By Carol Badaracco Padgett, Senior Writer
Think of how much you learn through simple observation. For animators, it’s crucial.
Georgia Entertainment sat down with Head of Effects Jason Mayer with DreamWorks Animation, based in the Media District of Los Angeles, from the convenience of the Midtown campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) at the university’s AnimationFest event this fall. Mayer, who came to Atlanta for the event and served as a panelist, is also an executive board member of The Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839) in Burbank, California.
Here are excerpts of what Mayer shared – off-the-cuff intelligence for animators and filmmakers of all types, as well as anyone who loves animated content.
What is your personal favorite animated film?
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” [Tim Burton, 1993] is probably my all-time favorite animated movie. And I know that’s stop-motion. My head just can’t wrap around how hard that is to be swapping out those puppets and be moving them frame by frame. But I was inspired by both the look, design, and musicality of it, as well. I really gravitated towards that.
We watched an interview where you talked about blowing things up. And how you can create better FX by watching events, explosions for instance, in the real world. What are the methods to your madness?
There’s always the observation, a reference, of anything you’re doing, whether it’s fantastical or really photo-realistic. If you can shoot the footage yourself that’s great, and now we have phone camera access, we all have a camera, it’s really easy to shoot that.
For “The Cr00ds” movie (DreamWorks Animation computer-animated, 2013 ), for example, we got a bunch of us on a rug and we dragged one of us down a hillside just to see the dust trails behind it for a part of the movie that was going to be dusty. There’s the observation.
I’ve probably [almost]gotten into so many accidents because of this. But like on the side of the freeway and there’s construction equipment on the side and these trails of dust are blowing across and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s really interesting the way that turbulence is spinning,’ and then all of a sudden, the car in front of me stops! Yeah, sorry, now my tires are all bald.
I love being on boats [too], but not because I’m Mr. Sailor Guy. I like sitting at the back of the boat by the engine and just watching the wakes … the turbulence, and looking at the shapes and seeing how that spins and moves. You just get a sense of that over time and you try to reproduce that, especially if you’re doing something photo=realistic where it’s got to fit into a movie, you want to do it 100% accurate.
But even if you’re just trying to simplify it into maybe a cartoon stylized version – maybe it’s just an over-arcing kind of swirl or pattern. And it’s amazing how our brains as humans will just recognize that, that overall motion that makes it look like water, or fire, for instance, because of that angularity.
Whereas, with fire, it’s really hard to photograph. And you don’t ever see it in the daytime. So whenever I get a storyboard and it’s blue sky and something’s breathing fire, I go, “Ahhhh,” because it’s a light source and it drops out, and you have to fill in cues and details for your audience, and what relates to them.
And if it looks like fire, then you did it right.
As a SCAD graduate, what is it like to be back at SCAD for various events like this one?
I [studied]at the Savannah campus, but [here in Atlanta]even since I’ve been here in March, I’m seeing new things every time I come.
Even in my time [in Savannah about 25 years ago], it was always the resources that stood out, the cutting edge resources at the time. So the access to resources [at SCAD]always stands apart.
I took a tour of the Savannah [Film Studios] backlot and the volume – and I saw the volume here [in Midtown Atlanta]and was just blown away. The level of detail and the quality. I don’t do on-set supervision or shooting, but it looked no different to me than any time I’ve been on a Hollywood backlot-type set or studio tour.
Audience members at SCAD’s 2024 AnimationFest
Following hurricanes Helene and Milton this fall, SCAD AnimationFest continued to bring resources and learning tools to Georgians with a screening of animated film “Memoirs of a Snail” on Nov. 6, 2024. The 2024 Annecy Cristal award-winning stop-motion film by Academy Award-winning writer and director Adam Elliot brought laughter, tears, and a deep message to screening attendees at the SCADshow theater.
“Memoirs of a Snail” was followed by SCAD Animation Showcase, a screening of a curated collection of SCAD students’ top animated short films.
Watch for more coverage of the art of animation in the December 2024 edition of Georgia Entertainment’s Creative Economy Journal.
