Macromedia's Director was first used as the storyboard software on The Iron Giant, which explains why that department at Warner Bros. Feature Animation is called "Macro."

Applying It To The Giant
Led by Jeff Lynch, our Iron Giant story team quickly grasped how to prepare storyboards for Director and After Effects shots. In fact, once they got it down, it was actually less work for them than conventional storyboards. Soon, thanks to our gifted Macro (by the time we switched from Director to After Effects, we had already coined this new department `Macro' after the software manufacturer and somehow that never changed!) artist Andrew Jimenez, some surprisingly effective shots were dropping into our story reel. This was a very useful tool, not only for explaining the film to Warner Bros. executives, but also to our own crew, which was growing rapidly.

Because it allowed us to introduce much more movement into our story reels, which can become almost painfully static, it enabled us to get a much better approximation of the finished film at a much earlier point, particularly when combined with a non-linear editing machine like an AVID, which can easily speed up or slow down moves, lengthen holds or pluck out frames.

Working with Jeff, who was part of that early Simpsons storyboard team, and his stellar crew, we solved many timing and staging problems before the scenes even started layout. This new process also occasionally influenced my editing decisions, where the kinetics of certain shots suggested their marriage, the way it often does in live-action films.

Many were skeptical of this technique, seeing it as an extra and unnecessary step. Others were slow to embrace its usefulness as a tool, preferring more familiar methods.

Did this process save us tremendous amounts of money?

No, but it gave us a chance to try things that were more ambitious than our schedule and budget really allowed. We could imagine the pace and the unfolding of our film accurately with a relatively small expenditure of resources. We were free to make the big mistakes in the cheap part of the process.

We were only able to implement partially the process I imagined on The Iron Giant, but based on my experience, I'm committed to implement it completely on the next opportunity I'm offered.

Will other people adopt this process? Who knows? Maybe my old Disney friend is reading this article right now...

Brad Bird started his first animated film at age 11, finishing it at age 13. The film brought him to the attention of Walt Disney Studios, where, at age 14, Brad was mentored by Milt Kahl, one of Disney's legendary Nine Old Men. In addition to working as an animator at Disney and other studios, Bird has written screenplays for both live-action (*batteries not included) and animation. He has since served as executive consultant on The Simpsons and King of the Hill and was the writer, director and co-producer of the original Family Dog for Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories. Currently, Bird is the director and co-writer of The Iron Giant, an animated feature being produced by Warner Bros.

Text © 1998 Brad Bird.