feathers on his arms. You know, I was like, What do you guys think, and I was like, yeah. The cool thing where it's like, he just kind of back and say what do we want to say how do we want to say it. And what's the best way to say it, and you just do it it's it's cool it's like that's being creative and making a movie and trying something different.
Larry Vasquez 51:58
Did you fill it with the timeframe that you had in maybe not the *** assembly million isn't a small budget but not the Disney budget that you may be used to. Did you feel like you were able to be more efficient with what you had, like you're saying yeah,
Clay Kaytis 52:14
we felt like we had to be efficient, you know,
but at the same time we did a lot I mean there's probably 100 and something different birds in the movie. There's probably 30 different pigs in the movie. There's two different islands and environments that are completely, you know, really figured out and you could like drop a camera anywhere and like film a shot. Yeah. And so it was like a huge amount of just just kind of strategy and planning of like okay we need this and we need that and how do we do you get the track down before the train gets there, or you're wise to have like, you know, we kind of blew up the third act very early on when we were boarding we got there and storyboards we realized it wasn't strong enough and so we kind of forgot it and rewrote that whole thing, and plotted it out and worked with the writer and you know that. No, we had to do that and understand like okay, we need to know what happens so we know what to build and how to design the city to serve the story you know so luckily you know a lot of movies don't have that, you know, they get the set and they're like well we built this What are you gonna do there. The story around what you have, but we were able to kind of like figure out like long term like what the problems were going to be okay. We have to look ahead and see that. And then, you know, plan accordingly. So, it's a big part of is just like being organized and planning and knowing what you want to do.
Larry Vasquez 53:39
Okay, I guess that's what I'm getting at because when I looked at the movie, it didn't look like it suffered visually at all or like I said even animation. How do you do that then on a smaller budget a smaller time yes yeah
Clay Kaytis 53:50
and really like, I can't think of much that we didn't use you know, I don't think there's any environments we didn't use. There's one sequence I think it'll be on the DVD of like, Red and Chuck having a slap fight. It was in the middle of Mighty Eagle, just his section was just getting a little too long so we just took that out. Thankfully, it worked, but that's kind of the biggest thing that we lost and that would be like a couple minutes of animation which is pretty efficient for most people.
Larry Vasquez 54:19
Yeah,
Clay Kaytis 54:22
it was all about just like trying not to waste.
Larry Vasquez 54:25
yeah, It's got some great legs on how it's been at least I know on iTunes and stuff like that I know it's looks like it's doing really, really well there, does it surprise you at all. Coming.
Clay Kaytis 54:38
No, no, it's funny because, you know, I think you go on Rotten Tomatoes and it's like 43% which is like heartbreaking. You know, "Oh we didn't get fresh" but you know
it's it's been a learning process, you know, critics and, for me it's like and Fergal we talked we talked about this a lot, because this is our first film and we're very into like how does you know what's the experience like of getting your movie that comes out and people gonna say whatever they want about it. And for me, I don't want to speak for Fergal, but like for me, I just kind of realized that like reviewers have a role in this machine, you know, and they need to have an opinion, thumbs up or thumbs down. No one read the thumbs middle. This doesn't make any sense so it's like you have to support your argument of like this is a good movie or it's not. So, either you get it or you don't and I'm okay with that you know a lot of people got it and they're like yeah, and some people, totally got what we were trying to do and they're like they did this and it was funny and it was looking, and at least some people get it but other people were just like, no, it's not for me and at the end of the day it's like, that's the way it is, you know, you just do your best and you put your best foot forward. And we made a movie that made us laugh, and it still makes me laugh and just have this strange sense of humor, but it's like I was, I heard a quote from *** Paul Read once and he was like, you know, really, I'm a star, because 17% of the people like me. That's all. You know, make happy he's like I'm fine with that he's like I'm totally fine with that and I think it's true it's like you can't make everyone happy and right again it goes back to my lessons learning animations like if you do what you know to be your best at the time and you don't, kind of, dial it in and mess up, you got to be happy with the experience and yeah, they get to the next thing and you learn and you're like, alright, we can do better, but this was a good thing and this is where I was at the time and go Yeah. And yeah, we're really happy with the movie, and yeah, and I'm really proud of it. So it was for a while and we all are it's just you know it's it's fun and, who knew Angry Birds, this app could turn into a movie this actually fun.
