# Date of the podcast: 2016 / 09 / 30
Podcast link via bancroftbros.libsyn.com
https://bancroftbros.libsyn.com/animation-podcast-56-the-joe-moshier-interview
One mic accuracy once again as I didn't go through the AI transcript at all yet. I just discovered this interview and HAD to feature it since CalArt alumni Joe Moshier has been working in the industry since 1996 with a first assignment on Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame", and despite being one of the strongest character designers in the industry, he is totally invisible on the interweb! You would be hard pressed to find a single interview with him unless I point you in the right direction http://www.olivier-ladeuix.com/blog/2019/04/11/joe-moshier-interview/ ;-)
I have lost track of his work since as he then moved to Dreamworks to work on the ill fated "Me and my shadow" and I am not sure where he is at now.
Show notes:
Transcript:
Tom Bancroft 0:01
Welcome to the Bancroft brothers animation podcast. This is a show about the past, present and future of animation and all things related hosted by former Disney animators, directors and authors Tom Bancroft and Tony Benn. This podcast is sponsored by Todd biopro.com. The place on the web to watch art instruction videos by the top pros in comics, animation, character design and concept art. It's a funky fly fresh podcast with the big boys talk character design with the amazing Joe Mosher, DJ Joe spin some truths about designing characters for Disney and DreamWorks, including finally answering the question, Who designed Kronk and now yours the Bancroft brothers,
and welcome to another Bancroft brothers animation podcast. How you doing, Tony?
Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 0:53
Oh, man.
Tony Bancroft 0:56
I'm doing good. I just got back from a big trip. And I went down to New Zealand. I went to wait. Last last podcast you just got back from a big trip. I've done quite a few actually. Yeah, I went to Korea before. And then a couple weeks later, I went to Singapore. I did a TED talk there, which was really cool. And a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. And nutrition. And nutrition. Yeah, I speak out trician whenever I can. I can see that you've been really good at that. Because you eat so much. That's, that sounds like a bad joke. But we're twins. So I'm gonna let that go. No, I went out there to Singapore. And then I'm working with a group in New Zealand a small little animation studio called hoo hoo, studios. Yes. They're called hoo hoo,
Unknown Speaker 1:40
hoo hoo.
Tony Bancroft 1:42
Yeah. And so who who studios is doing an animated feature and I'm executive producing that. And it's called beasts of burden. So look for that in a couple of years. And hey, gang. What else? Animal Crackers? Already? Yeah, speaking of animal crackers. So here's the here's the news on that. I can't say who it is. But we just found out we got distribution here in the US actually worldwide. So we have worldwide distribution. It's a mini major that picked up the film. They're gonna put us out in like 3000 theatres. That's what they're saying. So it's amazing. Yeah, it's gonna be good. That's like all the theatres. Yeah, that's them. Wow. That's like every theatre. No, it's like a Disney release. Almost right there. Well, I think they're, I fossa maybe Okay, maybe 6000? Yeah, yeah, they're, they're probably almost double. But still, it's a it's a pretty big release for an independent thing.
Unknown Speaker 2:37
Sure.
Tony Bancroft 2:38
We'll take it right. Well, you know, and go into the business of animation. That's, that's really what you need in the world of independent animation is, it's all about distribution. It's all about getting the movie out there. That's the only way that it's going to make money and you're gonna be able to make another one. So it's a really a key component for us. It's not about just coming up with a great story doing great animation character designs. Did you just go right past that part? We didn't do any of that. We got a distributor. Yeah, we just got sued. No. Yeah. Oh, watch a white screen. But it'll be distributed. No, we, we finished animation. I looked at my watch. Just now we finished animation like this month. So as we speak into September is when we're supposed to be done with animation. It's exciting. Now. What movie are we talking about? Again? animal crackers.
Tom Bancroft 3:24
Okay, good.
Tony Bancroft 3:25
Because he went so live good humour. Okay, what's going on with you, man? You just teach just yeah. Teaching out Lipscomb. And that's a full time gig. So it's been exciting and interesting and got a great group of, I want to call them kids and I shouldn't. But it makes you sound like an old man. Students, my students. And yes, they're super excited. You know, I keep calling it I don't know if I've quoted this last time. But my little subtitle for our animation department at Lipscomb is where the collar to the south.
Unknown Speaker 3:56
Like that.
Unknown Speaker 3:59
That's kind of sad. I
Tom Bancroft 4:00
mean, it's kind of sad. You gotta compare yourself to
No,
Unknown Speaker 4:04
no, no. Okay.
Tony Bancroft 4:06
They're number one. I'm not saying we're number one. I'm saying we're number two. Alright. Okay, already. So USC, UCLA, they're somewhere past you guys. somewhere down the road. I'm sorry, Tom. sido. But yes. Okay. That's only a year. Eight years. Pretty incredible. Hey, Tom, we got some wonderful sponsors we should talk about real quick. And then I want to get into this podcast tonight because I'm chomping at the bit. Oh, man, I love it. Okay, well, we've got sketch wallet. Our friend Ralph is back as their sponsor, and with the wonderful sketch wallet. And actually, our our celebrity that we're interviewing tonight will get a sketch wallet whether he knows it or not. And so he will get a great leather bound sketch wallet with a little sketchbook in it and be able to draw That all the time whenever he's at the DMV, which was your example last time, Tony, or sitting in our room? That's right. Yeah. Or on the subway in New York. Hey, I playing like you. I like my sketch Wallet for trips that I like I just got back from I'll yeah, I'll sketch at the airport. I'll sketch on the plane. You and I are going on a trip tomorrow. But 10 comes out of Ottawa. Yeah, we'll be in Ottawa, we will hopefully have returned from Ottawa by the time this comes out. And, yeah, but we will have our sketch wallets with us. And we'll either read Moby Dick or drawn our sketch wallet. But I say sketch Well, it's cool. And you have another great supporter of the show. The bankrupt brothers animation podcast. One of our longtime sponsors is Stuart in books. That's Stuart mg books.com. They're online. And Stuart, of course, goes to CTN. Comic Con, has the best books around for artists, for for cartoonists for comic book artists, you name it. stewarding has everything for the creative out there looking for source material, and so much to do online. Good. You're gonna go buy your books at Stewart mg books calm and you got to go get your sketch wallet now. Or at sketch wallet.com. Go check out both of those things, guys. Oh, last thing I want to say is CTN. Yeah, to talk about that real quick. So CTN for all those that are going? I'm saying a very quick, so I'm going to slow it down. See t n that's the creative talent network. Expo. It's coming up in November. I want to say that, is it the 20th or 21st? November is good. It's the weekend, isn't it? Yeah, it's gonna happen November go to CTN. Tom and I are going to be there we got a booth. And we're going to be doing some panels to or we're speaking, we're going to do a live podcast there. When we get a little closer, we're going to announce what those paths. It's gonna be awesome to say. We can't talk about that
yet. Can we ask? No.
I think we got to wait until Tina price the founder of CTN posts about it already. I think she wants to have that. Right. So let's give her that. All right. It's her gig. It's her good. Yeah. Yeah. She she had money on the line. And I get that. So that I'm excited about upside about Ottawa, we have a trip to Italy coming up to which is crazy for a week. And we'll be at Lucca Comics convention in Italy, for anybody going to that. So that's an October. Yeah. Yeah. Hope to see our Italian friends in October. All right. Well, let's get on to this. That was great. Thanks. Glad everybody for coming tonight for our bankrupt voters podcast. Tonight. We have a special guy. This is him. He's a virgin to podcasting. And we want to bring him in. This is Joe Mosher, Joe. Hello.
Unknown Speaker 7:57
Thanks for being thanks for inviting me.
Tony Bancroft 7:59
You guys. Welcome to the show. Yeah, hey, for those that don't know, Joe is an awesome awesome character designer. I had the opportunity of working with Joe for many years at Disney. But he's now working over at DreamWorks let me tight let me can I run this down for you, Joe for the audience that's listening. Joe has been a character designer, the lead character designer on Emperor's New Groove. He was the character designer on Home on the Range. He did work on Chicken Little crocs New Groove meat, the Robin says bolt, the croods Rise of the Guardians he went over to DreamWorks. And he actually started on Hercules and hunchback doing rough in betweens, we're gonna get into that because most of you are going rough in betweens, what's that? Are the archaic form of traditional animation and we'll discuss a little bit no longer exists, but we'll talk about it. And you're actually working on boss baby right now. According to IMDb.
