Up Animator Jason Boose Talks About Technical Challenges
Animating Carl, the Hero of Disney/Pixar's Latest Movie Starring Ed Asner
Jun 22, 2009
Jason Boose has worked on both sides of the cel/CGI divide. While working at Disney's storied animation unit, he drew sequences for such films as Tarzan and Lilo and Stitch.
After getting bounced from Disney in 2004, he went to Pixar and CGI, working on everything from Cars to this year's hit, Up, starring the voices of Ed Asner (Lou Grant) and Jordan Nagai.
In Part #1 of this exclusive interview, Jason discussed his role in Up and some of his inspirations for drawing Carl Fredericksen, the elderly hero of the film. Here, he talks about the technical challenges, and the differences between drawing cel animation and CGI.
Pixar’s known for breaking ground in CGI animation. Where were you trying to push the boundaries in Up?
“At Pixar, we’ve always been concerned with ‘art driven’: the problem always pops up first, so the technology has to be developed in order to be able to do something new artistically. Usually, I make things break and somebody else has to deal with it! (laughs)”
What were some of the problems you created?
“There’s always problems with cloth simulation and characters. So anytime you want to have characters grab their own clothing, or interact more with their own environment.”
One of the things I noticed is that Carl’s chin stubble grows: when he launches his house, he’s clean-shaven but over the course of the film, his stubble grows. That must have been difficult –
“That has to be tracked all through the movie. Another difficult thing is that his body language changes from the beginning of the film to the end. In the beginning, he’s using a cane, he’s using one of those automatic chairs to get down the stairs, he’s a prisoner of his own mind in a sense. But, as the movie goes on, he becomes more useful and more active. All that has to be tracked during the movie too, so that he doesn’t start to act in a more useful manner too early, it’s gotta be a progression.
“The technical end is not really my area of expertise, but I know creating Ellie’s wedding dress during the opening montage was a huge challenge. The technical directors who helped develop that technology have written papers on it and presented it at Siggraph and stuff like that. Things like that which we take for granted are actually really challenging.”
I know a lot of animators like Peter Sohn and Doug Sweetland have moved from being an animator to directing. Have you thought about that path for yourself? Are you pitching stuff to the Brain Trust?
“I’m not pitching anything to the Brain Trust. I do a lot of stuff outside of Pixar, like writing and drawing comics.”
Anything you can talk about here?
“Yup, I do a comic for Image called The Chemist. I’ve had 2 issues out and I’m in the process of creating that comic. I like to write a lot, but some of my sensibilities might be more adult-oriented than Pixar, which is a family company. I like animating family films, but I really get my creative satisfaction from writing stranger things.”
How would you describe that comic?
“It’s a mash-up of genres, it’s action mixed with romance mixed with druggies, sort of like that. (laughs) The main character reverse-engineers a prescription medication and sells it on the black market. He’s a drug dealer, but a different kind of drug dealer. You see why it wouldn’t work at Pixar! (laughs)”
Did you contribute anything story-wise to Up?
“Not particularly. You’ll always try to contribute something: you’ll have a character act or perform in a certain way and you hope that inspires something in the story, or the director will say, ‘Hey that’s exactly how I want that character to behave, the other people should follow that’ kind of thing. You’re always trying to do something new, something inventive.”
Were there any sequences where you managed to pull that off?
“It’s not really for me to say. (laughs) It’ll come off as just arrogant.”
You started in hand-drawn animation, and moved to CGI with Pixar. What were some of the challenges in shifting from cel to CGI?
“With drawing you want something to be a certain way, you draw it that way. In CGI, you have to bend to the will of the computer, because a 3-D model lives in space, it has rules that you can’t break. It’s a challenge to try and make the computer bend to your will, basically.
“That’s how art drives technology: you get frustrated because the computer won’t do what you wanted, you complain about it, and someone tries to help you out, tries to help you make the computer do what you wanted it to do, which is . . . cool.
“When I started on Cars, up until now, the technology advancement has been just huge because artists want to do what they aren’t able to do. “
Disney is restarting its cel animation division with The Princess and the Frog and then Rapunzel. Have you thought about moving back?
“Rapunzel’s CGI, actually, but Disney’s hopefully going to do more 2-D. For me, it’s more about the types of movies being made. At Pixar, the movies are so interesting, always new and always fresh. I want to work on films that inspire me. If a 2-D film came along that really inspired me, then I’d be tempted.
“To my mind, at least, Pixar’s been doing the most interesting films out there.”
So what’s next for you? Are you working on Toy Story 3?
“Actually, I’m about to take a 6-month sabbatical, so I won’t know what I’m on until I get back from that. I’m working on The Chemist.”
If you ran into someone who had never heard of Up, or Pixar, how would you convince them to go see the film?
“If you want to see something that you haven’t seen before, go see it. It’s probably one of the most moving films I’ve seen in the last 5 years."
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