Larry Vasquez 56:53
Absolutely, yeah that's phenomenal. Very cool. Okay, so what do you been up to now, you mentioned you've been obviously very busy. Keeping you busy now.
Clay Kaytis 57:03
It's interesting. It's, we could talk for another two hours about like what what's it like to go find a job,
but it's it's it's really fun. It's weird.
At the end of Angry Birds. It sounds so pompous, but I started to think of myself not as an animator, and I always did. Funny, like I was just like, I'm an animator who's directing a movie. And then the little bit through second half of the movie I was like I'm directing a movie this is weird. And towards the end it's like I realized like okay, we'll be doing sound design at Skywalker and it's like you're, you're fixating on every little detail like how do we make this idea work, how do we make this real funny. The fact that we could do that at that stage, improve the movie as you're mixing, where it's like you're not even changing it you're just like volumes and you're like oh that's funnier, you start to realize you are, I like this part like I started looking myself as a storyteller, versus like animator or director it's just like that's my job now. It's weird. That's cool. I'm a story that we tell stories and this is what you know it's my role in the world and
I love storytelling! I'm so pompous. I'm sorry.
Like, it's like the wave shifting the way you think about your job and your role, and it's like when you think of it that way you kind of come back up and just look at the world and it's kind of taking music and imagery and photography and, like, how can all these things helped me do what I need to do. And I don't know, it's so like wacky and Goofy, Goofy, but it was more freeing though,
Larry Vasquez 58:39
it is
Clay Kaytis 58:40
and you're like okay like how do I communicate with people, right, like that's what it is it's not like
it's just like a weird more ethereal way of looking at like communicating and connecting to people, not so much about the ones and zeroes and the nuts and bolts of like, we cut this frame and that frame it's like it's more of a feel thing. And so that's that's a weird tangent but.
So about a month before the movie came out, I actually rolled off at Rovio and. And that's kind of when my, my external journey started in the world of Hollywood. And it's been about five months now.
Larry Vasquez 59:23
Okay,
Clay Kaytis 59:24
really cool and fun. And so what what a person like me does and I've heard Patrick talk about this Patrick Osborne, and John Karhs talk about this and it's like you you go out in the world. And, you know, we have agents because we're, we've directed a movie so we're lucky enough to have someone say yeah we'll represent them and agents know everybody. And they said we're going to send you to Warner Brothers to talk to this producer, or we're going to send you to Westwood to this office where this producer works, and you go when you meet them and they say, Well, what Who are you, what do you do, yet but what do you want to do, and you just to talk about yourself from the movies you want to make and stuff that influenced you and, and then either they like you or they don't. And then they'll kind of thing I find it at most places and they'll have like one thing, and they'll kind of slide it across the table and be like, check this out, you know, and it's like a comic book or it's a classic piece of literature or a newspaper article that they bought the rights to and they're like, what do you think about this. And, and either it's like really fleshed out or they have no idea what to do with it. And hopefully you know hopefully you'll come in and be like this is what you do. And sometimes it sparks networks and other times it doesn't but it's like okay it's a good try. But for me, what that means is like I get to now sit here in my house all day long with my dog Chewbacca. And I write pitches and I write stories and I write, you know, this is what I would do with this property or I'm adapting a screenplay, a children's book into a screenplay I just finished that first of all, like this week I finished my first draft. And so it's a lot of meaning and just connecting with people that want to tell the same story as you, great and it's great and and some people you really click with and other people it's like no we're not the same and that's okay and there's the good thing is there's lots of people out there, and there's lots of movies and the other thing that I've learned is that, you know, when I was first, even before I started looking. They would send me scripts here and there. And that's a cool script and I was busy making the movie at the time and then, you know, a couple weeks later you see in variety this, you know director is attached to this movie like wow that's fast things come and go, and it's like a train station, it's always gonna make a movie next year and, and you realize that you know if you don't get on this train, there's going to be another one. There's another one coming. Yeah, and there's so much cool stuff out there and so many cool things people want to make and it's just a matter of finding one that clicks with what I want to say and that I clicked with the people that I, you know, want to say it. And we all like each other want to work together and the good news is to us there's a lot of good people out there,
and it's exciting. It's Yeah, it's an awesome job. And
Larry Vasquez 1:02:21
it seems like this is also an interesting time too because you know as you're mentioning the animation canvas, you know, you're like it's. It was Disney and DreamWorks and Pixar then you're like well Blue Sky and ReelFX, and your naming all these yeah, there seems to be this more an open canvas here. And then even look at what Patrick's in the VR realm or the shorter stories, or what Netflix is doing and picking up the Little Prince. You know, it just seems like there's a lot more of a venue here for that kind of thing. Have you noticed that as well as that, in the arena that you're dealing in and enjoying or how does it work.
