Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1120864
D E PA R T M E N T 33 KEYFRAME SUMMER 2019 33 "'The Iron Giant seemed intriguing to me," says Bird. "I read the Ted Hughes book, and I didn't see it as a musical. I felt that the core of the story was between the giant and the boy. I took the story as a starting point and a question occurred to me—'What if a gun had a soul and didn't want to be a gun?'" Bird gathered a crew together, many of whom were young and talented but didn't have much experience. "We threw these people into the deep end and gave them challenging and difficult scenes," says Bird. "My rationale was if we take the strengths of all of us and put them together, we'd have enough to have a super animator." He also encouraged the artists to speak up, though for the first two months no one expressed their opinions out loud. Finally, he heard an "ugh" in the crowd and encouraged the artist to come forward and share his thoughts. The person erased Bird's drawing and offered another solution. "I thought it was great," remembers Bird, and from that moment a little barrier was crossed. "The team's ability as a unit just skyrocketed." Another team strengthening tactic was to invite the leads of all the different departments into the editing room to help keep everyone on the same page. "It was like those photos of phone booths, where college students would pack themselves into [one] to see how many people could fit," says Bird. "You couldn't move." At one of these screenings, they showed the scene of the Iron Giant and Hogarth talking about death. It was still in storyboard format but it had music and great drawings. "It's a delicate scene; it was hard for me to write," says Bird. "When [the giant] finishes talking with Hogarth, Hogarth gives him this lovely little pat, which Kevin O'Brien storyboarded into the scene. The giant rolls over, and now he's facing the stars and eternity. His view is opened up, and he says, 'Souls don't die'…we looked around and everyone was kind of starting to cry. We thought, we might be on to something." The film opened on July 31, 1999 and was viewed as a box office dud though The Iron Giant received tremendous reviews and swept the Annie Awards. Only years later, would the film grow into a cult classic and celebrated. "I felt like we were The Bad News Bears and that we rallied together and made something that hopefully will stand the test of time," says Bird. Indeed, they did. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE IRON GIANT SINGING ROCK SONGS WRITTEN BY THE WHO'S PETE TOWNSEND? THAT WAS ALMOST THE FATE OF THE SOULFUL ROBOT BEFORE BRAD BIRD CAME TO WARNER BROS., WITH JUST THREE MONTHS LEFT ON HIS TURNER FEATURE ANIMATION CONTRACT. HE WAS TOLD TO LOOK AT WARNER'S 50-SOME PROJECTS IN DEVELOPMENT AND CHOOSE ONE.