'I think right now we?re in a second golden age of animation. The first golden age was 1930 to 1950. The second started around 1990, I believe. And for that reason, there are a lot of young people who want to be animators, many more than when I was a kid. It seems to be the occupation of choice now. It used to be kids wanted to be athletes or rock musicians or novelists?but now it?s animators.'

Bill Plympton
- Animator of Guide Dog'

The man who Simpson creator Matt Groenig called ?the god of animation,? always wanted to be an animator. But it took years of working as an illustrator and print cartoonist before Bill Plympton produced his first successful animated short. When he showed it at a film festival for an animation society, he discovered what would become his main motivation to keep on turning out his unique, some would say, twisted, brand of story-telling -his audience laughed.
Self portrait copyright Bill Plympton 2006

Are most of your shorts and features done without commission?Yes.What motivates you to get started on a new film?A number of things. One is fear of failure. I?m always afraid that people won?t like me, they won?t love my films and I really want people to laugh at my movies, love my films.Is that your motivation from as far back as you can remember?Yeah.When do you remember first feeling like people loved your films?It was a very distinct moment. I was 35 and I had finished this film called ?Your Face.? And it was in a film festival here in New York called ASIFA and all the New York City professional animators were there. And it was the first time ?Your Face? had ever publicly been shown. It?s kind of a goofball stupid film. No real story or characters, just a guy singing a song. So I was very embarrassed. And I was sitting very low in my seat and, I swear, five seconds after that film started, people started laughing. For two reasons that was important. Since I had been an illustrator and a gag cartoonist for newspapers and magazines for 15 years, I had never heard anyone laugh at my work. And that was a revelation?hearing a large group of people burst out in laughter. The second reason was because ever since I was 3-4 years old, I had this burning desire to be an animator. As soon as I heard that laughter I knew that I could actually succeed in animation. So this was a lifelong dream of mine. You know, it?s interesting because a lot of young kids want to be president of the U.S. or a cowboy or astronaut and my childhood dream had actually come true.So are you saying that if there hadn?t been that response we might have not seen Plympton animated films?It?s a possibility. I probably would have kept drawing. But it was such a strong reaction?it was a very strong confirmation. And everyone after that screening came up to me and congratulated me. I basically walked home on clouds. It was like taking a very strong drug. And the next morning, I woke up and I immediately called all my magazine clients, my newspaper clients and said, ?I?m quitting print; I?m going to become an independent animator.? They all laughed at me and said animation is dead?there?s no future in animation.What year was this?This was in 1987. And I said no, I think I can really be an animator. I put 100% of my energy into making these short films. One right after the other, very fast: ?How to Kiss,? ?One of Those Days,? ?25 Ways to Quit Smoking,? and ?Plymptoons.? And, to my amazement, all of those films were extremely successful and were bought internationally by MTV and other TV stations and I made a lot of money.Are there ideas that never got off the ground or only got so far?Many of them. There are a lot of ideas that don?t work. And that?s the whole idea of being an independent filmmaker. You?re searching for an idea that?s not only funny, but is also commercial and appeals to a wide audience.For an animator where is the point that you think it?s going to happen?or it?s not?There?s a good example of that on my new DVD that?s coming out this week through New Video; it?s called ?Plymptoons: The Early Works.? It includes a short film that I did called, ?Love in the Fast Lane.? I did a rough version of it?kind of like a pencil test?and I showed it to many people, clients, buyers, distributors. And nobody thought it was funny. And when they all said they didn?t think it was funny, that to me meant that the film is no good. Now I don?t know if it was the writing of the film, the story, but that didn?t matter, it just wasn?t an entertaining film. So I never completed it. But I still think it?s a good idea, so I included it on the DVD.But do you find yourself using ideas that might not have worked on their own in another version in another film?Oh yeah. I?m always scavenging ideas. In fact, sometimes I use an idea twice or three times because I think it?s so funny. One of the important things I do?I think most comedians do this?I keep a book and a file cabinet of funny ideas. How do those ideas come to you?Early in the morning. When I?m running. When I?m walking the streets of New York. It?s very stimulating. A lot of bizarre surreal things pop up. Well, for example, ?Guard Dog,??I was walking in the park. Actually, jogging in the park near where I live and I saw this dog?a big dog?barking at a little bird. And the thought occurred to me: why is this big dog afraid of a bird? And so my imagination took me inside this dog?s brain and I put together this concept?this fantasy?that the dog was paranoid. So paranoid of losing his master that the dog was defending his master from these totally outrageous evil plots that these little garden animals had hatched to attack his master.Does this have anything to do with your worldview?No. But I did have a dog as a kid who barked at everything. His name was Plynky, a cocker spaniel. And as he got older any kind of visitor, garbage man, mailman, was threatening to his family.How do you find the money to do your films?The success of ?Your Face,? shocked me. I went to this festival in France called Annecy. And when the audience laughed and applauded, the buyers naturally came to me and said here?s $5,000 for French TV or here?s $3,000 for U.S. theatrical. And for a film that cost $3,000 to make, I made $30-$40,000. So I realized very early on that ownership of the film is extremely important. Let me digress one minute. I?ve devised what?s called ?Dogma Plympton,? which is a take-off on ?Dogma 95.? Rule No. 1: make your film short, under five minutes. Make your film cheap, under $1,000 per minute. And make your film funny.But haven?t you broken your own Rule No. 1 since you?ve made features?Yeah, well, that?s a different category. I don?t make much money on features. I?m mostly talking about shorts. If you can meet those three requisites, you?ll make money.And what I do is I take my income from my shorts and I plow it back into new shorts and feature films. But the same rules apply to feature files. Don?t make a feature film over 90 minutes. For animated feature films, it?s okay to be short. ?Dumbo? was barely over 60 minutes.And to my surprise, I make money. To my mind, I don?t know anyone who makes short films who makes money. Although I do commercial work and the money is good. But the money I make on my shorts, actually, I can live on.