Clay Kaytis 1:03:04
Yeah, absolutely. There's just so much potential for content. There's so many outlets now. And the funny thing is like a lot of studios don't understand animation not not as a way of storytelling but like actually making like the production process. You know, so a lot of live action producers can throw their hands up like well we don't know animation, we want to make a film but we don't know how to do it. You know, so it's really interesting that it's almost a very unique pipeline. Very few people know the secrets. But there's thousands of those people.
So animation is kind of its own thing, until everyone understands how to do it but it's its very own genre, for sure it's a medium. But it's like, animation is going to kind of stick with animation until people take chances on it and hire other people to do it for them. Yeah. Unless you're a standalone animation studio, but yeah it's cool because your Netflix's and Vimeo has, like, you know, pay per view. Yeah, a lot of outlets in the VR stuff and so there's a lot of people that want to make a lot of content and the fact that animation dominates box office now it's not just like a news report every once in a while it's like it's a fact. Everyone knows it and you'd be a fool not to have animation in your slate. It's a cool thing and it's good.
And the other thing that you know just doing Angry Birds that I realized it's really nice it's like we work with artists all over the world, like now today I mean we're doing this summer. You know the internet in the same place anymore and we had, you know, a painter in Vietnam and we had a modeler in Spain and we had a character designer in Brazil and it's like yeah just seen the work and we'll be here, you know, it's cool to work with people that you maybe wouldn't have been able to work with. Yeah. And you can build an amazing virtual studio. But you really can do it, and you can. I think it's even everyday it's getting easier and better and you can do amazing things with. In a way it's like crowdsourcing Yeah, let's do it efficiently you can pay people and there's lots of ways to make movies now.
Larry Vasquez 1:05:18
Yeah, yeah. Okay, here's a question for you. Yes. Which one was your favorite films to work on?
Clay Kaytis 1:05:30
Tangled. It's just like, we're always gonna be proud of that. Even if it gets out shined in the future, it was, it was like we did what we set out to do. Okay, this is fine as far as films I worked on my favorite film film is Wreck-It-Ralph. The sensibilities.
Larry Vasquez 1:05:50
My favorites
Clay Kaytis 1:05:51
like this. Yes, you know, and just, it's one of those things where you just feel very fortunate to work on a movie that you just, you would go see, you know, you pay money to go see.
And Angry Birds I just, it's a very, when I say personal it's not like this is my story, right. There's just so much I've managed obviously because I directed it and it's weird to kind of step back and realize you had that much influence over something. Yeah. And it's not like, let me get my fingerprints all over this thing it's just like you know I'm saying animation everyday directing shots and. And if someone's looking for an idea and I said well try this and everyone laughs and they do it well it's like that's me again on the screen.
When my wife went and saw it, she kept slapping me because she kept saying "That is so you!" so you know, she kept hitting my leg during the screening. Like, it's like I opened you realize like you can you can kind of have a piece of you out there. Yeah, I've never I've never felt that that much. A lot of me in this movie. And it's it's kind of empowering, like, you know, in a good or bad way maybe it just changes your perspective and like well I can really you know that's that's what directing and moviemaking and storytelling it's about it's about saying something and hopefully making it personal.
Larry Vasquez 1:07:20
Yeah. Was there a, was there any favorite parts from the movie on Angry Birds that you liked that stand out to you. Yeah,
Clay Kaytis 1:07:28
I just really loved the performances. I think they did an amazing job of really kind of taking care to make these characters real and distinct, with Red, Chuck and Bomb when they first come to class they meet each other that's one of my sequences. Just the action in Act Three just, I think a lot of the reasons because Fergal and I worked so hard to kind of construct that, and the procedure of it and the process and getting from A to Z in that whole Act Three. Just the build and it was a lot of sitting with a Google Doc, sharing typing in copying and pasting paragraphs and just working out like okay this is the progression of that. We're gonna build to a nice ending and just the way that all plays out with the humor and, and that was a big thing, where the movies obviously a comedy. But we didn't want to lose the funny. Once we got to the action so how do we tell funny action.