Joe Moshier 8:54
Yeah, just finished a few months ago. Did you?
Tom Bancroft 8:57
Oh, are you are you now out of work?
Unknown Speaker 9:01
Uh, no. No,
Joe Moshier 9:02
I helped out on dragons three, and I'm currently on me and my shadow. So it's been an ounce. But yeah, I guess I can't talk too much about that. Uh huh.
Unknown Speaker 9:13
That's coming back. Okay. Wait,
Tony Bancroft 9:16
all right. Right off the top that was gonna be 2d traditional animation, or at least for a good half of it. Is it still going to have 2d?
Unknown Speaker 9:24
No idea?
Unknown Speaker 9:26
No idea. on it.
Joe Moshier 9:29
Yeah. We just started really?
Unknown Speaker 9:30
So Oh, man.
Tom Bancroft 9:33
I don't know this character I'm deciding is gonna be made into a model or
Joe Moshier 9:38
just drawn like this. It's so early. We honestly haven't had haven't even had a meeting with the director yet because he's cutting a live action film in London. So yeah. Oh, wait, no,
Tony Bancroft 9:48
I think I heard who is the director, Edgar Wright.
Joe Moshier 9:52
He did a hot plus and Shawna das Oh,
Tony Bancroft 9:55
I love that. Brian. Yeah, he was supposed to do was he supposed to And man, and then he got kicked off or he left or something then somebody else took it over.
Unknown Speaker 10:05
I was gonna do that.
Tony Bancroft 10:06
Yeah, he was gonna do a Marvel movie. He still has a screenwriting credit on it, man. I think he did version of the script. Yeah. So yeah. And he's super talented. I love him. Yeah. Live Action director, society. DreamWorks has been doing that a lot, though, haven't they? Joe, where they'll bring in live action directors to do their animated films. What do you think about that? I mean, honestly, it's
Joe Moshier 10:29
all about story. Like I, you've seen some directors coming in meishan feature and they treat it. Like it's for kids, instead of just just tell a good story directed great film. You know, that's what it's all about. Yeah. And I think that's what he's done in the past with this live action film. So
Tom Bancroft 10:45
I want to hear you say that to Edgar. Right. I want to you give him that speech when he walks in. You got it.
Unknown Speaker 10:54
I'm sure he's losing sight now.
Tony Bancroft 10:56
Yeah. Yeah. He's wondering Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. Again, right. He's British. Right. So we'll, we'll speak with the British Jason. Yeah. Well, welcome to the show. We wanted to get you, you know, our, our fans, the listeners out there, they always are interested in how you get your start. So let's start there, if you don't mind. Um, you are a wee little laddie, growing up, wanting to draw what got you into cartoons? What got you into animation and drawing?
Joe Moshier 11:24
Um, well, my grandmother's, uh, you know, she's a painter. She's still around. I grew up in San Diego, she, and literally, we live next door to my grandparents. So I'd be over there all the time. She always she was always working on watercolour paintings. And that that was my first foray and excitement for art. You know, I saw what she was doing. She was creating these beautiful pieces, and it inspired me and, you know, part of me wanted to be like, like nano, you know? Yeah. And I remember in sixth grade, fifth or sixth grade, this kid, his name was Eric Rosetti. He was drawing these like mecha characters with like lasers coming out of their their hands. How did you do that? Like, where'd this come from? And I thought that was cool. Right? And and really, after that, I think seventh eighth grade is really when I got interested in drawing and you know, for all my art assignments, I draw Heath cliff, the cat. I'm sure none of your listeners know who that is.
Unknown Speaker 12:29
He's around. He's like,
Unknown Speaker 12:33
Garfield. Yeah,
Joe Moshier 12:34
no, seriously, right. And I would draw Garfield, and peanuts and stuff. But my interest changed. You know, it went towards animation. I think it was like ninth grade. That's when I really started focusing on animation. I think space Ace and Dragon's Lair came out and I was really inspired by that. Yeah, I'd always, Lucien, dude. I totally was. I wanted to work for Don Bluth studios, and they interviewed me for my high school yearbook. And I said, I wanted to work for that studio, and I even spelled Don Bluth wrong. I didn't even know. Like space Ace or Dragon's Lair, you know? So yeah, and I went to a cool, it was actually a science magnet school, and the focus was on science and math. And who would have guessed that I bet. That's where I really developed my, my art. My, my, my passion for art. And in my class, in my math class was a friend of mine, his name is Ricky Nierva. And yeah, Ricky, he's a is an art director, production designer at Pixar. I mean, he's, he's been there for 20 some odd years. And, you know, we actually ended up going to Cal Arts together, he was one year ahead of me, but you were the same age. I just took your two years off. But, um, so we would draw on each other's math assignments, you know, and we'd have like, you know, like little drills, like five minute math drills, and we'd finish them and we draw a little, you know, characters on each other's assignments. And there's another guy that was a great heteroromantic
Tom Bancroft 14:13
it really was, it's cute. Yeah.
Joe Moshier 14:18
And there's another guy that really inspired me, he did all these amazing drawings in the yearbook. And he was in ninth grade went out when Ricky and I were in eighth grade. His name is Bobby Rubio. And he's a storyboard artist at Pixar. And he's awesome. Yeah, I
Tony Bancroft 14:32
didn't know Bobby. Yeah, so Oh, my gosh, you guys that Yeah, winning animation together.
Joe Moshier 14:39
That's crazy. And completely independently, you know? I mean, I
Tony Bancroft 14:43
mean, the only the only guy that Tom was going to school with became famous was his brother. He'll call me Oh, yeah. No, my brother Teddy. Tony, that we don't talk about. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 14:56
Is the talent.
Tom Bancroft 14:58
Yeah, that Teddy? Yeah, you hated.
Tony Bancroft 15:01
He could have really went somewhere to bed about that surfing accident. But yeah, Bobby Rubio, he was an intern and Disney Florida Street. Yeah, I was there. I actually mentored him briefly. I taught a few classes for the character, the internship, so I know Bobby pretty well. Yeah, it's crazy to see him sprout up and do as well. I know he was like a rough in between or for me back and I don't know, Hunchback of Notre Dom days or something like that. Lion King. I don't know. Something like that. And also Bobby Bobby Rubio makes a mean taco really good tacos. Oh, yeah.
Joe Moshier 15:37
Yeah, fish talking. Yeah, yeah. He's also a huge San Diego Chargers fan. Like I am going Oh, gosh.
Unknown Speaker 15:43
Yeah, that's
Unknown Speaker 15:46
integrator II. All right. We
Tony Bancroft 15:48
have a rule. One rule on the podcast, Joe, and you just broke it. We don't talk sports. No sports.
Unknown Speaker 15:54
No, sorry.
Unknown Speaker 15:56
It's all sports. are.
Unknown Speaker 15:58
We hate sports here?
Joe Moshier 15:59
No. Like outside. watching guys. Seriously? No. Yeah.
Tony Bancroft 16:02
Wait, we will mute your mic if you watch it. So Tony, how you doing? Hey, thanks, everybody. Yeah, I'm taking off to go sketch at the DMV. Joe, I want everybody know cuz they can't see you. But we can through Skype. They got you look like you're about because Tony was reading off that. Oh, yeah. You were the head character designer for Emperor's New Groove. And I'm looking at you and I'm going this guy's a 15 year old disc jockey right now. How old was he?
Tom Bancroft 16:42
You look like a dope comment. TJ Joey x.
Unknown Speaker 16:46
Yeah, baby. Yeah,
Tony Bancroft 16:48
if you see if you see Joe go looking go look up a picture of Joe Moser on the internet. Everybody out there. You'll see that he wears these big old glasses like Ward Campbell used to do is that a word Kimble thing? Where
Joe Moshier 16:58
do you get not at all? Now? I don't know. I've been wearing glasses since What? My senior year in high school. And you know, as with all things, you just get bored easily and you just want something new. And just over the years. They just got bigger and bigger. I know. They got nine.
Tom Bancroft 17:16
The more blind you got the The more you needed bigger. You're like,
Joe Moshier 17:21
No, they're not that. My prescription hasn't changed the biggest one in 10 years. Knock on wood.
Tom Bancroft 17:29
Well, it looks like you closed your eyes when you picked them. That's all
Unknown Speaker 17:31
I see guys later.
Tony Bancroft 17:39
trashing the guests. You should have heard what he said to Glen Keane when we had him on.
Unknown Speaker 17:43
Yeah.
