Doug Frankel has been in the animation industry for over 35 years.
At Pixar, he animated Mr. and Mrs. Incredible for “The Incredibles”, Remy for “Ratatouille”, Wall-e for “Wall-e”, McQueen for the “Cars” movies, Carl and Russel for “Up”, Princess Merida for “Brave”, and Woody for “Toy Story 4”.
If you are leading a project with a team for better moral, Rather than tell the team what they need to do at the start of the week. Ask them what needs to be done the week before. This way the team can mentally prepare and strive to achieve what they said they would do. It's also important to stop and listen to ensure your team feel heard in meetings. Fun Fact: Disney archives and animation studio is only 20 minutes away from DreamWorks. Voices are as important as the animation! Listen to the richness of the voice, not their appearance. "Don't be an over perfectionist, just go for it. With passion!"
When you bring a character into being, you create many opportunities, with the more characters you bring, you greatly increase the potential opportunities. so take advantage of this. don't just make something mundane, be creative.
For Disney Pixar film 'Cars'. to assist in the animation a driving system was added to the rigs.
Doug digs into writing for animation as many animators, have great imagination but tend to struggle with effective writing. and with any project you want to start off strong.
when developing the story for 'Wall-e' it was clear something was missing.
asking questions, why is Wall-e saving Eve? and how can the story be elevated?
so the story was flipped to see Eve save Wall-e at the end, building the story meaning and personal development and character building of Eve.
Doug really praises the usefulness of the book "The Poetics of Aristotle" (Aristotle's Poetics has had a profound impact on the field of poetry and remains the most influential book ever written on the subject. As a cornerstone of European aesthetics and literary critique, it has greatly influenced our contemporary comprehension of the production and influence of imaginative writing, such as poetry, drama, and fiction.) Break down the story you wish to tell into a logline: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/write-compelling-logline-examples/ Consider the 3 magic questions - The three questions, in their short form, are:
What if?
Who else?
How is?
He also recommended another book: "Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate". strong scenes that work well is having the characters shift status / control over the other. and good reactions tend to be over-reactions (not over-animated) for understandable situations. Stuck in writing? try out 'Raise the stakes' exercise - a way of thinking of developing a story idea- e.g. raising the stakes could start off with a character struggle, then raise the struggle- what could be developed from that struggle to make things harder? what would make it more challenging but keeps the story? "Deflate your ego and ask for help"- Ollie Johnstone. (was one of Disney's Nine Old Men) In Incredibles 2- Elastagirls bike chase scene, when jumping buildings. the animator working on it noticed it wasn't possible to make a believable jump, so as well as animating the Bike, they animated 'The City' moving the buildings to make the shot work. cheats like this are common in animation, even simple arm overextensions to pose the character so long as it works for the shot.
Building a simple 3d model of the environment can really help visualise the layout when storyboarding. When telling a story through animation. You want to be able to lead the viewers eyes where you want them to go as much as possible, this can be done in many ways, e.g. the scene layout and composition, contrast, character movements, lighting, etc. Another insightful interview with Doug Frankel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecQBZbSqeps