Jennifer Yuh Nelson Quotes

The great thing about animation is it's like the radio. I used to do lots of radio when I was a kid, and you get to play parts you would never get to play ordinarily.

Animation in itself has so many different looks and styles and possibilities.

I made tons of films. I did animation for my friends' films. I animated scenes just for the fun of it. Most of my stuff was bad, but I had fun, and I tried everything I knew to get better.

Whether it's the experiments on 'MythBusters' or my earlier work in special effects for movies, I've regularly had to do things that were never done before, from designing complex motion-control rigs to figuring out how to animate chocolate.

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.

The thing about a cartoon is, you can do whatever you want. The tightrope that we are walking on 'The Simpsons' and 'Futurama' is 'How do you continue to surprise the audience, but make them good surprises?' Not every surprise is good, but you want to continue jolting people.

We can do things that we never could before. Stop-motion lets you build tiny little worlds, and computers make that world even more believable.

Well I'm still working on The Incredibles. So I'm going to take a little time off. I've got a couple of tricks up my sleeve. I'm not ready to talk about them yet, but expect the unexpected.

I think it reflects well on the state of animation that people are knowledgeable about it and love the fantasy and imagination that goes into it.

I don't have a problem with green screen at all. I think children invented CGI. We invent worlds. A stick can become a sword. Or a bowl of stones can become a bowl of tomatoes. That's what children do, and that's what CGI enables us to do.

It's amazing what they can do with animation nowadays. It's really beautiful. The 3D stuff is out of hand.

That's the trouble with anything which essentially has a lot of bits that are physically impossible: You're left, stuck, in the studio. And that's a shame. You're making a movie. You don't want it to stay put, you want it to be a movie - to move.

I was influenced by Ray Harryhausen and Lotte Reiniger, with her twitchy, cutout animation, which I happened to see at a very young age, but also by the Warner Bros. cartoons, 'Tom and Jerry,' and of course Disney. And also by Fellini's 'Giulietta of the Spirits' and Kurosawa's 'Ran.' And by other American illustrators and painters.

If you look at a lot of animated movies, they don't pay attention to how things move through space.

You're using such different muscles and you rely on physicality in live action, but in animation, you totally throw that out the window. But somehow, they're both as satisfying.

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.

The two great things about computer CG stuff are I can now do gags I would never have dreamed of in the old day.

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

'Mars Needs Moms' was motion capture, where you walk into a space that's essentially a black box with cameras everywhere. It was so technical. You have these mandibles with cameras on your face and a helmet, and you have to hit certain marks. You couldn't shoot this stuff without the green-screen aspect.

My job was to give 'The Secret Life of Pets' production team lots of options when it came to Duke. So that's what I always tried to do.

The walls between live-action and animation are becoming really porous, and it's interesting.

Live action movies are someone else's story. With animation, audiences can't think that. Their guards are down.

Scoring animated films, I have the exact same approach and philosophy as I do for a live action. It's all story- and character-driven. I don't care if it's a mouse or Tom Cruise.

It's a strange business, and unfortunately, what we do in animation is a mystery, especially the directors.

In feature animation, it's kind of taboo to make a movie that's more cartoony. But I never really believed that.