As you follow the escapades or the journey of the hero through a story, it evokes some kind of emotion in the viewers. The director's job is to make sure that the audience goes through the journey and has an emotional reaction.
I prefer that animation reach into places where live action doesn't go, and it seems like all of animation nowadays is trying to go where live action is.
You've got to be able to make animation for much less... Less is not the studio's way.
If you look at the game and everything, it's not quite like looking at an animated film, because that's total character. This, this is really movement, but it's got funny little things if you look for the humor. They're actually getting to the character.
The only one that seems to be able to hold the business is Disney. They do it is because they have a fabulous philosophy about marketing- but even they wavered.
In the animation world, people who understand pencils and paper usually aren't computer people, and the computer people usually aren't the artistic people, so they always stand on opposite sides of the line.
The marketing department is really an important part of getting an animated film to work. If the people running it are used to selling live action films and the hard rock music and the sex and all those things... Anything outside that, they just don't know what to do with it.
Basically the children who watch it just see the little characters they love, and so they're not discerning about whether it looks great or it's a great story or anything.
With movies, you are always in search is a good story, one that everyone will relate to and love. I love finding those stories and creating a visual world to tell the story.
But I've been surprised over the years. I mean, someone told me the other day that maybe 360 million people have played this game in the world. That's a lot of people.
The studios will go wherever they smell money. It's like sharks to the blood.
I think the work that they do and the style of 3D graphics is absolutely fabulous and I think it's a great brush to use for some stories. And there are other brushes that I think are exclusive to a different kind of story.
I think we have to bottom out. When the studios jump out of the ring, perhaps the artist can get back in.
It's whatever sells; it's the business of it.
You just can't keep pouring money down an endless hole and never recoup any of it. It's got to be a business.
The heart of Dragon's Lair has always been its compelling story. With Dragon's Lair 3D, we think the team has really created an interactive animated movie.
I'm also very pleased that we were able to include a full orchestrated score for Dragon's Lair 3D. The 40 different music pieces blend with the action to make you feel more a part of the whole adventure.
Dragon's Lair 3D is about as close as you can come to controlling an animated feature film.
Once you work with a studio on a film, the studio is sort of like this enormous clam that just opens, takes everything and then closes, and no one enters again. They own it all.
How can you have a director that doesn't go to work with the crew every day and talk to them?
Reese Witherspoon. She's sophisticated enough that you just like her. You like her and she's smart.
When business executives are making the artistic decisions and don't understand animation, things can go awry.
I remember when we were doing the first Dragon's Lair, I got really involved with coming up with all the little rooms and what was the danger in the room and going into it with bats and spiders and snakes.
Shelf-life for a regular video game usually is about three to five years, and that's it.
Usually with things, you go where you can find the financing to do it.
