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So we were sitting around the campfire thinking up ways to involve you, the reader, the chance to participate with some of our guests. This was your chance! Chris Bailey, the creator of the CG short “Major Damage” was in our studio (er, virtual studio) to answer some of your questions. Here is the Q&A session, just in time for the release of “Major Damage” at the 2001 SIGGRAPH Alias|Wavefront booth.

Project Details:

• - Over 2 years
• - Over 100 people from around the world
• Sponsored by: Hewlett Packard, Wam!Net – (Render Farm) , SHAKE (nothing Real) – compositing Software, Alias |Wavefront MAYA

1. “Runaway Brain” is one of the all time best animated shorts of all time.

It’s interesting that Disney let you get away with as much with Mickey Mouse as you did…usually they seem to keep him sort of low key and boring because he’s their corporate image. I’m surprised that something as aggressive as that got made at all. They even allowed you to toy around with Mickey’s color pallette. Was there a point while making this that Disney put the breaks on you? How long was production? Did Disney deem it a success? Why was there only one new Mickey short produced?

The goal with Runaway Brain to make a modern short that people wouldn’t confuse with a cartoon dug from the vault. That’s why I made him younger and a bit more aggressive, which was actually consistant with his early B/W film persona from films like “Building a Building.” There was a management change near the end of production and the new powers were less comfortable with a monster’s brain running aound in the corporate symbol’s body. Several shots were cut, drool removed and the ending changed. I was dissappointed with the changes because I felt the rules were changed in the middle of the game and the cartoon suffered from it. Runaway Brain was in developement for years with a production time of 8 months. Disney was proud that it was nominated for an Academy Award, but I’d be surprised if they did more cartoons where Mickey’s appearence was changed. America’s moms that didn’t see the cartoon, but saw merchandise in the Disney stores thought Disney changed Mickey’s design just to appeal to the skateboard crowd. In that respect, they probably see the cartoon as a misfire. Nonetheless, I still see the little monster pop up on merchandise from time to time at Disneyland, so someone is keeping it alive just below the radar.

I don’t think Disney is adverse to making more Mickey cartoons, but the way the studio is set up, it’s just hard to get shorts made. The resources aren’t easily diverted from the the features for short projects and the market isn’t there. One has to have a short that everyone wants to make and a window of opportunity where there is a crew avaiable. For Runaway Brain, that opportunity was the newly aquired French studio.

2. You’ve also worked in television series animation as the director of the animated “Clerks”.

Was there alot of adjustment directing for television animation as opposed to directing for shorts other projects?

In feature and theme park film production, there is time to nurture an idea. In TV, there is only time to do the handout and correct a few glaring errors when the work comes back. That’s why so much of tv animation is poor. It only exists to seperate the commercials. The good thing about TV is that if the script is good and the storyboard strong, there isn’t time for executive notes to water down the original vision.

3. How do you feel about the future of traditional animation in general?

Do you feel that eventually everything is going to go over to CG including television animation?

I hope traditional animation doesn’t go away. I like looking at it and I like doing it. Feature animated films are using more 3-D characters and rendering them to blend with their 2-d characters for cost reasons. But there are some looks of 2-D animation the computer doesn’t do well. As long as those visual styles are popular, I’m sure that hand animation will stay alive.

4. How was it directing a CG short as opposed to directing a traditional one?

What are the differences/ similarities? Do you feel that one has more creative freedom over the other? Which one is more expensive/ time consuming?

“Major Damage” is the second 3-D short I have directed. The first was “It’s Tough to be a Bug” showing at Disney’s Wild Kingdom in Florida and Disney’s CA Adventure park. The only difference in production between 2-D and 3-D worth mentioning is the setup process in 3-D of the character models. Before the animators get the model to animate, the director, or animation director must make sure the models will be able to do the things the animator needs. Many setup TDs aren’t animators so this takes time. The rest of the process is relatively the same. Both require a storyboard, art direction, character designs, casting of animators, etc… I don’t see one being more time consuming over the other. The strenghths of one medium are the weaknesses of the other. I can be more spontanious with hand animation, but get a thrill posing Major Damage that I don’t get with drawing. No matter which medium I happen to be working in at the time, I think the other one is easier. Heh.

