Synergy in motion _{by Alessia Belsito-Riera}

Academy Award-winning filmmaker and animator Mark Andrews likens animation to doing math in the dark on a chalkboard. Over the course of his career, he’s worked on some of the most iconic animated films of the last two decades, including Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and, of course, Brave, which he directed.

As a self-described PG-13, R-rated storyteller trapped in a G-rated animation world, Andrews was thrilled when he happened upon Kyōryū, a new animated series and videogame from Wellington animation studio Floating Rock aimed at older demographics. I caught up with him just after he touched down.

What sparked your love of storytelling and filmmaking?

When I was a child, I probably had ADHD. I didn’t like the world – it was very anxiety-producing. So I would disappear into the worlds that I would draw. Drawing was a way to escape. By the time I grew up and graduated, the question became, ‘What are you going to do with your life?’ I had no idea. My brother found one college where we lived that had an animation class. The instructor told us about CalArts [California Institute of the Arts], and we were like, ‘We can go to college and then we’re gonna get paid to draw for the rest of our lives?’ My first year at CalArts was the year The Little Mermaid opened. There hadn’t been animation from Disney for a long time, so I hit it right at that revitalisation of the industry.

How did your journey lead you to Pixar?

I just followed my nose. I got asked into a Disney internship, and after three months I was the only one out of five that didn’t get hired because I rocked the boat. I got blacklisted, I couldn’t get a job there and they were keeping my portfolio hostage. My brother got a job there, and he and one of my friends from CalArts were working on a project with Bill Perkins, who was the art director on Aladdin. I would go to lunch with them, and Bill got to know me. I went to work in TV, first at Hanna-Barbera on The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest and after doing about a year and a half there storyboarding, Bill called me up and said Warner Bros. was starting a brand-new animation studio. I went over there, no portfolio required. I was at Warner Brothers for Quest for Camelot, Iron Giant. I met Brad Bird and that totally changed my life through Osmosis Jones. Brad got hired at Pixar to do The Incredibles, so he called me up to the Bay Area to be his story supervisor. I was there for 18 years.

What have been some career highlights?

My favourite project is always the one I’m working on. No matter how many times you do it, it’s so different than the last one because it’s a whole different set of problems and issues that you’ve never encountered before. I dig that – that’s a problem-solving deal.

At Pixar we were called the Dirty Dozen. Brad brought a bunch of people that worked with him in LA up. We were like the black sheep. They had done Toy Story and A Bug’s Life and were finishing Monsters, Inc., and we were like, ‘These guys are gods’. We did things differently, so there was a little snootiness. With The Incredibles, we were all ‘We’re going to show you. You’re not the only ones who can make something cool’. So that was fun, and then Ratatouille happened. They asked Brad to take over because they had been working on development for several years. 18 months before release, it wasn’t where it needed to be, so they made a director replacement, which happens all the time. I was [Brad’s] first call. That was its own unique experience. Full page-one rewrite, brand-new assets and everything, knocked it out in 18 months. When the house is already on fire, you know what your priorities are.

I went off to do live action, John Carter with Andrew Stanton, which was fantastic. That was finally a process that moves as fast as I can think. Live action is context-based filmmaking, right? The actors are there, the lights are there, the set’s there, everything’s there. If it’s not working, I could make it work right then and there. Animation, you can’t. We’re playing, gathering pieces, and making our best guess that it’s gonna line up. So when I got back to animation, it was incredibly frustrating. On Brave, we had 18 months again. That turned out well, and we got the Academy Award.

What brings you to New Zealand?

Since animation is so compartmentalised, I wanted to build a new process that was context-based. Animation starts in 2D and then we recreate the movie in 3D. That’s where all the time comes in. So I said, ‘Screw the 2D, let’s just start in 3D’. Get me on a mocap [motion capture] stage with the actors to block the scene, and I can shoot coverage, which you can’t do in animation. My love of drawing, of finding the story and the moment, came back because now I had this process that was part live action, part animation. Nothing is wasted. It’s faster and it costs a quarter of the price, because I’m already there in context – I make the movie once. Then you throw in game engine technology on top of that – I don’t have to wait for renders to come in. That led me to doing a whole animated series for Netflix called Super Giant Robot Brothers, which is the first animated series all done in game engine. It’s insane. That’s when I heard about Kyōryū and Floating Rock, who were already working in game engine. Dinosaurs in a post-apocalyptic world? Sign me up [laughs]!

What was it about the concept piqued your interest?

When [Floating Rock] got in touch with me, it was the dynamicism of the world. It’s a different post-apocalyptic world that we’ve never seen before. Nature has taken over, but the remnants of humanity, buildings, technology, automated stuff, still exists. Mankind is gone, but they left the lights on. I hadn’t seen that so that was really exciting. Because the game and the series are being developed at the same time, we have this great opportunity to mesh them together. We’re doubling up on everything, from story to assets, and creating a larger world with larger lore. That’s the future. This is what the audience wants. It’s not franchise, it’s universes: they want to be in it, and they want to contribute. With the technologies that are out now, we can get feedback to put directly into that next episode or DLC [downloadable content]. Ultimately, we are doing something together. The fans are helping author this content. This is synergy. We’re creating a star so bright, people can’t help but look at it.

What can we look forward to?

You grew up watching and are now a mature adult that appreciates animation, but you’ve aged out of the stories that are being told. There’s that whole audience sitting there going, ‘Where’s the animation for me right now in my 20s, 30s, 40s?’ Even for me in my 50s, I’ve been screaming for stuff my entire life. Now is the time where I think audiences are not just ready for it, they’re demanding it. So that’s what we’re going to give them. An R-rated, intense, action-packed, character-driven show in a world they’ve never seen before.