Tony Bancroft 17:43
What's that? Well, Cal Arts briefly and you went to Cal Arts for a little bit. I understand you met all these you went in with all your high school buddies. That was must have been a great time. But then your first job coming out of Cal Arts was what Chuck Jones. So I started working with Chuck Jones. How did that
Unknown Speaker 17:59
oh,
Joe Moshier 18:00
well, actually, before went to Cal Arts. I spent about a year animating on a cat Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Saturday morning cartoon.
Tony Bancroft 18:10
No way. Wow, you
Joe Moshier 18:12
kiss my feet right now, baby. Oh, my gosh, I was a cleanup artist. And I was drawing on the folders that the scenes would come in. And they noticed that I was on the swing shift where I started at 330 in the afternoon. Right? And yeah, and so I would do these drawings on the folder Bugs Bunny and Roger Rabbit, whatever. Probably a little mermaid and then someone on the day shift where all the animators were noticed it. And then that's how I got promoted to animator.
Unknown Speaker 18:42
Nice.
Joe Moshier 18:43
Yeah. And it's funny because when I started Yeah, I started at animating, you know, my own scenes. And there's an awesome guy I learned a lot from his name is Doug to Naples.
Unknown Speaker 18:53
Oh, yeah. I live right by Doug. He's here in Nashville. We did. Yeah, we did a podcast with Doug dude. Yeah,
Joe Moshier 18:59
yeah. Amazing. Like, seriously? Oh, um,
Unknown Speaker 19:03
he was was he animating on that?
Joe Moshier 19:06
Yes. And he would do straight ahead. And it was just ridiculous. He's like, what Campbell he would do like two three scenes a day sometimes is unbelievable. I'm trying to do one scene a week, you know. He's natural. Mm hmm. And I had a couple other mentors that really helped me. And it's funny too, because I was I was heading into work at 730 and in the morning, and I bumped into Bobby Rubio leaving they had three different shifts right and so Bobby Rubio was actually doing cleanup on the midnight shift and that night Oh, buddy.
Tony Bancroft 19:40
He didn't even know it. You didn't know your high school buddy was working on the same show.
Joe Moshier 19:44
I didn't know because I didn't know Bobby. I just admired him from afar. I was like a stalker or some. But I briefly ran into them and you know, talk to them. And of course, we we worked at Disney later on. So yeah, so I did that and I also animated on a short this American film technologies AMT. They were the company that, that colourized the black and white classic movies. Right? Really out and they started in animation by colourizing. Like it was like it was digital cell painting. And they did. We're back. Do you remember that? amblin show? Or that? Yeah. Yeah. So they colourize that and then they they force it into animation and attack of the Killer Tomatoes is the first thing they did. And then they laid everybody off. And they called like, I don't know. 10 guys back to animate on on a short called gay Han Wilson's diner and there's this creepy horror short. You can look it up on YouTube
Unknown Speaker 20:44
is I mean, it's it's Oh,
Joe Moshier 20:46
all right. Yeah. Interesting. kind of creepy. Weird. He was a playboy. cartoon.
Tony Bancroft 20:52
Illustrator. Yeah, crater. I've seen his work. Yeah. Yeah. So he does do and he did a lot of mccobb. And kind of creepy stuff, too. Besides totally good play.
Joe Moshier 21:02
Yeah. And this short plays right into that thing. And, and so I got a little more animation experience doing that. And then at that point, I got accepted into Cal Arts. And that was 1992. Nice.
Tony Bancroft 21:16
Yeah. Wow. And then how did they? how did how did you get into Chuck Jones, then? Whoa, well, you got to work with the master. Right. Did you weren't there for all four years at calyx, right. You only went now just
Joe Moshier 21:26
two years. 9294. And after the first after first year, Cal Arts I got a job doing character layout on the critic. Remember that TV show?
Tony Bancroft 21:41
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And and other killers. guys were doing that.
Joe Moshier 21:45
Yeah, you guys know Dan Joop. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was my supervisor and he kicked my aiss Yes, sponsors. You know what I mean, I'm a good speller.
Tom Bancroft 21:56
Keep it clean. No, thank you.
Joe Moshier 21:57
Yeah. Now he kicked my butt. And I I'd be so proud of these scenes and he go over them and like, literally change every drawing and wrecked me. reckoning
Tony Bancroft 22:09
was a good draughtsman wasn't it?
Joe Moshier 22:10
Oh, he's awesome, man. He's
Unknown Speaker 22:11
amazing. He still is. Yeah, yeah.
Tom Bancroft 22:14
I've seen that show. All his work really, really showed. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 22:18
I'm kidding.
Unknown Speaker 22:21
That's nice. So yeah.
Unknown Speaker 22:24
That was it. And then
Joe Moshier 22:25
I got credit. Right. So So ended my second year. You know, it's portfolio madness. Everyone's trying to get jobs. And I actually applied for the internship at Disney in Florida. Right. And I know there's a big focus on cleanup and my line was way too thick and nasty, and I ended up not getting it. I think Stevie warmers? Yeah, from Intel. Who else? I forget who else got that internship. Maybe Bronco. He. But so I was I was pretty crestfallen. I was bummed out that I didn't get it. And but but we could have been working with you man. I know. Right?
Tony Bancroft 23:04
I know cuz Tom and I were out there at that time working on I don't know rescuers or something. Rescuers Down Under. Was that you know, wait, but no, I think he's a little bit after that. Was this what year? Nine? Yeah.
Joe Moshier 23:17
This is after rescuers. Isn't it for summer? Or?
Tony Bancroft 23:22
Oh, that was like after Lion King.
Joe Moshier 23:24
Yeah. Right after Lion King. Okay,
Tom Bancroft 23:28
so later internship.
Joe Moshier 23:30
Yeah, right. So I had also applied for Chuck Jones internship. And I ended up getting that myself, Mike Wu, who was at Pixar, who was at Disney for many years. don don Hall. Yeah, Big Hero six. What's up? Yeah, so three and Panama. Eric konak. So they're in Todd Polson and Lawrence Marvin also those guys were focused on background. So there's about six, six of us. Oh, Jim Hall is well, six or seven of us from Cal Arts. And there was a handful of guys from from Was it a Canadian animation is cool. Sheridan. Oops,
Tony Bancroft 24:10
shared. I'm sure. You guys relate to young turks. I mean, that's a pretty young, really creative good group, though. But yeah, definitely the young turks for Chuck Jones. How was it working with old man Chuck at the time, man, he
Tom Bancroft 24:23
was ridiculous. Let's see.
Unknown Speaker 24:24
Was he drawn still? Ah,
Joe Moshier 24:26
yes and no. Um, so So yeah, I find out I got this internship. And it blew my mind because he was probably the maybe the biggest influence on me at that point, and still is like, you know, I just admired his work. I had chuck them up on my desk at CalArts every second. You know, it's literally it's such a blessing that I sucked at doing clean up and I think I hired by Disney and
Tony Bancroft 24:53
dodged a bullet, buddy. I sure did. Yeah. You didn't miss out on anything. Really?
Yeah. Do a cleanup on Tom Bancroft scenes instead of working with Chuck Jones.
Unknown Speaker 25:03
Oh,
Tom Bancroft 25:05
that that sounded horrible at first that way No, that would have been awesome. Yeah free for you. So
Unknown Speaker 25:11
that was like a weird when Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 25:13
Michael that was Michael multis there or, or who's the late I
Joe Moshier 25:17
didn't see him now Maurice noble was there every syllable literally every day. Yeah, he sat five feet from me cross, you know my desk in an office and
Unknown Speaker 25:27
would talk to you know, he
Joe Moshier 25:28
apps he would talk to anybody we'd have lunch with them. Of course it doesn't hurt. We're focusing animation. He's so nice like he's everybody's favourite grandfather. Just classic. Yeah, classic, you know, gentlemen, like just had so much knowledge and it wasn't just animation says he travelled the world and he share his experiences with us and it's I was actually afraid to talk to him. I didn't want to. I didn't want him to think I was an idiot. I didn't want to ask bad questions and stupid.
Tony Bancroft 25:58
I know there was a bunch of guys that did talk to him as we out of time with him and they were called the noble boys. No boys.
Unknown Speaker 26:04
No boys. Yeah,
Joe Moshier 26:05
I was but I wasn't my focus. So yeah, it was Yeah,
Tom Bancroft 26:12
they were little skirts.
Unknown Speaker 26:13
They did Yeah.
