He walked up and said how was your weekend, mine was good!.
So, Tom McGrath: how was your weekend?
[Laughs] You know, I dont have children myself, but I assume its much like parenting!
Your baby goes out into the world.
We spent six years on this movie!
How closely do you monitor things like that?
I dont tend to listen to the press as much as I do the audience.
I was happy, and to me there was a personal component to this story.
It harkens to my brother and I.
Which kind of brought him to tears, which to me was the big satisfaction moment.
What was so special for you there?
Is there a particular link to your brother in the film?
It celebrates our childhood, and a lot of peoples childhoods with their siblings.
When youre with a family, you kind of go through war together!
Its not always easy, sometimes tumultuous.
And that was the case with my brother and I.
When we became adults, we became really close and best friends.
[Laughs] Yeah, pretty much!
I watched this with my kids, rather than at a press show.
What always I enjoyed when I was a kid was the physicality of animation.
Thats what we really tried to bring back with this.
Just having witty dialogue, sometimes there are references that only parents will understand.
The main thing is you need some jokes for the adults, some for the kids.
I think anyone involved in making animation is a child at heart anyway.
You kind of just have to go with your gut.
And sometimes you work on these things so long, you forget a joke is funny.
Watching with a crowd reminds you something is funny, even if Ive seen it before ten million times!
Its an interesting process, I got to tell you.
You have to go from your gut.
Its not just in the lines here, though.
The animation style in places seems to hark back to the work of Chuck Jones and Fred Quimby.
You talked about physicality, the days when things hit each and it was funny.
Youve pulled back from being utterly realistic and seem to be having a lot more fun with it.
Can you take us through your animation choices, and what your touchpoints were?
Fred Quimby, he was great.
Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, in particular.
I grew up with cartoons likeOne Froggy Evening, and the drawn expressions were just funny.
When I worked onRen & Stimpy, you got that back.
Having a character, and having them make an expression thats so silly or it makes you laugh.
It wasnt all dialogue dependent.
I think in our movies sometimes it becomes talking heads, and less about the story and the animation.
Were at a place with our technology where we can make funny expressions.
They had too many points, and everything was mushy, and they werent committing to a strong expression.
It made them commit to expressions.
Carlos Puertolas, the head of animation, all the supervising animators, we did something different.
We had character leads this time too.
Animators committed to a certain character, defining their walk, finding something funny.
A smile, a hand gesture.
There was a lot of ownership with certain animators, with certain characters.
Any new animators that came on and worked with them, it helped them understand the characters.
So there was more of a consistency to it.
I guess thats seen as the old fashioned way to do it now?
We inherited this model from Disney, that wasnt working so well.
On this one, if the animators had ideas, they could affect story.
Story could have ideas that affect animation.
We all got together in one space.
It was a much more inclusive and collaborative process.
As a director, you always know what you want to do in your head.
But let other people play in the sandbox, and you get ideas you never would have thought of.
That was a special way of trying to reinvent our system here.
He is so right.
Glen was a teacher of mine by the way!
And for a while, to be honest with you, the computer was driving us.
We werent driving the computer.
I really loved the sequences inThe Boss Babywhere you change and play around with the animation style.
That you dont take the default look of what a computer animated film seems to follow.
Here, you were shifting animation styles, and perspectives, and seemed to be pushing.
But over the six years of development, where did that kick in, to go that way?
OnMadagascar 3there was a stylised sequence, and I was like, I want to do more like that.
We just didnt have the software to do it.
And we have to do these movies in 3D now, so how do we do that?
Were trying to reinvent the software so it can deal with paint, and deal with the brush strokes.
We had a mini-pipeline, almost like a group of people making shorts within a movie.
Wed surface our characters, and itd be challenging, but very rewarding.
It was everything we loved about animation in those little sequence.
I remember watching the lastMadagascarfilm, I was half-tempted to find out your phone number and ask you this.
Because there arent many people directing such consistently funny movies?
I take that as a thrilling compliment, and I appreciate that.
But the thing with comedies, look how many are nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards!
Its never really on the same pillar as dramatic movies.
Its not the money, and its not all that.
Its to sit in an audience after all that work, and watch people react.
Thats kind of the reward for a filmmaker.
For me its not about the prestige as much, or the critical prestige as much.
Its how an audience reacts.
For some reason, we went from talking aboutThe Boss BabytoThe Man With Two Brains!
An animated movie, if you look at it!
I think a lot of the best comedies…
I mentioned Blake Edwards, thePink Pantherfilms were animated comedies!Young Frankenstein.
Now those types of comedies arent maybe as popular as they used to be, those broad comedies.
Im a big fan of that school of comedy.
Projects were cancelled, your release date was moved, people lost their jobs.
How was makingThe Boss Babywith that in the background?
How secure was the film, and was there ever a point where it was under threat too?
It was under the radar, to be honest with you.
And the studio head.
And we said lets do something a bit more animation-like.
Everyone was really behind the movie.
It was never a question as to whether we were going to make the movie.
They were we dont want to rush it.
And so they pushed it a year for the benefit of the movie.
I felt really fortunate that we had the release date we had.
Thats the power of that studio.
Everyone at that studio is so passionate about animation, and the quality of it.
I still think, whatever the changes are, theres still going to be that passion behind it.
It was how great we can make it.
Bless Peter for doing that, hes a dear friend.
We go back to before DreamWorks.
You both were involved in storyboarding?
I was animating and doing story.
I met Peter working for Ron Howard onThe Grinch.
And Ron gave me a great piece of advice.
I met him at the coffee maker.
He gave me a great piece of wisdom that I use in animation now.
But George Lucas said dont do that.
Because as a director, you know what you want to do in your head.
Storyboard artists, tell them what the intent of the scene is, and let them play with it.
Theyll always come back with something else.
I was like, wow, thats great.
People feel engaged if they feel they can contribute.
Its an inevitable question, particularly given the success at the box office this past weekend.
I love these characters!
To me, the joy is in the process of it.
Because when a movie is done, quite honestly its done!
And it is what it is.
I think anyone in animation is either crazy, or one of the most passionate people in the world.
I just love working with the 400 artists I get to work with on a daily basis.
The characters are great inBoss Baby.
To me, its also how far can we push the medium?
Where can we take it now, now weve touched on it inBoss Baby?
What places can we go?
Are you working on that now?
Youre always thinking what next.
Some go now I want to go into live action.
For me, Im like, I love animation.
What can we do with it now.
One final question, Tom McGrath.
Do you have a favourite Jason Statham movie?
Thats a good question!
Im a huge fan, and Im staying in a hotel I saw him at!
I think those movies are great, and always entertaining!
And bits of those could be animated…
Especially in the action sequences, yeah!
Tom McGrath, thank you very much!
The Boss Babyis in UK cinemas from Friday.
