Klay Hall

The great thing about what we do at DTS, all the studios, but especially DTS, because we're talking about our film, is we swing for the fences. So that being said, we're out to tell the very best story we can with the highest quality that we're able to do.

swings quality talking

With the quality of films it seems animation can do almost anything these days. It’s amazing what goes on. But for us it’s always about trying to tell a good story, with great characters. And that will probably always be the philosophy as far as Disney and Pixar is concerned.

trying character philosophy

Back in the day, it would be more competitive and hide. You do your thing. I'll do mine. It's not like that at all. Everyone is there to help everyone, and that gives you a great sense of not only just support, but respect and everything else that goes with it.

support would-be giving

There is a whole separate filmmaking team that's doing it, but that's part of what's great about the Brain Trust and about the inspiring leadership of John Lasseter. He leaves it up to that creative group of individuals to help each other elevate each thing that they're working on to only try to make it better and to share what you've learned on the first one.

team creative brain

I'm involved with every single thing that they do as far as just being aware, and then they ask my opinion. I'm involved in the sequence reviews and some of the animation reviews and character designs and things like that. I give my input on that movie as well.

design giving character

Now that had worked very successfully at Pixar, and he ended up adding one at Walt Disney Animation and one at DTS. So, I'm part of that Brain Trust where I sit in on all things creative for the whole studio, but especially in the Planes area.

disney-animation creative brain

So it was a win-win all the way around. It was an amazing moment, not only for myself and the team behind the film, but for DTS and for John Lasseter. He was always a big fan. He was a proponent, a supporter of the whole thing, and it just worked out.

fans team winning

So actually what that was able to do was twofold. For me, it helps illustrate what DTS is capable of doing right from the beginning. And secondly, technically, it actually gave us a little bit more time so we could just finesse some effects and things like that, because when you release theatrical, you actually get a bigger window than if you're DVD when you have to have it done sooner so they can press the DVDs and all that kind of stuff.

dvds done littles

When that word came down that the company had decided that we were going to go theatrical, we hooped and hollered and wahooed and all of that stuff, but the good thing is we didn't have to change anything. It's not like all of a sudden we had to reset, like "Oh my gosh, we're going to theater. We've got to make this better. We've got to make this bigger. We've got to add..." It was all done.

done stuff add

I mean, they clearly have a process of how they go about making their movies, and John Lasseter has been instrumental in implementing that process for all three studios with the Brain Trust and the way we work and the way we break stories and how it's all creative led. There are no executives in the room. So I think all of that is embraced unilaterally. But that's the first time I've heard of that.

creative mean thinking