If you have a movie that doesn't strive to go to a certain emotional point, you can do anything and it will be fine and funny. But if you have something pretty emotional at its core, you have to make it right. You don't want it overwrought or unearned. Everything has to be moving towards this one thing.
Jennifer Yuh NelsonWe went to a remote Panda Base which was insane because inside there were several cribs which held about twenty baby pandas. They were all different sizes and they were all lying there in a long row. It was so cute, I could hardly stand it. I wanted to take them all home with me.
Jennifer Yuh NelsonThere aren't a lot of female story artists, and it's baffling to me. There are a lot of kids in school that are female and I wonder, 'Where did they all go?' People have brought it up, asking me, 'What did you do?' I don't really know. I puttered along, did my thing and gender has really never been an issue.
Jennifer Yuh NelsonYou have hundreds of artists you're dealing with across the world and the scale of this movie [Kung Fu Panda] was insane - we had a parallel pipeline going on where you had two versions recording Mandarin voice actors, getting it to be funny for Mandarin audiences going beyond a straight translation, and then animating it and lighting it, it's a lot of work.
Jennifer Yuh NelsonI've been drawing my whole life. My mom says my sister and I were drawing by age 1. Animation seems a real, natural extension of drawing as a way of telling a story visually.
Jennifer Yuh NelsonAside from that i’m an introvert and i’m a quiet person. The benefit of that is I listen. It’s not like my mouth is open and I broadcast everything and i’m drowning everyone out. When I’m listening to the incredible artists I work with and i’m hearing their specialised advice on what they would do with something then we can, all together, as a big collaborative group, all work together to achieve something together.
Jennifer Yuh Nelson