Tony Bancroft 26:19
Hey, they did didn't dress very nicely, but they they got the master All right. They knew some stuff Didn't they knew. They did, huh?
Joe Moshier 26:26
Yeah. No Scott Morris as well. He's Uh, yeah, storyboard. So Scott Morris Don Hall, Lawrence marva. Todd Polson, our up to eight. weather. Yeah,
Tony Bancroft 26:36
yeah. Todd little shout out for Todd Paulson. He wrote a book he wrote a book called what the noble approach? Yeah. And it's all it's everything he learned from friggin his first name. Maurice. Maurice Noble. Yeah, snowball. So it's like all of Murray snowballs knowledge that he kind of combined confined into a book. It's his beautiful book. Yeah. And Todd was definitely one of the noble twirly boys. Oh, yeah. Noble.
Unknown Speaker 27:01
They're just the noble boys. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 27:03
Canada is adding
Unknown Speaker 27:07
pink tutus. Okay. Yeah, I
Joe Moshier 27:10
think this is awesome. So yeah, we were we focused on the character animation. Right? And yeah, yeah. But so yeah. Chuck Jones would actually come in, maybe once or twice a week, you know, and he'd sit down with us during life drawing. I actually, you know, I've animated some scenes of Bugs Bunny. And I actually I sat in the sweatbox with him showing him scenes. I was so nervous. I swear, I think I was shaking and you're
Tony Bancroft 27:37
sweating in the sweat?
Joe Moshier 27:39
Yeah, it was. Yeah. No, but it's just crazy. It's so surreal. Right. Like that moment was such a huge moment. Biggest best moment in my life. Shawna singer. JOHN, was
Tony Bancroft 27:49
there something you walked away with? From that day? Yeah. that you want to share?
Joe Moshier 27:55
Yeah, well, because I was it was probably the best thing I'd ever animate. It was a dialogue scene of bugs. And I felt like, you know what, as a young animator, you hit, you do like one scene and then things start clicking. That was like, the scene clicked. Right? For me. I just felt like I started owning my scenes a little better, just controlling better, right? My timing had a better sense of time and all that and, and so I'm so proud to show Chuck the scene. I felt like I was copying his style from the 60s and the way he was drawing bugs and like, I just couldn't wait to show him the scene he sees into the coffin. You know, that's a nice scene. But, you know, you're kind of drawing bugs like Bob McKenzie and used to john now it's like what
Unknown Speaker 28:39
I was talking about.
Joe Moshier 28:43
Right there. Yeah. So yeah, he ended up taking one of my keys out of the scene and and just grabbed a pencil and he just started sketching bugs
Tom Bancroft 28:57
drew over it he drew
Joe Moshier 28:58
not no not over it but he was drawing he did like three Bugs Bunny drawings next to my Bugs Bunny. And he's like, see your drawing bugs a little to streamline and you know, he's he's got like a pudgy belly and rounder cheeks and these eyelashes. He started. He was drawing bugs the way he was the way drew him later familiar with him at that point. Yeah. So yeah. Still, I mean, Bobby wasn't. He was like, I don't know. If you write all those those directors. He was a great director. But, you know, Bugs Bunny wasn't the most appealing. And yeah, it was
Tony Bancroft 29:34
bugs. Yeah. But you're right. Chuck Jones and this is not to be critical of him. But yeah, because I really I truly believe that every artist has kind of a peak and and then they start to go kind of downhill. And Chuck, I think was you know, his peak was when you see those early layout drawings that he did and the what was it the 60s and stuff like 50
Unknown Speaker 29:54
opera Doc,
Tony Bancroft 29:56
oh my gosh, they're beautiful and oh my god. Gosh, Oh, God, they were so awesome. And I still have model sheets from that era of Chuck Jones. But yeah, later on when you guys were working on, and he welcome in more of an artist he was well, he was doing all the gallery sales and stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, he was making money but yeah, he changed how he drew bugs and he did have a little potbelly and stuff. Yeah, that's cool. Um, so your character, so yeah, so
Joe Moshier 30:28
so it's funny too, because the guy that was running the studio don't say his name. But you know, he came over he's Oh, I heard you know, I heard Chuck did some drawings for you know, he, you know, I know you asked him to sign up but you're not allowed to have him sign drawings. It was like all controlled by the gallery at the time I go. No, no, I still have the drawings. And it's really cool. But he never signed him. It wasn't it wasn't.
Unknown Speaker 30:51
Chuck. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 30:54
Wow.
Unknown Speaker 30:54
Can I have it? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. $50
Joe Moshier 30:59
so that was That's amazing. You know, there's one amazing really truly one of just one of my absolute idols and Okay, yeah, bless. How
Tom Bancroft 31:08
old are you? How old? Were you when that happened?
Joe Moshier 31:11
When you right, Chuck? No, no. 2920 Hello. Hi. Yeah, so yes, don't
Unknown Speaker 31:17
go to school for four years. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 31:21
Wow. No, but
Tony Bancroft 31:22
Joe is a talent. I mean, Joe was amazing. I remember the first time he came to Disney and we're gonna get into that now. But everybody was impressed with Joe's talent from the get go. So I know if even in high school you must have been, you know, top of the class when it came to art ability.
Joe Moshier 31:40
I don't know. I don't know. Honestly, I just I never consider myself. Good. I still don't I honour that's not a humble thing. It's just I just I've always felt like I got more to grow, you know?
Unknown Speaker 31:54
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 31:54
Oh, yeah. You know, so yeah,
Tony Bancroft 31:57
I got, you're kind of you're on top buddy. Yeah. Okay. So let's say this now. Now you go over to Disney. Okay. And let's jump ahead. I'm Hunchback of Notre DOM. Was that your first film? Yeah.
Joe Moshier 32:10
Yeah. Literally, like, a week after promising a year's worth of employment at Chuck Jones. I was gonna stay on an animate on the shorts. I got a call from Disney saying that I you know, I'd taken a roughing in between tests and I passed it apparently and they wanted to hire me. Well, I was like, Okay, please, please, please, please be Pocahontas. I want to work with Glen Keane. You know, here's my other idol. Of course. Sorry. You guys. were awesome, too. But you know.
Tony Bancroft 32:39
That's okay. Chuck Jones Glen Keane. I
Unknown Speaker 32:41
was glad
Tony Bancroft 32:43
goddess. I was I was one of the money. I love you. Did Tom's rough in betweens again. Okay. So yeah. So say this. You're an animator at Chuck Jones on on great bugs, shorts, right. Everybody wanted that gig too. And then you get offered rough in betweener. at Disney, which is a step down, right? Yeah, I would say is a step down. Basically, you're kind of training to be an animator as a rough in betweener. So what made you do that? Yeah, crazy.
Joe Moshier 33:11
it you know, I know. I've mentioned Don Bluth earlier, but really my I, my heart. I really wanted to work at Disney. I was a huge fan. I was so inspired by the work that they were doing. And I wanted to be a part of that. You know,
Tony Bancroft 33:26
was it the current films like little mermaid rescues where you were seeing those movies? or? Yeah, you just said it wants to be part of their world. Yeah, it's a part of their world. Yeah,
I could see what the thing is all
Joe Moshier 33:39
that Sleeping Beauty 101 Dalmatians Jungle Book low mermaid Rescuers Down Under I loved it.
Tony Bancroft 33:45
So you started on as a rough in between her tell the audience for those that don't know what is a rough in between or do responsibilities.
Joe Moshier 33:51
All right, a rough me in between it takes a scene from an animator and you actually you do the drawings that go in between the keyframes, right. So for any motion, there are two extreme poses, right. And usually the animator will do those two poses and maybe a breakdown in between those and there are several in betweens based on the chart and the action motion that you have to do. In between those, those key breaks down.
Tom Bancroft 34:22
It helps fill in the scene, right?
