Jennifer Yuh Nelson Quotes - Page 2

We actually tried to put in [Kung Fu Panda 3] all the things we wanted to put into the first two films. We're all the same people who've been working on the other films and we all had things we couldn't do, and had to leave on the table. We just couldn't achieve them before. This time we have multiple new environments and different styles of animation.

One of my favorite things about the Kung Fu Panda 3 is the look of it. We never go for realism. I think a lot of time when people go for 3D that's the mistake. Because we're never going for full realism - for computer generated live action films like Avatar the goal is realism, to make the audience feel like they are seeing something that is real. Lord of the Rings had character design and environments to make it look real, whereas we aren't going for that, we are going for something that is theatrically, viscerally, and emotionally real.

Tigress is my alternate personality, especially with children. I love animation because you get to do things you don't normally get to.

We have those new environments [during Kung Fu Panda 3] that give a scale to the movie, that are the spirit realm and the panda village. The spirit realm, having no gravity, having this massive space, allowed us to do huge action shots. All that we just couldn't do before. We just couldn't get the scale, we'd have to cheat them. This time we found ourselves more free.

I think more than being a woman is the fact that i'm an introvert. In the environment I work in people forget that i'm a woman which is wonderful it just shows what a wonderful environment i work in, no one treats me differently. They don't think that because i'm a woman i'll make decisions differently.

I think the best thing I have is the introvert's ability to listen when you're working on something as complicated as this and you have to really be aware of everyone's specialized skills.

As I said, i'm very quiet, i don't go around saying "I'm awesome!" but when I brought in my portfolio into DreamWorks and showed them what I could do, my art style is a lot wilder than I am.

As quiet as I am I find it amazing I can stand in front of hundreds of people now and make a speech because i've had to do it so much. I've so much support from the people around me that I can achieve something like that, crazy introvert that I am, I never would have thought that would happen.

I think it's really nice to have an authenticity, it's a huge source for us to be able to lean on people who have that knowledge.

Oriental DreamWorks did a lot of the surfacing of the village [in Kung Fu Panda 3] and you know all the little paintings on all the gables and everything? They have meaning, and they could do that because they know what that means, we don't necessarily know about that over here.

We had Chinese artists that would put in elements for the Chinese audience like the calligraphy actually means something so the audience when they read it they'll understand. So there were definitely little things we were able to do that specifically leveraged the artists' talents.

We went to a remote Panda Base which was insane because inside there were several cribs which held about twenty baby pandas. They were all different sizes and they were all lying there in a long row. It was so cute, I could hardly stand it. I wanted to take them all home with me.

When you see all of the pandas in this movie [Kung Fu Panda 3], they are rolling because that is exactly what they do. Not only were we able to watch the pandas play but we had free range to walk around and get a feel for the architecture and get a sense of where they lived ,so there's a lot of firsthand exploration.

One of the things we love about Po [Kung Fu Panda] is that he's vulnerable. He's someone that we can all identify with because he has those insecurities. He's an outsider feeling guy.

We got the best actors imaginable [in Kung Fu Panda]. If we could have made a wish list I don't think there would anyone else we would have added. Yeah, we've been blessed with exactly how amazing a cast of actors we have. To have someone like Bryan Cranston, who is not just an amazing actor, but who has such a range.

We always try to make the very best movie when we're working on and we can only think one at a time. We want to make this a perfect jewel, and then we'll see what happens after that.

We want to be proud of our work and make sure it's worth the talent of the animators, who spent four years of their love, sweat and tears on it.

I think the one thing specifically that is most consistent, is that we want to harken back to martial arts movies because that's kind of the genre we're paying tribute to, so there are some similarities to a lot of films, because they all feed off each other!

We did two films [Kung Fu Panda], because the first two films were so embraced by the Chinese audiences we wanted to make something we could push further and since this is a co-production, it seemed like the perfect time to create something that felt native to Chinese audiences.

You have to make sure that people are still motivated and happy and creatively challenged so that it can all be stitched together. The voice acting starts after a lot of the storyboards are done.

You have hundreds of artists you're dealing with across the world and the scale of this movie [Kung Fu Panda] was insane - we had a parallel pipeline going on where you had two versions recording Mandarin voice actors, getting it to be funny for Mandarin audiences going beyond a straight translation, and then animating it and lighting it, it's a lot of work.

Usually they have to deal with a dubbing situation or subtitles, and it takes you out of the experience. That's why we wanted to make something that felt really immersive for Chiniese audience, but it takes a lot of work to make 2 versions of a movie!