Sergio Pablos is an Annie Award winning animator and Oscar nominated director who grew up in Spain and started his career at Walt Disney Animation Studios in the 1990’s on films that include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Tarzan, and Treasure Planet. In 2002, he returned to Spain and founded his own studio, The SPA Studios. In addition to their own animated feature, Klaus, The SPA Studios has partnered with other companies to help create films like Rio, Despicable Me, and Smallfoot. Sergio Pablos was recently a guest during the Walt Disney Family Museum’s Happily Ever After Hours event. Here are 10 things we learned from Sergio Pablos.
1. Animation in Spain was limited when Sergio was growing up.
“When I started animation, the animation landscape in Spain was pretty dismal,” Sergio Pablos explained about career prospects in his home country. “There were three or four animation studios doing service work for low quality TV shows.” Since then, things have improved. “I think it’s changed a lot. You can now get trained and you can access and learn to work on good projects. There are a few international companies that are doing things right…. I had to integrate and learn in Paris at Disney Studios. I still encourage people to travel both ways.”
2. He pursued his passion for animation without knowing that it was about to make a comeback.
“There used to be a whole year of lag between a film coming out in the US than in Europe and when I got to CalArts, everyone was talking about The Little Mermaid and I had no idea what it was,” he shared about his luck in choosing a career in a field that was about to take off in a big way. He got to see The Little Mermaid on VHS at school before his friends and family had seen it in Spain. “I realized my timing was perfect without intending to. I followed my passion and it worked for me. But I know a lot of people who are now sticking to it, even during the harshest time of 2D animation, saying if I become good enough, whatever demand there is, I’ll be fine.” He shared that this can be the case if you’re fine with a nomad lifestyle because most of the 2D animation projects are currently in Europe where animators have to pack up and move after about four years on a project to get to their next job. “Eventually, you’re going to have to have a more stable structure where people can slow down and we aim to be one of those, but we hope there will be more of them.”
3. Getting hired by Disney during the renaissance era.
“I did witness a lot of movies being made, not only the ones I worked on but the ones that were happening when I was there,” Sergio shared about his time at Disney in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. “Some of them were really troubled, like Kingdom of the Sun, which became The Emperor’s New Groove… Some seemed hopeless, like The Lion King, nobody wanted to work on that. What I learned was find your potential and stick with it. If you start with an idea that’s exciting, that’s your beacon, but you’re going to end up with something that’s completely different,” he added about the iterative process of creating animated films and how stories change a lot from start to finish.
4. Becoming a Supervising Animator at Disney.
“Tantor was the first time I got to supervise my own character,” Sergio shared about his breakout role in Disney’s Tarzan, “But it was kind of a one-note character. After that, I felt like I wanted to be challenged with something a little more nuanced. Doppler on Treasure Planet was the character I enjoyed animating the most.” He shared that he prefers complex characters that aren’t all good or all bad, which led to a big break on a project he created and sold.
5. Illumination’s Despicable Me was his idea.
“The basic kernel of the idea was there,” Sergio shared about a story he developed and sold to Chris Meledandri. “Basically my pitch was what if after the climax of a James Bond movie you went home with a villain instead of a hero. What's his day like? someone who devotes himself to being evil and taking over the world. The idea of taking a character that is morally grey… the idea of pairing him up with three little girl scouts, that was part of that pitch and was the basic engine of the story. What if this guy needed three little girls for his plan to work and accidentally became a father instead of a villain? The minions weren’t there, but what was there was the story of a villain becoming a father.” Sergio had intended to stay on the film, but Illumination Studios took over what became their premiere feature and top franchise. “At one point the project was taken over by Illumination and they did their thing and I was unsure of what would happen. I never saw the film until it came out and it was a treat to see how it grew into something so great.”
6. Despite creating the story for Despicable Me, Sergio can’t take credits for the Minions.
“We mentioned in our pitch things like these are things we can have fun with and these are the tropes of the villain, but the minions, we never did anything with that. The directors and the writers went that route…. I think it was a stroke of genius. My pitch was more focused on Gru and it came more from his dilemma than having a comedic relief in the Minions.”
7. Starting his own animation studio wasn’t something he intended to do.
“I never intended to be an entrepreneur,” Sergio shared about the necessity of creating his own company in order to plant his roots back in his home country of Spain. “If I wanted to move back home to Spain to make animated films, what would I need? I need a studio… The truth is had there been a Spanish animation director, I would have gone to that guy.” He shared that he’s still an animator at heart and misses diving into a specific scene and bringing it to life with his hands. “I see no point in doing flourish animation for a weak story, so I make sure everything we do has a strong story and moves people that way, even if it means I sacrifice what I love to do.”
8. Directing his first animated feature and running a studio was challenging.
“This is my first time directing full stop… It was a lot. I wouldn’t do this again the same way,” the first time director shared about his studio’s first fully animated project, Klaus. “I was running the company while I was directing the film and somehow found myself taking over the writing and ended up boarding a third of the film without really intending to. Those were leaks that I was trying to plug… It was great because I wasn’t much of a writer before because I was scared of writing and I lost the fear the same way you push a kid into the pool and they figure it out… I ended up having to be efficient and fast.” On his next film, he plans to add more positions so he can take a few steps back.
9. Eyvind Earle inspired the background designs in Klaus.
“He was the main inspiration,” Sergio shared about the legendary artist who’s designs can be seen in Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. “If you can do something in 2D, you make a list of the things that 2D can do better than anything else… That graphic quality to the backgrounds, don’t paint it real, paint it believable, paint the feeling… Eyvind Earle was a huge influence, but we didn’t want to stay there… We wanted you to be able to separate them. There’s certain graphic qualities that we tried to take into the characters as well to make sure they’re in the backgrounds and the characters as well.”
10. Netflix was reluctant to make Klaus, but was ultimately a great partner for a filmmaker.
“There’s been at least seven versions of Netflix since we started on this,” Sergio shared about his multiple attempts to sell the film before it was made. “It keeps changing so quickly that the Netflix that we went to see on the first pitch wasn’t the same as the Netflix we pitched on the third visit. It’s a completely different company… I guess it was limited to TV when we first went there.” As luck would have it, the third time Sergio approached the streaming giant, they were now looking to add some holiday content and his film fit the mold. They picked it up as one of their first feature film projects. “A year later, they were doing feature animation… What never changed in that was the artistic freedom. I can say that they made us jump through a few more hoops to get the greenlight.” Like any studio, Netflix provided notes. But they made it clear to Sergio that if he didn’t like their suggestions, he didn’t have to listen to them. “I often will say other films that I worked on that could’ve been a great film but those idiots ruined that. I can’t say that with this one.” Another difference between Netflix and other studios was after the critical success of Klaus, they asked if he wanted to do a sequel. When he said no, they left it at that, whereas most studios would force a sequel for the money making potential.
Fans can see the full schedule of Walt Disney Family Museum virtual events, including the Happily Ever After Hours speaker series, at waltdisney.org/calendar.