Joe Moshier 34:23
Yeah, it fills it up. Right. So that's, that's I you know, and it was funny, because when they told me I was gonna be a hunchback, I was like, I was bummed out again. You know, like, How selfish can it be, but I really wanted to work on Poker. Pocahontas was the show to work on right. Nobody was talking about hunchback and and so another blessing in disguise you know for me, because, um, yeah, immediately they hooked me up with Tony for chilli and James Baxter. Yeah. Dream. Team, man. Yeah. So I was I was there about a week. We can maybe Two weeks, and I had already screwed up a giant Cathy's zelinsky seems like she was like, I didn't even have a desk right? And I'm walking to the studio arensky right now she comes up she's oh my gosh, you're rubbing between her like they were shortest Ruff, ruff me trainers. And she hands me a scene. I didn't have a pencil. I didn't have a desk. And so I finished. I think I work all night long on this scene, and there's it's like Frodo, and he's sitting in the closet. And he's like, backing up and he's like, literally, like, a quarter of an inch high. By the end of the scene. It's like 9000 feet long. And I just I couldn't sharpen my pencil enough, you know, and I wasn't familiar with the character. And I ended up hearing through the grapevine that Kathy had to redo most of my rough in betweens
Tony Bancroft 35:48
you're sweating it thinking oh man, I'm not long for life here Disney and then all of a sudden How did you well because for those that are don't know the the model sheets on on Hunchback of Notre Dom were all done by James Baxter and Tony for Chilean was one of the first times that they had two guys working together to create all the model sheets. Yeah, it gave it a very consistent, super consistent, they're all beautiful. That movie was very influenced by melt call style. And Ronald Searle Yeah, yeah, sir. Ronald. Yeah, more so. So how did how did that happen? That did James see your work or something? And yeah,
Joe Moshier 36:23
it try this strange, like literally the story that that Tony and James told me was that they were losing john rippa. To Pocahontas. He was, at the time he was doing some some background character designs for Tony and James. But Glenn wanted him for Pocahontas on his team to animate. So they were losing john, and they didn't have anyone else to help out. Because they were getting getting going on their main characters. Tony was doing Esmeralda and James, of course, is doing quasi moto. And I, I'm just geeked out. So I was looking at the style and looking at copying model sheets, and then doing my own expressions of some of the characters. And they were just in you know, I had piles of just rough warm up drawings on the side of my desk, and telling me and James, I guess they remember my portfolio and at Cal Arts, I focused on character design, because I honestly thought that every animator designed his own character or her own characters, right? I character designers, they didn't that wasn't really a title at that did. Yeah,
Tony Bancroft 37:26
yeah. That's how it was right. I mean, like a little mermaid and beating the beast. It was the supervising animators that did the final models. Yeah.
Joe Moshier 37:33
I mean, you had awesome people like Sue Nichols and Jean Gilmore. And that were creating lots of great ideas. But the animators always filtered it through their own, you know, strikes,
Tony Bancroft 37:47
so and that kind of came for the night old men that system, right. Yeah. Right.
Joe Moshier 37:51
So that was still intact. And then yeah, so so Tony, and James told me that one late night, they, you know, they mentioned my portfolio, and they went into my my cube and they were rifling through my stuff. And like snooping around looking at my drawings. And then it's decided to give me a shot at designing some characters, which was never a goal of mine. You know, I did focus on it. But it was never a goal of mine. I just, I wanted to be like, you guys. I wanted to be a supervising animator at Disney. Now, that was my, my goal. So yeah, they called me into the office next day. And they said, Hey, would you be interested in designing a character? I'm like, yeah, we this is so random. But yeah. And they asked me to design a pigeon. Right?
Unknown Speaker 38:37
There was your story.
Unknown Speaker 38:38
Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Bancroft 38:43
The girl goes around. Yeah,
Joe Moshier 38:45
yeah, I my brain went blank. I was like, What the hell is the pigeon look like? I went to the Arielle and I, you know, I, or the library, and I checked out books on pigeons. I went to the park, I'm throwing breadcrumbs and shit. You know, I think I did, like, seriously, like, 30 drawings of pigeons on one page. And I showed them a couple days later. And I was trying to ape the style because they had this sort of broken, you know, perhaps in line. Yeah, it could have sort of emulating the Xerox effect of the films in the 60s. You know, and which you already liked, right? That was I love that. Yeah. Enjoyed. Oh, huge milk call nine. Oh, man fan, you know, all around. So that was awesome rally. Totally. Totally. Yeah. And so, yes, I showed him the pigeons. I think Tony did a couple drovers. And like, yeah, they don't have four wings, Joe. But and you know, they're like, and then they gave me like, I guess the just a general background character. And I did the same thing. I did, like 30 expressions and poses on one page and they're like, you know, break it down like five heads. You know, five expressions and like front and back, you know, body pose, because I was doing way too much. So, yeah, from that point I ended up doing, you know, they did the main characters. I almost had a chance to work on the arch, the bishop character, but I didn't. Um, but yeah, I know doing that, like the Gypsy characters and a lot of the kids and incidentals,
Tony Bancroft 40:25
incidental characters that we see in topsy turvy and stuff. The cheering Oh,
Joe Moshier 40:28
no, yeah, yeah. Stuff like that. So yeah, I probably did about Right, yeah. 650 or so model shapes.
Tony Bancroft 40:37
I was on that movie in the beginning. And I got pulled off about eight months into it. But I remember you being there. And it was so, so cool. Because here I'd never met you before. And you were already like, snatched up you're working with? I just see you as like this young skinny like Young Turk. And you're going in and out of Tony for Chili's. Oh, yeah. James Baxter. And like, Who's this
Unknown Speaker 40:58
kid? chose?
Joe Moshier 41:01
jackpot? I really did. Hi.
Unknown Speaker 41:03
Let's do it. This is the second jackpot.
Unknown Speaker 41:05
Yeah, I know.
Tony Bancroft 41:07
How many career haircuts? No, but you are talented. Because I remember seeing your work and going, Man, this guy can draw and, and one of the other things that were tier advantages is a Tony for Chile is really slow. I remember. I remember hearing always that, that Tony and James are getting really backed up because they were also trying to start to animate. So James. James is fast. He's really fast. But he had to wait for Tony to go first. Tony would do a first pass right on the model sheets. And then yeah, and then James would do like turnarounds, yeah, yeah, I saw how they were working. They were a great team together. But Tony was always the linchpin. And that was it was like that online. Can I remember him getting way behind on his Mufasa scenes and stack it up and stuff? Tony, because he put it off to like the lesson I love. I love Tony. Yeah, I'm not trying to diss him. But but that probably gave you that problem of that was a production management problem. Basically, we got to get these models. She's done. We got animators Craven scenes, they probably gave you the guy. Yeah, yeah, I'm
Joe Moshier 42:13
so grateful for that, too. And there's a little bit of Tony, me too. I so I can relate to that. I was animating scenes under the camera right before class at CalArts. So I'm killed. That's where you get when you're, you know, you cut the editor out and you just do it. You know, don't think dude,
Tom Bancroft 42:28
yeah, let's do it.
Joe Moshier 42:29
Yeah. The funny thing about Tony and James is that they would literally draw on the same drawing, right? So Tony would do a little rough toner in it. Yeah. And James would start tying it down and Tony would sometimes finish it. So both their hands were literally on the final drawing, which is crazy, right? Yeah. And then Tony has this this sort of way. If people don't know Tony for jelly you got you need to know. You need to know. Yeah, he's, he has to me some of the most appealing animation drawings I've ever seen pictures period and brother like I visited Tom Gately at Disney had been hired. He was in our class at CalArts. And he had gotten hired at Disney and we visited him and he had Tony's and I think they're actually Tony's early, early hunchback model sheets on the wall. And Mike Wynn didn't know do these, you know? And, yeah, I was like, you know, and it was one of those like, moments where of disbelief, like I saw, and I my brain was convinced there millz. But when Tom and Tom told me, they were Tony's drawings, I didn't want to believe it. Because they were so good. And they scared the crap out of me. Like, I'm like, Oh, my god knows what that guy's living right now. And he did. You know? Yeah,
Tony Bancroft 43:43
yeah. He says, Oh, actually, this is one of yours, Joe.
Joe Moshier 43:47
Yeah, right. Now this year before I even got there.
Tony Bancroft 43:50
So I will say I will say I gotta say some about hunchback and the model sheets on that. I tell people all the time, that when it comes to character design on a Disney film, there's no better set of model sheets than Hunchback of Notre DOM. If you ever get to go online and get, like all I have, I have copies of all hours. I save them, and I love them. I even have some of Tony's early rough incidentals that he probably passed on to you and some of James's too. And I just think they now the animators didn't follow those model sheets. questionably? Yeah. Because I think it is the design did not translate to the next phase of animation and cleanup as well. But But when you look at what that what it started with those model sheets, it's the best looking and most consistent design film in Disney history, I would say. I'd say and I'd say Milan might be second or third to that.
