ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.05 - AUGUST 2000

Writing for CGI: A Talk With Ian Boothby
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HK: With Casper, did you run into any specific challenges?

IB: Yeah, in that we had a very limited cast. Say I was doing a live-action movie. I go, 'Okay, I want the street to be full of extras.' It's a little pricey, but you can still get it done. But if I say that to the people at Mainframe they go, 'We've got to generate each character individually,' and that takes a whole heck of a lot of time. So to overcome this, what we did was we went, 'All right. We want a whole bunch of people -- since it's winter -- in snow suits.' So all the snow suits are the same, but a different color. That gives the illusion that we've got a whole bunch of different people. That's the only one real limitation is you can't have a guest character come in or add more characters in later. In a live-action film -- not a problem. In an animated film -- yeah, it is a problem. You've got to cast a new voice and especially with computer, you've got to generate it. And it's so much work to do that. I can't believe the amount of work they do on each of these characters. There's so much depth and precision and so many little details. We were also a little bit limited in that once you built a set, say the house, you really have to use the house as much as possible because it took so much work to make. You're limited by location when you're dealing with CGI specifically.

HK: What was it like working with such a classic character?

IB: That was fun in that you get to put your own spin on him. Both Roger and myself are big fans of animation. So, it's been a kick in the last two years to actually do it. It's been a real thrill. In this, there's a lot of homages to things like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, It's A Wonderful Life, Frosty the Snowman, things like that. We tried to say, 'Okay, Casper's a classic character. Let's see what all these characters would be like if we put them in a Grinch Who Stole Christmas environment.' That's something that Roger and I are known for, merging two genres together, two styles together, and seeing what comes out of the mix. But Casper was definitely fun. We got to play with a couple of things that we always thought were interesting in that Spooky looks a lot like Casper but no one's ever done something where Spooky impersonates Casper. Plus, Spooky and Poyle have a real Burns and Allen vibe to them. We had a lot of fun with that, writing in the old Burns and Allen style for them, and a Three Stooges slapstick-y style for the trio. Then we had a nice, not quite romance, but we had a nice story between Casper and Holly. You can always tug at the heartstrings with Casper. That gives the film just that little extra. To me, what makes a Christmas film good, is you can have all the jokes in the world, but then you have to have that little moment where you really care about the characters. That's what we played with Casper and Holly. And Casper's kind of a sad character at heart in that he really wants friends and he doesn't have friends. He scares everybody, you know? So when Casper actually finally gets a friend, it's a big deal and it's nice.

HK: You started as a stand-up comic. How do you think this helped your writing?

IB: I started off also doing improvisation. Both Roger and I do improv. I think that's more what we use in our writing than stand up, per se, because improv is more communal. What you do is you make an offer on stage and the other person responds and builds on that offer. That's exactly what we do with Mainframe. We go to Mainframe and go, 'All right, we want Casper to be on top of the Empire State Building.' Then they show us what they can do with the animation, what their limitations are and what they can do that really looks cool. We then build on that and go, 'If you can do that and that looks really cool, well, heck, we're going to write a scene on that.' Then they build on that, and we go back and forth. It's really a nice collaborative process. What are your strengths? What are our strengths? Okay, let's put them together and see what we can do. I think in this Casper film, we really both pushed our limitations. There were a lot of times when they sent stuff to us and we went, 'Oh man, that's tricky. I don't know how we can write that.' But then we did. And we'd go to them and say, 'We really want this scene.' And they'd respond, 'Oh, I don't know how we're going to animate that.' But then when we'd see it done, it was gorgeous.

We're at the start of a new medium with CGI, in that in 2D animation, a lot of stuff has been done. It's tough to beat Disney and Warner Bros. and all the classic stuff that's been done. You look at shows now and you say, 'I like it, but you're kind of repeating the old Chuck Jones, you know, Clampett, gags.' But CGI, that's new. What are the visual jokes that you can do in a 3D environment? You could just repeat -- translate 2D jokes to 3D. That's possible. But there's so much more that you could do. That's what we're on the ground floor of, and it sure is fun. I think that's a mistake sometimes people make when they go into 3D. They say, 'I just want to do basically an old Chuck Jones or Bob Clampett cartoon, but 3D it up.' It's like, no! That was their medium. What's yours? What can you do?'

HK: How did you get your start in writing?

IB: I got my start in writing because I was also an actor and the best way to get a part for yourself is to write a part that's exactly right for you. I've written for a couple of TV shows. I've done a sitcom called Channel 92. Roger and I did a sketch comedy show, which we're actually still doing, called The 11th Hour. And in both of those, I wrote parts that were exactly right for me. Then at times when the acting work isn't coming in, the writing work covers it. And times when the writing work isn't coming in, then the acting work covers it. I also still do improv. In Canada, you pretty much have to do at least five jobs to make a living in the arts. Luckily, I can do about five things okay.

HK: That leads perfectly into my next question. How do you handle the precarious nature of being a freelancer?

IB: I think the way you handle it is, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Do a whole bunch of different things. It's weird, because the main rule about writing is they say, 'Write what you know.' But then you go, 'I'm writing for Road Runner. They've got explosives and a coyote chasing around.' This is a world of fantasy, but you know what you like. So write from what you know in the real world for live-action, but write from what you like when it comes to animation. If I was writing for a genre that I didn't enjoy it would become very obvious very fast. I think that's why you get a lot of really mediocre animation. People are just going for any job: 'I've got to take any work that comes along because anything is good. Anything will help me along.' No, I don't think so. I think you've got to take only work that you enjoy. Then you'll bring that joy and interest to the project. That'll make a much better television program or film. That's sort of how I go about things. I do multiple things. I do improv. I do my own stuff. I work freelance for good companies. Not a lot of people do that but that's a real rule of mine. In doing that, you sort of dodge a lot of the freelance bullets.

HK: You're lucky that you can do that, that you're not starving, so you can pick and choose.

IB: Oh, I starved! I've had a few years of that, but you make your choices and you stick with it. But I've had the hungry years as well. Definitely.

 

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