RW
I couldn’t agree more. Along with everything else, it pushed the notion of character design forward by leaps and bounds, and not since Eyvand Earle and Tom Oreb has anyone offered up such a fresh and challenging kind of design for animation. Marc Davis pointed to Oreb as having a powerful influence on his own designs at that time. He certainly was the unseen had on the look of Disney in the 1950’s. Oreb moved on to UPA where his designs had an equally powerful influence on the look of films like Gerald McBoing Boing and Gay Purr-ee (influencing even the work of a director like Chuck Jones), It wasn’t until HERCULES - I don’t think - that any film at Disney had dared to take such a strong graphic approach to animated characters and rise to the challenge of brining them to life and make them believable and interesting and sympathetic. So I think HERCULES is a rather incredible step forward, and in part by picking up the ball from the past and going the next step.

AD
It’s an interesting process, because we wanted to take the vase paintings and bring them to life, and then we worked with the marvelous caricaturist Gerald Scarfe. Some of the animators were very concerned – “How do we take Gerald Scarfe and move that around?�? But boy, you look at Meg or the Fates or Pegasus or Nessus …I mean they’re really close to what Gerald had envisioned. And he stayed part of the process. He drew over clean up drawings, and animation drawings, and faxed things back and forth throughout the whole production. It was really I think quite a successful collaboration there, too.

The one other person that comes to mind is of course Eric. You can’t work with Eric Goldberg and not see how…I don’t know how to explain it….he just…it comes from his personality, his whole being. He could draw that Genie – well, he could draw all the characters of course – but the Genie in particular. That I will never forget - watching him create that performance. And the duet – with him and Robin - you know I…(shaking her head and smiling) Of course Robin has gotten a lot of praise for that performance, and so he should, but it’s a duet for sure and what Eric has brought to it is such a complete marriage between him and Robin. It’s extraordinary. That, to me, is one of the best performances.

RW
You talked about the feel of this place being a repertory - and this is a bit of a pointed question so if you’d rather not comment that’s okay - but the company that has been around for so long has been dismantled now for the most part. Granted that repertory companies have a limited life – right? Every repertory company should have changes.

AD
Mmm hmm.

RW
But you’re coming off of what looks like, for a while, the last of the traditional approaches to this way of making film. This looks for a while, or maybe forever, to be the last film that has a large component from that core company that established the second golden age of animation.

AD
Right.

RW
What does that feel like from where you sit, today? This ensemble, this company that is Feature Animation, is unlikely ever to come together again with as many of the key talent who shaped its success. This is the last in a long, long run. The run for this company is over, and now it’s time for a largely new company to pick up and move forward under the same roof.

AD
Well it’s been hopeful in a way to us. Because we were able to take the best of everybody. I mean look at the cast and the crew I have - Mark Henn, Chris Buck, Dale Baer, Duncan Marjoribanks! It just goes on and on, and that goes through all my departments, so in some respects I felt very fortunate to be leading this film with this particular crew of people that I’ve come to know so well over the years. You know, you’re right. Things change and a lot of people have found their way into new roles and worked very hard to get there, and finding it revitalizing, and I think that’s the nature of any career. It’s been difficult. I can’t deny it.