JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

I just heard some very bad news this morning. Joe Ranft, the original, and many would say the best, “Head of Story” died yesterday in a car accident. It is really very sad indeed.

Many of the best animated films of the last few decades bear his stamp. The NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and TOY STORY, to name some obvious examples. The mighty animation force that is PIXAR, has become what it is today due, in large part, to Joe’s considerable talent, and his genial stewardship of the other talents that work there.

I first met Joe in Taipei Tawain in 1986, at the CUCKOO’s NEST studio. He was part of a team of young artists puting the finishing touches on THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER. I remember him and the other guys from that group really having a passion for what they were doing, in contrast to the jaded weariness of most industry guys I met in those days. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to work with Joe directly at that time because I was involved in cranking out some truly attrocious Saturday morning cartoons elsewhere in the building.

A few years later, we did briefly work on the same project at COLOSSAL PICTURES. This was just prior to his going to work on the NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. But, after knowing him socially for years, my first chance to really work WITH him came when I did some storyboarding on CARS, a project where Joe was head of story.

Being a Head of story on an animated feature is, I think, one of the toughest jobs there is in animation, because it requires so many rare qualities in a person. They have to be passionate about their ideas, but be able to let them go at a moment’s notice if they aren’t in sync with the director’s vision. Some have the talent, but not the people skills… or that all-important ability to work with others. Some have the personal skills, but just don’t have the talent, or the ability to inspire those around them. I think this is a very difficult balance to strike for most people, but not for Joe Ranft.

I can say that I very much enjoyed working with him at PIXAR on CARS, he ran a very easy going and collaborative story team. Many OTHER creative leaders that I have worked for lead by making you feel inadequate, and that you have a long way to go, but Joe had a way of making you feel witty, smart and capable, and as a consequence his crew wanted very much to rise to the level of his confidence in them.

As cliched as this may sound to anyone who didn’t have the great good fortune to know him, it is true to say that you’ll never hear a bad word about Joe Ranft. Which is all the more remarkable when you bear in mind the length of time he has worked within an industry that has more than its fair share of easily bruised egos. For a man to have worked at so high a level for so long, always pushing for better quality and yet never pressing anyone’s buttons… well, he is truly an inspiration to those of us who believe that talent isn’t synonymous with prima donna behaviour.

Joe Ranft will never be replaced, but nevertheless, we should all try our hardest to be just like him.

Here are some other peoples’ fond rememberences of Joe:

Ronnie DelCarmen
Enrico Casarosa
Ted Mathot
Cartoon Brew
Disney Blog
Animation Nation
Hollywood reporter

You can read about the man in his own words in the interview with Joe that was posted on the PIXAR website back in January 2002.

The above colour piece was done with gouache and pencil on Canson paper, and was based on the sketch below. I did these a while ago but only got around to scanning the colour one recently.

After a long battle with cancer that got into his lungs, Dan Lee died this last weekend. He was only 35 years old. I worked with him recently at Pixar where he was one of the main character designers, but we first met at Colossal Pictures back in the mid 1990’s.

I believe that Colossal was the first place he worked at in the USA after leaving Canada. While there, amongst other things, he animated on the Koala Lumpur game that I was working on, and that’s when I got to know him. I remember that he was belting out great animation daily, and seemed highly skeptical of the fact that I loved everything he did and didn’t change anything… Anyone who worked with him back in those days probably remembers his little cubicle drapped in equal proportions with beautiful sketches, lots of pictures of Audrey Hepburn and Dan’s sweaty bike shorts.

Dan was amazingly talented, but not at all difficult about it. I remember that he was the first artist on Finding Nemo to manage a “cute fish” design. I had been wrestling with the challenge of drawing a cute fish for weeks, (it’s harder than you may think!) and Dan managed it immediately. (DOH!) If any of you have the “art of Nemo” book you will be able to see some of his very appealing little sketches of Nemo in there.

Apart from often being inspired by his easy way with a pencil, brush or stylus, I admired the fact that despite his illness Dan continued to work at his job. I suppose it continued to make him happy despite all that he was going through.

I saw Dan as Recently as late October when I was in at Pixar storyboarding on another project he was doing wonderful designs on. (the rest of you will have to wait a year or two to see his work on that film). At that time he was physically frail but was nevertheless cheerful, certainly more so than I would imagine myself being in the same circumstances…

Thanks to Amber Maclean for this recent photo of Dan, taken in December 2004. More pics of Dan taken by Amber are online HERE.

An obituary article about Dan was published by the CBC. you can read it online here.

There is also a piece by the TORONTO SUN

UPDATE August 2005: read here about the Dan Lee Commemorative book.

I’m Back at PIXAR doing some storyboarding on a new project. Quite a few of the other story crew are people that I worked with on Finding Nemo, but of course there are some who I’ve not worked with before, some of them were previously working on the Incredibles which is the latest film from Brad Bird. It’s the first that he has made with Pixar, and it is bound to be amazing.

A lot of the the projects that I’ve worked on in the past few years are still in production, or are in some weird political limbo. Either way it means that I can’t show any work that I’ve done on them.

A rare example of some recent storyboard work that I can actually show because the project has been finished, is a sequence of boards from the CG short film Huberts Brain which has been added to the “Storyboard” section.

I’ve also added some new stuff to the Design section. Most of it is conceptual character design done when I went freelance a few years ago.

For the time being my work at Pixar is done. I had a great time working with Ronnie del Carmen and his story team, and now I’m back at Maverix after a quiet time off over the holidays.

At the request of ILM, artwork from the cancelled Frankenstein project, that I had done in 1998, has been taken down. You can see something that I worked on at ILM by watching “Work in Progress”. I designed the goofy Chihuahua/Giraffe critter at the end.

When not watching the horrifying TV News just like everyone else, I’ve been working for PIXAR doing some freelance storyboarding. Just prior to that I was doing a little concept work for Wild Brain.

Website fiddling continues as before. I’m trying to learn how to use Javascript now.

The pic is a sketch I did last year, recently coloured in photoshop.

I have just found my own web host, so even though I am still a part of the Maverix Studios site, my files are hosted by www.digitalriot.org, who I can heartilly recommend. Their prices are very reasonable and they always have speedy responses to my dopey questions.

I have added sample pages from my 2nd Rocket Rabbit comic book to the Comics section, and there are details of how to buy that and my other books in the Store section. Speaking of that, I have also been having fun making artwork for the products in my store, and I will probably buy a bunch of it myself and take care of all my year end present buying in one hit. (hint hint)

Other than that I have been doing some illustrations for a book written by my Dad, wrestling mightilly with a new comic story, and picking Rhode Montijo’s brains as to how to get my already self-published stuff distributed…

This is probably old news to many of you, but I have recently been getting a kick out of reading and posting on a few graphics message boards; Shane Glines’ Drawing Board The Aimee’s studio board and the Bellefree forum are the main ones. Artists from all around the world post stuff on there and it has really increased my success rate in finding good art sites on the web. Oh, and don’t forget the Maverixstudios forum where you are all welcome to post your pix!