Disney's Clay Kaytis talks with journalist Johannes Wolters and student production crew.

Clay Kaytis, a 16 year veteran of Walt Disney Animation, was one of 3 animation supervisors on Tangled.  His FMX 2011 presentation centered around how after several years of development, the animation team went back to basics, simplified their approach, learned valuable lessons on a daily basis from Glen Keane, and in a ridiculously short 8 months, completed work on the film.  As he explained, Tangled allowed Disney’s visual development artists, modelers, riggers, animators, and engineers to advance the art form and raise the bar for portraying subtlety and expression in CG human characters.  Clay walked the capacity crowd through the creative steps of bringing the characters to life, the iterative process that relied heavily on Glen’s original drawings and feedback, feedback that constantly challenged the CG artists to bring realistic motion, acting and feeling to the film.

During his interview for AWNtv, Clay gave great insight into the atmosphere of collaboration and team effort that has made work at Disney so rewarding and fulfilling.  This approach to animated filmmaking, he said, has raised the level of achievement considerably.