Man is serious about cartoons

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

For a guy who has written and directed such animated films as “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” it would seem Brad Bird was made for animation.
But as it turns out, Bird, who will be fielding questions tonight at the Lobero Theatre during a Santa Barbara International Film Festival event, became one of the modern era’s most prolific animators by chance.


“I love the median of film whether it’s animated or live,” Bird said in a recent phone interview with the Daily Sound. “The first [film] I got a chance to do was animated and the next opportunity became animation.”
While Bird, 50, is far from disappointed with his film and television resumes, which have been built almost exclusively by animated projects, he said his next film will be live action.
Film Festival Executive Director Roger Durling had high praise for Bird, saying he has “brought animation to a far more sophisticated level.”
“He’s definitely the future of animated film,” Durling said. “Him and Pixar.”
For the past decade, animated films have grown in popularity and have targeted a wider audience.
If there is one easily identifiable breakthrough in the modern world of animation, it was the film “Toy Story,” which premiered in 1995 and was the first full-length film that was computer-animated.
Though Bird did not work on “Toy Story,” he remembers well his first glimpse of the new animation.
“I was just knocked out by it,” Bird said. “I felt like somebody was making a new animated film. The familiar and unfamiliar blended together just so artfully.”
The animation in “Toy Story” wasn’t the only thing that impressed Bird. He said the storytelling and the notion of taking common toys and giving them personalities was groundbreaking, but was also a throwback to the Walt Disney days of animation.
“I felt like somebody had done a film that honored Walt Disney’s depth in story telling,” he said. “The technique was the least interesting part of it to me. I was knocked out by the characters and the story telling.”
While much of Bird’s recent success has come in the film genre, (he has been nominated for four Academy Awards since 2005 and won one for best animated feature film of the year for “The Incredibles”) he has a long history with television projects that includes eight years with “The Simpsons.”
“It was a blast,” he said of his time working on the longest running primetime sitcom in history. “It helped me immeasurably in the films I’ve made.”
Bird said the deadline pressure of working on TV programs trained him well when he had to make “The Iron Giant,” which had to be made in half the time and with half the budget as “The Incredibles.”
“That training was invaluable to me and I owe Simpsons a lot,” Bird said. “The batting average on that show was extremely high. It was the greatest school ever.”
Bird has been nominated for two Academy Awards for writing and directing “Ratatouille,” which will be screened tomorrow at 9 a.m. at Metro 4 and is part of the Film Festival’s Apple Box program. Apple Box is aimed at children and families and admission is free.
Durling said anyone who attends the screening will be given a free “Ratatouille” soundtrack and recipes that are used in the film.
Bird is also participating in the Directors on Directing panel, which begins at 2 p.m. today at the Lobero Theatre.