Unknown Speaker 44:47
I would say second. Yeah,
Tony Bancroft 44:48
but I would say that Yeah, I agree with you that I think as a studio, the animation studio, the animators specifically weren't to the level of drawing that you You three were
Joe Moshier 45:00
not Yeah, I know I had nothing. Okay, that was I'll take a design whatever behind them, you know,
Tony Bancroft 45:07
I know. But still you had john drawing chops that were kind of above even some of the animators. So whether you agree with that you did. And so yeah, that's kind of where it got hurt is it we've been going animation get kind of watered down and then clean up to a little bit. But But man, I agree those I would see those model sheets because I was thinking I was working on Pocahontas at the time. And I'd you know, I was working with Glenn and that was all great, too, but then I'd see these fun like no call Ronald Searle kind of tired, nudge snack designs, and then I'd see the dailies come in and be like, Oh, yes.
Unknown Speaker 45:44
Look like those cool drawings. I saw. They had those in front of them. Yeah.
Tony Bancroft 45:49
Yeah, except for the Baxter scenes. I mean, Baxter quasi moto scene would come into dailies. And I'd be like, Oh, yeah. Or Tony for chilli doing esmerelda. Yeah, gosh,
Unknown Speaker 46:01
yeah. Yeah. Those
Joe Moshier 46:01
are amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, they, they're really inspired by obviously, Ronald Searle. And Tony showed me, you know, you might have copies of these guys, these model sheets. He did have kids, and I think maybe an old guy and a lady. But he was actually basically drawing on top of a Ronald sort Sorrell character and created model sheets off of it. I mean, I think a couple things, but yeah,
Tony Bancroft 46:28
sure. Okay, so he stole them all. Wrong. sirloin steak dinner early,
Joe Moshier 46:33
early, early. early on. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 46:35
Yeah. Right.
Joe Moshier 46:36
They didn't make it into the film. They were just, you know, James and Tony, they, they were the impetus in the whole catalyst behind it all because they didn't like, you know, I don't wanna get him in trouble. But it was generally known, known throughout studio that being enemies is pretty inconsistent, especially with background characters. Right? That's right. And they wanted to Yeah, alleviate that problem. And they took it into their own hands. Yeah, that's, I was Yeah, I had Yeah,
Tony Bancroft 47:05
they had directors that backed him up.
Unknown Speaker 47:06
Totally, totally.
Tom Bancroft 47:09
Let him do that. Right.
Joe Moshier 47:10
Yeah, that's good. And so I learned a lot from working with them, having them draw over my, my, my drawings. And this is such an amazing experience.
Tony Bancroft 47:18
Really, you've had a blessed career. There's no doubt. Now would you say now, did you ever did it because I see on your IMDb that Hercules we have a rough in between, sort of step back. And if you've been
Joe Moshier 47:31
lateral, I suppose cuz cuz after I finished doing character design on hunchback, I went back into rough in between, you know, that was my job. I still wanted to be an animator. So I was helping out Mike Surrey. And, you know, Tony, actually, let me you know, pretty much rough out a Esmeralda scene, which was pretty cool. And tie it down. It was, you know, I think she was like, a quarter of an inch on the screens, but whatever. You know, so after that, um, yeah, I went back into into the animation pool, and I helped out Ken Duncan on Hercules on Meg. Right. Well, no. And for those of you you obviously know, Ken, and he, you know, when he ties down a scene, it's like, clean up. Right. And yeah, I was used to doing a scratchy scratchy hunchback line and Danny's rough in betweens, like it killed me. Like my hand was aching every day.
Unknown Speaker 48:29
Yeah, no,
Tony Bancroft 48:30
I think because, you know, you naturally work fairly rough.
Joe Moshier 48:33
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, use the stick side of the pencil. And, you know, it's just my natural hand movement.
Tony Bancroft 48:41
I guess you're not, you're not sharpening it constantly.
Joe Moshier 48:45
Yeah. And it was killing man. And I, you know, and that's when I got a, you know, I think I was I had been on a few months and my, my hands gonna fall off, and I get a phone call from Tony Bancroft. What well? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 49:00
I know. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 49:02
Yeah.
Tom Bancroft 49:04
We went to college together. Yeah. It's kind of hot. And sexy, john.
Joe Moshier 49:06
Yeah. So Tony, you asked me if we recall this, but you asked me if I had any interest. And moving over to Florida and working on Mulan as an animator.
Unknown Speaker 49:11
I don't
Unknown Speaker 49:11
I'm so glad I did. All the way it was it was it for Mushu
Joe Moshier 49:28
I don't know he didn't I was not specific at all. And I wasn't even
Tom Bancroft 49:33
remember we did. We did we were looking for an assistant. Yeah, animator or animator assistant. Sorry, for Mushu at one point and we got John Webber. Oh, yeah.
Joe Moshier 49:37
Yeah, he was Rough inbetween. At the time I was. Yeah, I didn't. It was never mentioned which character but like, Tony, I think you you were like you called me up like three days later, I was already like mom, mom, I might go to Florida and animate eventually, and you burst that burst bable real soon, he said that Disney didn't want to relocate someone that wasn't a full fledged animator. But john was that part. I do remember that there
Tony Bancroft 50:08
was a time where we were short in Florida with staff and we needed to reach out to the Burbank facility to go. Hey, is there anybody that's willing to come over? We needed some ringers? Yeah. And you know, usually the young guys are the ones that maybe aren't married or, you know, not attached yet. So their music? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 50:27
yeah. Yeah.
Tony Bancroft 50:28
So good choice with Joe. Yeah. All right.
Unknown Speaker 50:31
So yeah, that
Tom Bancroft 50:32
didn't work out. Yeah. Cuz there was, but yeah, but that makes me think we probably didn't pay for we didn't have to pay for any ticket. I can't remember how that works.
Joe Moshier 50:42
Yeah. You had plans of having like, 10 kids, you know, he had to go to Florida. There's more space.
Tony Bancroft 50:50
more space for his kids. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 50:51
yeah.
Tony Bancroft 50:54
But but it worked out for you. Right. So you could go to Florida cuz the company wouldn't release you to go to Florida, right.
Joe Moshier 51:08
Yeah. And I had gotten my portfolio together. I submitted it and for reviewed, you know, I because I actually had been a couple weeks, I think, since you asked me and I had to get my portfolio together. And they had to review my work. And remember, hum. Chen Yi told me that Hans Baker had seen my portfolio. And he says, No, no, no, this guy shouldn't be animating. He should be in visual development. And so I know another like, what lottery moment? Yeah. So at that point, you know, I think Disney had already told me I couldn't go to Florida, but I then submitted my portfolio portfolio for his death. And I was accepted. And that was and so I had to, I think, I'm sure bro, can Duncan's heart because he didn't have to do with my nasty rough in betweens anymore. But yes, yeah, Hercules, you know, towards the end of production, but to start on "Kingdom of the Sun", as a character does. Okay. So
Tony Bancroft 51:54
yeah, and you weren't the so you weren't the main character designer, when that first started right
Joe Moshier 51:57
there, they had already had buck Lewis, and a few other people do some design work on it. And Roger Allers, you know, obviously, was the director. And but actually, I think just a couple months in they, you know, they really had like seven, I think seven character designers at the time on it, doing freelance doing a lot. And then Roger decided he wanted me, he wanted all the characters to have the same voice, and he wanted me to create the look for that.
Tony Bancroft 52:36
Oh, nice. Before it changed. For those that don't know that listening. If you've seen the movie, The sweatbox, it really goes through the whole progression of how the movie changed from kingdom of the sun to Kingdom in ehsaan. And then to Emperor's New Groove, ultimately, and Roger allers stepped away from the film when it changed. Mark Dindal became the main director and the only director on Emperor's New Groove. But you had already gotten a start then as the main character designer, when it was still under Roger, that sounds like and then and then that that stayed on. I mean, that that kept going as, as Mark Dindal. Yeah. stepped into direct Emperor's New Groove. Right. He was still the designer, right? Hmm. Yeah.
