Ranieri’s mistakes were obviously not so great that he wasn’t trusted with a hefty portion of work, however, and his experience on ROGER RABBIT would cement many things for him, including a lasting friendship with animator Andreas Deja. He points to Deja as one of two people from whom he has gained the most personally and professionally in his career. “First was the guy at Lightbox who fired me. He was the guy that jump started me. I was doing this commercial of a little bear walking down a conveyor belt for this cookie commercial. So I did this cycle of the walk for this bear and I showed it to him and he said ‘You’re thinking too much. You need to go with the flow.’ And he sat down and started to animate. And there was an up and down�? Ranieri bounces in his seat, “and this movement and he’s drawing while he’s talking to me ‘the head comes up and he hits the a, and then you drag the head’ and as he’s saying this I’m realizing he’s not trying to match the animation to the dialogue which looks so mechanical, he just sits down and animates it straight ahead and works out the dialogue as he goes along. And it changed the way I work.�?

“Then there’s Andreas.�? Another animator well known for being demanding and holding himself and his peers to very high standards. “On Roger Rabbit there was a 48 foot scene that Andreas had to do just for the trailer. They wanted very specific shots for the trailer, and they had a week to do it! Well he couldn’t do the whole thing so he split it up. He gave half of it to James (Baxter). And James did it in a week. A week!�? Ranieri collapses back into his seat and throws his arms against the padded back. “It was flawless! I had 14 feet and it took me a week and a half and I was struggling all the way. And even then, I had to redo almost half of it! I’m looking at James and thinking ‘I can’t do that!’ And Andreas said to me ‘Don’t worry about it. Everybody has their own speed. You’re good. Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re fine.’ He gave me the confidence to keep working.�? Ranieri has a great deal of respect for colleagues like Baxter and Deja, as well as Glen Keane, Ruben Aquino and others with whom he’s grown up in the industry. What he demands of himself seems to have been tempered by others whom he respects and who see exactly what wonderful and unique performer Ranieri is. But in spite of the support, you can’t help but hear the self-criticism as he compares his work to others. He is still dazzled by the more prolific and elegant draftsmen. Even if he’s correct in his evaluation, it’s worth noting that he ended up with a credit as an animator on ROGER RABBIT, with his name appearing above and before that of James Baxter.

After ROGER RABBIT ended, James Baxter and Nik Ranieri met in New York for the premier and then flew out to Los Angeles, stayed with Andreas Deja and went to the Disney studio and got jobs. James Baxter would indeed prove a dazzling talent and do what many feel is his best work while at Disney. He was lured away to DreamWorks in the mid 90’s and remains a top talent in Katzenberg’s keep. And while many industry insiders believe that his talent languishes for lack of anything truly challenging to keep him sharp - his work on the lead character in SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON is impressive if you can dig it out from under bad voice-overs and an uninspired story. While on the other hand, Ranieri has had the advantage of moving from one challenge to the next up a steady climb to the top. Even in the less satisfying films of the past ten years, Ranieri’s work shines through with great satisfaction. Now entering his fifteenth year at Disney, it’s been a long run of highs for Nik Ranieri. Well, highs after a short start of stumbles.

“They hired me as an animator and the first thing I worked on was Ariel. THE LITTLE MERMAID was half way through when I was hired as an animator. I went to Glen and Mark (Henn) for some of my drawings, but I saw that I didn’t draw like them. I didn’t know the visual shorthand. For example, my first scene was where Ariel comes to Triton and says ‘But Daddy!’ and she has that subtle little look on her face, the way her eye and mouth scrunch. When I drew it she looked like she was a hundred years old! They knew I was struggling so they put me on Ruben’s team for Ursula, and afterwards they told me I was the most off model of all the animators.�? He laughs, half embarrassed and still giving himself little credit for even being hired as an animator at the most demanding house in the business, with the highest standards.

