Pixels and Pencils: Top Animated Contenders Directors Roundtable
Written by Trinity Ray. Photography by Trinity Ray.
The Pixels and Pencils series at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival always brings a large crowd of students. Animation majors fill up the majority of the audience, of course, but illustration, sequential art and many other departments gather for these animation feature events as well. On Oct. 27, seven directors behind the top animated films of the year sat on stage to share their insight and tips for artists.
Clayton Davis, Variety chief awards editor, started the event by selecting a current SCAD student to join him on stage and help moderate the event. Anthony DeMarco, a freshman and dramatic writing major (with a minor in acting that absolutely showed on stage), kept the atmosphere lively and humble. Sitting among the directors was a once-in-a-lifetime moment for DeMarco, and his improvisation with fancy cue cards as a guide was a fun surprise for the rest of us.
Domee Shi, director for “Elio” from Pixar Animation Studios, discussed her creative process and the inspiration behind the film. “We decided to flip the script and show the possibility of reaching out into the universe and making a connection with beings that don’t look like you, or talk like you or act like you. We wanted to make a movie that draws people together and forces them to connect with others.”
The visionaries behind “KPop Demon Hunters,” Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, shared their experience as close co-directors and how they backed each other up throughout the process. “We were kind of inseparable and wanted to make every decision together. It got to the point where it felt like we were sharing a brain,” Kang says, after sharing some silly stories of their matching restaurant orders. Appelhans followed with, “We figured out pretty early that if the two of you attack something together, the project gets better way faster. There’s a kind of symbiosis. And once you have that it feels frustrating to go attack a problem by yourself, because you know it could get better much faster with the other person’s brain there.”
“In Your Dreams” is a story of the “wildly absurd landscape” of dreams from a sibling duo’s perspective. Director Alex Woo discusses how story choices affect how it resonates with an audience. “The thing with a dream movie is that anything can happen, and when anything can happen nothing means anything. We needed to really ground it in a human story, so the connection between the dream world and the real world was how we were able to find that balance,” he says.
Every director had plenty to share and I think the audience could have stayed forever listening to them. During the rest of the panel, the director of “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain” Mailys Vallade, discussed the difference between working with a small studio versus a large one like GKIDS, who distributed this film. She highlighted the importance of having support from the people around you.
To leave the students with some inspiration, the directors shared their words of wisdom about keeping jobs in the industry. “You never know what’s around the corner. And in order to have longevity in the industry you have to be an optimist,” said Kent Seki, director of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2 – Lost in New Jersey.” Following that, the director of “Arco” Ugo Bienvenu said, “In our field, when you’re someone you know you’re someone. It’s a craft you can rely on.”
Trinity is a Writing major with a minor in Chinese Language and Cultural Studies. She spends her time outside of District doing the same thing she does while being a copy editor — reading, writing, and editing. While journalism is her thing at District, her specialty is writing romance, fantasy, and stories about children. Aside from being an English nerd, Trinity enjoys being a nerd for video games, anime, and a collector of all things cute.
