I was reading The Brunching Shuttlecocks ( www.brunching.com ) movie review of Toy Story 2, and at the end it listed the credits of the movie. Next to directors, it said in jest, “Why do animated films always have two directors?”
Now that’s been nagging at me for several days. For example, the project of Tarzan was given specifically to Kevin Lima (since his bosses thought he did such a good job with A Goofy Movie), and he was given his choice of any co-director (which, according to the magazine I read this in, is how Chris Buck got to work on the project; Kevin Lima chose him). So even though it was assigned to one director, it still had two.
And I’m playing around in IMDB right now looking at movie credits and all the animated ones I type in have two directors whereas all the real-people ones have just one.
Why is this?
“I’m just too much for human existence – I should be animated.”
–Wayne Knight
A WAG, but maybe extra directors are needed because of the extra work of directing an animated film. If you’re directing a film with Robert de Niro, Dustin Hoffman, or even Keanu Reeves, you can count on the actor to bring something to the performance. So you can say “In this scene I want you to look sly yet disgusted. Action.” But if your performer is Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, or Buzz Lightyear, you have to plot out the precise expressions and gestures you want to acheive the sequence you desire, ie “In this scene, I want Bugs to begin reacting halfway through Daffy’s line. He should slowly rotate his head until he is facing Daffy at the end of the line. While he is doing so he should raise his right eyebrow a quarter of an inch and have a slight sneer on the right side of his mouth. Daffy meanwhile…” Basically you have to direct the entire film on an almost frame-by-frame basis.
Directing animated movies is not like directing live action. A live action Director has only the actors to direct - everything else is delegated down the line, though the Director does have strong influence. The live action part of the shoot, which is what everyone sees, is usually six to ten weeks long.
Not only does an animated movie take two or three years, but the Director is directing the stars from day one to day last. That much work, where the photography and lighting and characterisation are all under the control of the Director directly, means it has to be shared. So they split up scenes for each director.
For example, Toy Story 2 may have been split up into: Interior scenes (Andy’s room, Al’s Toy Barn and office, elevator and air ducts) under one Director, exterior (Street scene and car chase, Airport, Jessie’s song) under the second Director.
But one of those will also be the overall supervising Director, in charge of the cohesion.
THE IRON GIANT had a single director (Brad Bird). So did THE SECRET OF NIMH, THE LAND BEFORE TIME, ROCK-A-DOODLE, and several other Don Bluth films (he had a co-director for ANASTASIA, which may be why it’s superior to the others). Japanese directors like Hayao Miyazaki tend to direct alone, too.
Generally, though, it’s a division of labor. Since it takes so long to “shoot” a scene for an animated film, you usually have more then one unit working on it at a time. The directors divide the scenes among them.
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
I think there is an equivalent in the real world. Some films employ “second-unit directors.” These folks are off shooting the action scenes, or the ones that don’t require the main performers. John Glen, director of several bond films, started off as a 2nd unit director on “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
My guess is the the two directors split up the work on an animated feature, perhaps down character lines. It’s not necessary, as you noted with “The Iron Giant.”
There’s also the fact that animated films involve two different mediums; the voice actors and the animated cels. One director handles the actors and one handles the animators. It’s similar to how movies with heavy special effects have a “special effects director”.
“Drink your coffee! Remember, there are people sleeping in China.”