Animation has always been about technology. You can't have animation without technology.
Chris WedgeI've been working in computer animation for 25 years. I'm obviously a devotee of the technology. I just think it's the one aspect of the medium that's going to continue to revolutionize the filmmaking. It's constantly changing and it's constantly opening up new possibilities. The technology is evolving where 2-D animation was ultimately limited by how long you could pay how many people to make a movie. I mean computers, not that it's in anyway a labor saving device, but it promises to open up exciting new technical possibilites.
Chris WedgeI get a lot of credit for Tron. They called us scene choreographers back then because the animation unit wouldn't let us be called animators because we were working on computers. And we were some of the first people ever to make 3-D computer animation.
Chris WedgeI remember feeling that technology was like trying to draw with your foot. In a ski boot. It was the most indirect way to work imaginable, but the potential had us all excited. I started in stop motion.
Chris WedgeFor me, part of the fascination with making animation is you go to a place; it's a complete immersion in someone else's fantasy.
Chris WedgeOn these feature films there are people on the staff who can draw 100 times better then I can, and animate better then I can, and light better then I can, write comedy better then I can. I basically am in the middle of kind of a creative typhoon and I'm just kind of talking the film up on to the screen. Minute to minute, meeting by meeting, day by day.
Chris Wedge