For me, part of the fascination with making animation is you go to a place; it's a complete immersion in someone else's fantasy.

I 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.

If anything, it's a little intimidating because there's usually a lot of brilliant work and a lot of brilliant ideas out there that you wish you had thought of, or that you just admire for the originality of it or the difference from what you've been thinking of.

I think I probably am doing animation because I started as a kid and I learned on my own, and I worked by myself a lot. It's the only thing I really prepared myself to do in any kind of depth. And I've just kind of imbibed the technology and techniques and the thinking about telling stories this way. It just feels natural to me.

Honestly, I don't go out of my way to see animated movies. I'm mostly influenced by.. the films I tend to like are the small films, small personal stories. With characters you can believe.

I grew up watching classic animation, and I have always felt that the roots of animation is in fantasy and taking it in places that you can't go, any other way.

Fox came to us with the concept for ICE AGE and they came to us with the first draft of the script. They also gave us a mandate to make it into a comedy from what was previously a rather dramatic action concept.