BD: And talk about experimentation. They did something very fresh and exciting by digitally capturing the look of the brush stroke.

JG: Yes, with the change in background. Originally, when everybody was excited about it, we were going to do it in 3D, but somebody said it was too expensive. It’s always somebody that puts their foot in front of you and you fall over…

BD: Have you had a chance to work in 3D yet?

JG: Actually, no, but I am close to the people who are working on Chicken Little, and I’m very close to the people over at Pixar. I mean, as far as stories are concerned, almost everything we have could be told that way.

Grant would’ve preferred that Lorenzo be made in 3D, but is proud of the new short nonetheless.

BD: And will be for the foreseeable future.

JG: Yeah, but you’ve got a fairly large element that don’t believe that. I just had a big argument at lunch with someone. “There’s going to be one bomb and then it will all be over, and we’ll be back to 2D.”

BD: No, it won’t be over.

JG: Yeah, that’s crazy. Yet it comes from people who are good animators. But the ones that finally went over to 3D are doing a great job. They’re doing more with it. Like Pixar… they have one leg in [Disney] and another leg out of it. But I have a feeling that in time Pixar will return, although they seem determined right now to be separate.

BD: Are they more like the way things were run under Walt?

JG: Yes. Pixar is going in the direction of the early Disney. And it’s also corporate, where they have four or five projects in the works. I don’t want to get into that subject.

BD: Or the current situation at Disney?

JG: Actually, everything has been said in print… it’s a battle of giants and it’s something that Walt would say is none of your business — go right on and create the best you can. Don’t pay attention to it. But here today, everybody is referring to corporate this and corporate that and a change is taking place. They want more production and they want it cheaper. But no matter what happens, the creative idea will be perpetuated by somebody who comes up with a vision. I don’t care if there are three ceos — it takes one guy with an idea. And Walt was the perfect example of that. The wonderful thing about Walt, too, was that he had intuition. And intuition is a philosophy. He could tell long before what was going to happen. It was a little scary sometimes, and occasionally he’d come down to earth, but he had that portentous something in him.

It was a great time then. Everything was more collaborative. In other words, the script was growing, it was never written. But all I can say is, it’s still exciting and no matter what the situation is on the outside, as something new comes along or a good idea falls right into line, I’m loving it.

It's the truth behind the gag that really sells it.

BD: Obviously 3D has you very excited.

JG: There’s a certain subtlety and there’s something you can do with the puppetry, which you can’t do in line. You can attempt it, and you can take as an example the Tex Avery type of technique that moved into Ice Age beautifully. And if you had done the same thing in line it wouldn’t be as funny. I’m positive of that because of the truth that comes from the realism.

BD: And it’s all about truth and how it’s presented.

JG: The best gags, the best ideas, have truth. Like Pinocchio. Great stuff.

BD: My favorite.

JG: When he was inside the whale and he sneezed Geppetto out, Walt came up with the line, “Gesundheit.” One of the biggest laughs from the picture; it’s that spontaneous stuff that makes all the difference. We did have a lot of fun with that, and the clocks at the beginning…