Interview with Brad Bird

Posted on April 17, 2008

On Mark Mayerson’s great blog, he points us towards an interview of Brad Bird (use the username of “pjs@mailinator.net” and password of “142″).  Now, this isn’t your standard interview about animation, but it contains a ton of juicy information.  Especially for those of us interested in more of how various people/companies approach management and how their directorial philosophies fit within.

I’ve never worked with Mr. Bird, but after reading this, I can appreciate how he pushes his teams and is open to comments from everyone.  Being confident enough to be able to listen to others and implement their ideas when they’re better is a clear indication of a good leader.  I’ve worked with a lot of various directors in my years and clearly the better ones are those who like Brad listen to those around them.

Another interesting portion of the read centered around The Incredibles, and how they settled on camera angles early on the process.  This provided the team the ability to build for the camera.  Meaning, if something wasn’t seen, it didn’t need to be made.  On many CG productions, so much work goes into modeling/shading objects and environments that will never be seen.  It is simply done in case the director decides to swing the camera around in a direction that wasn’t initially planned for.  These are the type of things that can lower budgets and something that could be more widely implemented.

I suggest anyone and everyone to read this interview, it is not only interesting, but could potentially help you in your job, whatever that may be.


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