Joe Moshier 53:15
So I, I made that transition. And, you know, when I started on Kingdom, the Sun, I was still drawing in that Hunchback style, which, but before I I started working at Disney, I was more influenced by like Chuck Jones and Glen Keane and, like, thick and thin line and, and now I'm doing this like sort of staggered etchy line on everything, and I couldn't break it. Like and part of the, the structure for creating the Hunchback style was was every character pretty much had a round cranium, just like you start with a ball for the the head You know, these smaller craniums Yeah, aside from quazi, which was like an oval, but so I'm like, you know, as soon as I'm starting to draw Poncho, the name of the main character and I was just drawing this circle every time and so it's just all the Ponchos look the same to me. They just they came from the same foundation and and then I was gone. I felt like I was losing myself. I'm like, what's my voice anymore? I kept break that Hunchback line and and then I just I started to just open my influences up a little bit, right. And I started becoming a little bit more aware of artists besides Milt Kahl and Glen Keane and you know, guys that were in my pocket and you know, I discovered
Tom Bancroft 54:34
It was anime.
Joe Moshier 54:35
Yeah. Speed Racer. Yeah. So now Yeah, like I discovered Tom Oreb and and just Oh, yeah and coincidentally, I just started breaking that mould and just started drawing shapes right, instead of just like a formulaic approach to designing characters and, and coincidentally, Tony Fucile was going through the same thing over on iron Giant he had left Disney and I had lunch with Tony Fucile sorry. And he had left Disney. He was designing Iron Giant. And he and I had like literally the same experience where Brad was like, Tony, stop drawing the circles for everyone's cranium. See, like, just start drawing shapes, you know? And he likes slap the pencil outta Tony's hands to stop those damn circle.
Tom Bancroft 55:23
That's great When and when you look at Emperor's New Groove. It's It was one of the most unique films when it came out stylistically. Because we because the Disney film started to feel like formulaic there was a lot of people that were saying and around that time not only were they all musicals and Princess films and all that, but it's that drawing style to that Little Mermaid, Glen Keane, you know, overly kind of curvy, drawing style, which is great. It's very rhythmic and all that kind of stuff. But what you were doing on Emperor's New Groove was, was Yeah, it was so graphic. And I remember coming on to it as an animator because I went from directing Mulan back in animation, I, you know, and I and I got the assignment of doing Kronk Yeah. And so you and I were working together again. And I remember talking to you several times. I don't know if you remember this, but you were so nervous about going over guys. Oh, yeah. So other other other supervising animators drawings and stuff. And yeah, was that hard for you to kinda
That's cuz he was nineteen
Joe Moshier 56:23
There's so on. What? 20? Something by 20? boy 97/98 Yeah, yeah, I was like, 24/23
Tony Bancroft 56:32
24. Wow.
Tom Bancroft 56:33
Okay, so yeah. Oh, no, Tony was 60. Yeah. So now speaking of which, I've heard both of you. I've seen interviews. Tony, I hear you all the time say this. But I've seen interviews of you, Joe, where you say this to you both claim to have designed Kronk. Okay. But since I'm the outsider here, I love that I get asked this question. Who designed Kronk?
Joe Moshier 57:00
We both did.
Tom Bancroft 57:02
Oh, no. No, I think I mean, we need a vise, right.
Tony Bancroft 57:07
I came on to the film and there was already some great Joe Mosher drawings. And but I was asked to you know, Joe was like Tony, Fucile. We had stacks of drawings he had to go through and a bunch of character designs to do on all the main characters and he was drawn over everybody stuff. You know, he had a workload. So I took what Joe started with, and then just tried to push it. I tried just different things. But now my style was much more influenced by the traditional Disney style, like what you're talking about the cranium thing? I know, it was frustrating for Joe, but I would bring in drawings and Joey like, oh, okay, I see you're doing there. Let's let's try it and he would go. Yeah, you killed it. Okay. You suck the life out of this. Let me go over and put some life back. But you do some really cool graphic things, and I would go oh my gosh, how am I gonna move that? How am I gonna turn that I remember talking to you like, Yeah, but Joe How do I how do I turn that what's what's an up angle look like? Have that chin on Kronk and stuff? You're like, I don't know.
Tom Bancroft 58:06
Just don't have them look up! Yeah,
Joe Moshier 58:08
that's the easy solution. Well, yeah, no, yeah. Well, I was I was discovering myself as an artist. And so I didn't have all the answers. I just wanted more contrast in the designs. You know, I didn't want I didn't want round against round. I just felt hungry to do something new and a little more exciting, a little more tension in the drawing and so yeah, I didn't always have the answers. And luckily, I had a guy named Sandro Cluezo was working with me and he was doing I was so busy like you know, I don't know if everyone knows this but as soon as that transition occurred with with Emperor's or Kingdom of the sun and Emperor's New Group, we have like a year, year and like 20 days to do a movie, you know? And and
Tony Bancroft 58:54
so which would normally be about years Yeah, I mean, like it was half the time. Yeah. Oh, oh, and and yeah, there was this pipeline problem just like we were talking about what Tony Fucile and James Baxter on Hunchback where you know animators need a model sheet done and and their their their characters approved and all that and they had to go through Joe and yet
Unknown Speaker 59:15
I'm gonna rag on No.
Tony Bancroft 59:18
Joe and always like stroll in he would have meetings like set up where people were going to meet with him to show and drawing like 9 am Joe and strolling like at 10:30, 11 o'clock
Unknown Speaker 59:30
oh my god I remember that Yeah, who's
Tony Bancroft 59:32
who our production manager in charge you you were driving her crazy.
Joe Moshier 59:36
I know, I remember, they deserve awards man for like everyone that worked with me
Tony Bancroft 59:41
you know he was up late as a disc jockey. Yeah. That's rough. Time to get up. No, but you did it. You got it all done and and that film, and I gotta give kudos to for anybody listening. If you get a chance, go online and try and find Joe Moshers It's called Kingdom of the Sun Character Style Guide because it was before the changeover to Emperor's New Groove, but we use it on Emperor's New Groove. I'm gonna hold it up, so you guys can see it. Oh, thank you, Tony. I have a copy of it. And that's good stuff.
Joe Moshier 1:00:13
I actually updated it for Emperor's New Groove. I put Kronk and Izma all those guys in there. So yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:18
yeah, yeah, there was so much I have those pages. Yeah.
Joe Moshier 1:00:21
And I do have that copy. Because you sent it to me. Thank you.
Tony Bancroft 1:00:24
Yeah, I made a copy for you, buddy. You never got a copy. Joe.
Joe Moshier 1:00:27
I think I never got it back.
Tony Bancroft 1:00:30
Well, these are the kind of things these kind of style guide things. Hans Baker did one for Mulan, which is like genius. If you ever get a chance to see
Joe Moshier 1:00:37
Chen Y Chang did as well, that's awesome
Tony Bancroft 1:00:38
he did one right. And if you ever get a chance get all these style guides, because whenever they did him, oh, Sue Nichols. Did one for Hercules Yes. That I've seen. Yeah. No. Which is really beautiful.
Joe Moshier 1:00:39
she kind of started it
Tony Bancroft 1:00:48
Yeah. Did the director did Mark, have you do that to get the get the animators ready to the same page? Yeah,
Joe Moshier 1:00:55
yeah. And especially since the fact that that we only had like a year to get it into theatres. Everyone just kind of had to hit the ground running. And, and that's when Mark had me do a lot of draw overs on some of the animators scenes. And I didn't like doing that, because I was very sensitive to hurting anyone's feelings. And it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like, Hey, this is a bad drawing. It's just let me just try and, and, and put it
Tony Bancroft 1:01:24
that yeah, I mean, it. You know, I
never told you this at the time, but it helped me tremendously job I did. But I got so much out of the drawings that you did over the model sheets that I was working on, and I just I just ended up tracing them. I really, whenever whenever I got a Joe moshier drawing it was
then you became the original right?
Tom Bancroft 1:01:42
That's how I did that. That was like Glen Keane on Pocahontas. Oh, that you do draw over.
I trace over it. Keep his original put that right. Yeah, yeah, it's hanging over the toilet now. Right. Oh, well. Hey, guys. I'm running long and I don't want to miss out. Oh, dang. That we still need to hit so. All right. Um, we talked about your design packets. Okay, so you've designed because then you left Disney. I'm really zooming ahead here. I'm sorry. But you left Disney and you went to DreamWorks a little bit later. And you've worked on a bunch of films. Let's see did Tony mentioned I don't think you mentioned beginning Tony. Yeah, but let me Croods, Rise of the Guardians but but you also did oh and Bolt Bolt you did the character designs for Bolt right? On
Joe Moshier 1:01:44
Yeah. I was a supervisor on that one..
Tom Bancroft 1:02:30
Awesome. Awesome show and they should have done them 2d animation or your drawings were so awesome.
