Interview by Kara Lynch

“I sort of backed into animation” Lyndon Barrois admits.

This seems curious from the skilled animator with several major motion picture credits. “I've always had an interest in movies but not the big-budget special effects shows like Star Wars. My interests were more in dramas and anything with Ray Harryhausen animation in it.” Always drawing pictures and sculpting with clay, wire and paper, Barrois remembers drawing a studio soundstage when he was in fourth grade, complete with cameras, lights and facades. “But it wasn't until my miniature sculptures were taken seriously that I considered a career in film. I was on my way to becoming a well-established graphic artist in New Orleans with an odd hobby of sculpting and painting one-inch high athletes from chewing gum wrappers, something I did since I was 12 years old.” He was encouraged to exhibit and his miniatures just took off. He applied to film school with the idea of animating his sculptures: “After three other schools rejected me, CalArts didn’t, and I made three stop-motion animated films there en route to an MFA in animation. And here I am today!”

His CalArts films were sports related: The Midnight Run of Carlton Fisk (baseball), Trench Wars which depicts the goal line stand in Super Bowl XVI, and They Were the First to Ride, an animated documentary portrayal of 11 black jockeys who won the Kentucky Derby between 1875 and 1902. Now an established animator, he incorporates his fine arts background and past experience as a graphic artist into current projects – sketching out scenes and actions, storyboarding and layout, character fabrication and set building. He insists the story always comes first: “I approach a project by reading the script first. Any movie, be it television or feature film, starts on the page, hopefully with a good story. After all, visual effects should enhance the story, not just serve as eye-candy to supplement a weak story. Effects for effects sake are a cop-out, and not at all interesting. The best films are the ones where effects are most cleverly used.” 

Barrois’ pick-list of recent innovative projects: “In terms of animated features, Iron Giant is perhaps the best film to come out in the last few years. It’s remarkable, a real shame it wasn’t widely received. The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Lion King, Toy Story, Shrek, Chicken Run and Ice Age are others that set entertainment standards for story, technology, and performance. Other live action/CG features have also set standards, like Jurassic Park, Babe, Stuart Little, Starship Troopers, and of course, The Matrix. Wait till you see what we have coming in the sequels!”

Barrois’ screen credits include: Animation Supervisor/Director for The Matrix Revolutions (2003), Animation Sequence Supervisor Scooby-Doo (2002), Visual Effects CG Animation Director Kung Pow – Enter the Fist (2002), and Director The PJs – episode 216 The Last Affirmative Action Figure (TV series 2000).

Asked what these titles mean, Barrois outlined “An animation Director/Supervisor is responsible for the character and animation visuals of a show. We schedule, deal with budgets, and hire and direct the animators in the execution of the work. When putting special effects into a live action setting, most times we are required to be on set to make sure the live action plates are properly shot in terms of interaction with a character and/or an environment. And we work directly with the Visual Effects (VFX) supervisor and director to make sure the vision of the animation is consistent with the story. The title ‘animation director’ or ‘animation supervisor’ is basically the same thing. It comes down to the politics of screen credits and DGA inclusion. I’m not a member of the Director's Guild yet, so unless I’m granted the animation director title, it will remain animation supervisor. Of course, when I do my own films I am the director, as in the PJs credit, where I was responsible for the direction of the episode. The schedule of a project varies depending on the complexity, the budget, and the time allotted. Most productions run long because the nature of the work is so tedious and time intensive. On average, most projects I do require a year or more in production time to complete.”

What Barrois generally does is CG, computer graphics, which he has been doing for almost seven years, since his first studio job at Rhythm and Hues Studios in LA. “I am also prolific in stop-motion animation, where intricate puppets are moved one movement and frame at a time so when the film is played back in real time, the movement is seen in real time (like Chicken Run). I’ve always been attracted to this medium because of its tactile and fantastical nature on screen. The characters are always physically present. It is the real definition of 3D animation because it is animating in real three-dimensional space. The challenge with the computer is to always make things look and feel physically real in terms of volume, mass, weight and performance. It does not particularly make animation faster because it is less forgiving because of those demands. Both mediums, however, are extremely intensive. And, contrary to general belief, you don't have to take computer science classes to learn to animate with a computer. What you DO have to learn is how to animate, how to apply the fundamentals to the machine.”

Animation has a reputation as both a major team effort and a go-it-alone endeavour. Either way, it is time-intensive work. When asked which he prefers, Barrois replied, “My experience with the one-person-alone-in-a-dark-room was during my CalArts days where I would tirelessly spend 16-18 hours working, get a nap, and get up to do it all over again. The studio environment is a total team effort, where you can have as many as 30 to 100 people (artists, technicians and management) on the effects for one show, even more if you’re doing an entire animated feature. Right now, I’m supervising 20 people just on my animation team. And that number may grow. I much prefer working in a team, because it’s collaborative and the integrity of the work is that much greater. There are many disciplines and speciality areas in high-end effects work: art, modelling, rigging, animation, colour and lighting, compositing, match-moving, etc, and they all require artists and technicians to handle those special skill sets. Plus it helps to learn to deal with many different personalities.”

(For complete article get the Animation Special of Black Filmmaker Magazine at your local Borders or Barnes and Noble bookstore)