Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
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16 KEYFRAME statesman animators like Art Babbitt and Ken Harris spending summertime there. [And] every few weeks you had to switch raphic styles, he says ne ee, you ould e aniatin oodcuts ne ee, you would be animating Tom and Jerry style ne ee, you'd e aniatin lie Ronald Searle." He says that Williams "instilled in all of us [that it] doesn't matter how well you hit the style, you still have to animate it. That was such a huge learning curve for me—to understand how the principles of animation could be applied to so many different graphic ideas." After branching out to co-found his own London-based commercial studio, Pizazz Pictures, Goldberg moved to Los Angeles where he worked at Warner Bros. Animation for a few years before achieving his goal of landing at Walt Disney Animation Studios. "I love the humor in the Warner Bros. cartoons, and I also love how clear and direct [they] are, where the poses are very strong and dynamic and funny," he says. "Disney is more about the performance; the animation; the depth of the character, and all that kind of stuff. So I tend to fuse the two ideas through a lot of my animation." This versatility can be seen in Goldberg's aniation o the Genie in Disney's fil Aladdin. Voiced by the late Robin Williams, the Genie is one of the most recognizable characters of that animation renaissance era Golder's challene as to find a ay to design a character who could stand on his own from his real-life counterpart. "We could have done the Genie just being non-stop funny, funny, funny, funny, funny. But he had to have some warmth and some depth to him," says Goldberg, who sat in on Williams' recording sessions and used the performer's comedy albums for reference. "I didn't want to slavishly repeat everything Robin did. The Genie had to be his own character. And to a certain extent, I wanted the movements on the Genie to be as wild as what Robin could do with his throat." These days, Goldberg's status is that of the "elder statesmen" who guided his early career. He recently helmed Disney Presents Goofy in How to Stay at Home, a series o three short fils oerin a huorous look at how to make the best of pandemic challenges. Along with creating the concept, stories, and animatics, he directed a team in hand-drawing the classic character. He's also representing the Creative Legacy team as they work with Cirque du Soleil and Walt Disney Imagineering on Drawn to Life. This live performance at Walt Disney World Resort features ten TOP: A performance incorporating animation in Cirque du Soleil's Drawn to Life. ABOVE: A scene from the "Learning to Cook" episode in Disney Presents Goofy in How to Stay at Home. acrobatic acts alongside new animation from artists led by Goldberg. Drawn to Life is the story of a young girl ho discoers an unfinished aniation started by her Disney animator dad, and as the father of two now-grown daughters, Goldberg says, "there are a lot of things in the sho that are reectie o our aily, and so I feel very connected to it." While it may seem that Drawn to Life is bringing Goldberg's career full circle, in fact it's just one more rich chapter in his own creative legacy. — Whitney Friedlander T H E C L I M B