Ranieri claims that he struggles with his drawing without any hint of false modesty. It is clear that he believes the self-evaluation as he’s fairly matter of fact about it. “I don’t consider draftsmanship my strength. My strength is trying to break through the performance. In fact, that’s what any good animator brings, is the uniqueness that you bring to the performance. It helps that you have an affinity for what you’re interested in. I like observing the little mechanics. I remember the guys from Pixar coming down to the studio and talking about working in little gestures and subtleties and thinking this is what every animator should be doing - looking for details and specifics. The nuances!�?

Ranieri broke through his frustrations and found nuance of character in Lumiere, his first supervising animator assignment. The role established him in the industry as one of the rising stars, and the trajectory was fueled by both audience and industry response. Ranieri’s work clicks - particularly with viewers. Twelve years later, his work on BEAUTY & THE BEAST still stands as a testament to what makes Ranieri one of the best and brightest of animation’s new generation. And for whatever struggle he had coming out of Sheridan and Lightbox and ROGER RABBIT, and in spite of feeling unworthy next to other artists like James Baxter, Ranieri’s Lumiere is an instant classic and arguably a more consistent and refined performance than Belle.

The animator’s facility with snappy phrasing and spot-on timing did not go unnoticed by the powers that be inside Disney. During production of BEAUTY & THE BEAST, Ranieri was singled out alongside Glen Keane, Will Finn, Ruben Aquino, Andreas Deja, Chris Wahl, Dave Pruiksma and James Baxter to pose for a photograph that likened the nine young animators to Walt’s Nine Old Men. Bob Thomas failed to give the animator the focus he deserved in his 1991 edition of Disney’s Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty & the Beast, but made up for the oversight six years later when he updated the title to From Mickey Mouse to Hercules. Thomas took note of the animator’s dexterous and dazzling turn elevating James Woods’ vocal performance as Hades to a pitch perfect animated marvel of … well, mythical status. By the time HERCULES was released, Ranieri had followed Lumiere with a turn as Wilbur in THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER, the brother of Orville the Albatross from the original RESCUERS, voiced by John Candy. Ranieri managed to not only create a memorable character in Wilbur, but he also made him distinctly different from his familial predecessor and equally if not more satisfying. Still, it is the character that followed the wisecracking Wilbur and preceded the machine-gun-tongued Hades who stands out as a flawless model for everything that makes Nik Ranieri a true master of personality animation; a silent little guy who defied the genetics of being born a turkey by maturing into a scene stealing masked bandit. Enter Meeko.

“I had been cast on Lion King and I was supposed to head up the character of Timon. I did some character design on him and did some animation tests. They really liked it. But I wasn’t thrilled with the direction I was getting.�? In particular there was one director who handled most of the comedy and one who handled the dramatic stuff, and Ranieri says he was frustrated because he was getting very indecisive direction. “Please don’t get me wrong, this is a very nice guy and I like him a lot�? referring to the director in question, “but he would describe something and then come back after I had done it and say ‘You know what? I think it would be better if we did this instead.’�? He falls back into the banquette and looks up at the ceiling. “In other words I’d have to completely redo it. And I just couldn’t work like that. I like to rough it out, show the directors, talk about it and then tie it down and go do it. If they ask me to re-do it entirely just because they had an idea, it lessens the effect of the scene. I don’t mind redoing something that doesn’t work, but if it’s an apples and oranges sort of thing then all of a sudden the performance is not as good because all of a sudden you’re trying to animate someone else’s idea. I just needed to be able to have someone who would say ‘yeah let’s do that’ and then I go do it. And then, if there’s problems with it that’s one thing, but to change the entire idea!? I can’t do that because this takes a week or two to do, and to go put in that effort just to have it scrapped…that’s not how I can work.�?

He’s by no means complaining like a primadonna or taking pot shots at anyone else’s short comings. He simply knows what he needs in order to deliver his best work. At a time when Disney’s was working very much like a repertory company, or what some might liken to the old Hollywood studio system, it was inevitable that someone as uncompromising as Ranieri would encounter equally talented people with a very different approach to working that just didn’t click with his. And it may have only made him more determined not to compromise. He has always been a professional, and in his supervising roles Ranieri has never once failed to deliver for his directors. In fact, he’s hit it out of the park every single time.