Joe Moshier 1:02:35
You are so sweet dude, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:38
It didn't look as good Oh, yeah, I still Rhino that that hamster? Yes. I still see drawings of that online. Oh, yeah. Your original designs
Joe Moshier 1:02:46
That was fun.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:46
Like Ah, that was so cool it makes you want to animate Yeah, it
Joe Moshier 1:02:51
was just like a fuzzy baked potato. You know, it's like constantly stuffing food in their mouth and they look cuter like that. So I just decided to design him. With that in mind, you know?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:04
Yeah, that's stuck lately. inflated.
Tony Bancroft 1:03:07
Yeah. Yeah. And that was Jin Kim's first go at character design too. Right. Was he working with you? Yeah.
Joe Moshier 1:03:12
So I would do the designs and he would similar to what Sandra Cluezo did on on him on a Emperor's New Groove, he would do like turnarounds and model sheets, because again, we had like a year to get this movie. It was insane. Another situation where we were just up against it. And so yeah, Jin helped out a lot on that. Ryan's so beautiful.
Tony Bancroft 1:03:32
It's a good looking movie though. You guys did an awesome oh, yeah, that together. Thank you. So let me jump ahead and just say you've designed a bunch of characters in your career for Disney and DreamWorks. So do you you know tell us which ones you feel like were the most like that turned out either CG or 2d like most like your original character designs, you know? And which one maybe was your favourite?
Joe Moshier 1:03:53
Man That's tough. Really, like I think one of my favourites at Disney once we transfered over to 3d probably Goob and in Meet the Robinsons, you know, I thought he looked really? Yeah, I mean, Bolt was fun. I thought he turned out pretty cute. And at DreamWorks, maybe Drago, the bad guy from How to Train Your Dragon Two.
Tony Bancroft 1:04:22
Oh that was your design? I was just looking at him the other day.
Joe Moshier 1:04:26
Yeah, like his design. Yeah, I did that I did it and then Nico did like a, you know, a style passes sort of a rushed event but yeah, that guy was pretty fun to see in 3d. That's that's Nico Marlin.
Nico Marlet. Awesome. Awesome character designer.
Tom Bancroft 1:04:45
Yeah, great character designer. He did a lot of the designs for the first one, right?
Joe Moshier 1:04:49
Yeah, yeah, he's, yeah, he's Mr. DreamWorks. And he's still there. It's, you know, he did Kung Fu Panda. He also designed How to Train Your Dragon. Yeah Fantastic.
Tom Bancroft 1:05:01
Yeah, that was all. All the best stuff. Yeah, I assume he worked on the Croods too with you. Um, yeah,
Joe Moshier 1:05:07
I actually, I just designed the opening 2d sequence. I just I did like hyper stylizations of the lineup. I didn't design the main characters. You know,
Tony Bancroft 1:05:18
though. Those are awesome, man.
Joe Moshier 1:05:20
I love that angle. It was really fun. Yeah, that was a blast gig. Got to work with Chris Sanders. You know, I'd never worked with him at Disney. So I was Oh, yeah, it was an awesome honour.
Tony Bancroft 1:05:31
Well, let's get a little bit into technique. Yeah, well, before we shut this down. Because we got to be careful with your time. But all the drawings I see of yours tend to be they look like they're done traditionally. Like your pencil and paper guy. Is that true? Or do you? Do you work traditionally? digitally?
Joe Moshier 1:05:49
Yeah. Um, up until I think after Bolt. I started using Photoshop a little bit more.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:58
Yeah. Cintiq.
Joe Moshier 1:05:59
Yeah. And I ended up illustrating a golden book for Bolt. The movie. Oh, yeah, I have that. And it was all hundred percent digital. I wanted to paint it in acrylic and gouache but I would have run out of time. So I learned Photoshop in like five days, I had to figure it out real quick. I mean, all I did was watch YouTube videos. So now not exclusively, but mostly I work digitally. And I hated digital at first and I'm not I'm always gonna have my animation desk and I still do at DreamWorks. But it's it just makes more sense. You know, the time restraints and you have to do any tweaks colour. Yeah, it's just faster. I still don't like my joints as much and digitally as I do. pencil, but, you know, yeah,
Tom Bancroft 1:06:03
Do you still like, sketch on sketch pad like personal stuff.
Joe Moshier 1:06:45
Not necessarily if I draw just like loose paper or sketches, you know, warm up sketches. Oh, yeah.
Tom Bancroft 1:06:51
Yeah. Now, speaking of which sketchbook and all are you out there on the internet? I how do people see your work nowadays?
Joe Moshier 1:07:00
I don't know. Instagram. No, I don't know. I'm I have a Facebook account. I don't use it, I don't know that password. Um, okay. Yeah, I kind of avoided all that. I don't I don't have a blog or portfolio online. I just, I think anything that I have out there is probably from art of books, or I don't know, copies.
Tony Bancroft 1:07:18
Just you're you're just too busy having babies. Right?
Joe Moshier 1:07:22
Oh, you're that Yeah. About the head or it's it's
Unknown Speaker 1:07:26
Oh, are we?
Tony Bancroft 1:07:30
Well, one thing that Tom pride is even know about? I don't know if you do. But you started an apparel line a couple years ago. And I see you at San Diego Comic Con all the time. You know that about that? Tony? Conduct Happiness?
Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that. And is that still going? Well?
Joe Moshier 1:07:47
I mean, we Yeah, we started like 10 years ago, believe it or not, like Chris and Chris and Chris Sonnenberg who is running the Tangled TV show at Disney. Yeah, he he and I decided, hey, let's just do our own thing. And we just start doing t shirts. You know? And you know, we had like a pretty good buzz for a while, Target wanted our our designs and and we were in Nordstrom is pretty cool. But you know, we I haven't really been focusing on that. I'm kind of more focused on doing children's books now. Oh,
Tony Bancroft 1:08:21
yeah. You have one in the era? Is it?
Joe Moshier 1:08:25
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have an agent
Unknown Speaker 1:08:28
with cat Berg. Tony,
Tony Bancroft 1:08:29
if you're following Tony for children's path. Oh,
Joe Moshier 1:08:32
yeah. Yeah, after doing the Bolt book, it was really fun. really rewarding. And so we we actually illustrated a book through our through Conduct Happiness to a party thing, but but I have my own ideas right now that I'm working on.
Tony Bancroft 1:08:48
On the side. They all revolve around potty training.
Joe Moshier 1:08:51
Not at all.
Tony Bancroft 1:08:53
Okay, it's telling me stories.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:55
Yeah,
Tony Bancroft 1:08:56
there's a lot there. That's a meaty topic. If you need a great training, I got one about Tom, I could tell you from his childhood, and it's disturbing, and it'd be better we'd be great and graphic really graphic to
Unknown Speaker 1:09:11
love. That's a
Tony Bancroft 1:09:12
lot about a lot of people were there to witness it. So it's also Well, most embarrassing moments. trainees, okay, God potty training in the mall. That'll paint a picture. Okay, so we're gonna wrap up, but I gotta say, Joe, this has been great. I mean, for me, it's like, you know, memory lane, getting together with you and just being able to talk like this. I have such an affinity for your work. I'm just so happy. Thank you to see that. You're still doing it. You're out there. You're making great, great art and inspiring.
And I do too, from afar, so have you enjoyed getting to know you better tonight? Yeah,
Joe Moshier 1:09:52
no, it's like, yeah, meeting an old friend. For the first time.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:57
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
Yeah,
Joe Moshier 1:10:00
no, no friend when I worked with yout, I admired your work on Puma. And, you know, it was an absolute honour to work with you, you know, like, I got to work with just amazing, amazing people at Disney. You're one of them and I learned a lot working with you and it's just it. Yeah, it is. One of my fondest memories is working with you on on Kronk. So I'm flattered to do this interview with you guys.
Tony Bancroft 1:10:27
Yeah, thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. You did a great job designing that character.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:33
That's making me look,
Unknown Speaker 1:10:35
Tony out.
Tony Bancroft 1:10:37
Thank you glad we finally figured that out. about designing Kronk. We're gonna part of the interview out though just so you know. Okay. Right. Anyway. Okay. Thanks for being so much, Joe. And thank our sponsors for this show. And join us next time when we have another awesome guest or actually maybe next time we'll be just Tom and I bantering on for hours and hours about some very important topic. I cannot wait to discuss potty training deeper with Yeah, so yeah, thanks. Keep it as we always say, Tony, right. Right. And enemy Ragnar.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Comments
Post a Comment