Michel Gagné is an artist's artist. He has had a
successful career as a feature film animator/FX designer, working on
such movies as An
American Tail, The
Land Before Time, Mortal
Kombat, and The
Iron Giant. He's been a comic book writer/artist, both
with ZED,
his own creation, and with the controversial "Spore", a Batman
backstory that appeared in a five-issue run of Detective
Comics. Through his own publishing company (Gagné International Press), he has produced a series of
highly-acclaimed illustrated books, including A
Search
for Meaning: The Story of Rex, Insanely
Twisted Rabbits, Frenzied
Fauna, and (published in June 2003) The
Towers of Numar. He's even been known to produce the
occasional painting or sculpture!
Gagné will soon add
television to his accomplishments, with the Fall 2003 debut of Cartoon
Network's Star Wars: Clone Wars, a series of 3-minute
animated shorts that bridge the stories of Episodes II and
III.
Gagné is providing animation design for Clone Wars, which is
directed by the
legendary Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai
Jack).
Despite a troubled
childhood and the loss of an eye at age 12, Gagné has used his
natural talents (and his wife's business savvy) to become a
successful and respected creator of both mainstream and
"alternative" entertainment.
scifidimensions:
Michel, thanks for talking with us. Let's start off with
The Towers of Numar, published in June 2003. What's it
all about?
Michel Gagné: The story takes place
at the dawn of creation, on a world called Numar and focuses on a
little alien named Meeka. The synopsis could be summed up like this:
Meeka is an awesome little creature with a constant need to create.
Her compulsion leads her to a feat of engineering so great, that it
changes not only the fate of her world, but the very foundation of
the universe
The imagery is very soft and meditative.
I used a muted palette and a lot of gentle shapes. It's very cute
and non-threatening, but at the same time, it has a weird adult
sophistication.
You could say that the idea for the
book is rooted in my life long obsession with the origin of the
universe, a variation on a theme that I started exploring with my
short film Prelude to Eden. It's a subject that fascinates
me. My third graphic storybook, The
Great Shadow Migration, dealt with that subject also. I'm
just obsessed with creating and to me, the beginning of the universe
seems like the ultimate act of creation.
sfd:
Much of your work (particularly your books and comics) is
thematically very deep, serious and philosophical - yet the artwork
looks like something that will appeal to younger children. Who
do you consider your core audience?
MG: Well, that's a tough one. You see, I'm the
audience. I don't aim at anybody in particular, I just create. My
audience finds me without being targeted.
If you'd
like me to be more specific, I'd say that judging from our
demographic studies, my books appeal to a varied spectrum that
includes individualistic thinkers, college students, mature
children, open minded parents, animation fans, artists, alternative
comic fans, and people in search of something
different.
sfd: Do you offer any caution to
parents about your work?
MG: If they ask, I'll point
out things that they might find offensive. But parents should check
the content to see if it's appropriate for their children. A lot of
parents have told me that their kids love my books so much that they
sleep with them. I think that kids are very smart and they probably
welcome something different from the usual pap you find in
children's bookstores. But then again, what do I know? I've never
had young children. Like I said before, I'm not doing these books
for kids. If they respond to it, I'm glad.
All my books so
far would be in the PG - PG13 range, I don't think any of them would
warrant any cautionary disclaimer. I am planning on tackling edgier
and more adult subjects in the future, and when I do, I'll put a
warning on the front or back-cover.
sfd: In
your recent film work, you've had titles like "Special Effects
Animator/Designer," or "Conceptual Effects Animator," etc. Can
you explain, briefly, what the division of talent is for doing
feature film animation or special effects?
MG: There are so many different positions in the
production of an animated movie, it would make your head spin.
Although I've done character animation, most notably for [Don]
Bluth,
I'm better known for my effects animation work.
FX
animation could be described as anything on the screen that is
animated (moving) and is not a character. Say, for example, you have
a ship on a stormy ocean with a bunch of pirates on it. The pirates
will be done by the character department. The ship, the water,
splashes, the rain, clouds, lightning, etc. will all be animated by
the FX department. In the case of traditional cel animation, the FX
department is usually broken down into two units: digital and
hand-drawn FX. I specialize in the latter. Here are a few
distinctions between the positions you've
mentioned:
Special Effects Animator: This is when I
create all the final key animation drawings. Some animators rough
out the keys and let their assistants clean them up. As for me, I
like to clean up my keys as I believe this is where the beauty in
the design happens. Once all the keys are completed, I create the
timing charts and my assistant (Matt Maners) does the
inbetweens.
Special Effects Designer: Here, I create
one to four main key drawings per scene, with some notes on how to
animate the scene. Often times, this happens right after the
storyboard stage, well before animation starts. I usually blow up
the storyboards and work from there. The animator who gets the scene
is expected to adjust the designs to the final layouts and
characters, and to complete the key drawings and the
timing.