5. Did you find it challenging to be in charge of so many artist that were all over the world?

how were dailies dealt with? and how did people deal with having a virtual studio?

It’s certainly harder to manage a show when the crew is made up of a bunch of individuals working from home. The biggest obsticle was juggling the work around the demanding schedules of the crew’s day jobs. A few people promised to do a lot, but ended up producing nothing. That was a big drain for us. Luckily, most rose to the occasion and powered the short through. In the final few weeks of production, there were a few heavy hitters who tirelessly pushed the work through (Kevin Scolaro , Karen Smith , Sean Fennell , Renee Deunlop and Alex Bryman) The virtual studio worked well. How I worked was that I would check my morning email over coffee, download whatever new images or animation had been uploaded the night before and get my comments out before going to work. At night, I would animate on whatever shots I had on my plate and periodicly check my email for more messages. Sometimes I would use Photoshop to make visual suggestions to screen shots. That was very useful for lighters, models and animators.

6. How was the animation process approached?

did certain people animate a single character? or did everyone get to animate major damage?

I did a 3-D animatic of the entire short, so each shot had three or so poses that the animator could reference. This kept the feel consistant no matter who animated the shot. It would have been nice to be able to cast shots according to the animator’s strengths, but we didn’t have time for it. As a result, animators did whatever was needed at the time whether it be a Tiki, Damage or Melvin shot.

7. Do you think you would be creating follow-up adventures of major damage?

I hope so. But I would like it to be my day job as I’m exhausted! I love these characters and have lots of ideas for where they can go.

8. What encouraged you to entice animators from all over the globe when there’s talent laying around in los angeles?

Deadlines. There may be talent in LA, but it wasn’t laying around waiting to work on a garage project. Damage was a lot of work and it takes a big commitment to produce a project of this caliber. Most aren’t willing to do it. We went to the internet for help because we had to. The first call I made out to the global CG community was for props for Melvin’s room. I made a post to the CG-Char list that I was making a short film and if anyone had models they had built that might be appropriate for a little boy’s room and would like them featured in my short to please email me. The response was terrific. That led to a call for lighters and effects animators.

9. What was the final total budget?

Everyone’s time was donated so it’s impossible to tell. Most of the money I’ve spent has been on t-shirts, lunchboxes and pizza.

10. If you had to do it all over again, would you? And what would you do different?

Damage has taken twice as long to produce as I thought it would. I’m very proud of Damage and it’s turned out better than I had originally expected, but I probably wouldn’t do a sequel this way again. I would want to do an independant film with at least a full-time crew in the lead positions. This after hours and between the cracks thing was a monster! Heh. It would have been easier on us if we were allied with a studio that had dedicated resources helping us. The only way to get that would have been to give them an interest in Damage and that wasn’t something I was prepared to do.

11. Who are your favorite comic book artists?

Wow, hmmm, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, John Buscema, Gene Colan, Mike Mignola, John Romita JR, Marie Severin, Wally Wood and Harvey Kurtzman to name a few.

12. Okay, it’s 1984: DC comics or Marvel comics?

Heheh, I don’t think in those terms anymore. I do prefer the Marvel characters to the DC characters, but I follow creators more than characters.

13. Jack Kirby or Niel Adams?

Kirby. Realism is for reality, not comics or animation.

14. What artists influenced you the most?

Everyone I’ve seen. Sometimes when I’m drawing or animating, I channel certain aspects of artists whose work I know. There is a shot in Damage that was a stock shot in Marvel comics. It’s where the big tiki fist comes down and Damage barely jumps out of the way. That was a direct lift from a John Buscema ‘s ‘”Thor” comic. With Melvin, I’m aware of the influence Chuck Jones has had on my animation.

15. Now that Major Damage is in the can, what’s next in the works?

I’m busy with a traditonal animated TV show for the Disney Channel called “Kim Possible.” It was created by Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley and is set to debut in 2002. It’s a comedy action adventure about a teenage girl who can “do anything.” After that, it’s more Damage!

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