We did a good job. It's a challenge and it's fun and it's such a rewarding job man it's
Ferris Bueller.
I highly recommend it.
Larry Vasquez 1:08:39
I think it was Jamaal Bradley one time he was talking about how people complaining or this and that he's like, Look, you're an animator you're animating, this is fun!
Clay Kaytis 1:08:52
I mean when I used to do the podcast people would send me emails like: "I only do animation on phone phone apps... ", like Dude, you're not digging the ditches!
Don't stay there forever but like it's good and like my niece she's 12 years old now and she's just getting in like acting and creative stuff and I'm always just like yes, be creative, that's, that's life that's like so much better than like, no offense to accountants.
It was just like, you can say and do so much and hopefully affect people and even if it's just making people laugh You know that's the thing but you know, when people tell me they cried on Angry Birds I'm like yes that's cool that's such an encouraging piece of feedback and yeah and, Fergal, and I always were like we got to find a way you know and not everyone will but some people do and it's like the fact that you can touch someone like that and do it through a funny movie it's it's really such a special
Larry Vasquez 1:10:00
Yeah absolutely,
Clay Kaytis 1:10:01
And it doesn't have to do with directing, I mean that's that's one thing but it's just like being a part of it and animating and telling stories and doing art and all it's just like that's the life man.
Larry Vasquez 1:10:14
Okay, the favorite characters you've worked on in your history that you just that stuck out to you that you felt like hey if I can ever go back and just animate that one again I'd love to
Clay Kaytis 1:10:24
Rhino in Bolt was was great. It was just such a lucky career in terms of working on great things and Mark Walton he was a storyboard artists at the time he did the voice for it and so, you know, we would talk about it a lot and kind of like work back and forth on that, and you don't always get that with the actors. I just really, it was a challenge and it was funny character and I think it was a stand out of the movie nothing, not buying anything I did just it was a great character
and. And I think it was all these experiences are learning experiences and the thing I took away from that was like I didn't do the best scenes of that character even though I was a supervisor I think Hyrum Osmond who is now the supervisor on Moana, he's the head of animation on Mohana. Like, he rocked it, and that is the way it should be. I mean you should you should support people to do their best and to kill it. And be okay with it, and it's like they make you look good. Really like it translates into directing, where it's like, you need to support these people to do their very best because whatever they do that's awesome makes you look awesome, and it's it's a big team thing. Yeah, there's no, there's no place for pride in, you know, animation, where it's like when people do great work you just have to applaud it you know, no matter who it is.
Larry Vasquez 1:11:49
Right on, maybe taking a slight detour here I noticed on one of your bios it said something about Frog Bot films. Yeah, that's right, explain some of that here what's what is that
Clay Kaytis 1:12:03
well. Yeah, I just it since funny, my email since email began was Frog Boy but it's always Frog Boy
nickname I had, I was always like playing with frogs and it's just really embarrassing, but anyhow. Yeah, so, so my wife and I have decided to start this production company and the goal is to make movies, you know, and it's. I'm sure it'll take a while to build up but the idea is you know I look at people like JJ Abrams with Bad Robot and like that's a dream, you know, or it's like, I've never been there I've never talked to them but like you know I imagine it's like this fantasy land where they're all making TV shows and movies and video games, t shirts and it's like, working together, living the dream of working with people you love. and you want to surround yourself with creatives that can't wait to go to work because they're doing awesome stuff.
Larry Vasquez 1:12:57
Yeah. Very cool.
Clay Kaytis 1:12:59
That's like the long term goal of what this production company is going to be, but yeah so now it's just, you know, a matter of like finding the projects and starting to develop them and eventually producing films and. And it's not a thing where I need to direct everything I would be happy to work with people that direct their own stuff but that's that's the long term goal. Very cool.
Larry Vasquez 1:13:19
So check it out here. Just to give you a little airtime it all said,
Well, I will let you go because I know how much family time is in, Clay I really just appreciate the conversation. Beforehand just getting coming across y'all say Am I getting to know you, but getting coming across you'll be at the Animation Podcast, those are great great resources, I want to thank you to for doing those with us, it was great to get you on the other side of the table here so I really do appreciate your time.
Clay Kaytis 1:13:47
Awesome, thanks Larry thanks so much for having me.
Larry Vasquez 1:13:49
Absolutely. Best of luck to you. Alright YouTube. Take care
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