Whenever I start a project, I go to the past. I wanna see how people have approached either that type of story or that type of theme and I usually end up going all over the world. A lot of people tend to just look at the history of American and Japanese animation, but there’s a bazillion stories being told all over the world. Historically, I like a whimsical, very stylized view of the world, and I’m obsessed with Mexican folk art. Every piece is unique and there’s a naive, beautiful, truthful quality to it. And it’s full of imperfections.
The biggest lesson for young generations, when you look at the history of our art form or our medium, when you go back and you see this inventiveness and this bravery at trying new things. Animation at the end of the day is a form of magic, because we’re doing sleight of hand and we’re making the audience believe these things are alive and, you know, they’re moving. And so that history of how the art form evolved and how these magic tricks were developed, it’s in our DNA. So it’s really important to go back and look at where it started. And you’re going to find yourself fascinated by the way people approach these problems and the solutions they came up with, because our generations, we are looking at people who grew up making animation. They were the first, they were the pioneers, and it’s incredibly inspiring to see: before them, there was nothing.
