Scott Clark
Monsters University is set to be one of the biggest movies of the summer as Mike and Sulley return to the big screen for the first time since 2001.
Scott Clark served as supervising animator and we caught up with him to chat about the film, returning to these characters and working at Pixar.
- Monsters University will be hitting the big screen later this week so can you tell me a little bit about the film?
It is a sequel to Monsters Inc, which we worked on twelve years ago. We know that Mike and Sulley are friends from the first film.
They show up at school both wanting to be scare majors and they kind of mess up and get kicked out of the scare programme - they have a little rivalry because of that.
So we have to find out how they become friends and how they have to learn to work together.
- You are serving as the supervising animator on the film so where did this project start for you? Is this sequel been something in the pipeline for quite some time?
As an animator I get brought in once they have figured out the story and the premise has been cooking a bit and they have a script - so I wasn’t actually involved when they decided to make the movie.
It takes about five years to make these things from premise to screen and I was brought in a couple of years into it; I have been on this project for the last three years.
- You worked on the first film back so how exciting has it been to return to this two very popular characters - it has been a long time we have seen them on the big screen?
I loved it. I worked Toy Story 2 & 3 and it was the same feeling of returning to these characters again; it is like hanging out with old friends.
You start playing around with the model and I remembered how much fun it was to play around in that world and have fun - because it really is fun to animate them.
- Can you talk about what your job entailed on this film as there are lot of different types of animators on this project?
There are lots of different artists on this film for sure. The ones that draw tend to be in the art department designing the characters, or in the story department drawing out the actual boards that are the script.
In animation we don’t draw - we may have drawing experience - but our work is computer animation. So while it is not a drawing that ends up on the screen but that ability helps us because we are designing something that sits in a frame.
As an animator our jobs are to bring the characters to life; that means we are the actors and the virtual stunt men of the film and we bring the physical side of all of the acting to the characters.
It is almost the invisible sides because if we have done out jobs properly people will say ‘wow, John Goodman was great as Sulley’ (laughs).
- Mike and Sullivan are obviously well known characters but there are a whole host of new characters in this film so can you talk through about you bring these characters to life?
It is fun. The new characters are almost more fun because we are not familiar with them yet and they add and fill out the world.
All of the these mystic characters that they meet in Oozma Kappa, the downtrodden frat that no one wants to be in, are all the underdogs and they are very appealing and fun to meet; Mike and Sulley end up with them.
Then you also have new characters like Dean Hardscrabble and Professor Knight - voiced by Helen Mirren and Alfred Molina. Those actors brought fantastic performances to the teachers and the faculty of Monsters University.
They also brought an incredible status and the kind of feeling that you have when you are eighteen year old kid and you are a little scared of your teacher and what you are going to have to go through. But it is also exciting.
- Dan Scanlon is in the director’s chair for the film so how have you found working with him?
Well Dan and I were friends before we worked on this film - this is actually his first film as a director at Pixar.
He worked as a story artist on Cars and I was a supervising animator on Cars and during that time he did his own short feature film called Tracy; he asked me to act in it.
From that experience I knew that he was a funny writer and a good director and he understood how to talk about performance.
So when he was brought in as director for Monsters University I had the up-most confidence that he would really be a great fit for this world.
- Monsters University looks set to be one of the biggest films of the summer so how have you found some early responses to the film?
I am reading it as it comes but it does sound like it is doing really well; that makes me happy. As an artist I am nothing thinking about how much money we are going to make box office wise, I am just thinking ‘I just want a lot of people to see it and enjoy it’.
If that means that we can be successful and make more movies then I am happy as I want to keep working at Pixar and making movies that I want to see. That is really why I do this as I love movies, I love watching, I love making them and I love sharing them with people.
I get really excited when I think that there could be a kid who has watched a movie that I made and got inspired to make a film, like I did when I was a kid watching Star Wars.
- We met Mike and Sulley back in 2003 and they are incredible popular and well loved Pixar characters so what do think it is about the characters that people seem to love so much?
I think that they have the same dreams, hopes, aspirations, faults and weaknesses that we do as humans; they are imperfect and I think that we can relate to them. It is always fun to do it in a world that is similar to our world but a little different.
The idea that they are dreaming about working for a company that scares children is really funny because we all grew up scared that there might be something under our bed or in the closet.
But the idea that it might be a goofy monster that punches a time card with a very formal sounding name that went to college and got a degree is just a very funny premise.
We all go through this in our life. And the movie is about Mike having to figure out what he is good at and how to work through that.
- You have worked in animation for the majority of your career and so what is it about this genre of film that you seem to enjoy so much?
I grew up drawing and watching Star Wars - Lucas and Spielberg were like the Disney of our generation - but I also loved classic Disney movies and Warner Bros cartoons.
I have always been interested in drawing, design and acting, I performed in some plays in high school and college, and animation really is the hybrid of design, drawing and a performance.
It is about capturing a human truth - whether is comic or tragic - I feel like we can caricature the funniest things about who we are as people and really bring something different to the screen.
- Over the last fifteen years or so Pixar has become an animation giant and you have worked on many of the projects including Finding Nemo, Up and Toy Story 3 so what has it been like being a part of all that?
When I started at Pixar Toy Story was doing well and was popular, but it wasn’t as well known as it is now.
I have really good friends and family and what they were doing just happened to be noticed and loved by people and I am just proud to be part of that.
We make these movies because we love them; we love watching them, talking about them and making them. We love trying new things out and really pushing it. The animation department really is my other family.
- While you have worked predominately in the animation department you did make your directorial debut with short project The Virgin Voyage so have you any plans to ever return to the director’s chair?
That was a student project that I did as a teacher and I really had a lot of fun with it. For ten years before my daughter was born I taught at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and a really fun way to teach was to actually have the students make a film.
So I was their teacher, their director, their producer and we had no money (laughs) - I just used student will to do it. I would love to come up with an idea and one day pitch it and make something; you never know.
- Finally what is next for you?
That is a good question - I wish I knew (laughs). I am in between at the moment but I can guarantee that whatever it is it’s going to be fun.
Monsters University is released 12th July
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