GK

Yeah - Ron and John. They"re very collaborative people. I guess my biggest cues are coming from them, trying to be as collaborative and get people"s ideas. I"m a little reticent to feel like I have to make a choice until I need to…

RW

Okay, now you"re officially a director, Glen.

GK

(laughing) Well, Ron and John were always open to a better idea, and I"m trying to live by that, being open for a better idea to come along.

RW

That"s a very difficult thing to do in animation, because it isn"t as easy to be a year and a half down the road and say “oh wow, that scene that we completed 18 months back – it has to change�? that"s tough.

GK

I can"t wait to get back to working some day with Ron and John again. I tell you, I learned so much from those guys. I guess the others are probably…well I"ve been talking to Brad Bird quite a bit about The Incredibles and The Iron Giant. I"m learning from Andrew Stanton, and John Lasseter now, their influence at Pixar has been really good. And Mark Dindal.

RW

I love Mark Dindal.

GK

He had a huge influence on me, watching him at story meetings where people were throwing out thousands of ideas and changing things, and Mark was always open, accepting, willing to take any kind of an idea and try it out, look at it…he was an amazingly flexible director, I thought.

RW

I think he"s a great director, a truly great director. I love all of his films, Cat"s Don"t Dance, Emperor"s New Groove, Chicken Little… I think Mark is a really incredible director.

GK

Yeah. He"s got such a surprise in his timing. There"s always some of his wit throughout the film. Now, I"m not Mark Dindal, but that doesn"t make me not appreciate Mark Dindal"s work.

RW

No, I understand what you"re saying. But I think it"s important what you"ve observed. I think it"s a very difficult thing – particularly in Hollywood – to remain open to authentic collaboration and other people"s ideas, especially when it"s so easy to be shanghaied by someone else"s intent. You can grow overly cautious as a result, so being able to stay open and still keep your personal vision alive is a very difficult balancing act.

Who is your art director and production designer?

GK

Art Director is Lisa Keane (ed. – no relation) and the Production Designer is a guy named Doug Rogers who was the Production Designer for Shrek. He"s perfectly suited for Rapunzel. He has such a European sense of architecture and style, and so I think he really belongs with me right now.

RW

Who is your head of story?

GK

Mark Kennedy, who was Mark Dindal"s co-writer and head of story on Chicken Little.

We"ve got some fantastic animators that we"re working with. I don"t know. We"ll see what happens. It"s a very, very ambitious project, Rapunzel is. I"m trying to let hand drawn animation really influence CG.

RW

In what way?

GK

Well, there"s an organic feel to drawing that we have to get into our CG characters. CG makes you think that it is solid, well designed, because it shades everything with credibility. But when you really just look at the silhouette of a shape, often it"s just ugly. So we really have to remember that CG animation is still just a graphic art form, and all the principles of drawing still apply just as much to it. It"s still an outline on a flat screen.

RW

It is a real dilemma to get a rig to give you a clean, readable silhouette.

GK

Yeah. The straights to the curves, the dynamic forces like what Bill Tytla animated with – how do you get that into CG? That"s what we"re really trying to bring back, to bring those tools to animators. It"s interesting, because some animators who don"t draw well find great expression in animating with a computer. And other animators that draw really well find the computer a hindrance. On the other hand, some animators that draw really well just adapt great to the computer, too. You just can"t predict it. I was trying to predict it, seeing who would adapt and who would struggle, but you can"t tell. Everybody"s learning curve, you know, it takes time. At the moment I don"t know how to animate on the computer. I haven"t had time. And I guess at the moment I figure that everybody else is getting so much better at animating on the computer that I"d just as soon probably stick with my pencil once I get back to animating.

RW

And for now, at least, are you happy away from animating? Are you enjoying working on Rapunzel?

GK

It"s actually turning out beautifully. The film is absolutely everything I want it to be. John Lasseter was thrilled with the look of it; he said he can"t remember ever seeing a movie that has such a powerful beginning as Rapunzel does, so we"re on the way.