Raymond Ochoa Quotes

In terms of animation, animators are actors as well. They are fantastic actors. They have to draw from how they feel emotionally about the beat of a scene that they're working on. They work collaboratively.

The nice thing about animation is that you can realise your inventions without understanding all the hard theory.

It's a different way of getting across an emotion. You're trying to get it across to the animator because the animator is inspired by the voicetrack in terms of how to animate the character.

I think with animation there's a certain freedom that you're given. You don't have a thought at the back of your mind, that worry that you'll have to cut and go back to the top of the scene. You're not working with anyone else from the cast. It's just you.

Throughout my career, when I was finished with the drawing for one film I would go up to the story department and help develop sequences. Sometimes these were for scenes that I would animate later on.

To direct a genuinely animated film, you're really having meetings and discussing what you want with animators who then go off and produce one shot at a time that you look at and comment on.

'Ice Age' felt like stage acting. You'd write a sequence, and sometimes you'd submit pages, but other times, I would actually perform it for the directors and producer in my office.

You must lose yourself if you want to be successful in animation and be the character.

When you do animation - well, straightforward animation, although it's not straightforward - the voice for a character or something, they're always singular experiences, really.

With my own cartoon, it was just me being goofy by myself, but when it comes to an animated film, you're working with 45 animators and assistant animators. It's a whole different ballgame.

Animation is very much a team effort so you must be a team player.

For me, animation is the caricature of life. It's something that we create, from the ground up.

There's something about seeing this little inanimate object coming to life that's just very exciting. That's why with 'Nightmare' I held out for so long to do it.

The thing that I enjoy about animation is the fact that it is unbridled, and there are no boundaries; when you are in the room, you don't have to focus on your clothing, make-up, hair, your choreography or your blocking; you really do have total freedom.

What I love most about animation is, it's a team sport, and everything we do is about pure imagination.

Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one.

I love the idea of animation just because it removes the actor from the character, and you can be anything. I've been devouring 'Adventure Time' and 'Archer.' I'd love to get my hands dirty on either of those shows.

It's exciting to have a role in anything that's Claymation, just because you're always intrigued by what a clay wizard version of yourself would be.

Acting is a plum gig, and then animation is an even more plum gig.

My respect for animation has gone way up. It's a truckload of work. I have to sit with my animators the same way I'd sit with my actors and cast them.

A lot of the time in animation is spent getting the story right - that's something you can't rush.

You can write a script, but that's just a starting point as a cartoonist. The heart of the process comes when you start to draw it, and you work out how to lay the page out, how best to tell the story.

I'm interested in animation. I actually feel like I've learned so much about the process how to make an animated movie.

For me, part of the fascination with making animation is you go to a place; it's a complete immersion in someone else's fantasy.

As an actor, I always wondered what it would be like to watch an animated character with your voice behind it and see if it seems seamless or if it seems like your voice is isolated from the animation.