I've seen animation features just languish until the right combination of things come along to keep it alive.

Kelly Asbury

Categorized in : Things Just Right Alive

If you look at it, 'The Lion King' is very similar to 'Hamlet.'

lion king look you

Gnomes are supposed to be good luck in a garden, protecting against pests and diseases. A mythic gatekeeper, in the way a Kitchen Witch is.

good garden luck way

I think Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet' is a work of genius.

i-think think genius work

I think 'West Side Story' is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, musicals ever put onscreen - or stage, for that matter. I, frankly, like Zeffirelli's 'Romeo and Juliet' very much, too. I grew up with that... I loved it. I loved the score; I loved the acting.

loved story think matter

I think what's universal about the story of 'Romeo and Juliet' is every one has grown up and done something that was rebellious against their parents' wishes, be it love or something else.

wishes parents think love

We are all rebellious teenagers. Sometimes we grow out of it, and sometimes we don't.

teenagers grow out sometimes

Shrek is the Mickey Mouse of DreamWorks.

shrek mouse mickey-mouse mickey

I don't want to be the one accused of ruining the Smurfs.

ruining accused want

I wish I had been a child when the Smurfs came on television.

i-wish child wish television

The way I choose voice talent is I don't let them tell me who the actor is.

me talent voice way

My favorite films left the camera rest, and the actors and characters have a stage to act. Move the camera when it's motivating.

act camera rest stage

Every animated film that I've worked on - whether it was as a story artist or as Head of Story or even as director - where we originally started out with our story and where we eventually ended up were often very different places.

head story different artist

The Smurfs - and they're this way in Peyo's comics as well - do have a rubbery indestructibility about them. They can get bruised & battered. But they then just sort of bounce back very quickly, like those classic cartoon characters Wiley Coyote and Tom & Jerry.

back classic cartoon way

Tim Burton, let's face it: he's into stitches.

tim tim-burton face he

On 'Shrek,' Eddie Murphy was locked in as the donkey before we'd even designed the donkey.

even before locked donkey

It happens a lot that a name actor will be signed on to a project in its germ stage.

project name will stage

When you have a name actor, with a face that people recognise and a name that can go on posters or billboards and be able to appear on the talkshow circuit and tout the film, that's always a plus.

face name you people

There's a lot of movies, and I've made some of them that could be categorized this way, but there's definitely been a trend in animated features of all types to be a little bit cynical, if you will, to have a little bit of 'knowing' humor to them, kind of a wink to the audience.

movies you humor way

I look back at my childhood, and the films that I remember the most are things like 'Mary Poppins,' 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,' 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,' 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'

look childhood chocolate remember

I think a film should be appropriate to what it's trying to say or the characters in it.

i-think say think trying