LCJ: Obviously it takes hundreds of animators and effects artists to make a feature-length film such as “Madagascar 3”. You are an “Effects Lead”. What, specifically, are your duties?
GG: I’m part of the movie for a couple of years. In the beginning we need to figure out how we’re going to build the effects. It’s almost like software development, but in a more visual sense. Then, with about 6-months left in the production of the film, I’m more like a regular artist/animator – doing shots, making explosions and also guiding other artists and helping them work on those effects with the systems we built early on.
LCJ: You also worked on “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”, which came-out in 2008. How much has the animation/effects world changed in the time between the two films?
GG: It’s changed quite a bit. It parallels the changes you see the in the blockbuster live-action movies. As the computing power grows and the directors want to do more visually outstanding stuff our simulations are bigger and we just do more challenging stuff. Every year they’re always asking for more so everything in this show is a little bit bigger and on a larger scale than it was in “Madagascar 2”.
LCJ: Seems that with every new, big-budget animated movie the look of the film gets better and better. Do you guys feel pressure to always be trying to top yourselves and the competition?
GG: Yea – we always want to top ourselves. That’s definitely a goal. As far as the competition goes I think the goal here is just to make really, really good looking movies. We’re always trying to go bigger, always trying to go better and in this one I think we definitely did that.
LCJ: There are some extraordinary scenes in the movie: A wild chase, circus performances , a daring rescue.
How challenging is it to animate these and how did this movie being in 3D effect your job?
GG: 3D’s pretty big. We think about that a lot in all the effects we do. There’s a sequence in the car chase scene where the characters slide through a slick with 4-thousand fish and fish are flying in the air. We went back and actually hand animated five or six of the fish out of these thousands of computer animated fish to come right at the camera and fly right past the viewer’s eye to get the maximum 3D impact out of that moment. There are a lot of those moments throughout the film that got called-out, FX-wise, for extra attention.
LCJ: Let’s talk about your background. I read that you didn’t realize that you wanted to be an animator until you got into college – and you attended Skidmore College in Upstate NY in Saratoga, not far from where I am right now. What happened at Skidmore that got you on this career path?
GG: I was kind of a computer geek, with artistic parents. I think the first thing that got me interested in computer graphics were the early Pixar shorts. I think that’s probably true for a lot of CG animators. At Skidmore I was not an arts major I was a computer science major. We had a graphics lab at that time, and it was right around when 3D graphics were emerging, right after “Toy Story” came out.
The school would not let me into the graphics lab because I wasn’t a graphics design major. I just wanted to get in there and make images. So I got a hold of some software on my own on my home computer and just started doing stuff that way. And while I was at school I worked with one of the sculpture professors in the art dept. He was doing a side project and he needed to visualize it. So I did a 3-dimensional visualization of some bridge designs he was working on, and that’s how things got started – just making things move on the screen.
LCJ: You grew-up in NYC and, of course, the “Madagascar” characters are based in NYC. How did you use your familiarity with the city when working on “Madagascar 3”, in which the gang finally gets back home?
GG: In the FX department an explosion looks the same no matter where you are. We really leave it to the art department to drive the design and the look of the film and the visual style to really jive with the story. We take all of our cues from them.
LCJ: I’ve written in my review that this is the best of the 3 “Madagascar” films because of the script, the performances AND the animation. When you finally get to see the finished film, what are your emotions?
GG: It really hard. We watch the film over and over and over while we’re making it. When it comes out it’s only a few weeks since the last time we’ve seen it so we haven’t had time to breathe on it. So it’s tough to watch it and have the same reaction as a viewer would when they see it for the very first time. But, that being said, when it has the finishing touches on it and it plays really nicely it’s still really exciting to see it in perfect form.
LCJ: Do you have a favorite “Madagascar” character?
GG: The penguins are totally my favorites. Skipper – he’s a sarcastic lunatic. I’ve got to go with him.
LCJ: I realize studios like to keep future projects “top secret”, but can you tell us what you’re working on now?
GG: I think I can probably tell you that I’m working on “Rise of the Guardians”, which is going to be out at the end of this year. FX-wise it’s probably one of the most ambitious films we’ve done so far. The FX in this movie are really tied closely to the story. We’re in the crunch time – the last 3 months of working on it – so it’s full speed right now.
LCJ: For a lot of reasons (which I’m not going to give away) “Madagascar 3” seems like the perfect ending to the saga. Would you be surprised if there was a 4th?
GG: You know what? – If you were to ask Jeffrey (Katzenberg) that question I think you might not be so surprised. It’s a really nice ending. It resolves really well. But if the public wants to see more there is more story to be told.