Conceptual Effects Animator: This usually happens at
an early stage of production. I will meet with the director or art
director who will explain a certain concept they have in mind. After
some brain storming, I'll come up with some experimental animation
and the director decides if he likes the direction or not. If it
flies, the experimental animation will be given to the FX or digital
crew as a guide for the actual production scenes. I did about 4
months of conceptual animation on Osmosis Jones and it was a real
asset in showing my crew the artistic direction of the overall
FX.
sfd: Speaking of your animation work, tell
us about the upcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars shorts you're
working on for Lucasfilm and Cartoon Network.
MG: I can't really say much
about it because of my confidentiality agreement. What I can tell
you though, is that it's been a lot of fun to work on. It's loaded
with super cool FX, like nothing I've ever seen in an American TV
project. As you probably know, it's a series of 20 three-minute
short films. The fact that the episodes are so short allows for a
very small crew of stylists to handle the whole thing. I think
that's very cool and it should result in a very coherently styled
show. And of course, Genndy Tartakovsky (the director) really knows
his stuff, so I'm confident these little films will be quite
something.
sfd: Can you talk a little bit about
the various tools that animators use nowadays. Things have
changed so fast over the last few years, with computers and so
forth. Is EVERYTHING done with computers
now?
MG: Well, the computer is definitely a
big part of the picture. There is still a lot of drawing involved,
though, but everything gets scanned in the computer at some point.
Ultimately, the whole thing lives in cyberspace. I'm a pencil and
paper kind of guy and I always start that way. I like the computer
as much as the next guy, but the immediacy I get from a pencil and
paper, I just don't get that from a computer. Besides, the demand
for me as a draftsman is a lot higher than me as a computer artist.
That's the way I like it!
sfd: You've
worked in film, comics, books (and even do a little painting and
sculpture). Which medium is your true
love?
MG: Art is my true love. I'm
happy as long as I'm creative. I get a different kind of
satisfaction with each medium. I have to say though, I really love
doing books. That's something I see myself doing for a very long
time.
sfd: You lost an eye as a child -
how does this affect your work as a visual
artist?
MG: One of the thing that happens when
you only have one eye is that you loose your depth perception. I see
the world as a flat plane. This has somewhat translated in a lot of
my artwork. I'm not very good at perspective but I've developed
several tricks to cheat the illusion. I usually build depth in my
illustrations (and animation) by layering flat planes on top of each
other rather than building a tri-dimensional environment. I've also
become very aware of silhouette and have a heightened perception of
positive/negative shapes interplay. I believe that a lot of that can
be attributed to my monoscopic vision.
sfd: You
gained some notoriety in 2001 with your beautiful (but, um,
disturbing) book of illustrations titled Insanely
Twisted Rabbits. What was the inspiration for that work? And
why rabbits?
MG: I did those rabbits drawings around
1991-92 while I was working at Don Bluth Animation Studios. I saw a
drawing of one of my friends' pet rabbit and it somehow triggered my
compulsive nature. I've always had a weird obsession with rabbits.
My student film was about a rabbit, my favorite book is Watership
Down, etc… Anyhow, I started sketching these weird demented
versions of rabbits. Eventually, my friend joined in and we just
kept trying to outdo each other. After Bluth Studios shut down in
'92, I put all my rabbit sketches in a big envelope and shoved them
in a drawer at home. Years later, when I started lecturing at
colleges, I'd bring the sketches to show the students. They would
get such a kick out of them. They kept asking me to publish them in
a book. For years, I'd get the same request. In 2000, after two
years in the publishing business and getting the hang of putting a
book together, I finally decided that the time had come. In January
2001, I published my fifth book: Insanely Twisted Rabbits.
Little did I know that this would become my most successful title. I
used to be pissed about that. I couldn't understand why that one
book was outselling all the others. I guess there's just something
about these rabbits that hits a chord with people.
sfd: What upcoming projects should we
look for?
MG: I'm currently working on a
couple of books. One is called Freaky Flora and is a sort of
sequel, or companion if you will, to Frenzied Fauna, which
was released last year. I'm shooting for a holiday release. The
other one is called Parables. It's my thickest book so
far at 128 pages and it'll be released in February 2004 both as a
hard and a soft cover.
I recently entered a
partnership with Sideshow Collectibles. Those guys create some of
the best sculptures in the world of collectibles. Our first release
comes out in July and is based on one of my Insanely Twisted
Rabbits. I got an advance prototype of the sculpture a few weeks
ago and I can tell you that it's awesome. The second sculpture is
planned for Christmas.
And of course, I'd like to
finish the ZED saga sometime next year. ZED:
Volume One ended with a crazy cliffhanger and some of my
fans are getting sick of waiting!
sfd:
Thanks for your time.
MG: It was my
pleasure.