Where did the idea for ?Guide Dog? come from?I knew I wanted to make a series of dog films. I guess the fact that I live two blocks from the New York Home for the Blind?they have been an inspiration. And I see blind people every day I walk out my door. I will probably get a lot of hate mail from blind organizations because of this film. I know the blind people will never see it, so I know they won?t be offended. But it?s mostly about the dog; the personality of the dog that I think is the humor. What people laugh at. His desire to do good. To be a useful part of humanity. And through no fault of his own, except maybe he?s too eager, he screws up, he makes everything go bad.And it?s interesting because when I showed ?Guard Dog? in France, they immediately thought it was a political metaphor for George Bush. That George Bush wants to make the world safe for democracy so badly that he screws up and everything goes bad.Is ?Guard Dog? a metaphor?No, it wasn?t and when they pointed that out to me, I thought about it and I thought, hmmm?was that the reason I made the film? I don?t know.Do you deal in metaphor when you work on your stories?Sometimes I do, but frankly, the humor is the most important part of the film?hearing the people laugh. I suppose if they get a deeper message out of the film, that?s fine. I?m not a poetic kind of filmmaker; I?m not a deep kind of filmmaker. I?m following Tex Avery and Quentin Tarantino: those are my heroes.And for humor?who are your heroes?Well, Tex Avery is a big hero. Charles Addams. He was a really interesting cartoonist because his work was very popular in the 30?s, 40?s and 50?s when humor was very innocent. You know, Peanuts and Hazel and that kind of stuff. And his humor was very black and bleak, about pain and dying and evil. It?s surprising that he was so popular back then and he really opened the door for a lot of the dark humor that we see today in films, like Tarantino and myself, people like that. He?s one of my big heroes. The anarchy of the Marx Brothers. W.C. Fields. And also, believe it or not, Frank Capra. Frank Capra is wonderful with personalities and humor and character development. And also Bob Clampett.How about artistic influences for your drawing style?In terms of the art, Roland Topor. Winsor McCay. He was one of the first animator ever?he did ?Gertie, the Trained Dinosaur.? A very obscure artist from the turn-of-the century: A.B. Frost. And, of course, R. Crumb. Milton Glaser. Saul Steinberg from the New Yorker?big influence.Do you think it helped to be a print cartoonist before you became an animator?Yeah, it did. When I graduated from School of Visual Arts in the 1970?s, animation was dead. Walt Disney was sort of moribund and Fleischer Brothers and Warner Brothers had stopped doing animation. There was only Hanna-Barbera and I don?t consider that animation. So, consequently, I took a job as an illustrator and gag cartoonist. Through that, I was able to develop a cartoon style that was fast and I was able to come up with funny ideas fast. And those two qualities were extremely important in the industry of animation. So that sketchy kind of cross-hatching loose style of animation that I do is essentially the same style that I used as an illustrator.However, I do regret that I didn?t start in animation in my 20?s when I came out of school.Why?Well, people like John Lasseter and Brad Bird and Tim Burton emerged from art school and went right into animation. And obviously they?re big stars, rich and powerful, whereas my career was delayed 15 years. Who knows where I?d be if I had started making films right out of school.Do you change your approach to story when you approach a feature as opposed to a short like ?Guide Dog?? Or a commercial spot?Yes, I do. Features are much more difficult for me because the characters are much more important than the humor. Whereas shorts?the humor is really the most important thing. But if you want an audience to stick with you for 90 minutes they have to really be wonderful characters. And I?ll be honest?I?ve had trouble with my feature films. They barely break even. And I think my skills as a long-form storyteller are not as good as Pixar. So I?m working on that.What about when you work on commission? Does that change your approach?The good thing about most commissioned jobs is that they have the story written. It?s all storyboarded. They just want someone to come in and animate it. For example, I did an hour for the History Channel?it?s on this Thursday?they?re premiering a show called ?Shay?s Rebellion.? And it?s the first time the History Channel has ever done traditional animation for one of their shows.Who brought you on to that production?R.J. Cutler?he was the producer. He did that show ?Black/White??it?s playing right now on FX. [?Shay?s Rebellion?] has been getting all the best press because it?s so radical for the History Channel. They sent me a script?it was already scripted. And I had to visualize the reactions of this radical rebellion. Is your choice of drawing technique governed by the story or is it the other way around or are they independent?Especially for ?Shay?s Rebellion??it was very different than my usual technique. It?s almost like a comic book, very graphic. Heavy blacks and rich colors. It?s in flat colors, not pencil. It was definitely dictated by the material.But what about your own films?I think the determining factor in the style that I use is generally two things. One, a style that?s appropriate for the humor, for the storytelling. Like if it?s serious I use a lot more blacks and a lot more sketchy style. And, second, I like to experiment, use different styles and techniques to keep it interesting for me.

At what point in the making of a film do you plan the soundtrack elements?While I?m writing it, I have ideas in mind for the music and the sound, but quite frankly, that?s secondary. Once I?ve finished the pencil test, which is basically rough drawings of the film, then I give that to my sound editor and he goes from there and starts putting in sounds.So does he play you a sort of mock soundtrack?Yes, exactly. And we put in music that we think is appropriate. The film is being completed on multiple levels.Do you mean all at the same time?Yeah, at the same time.So that?s different from live action that tends to have separate production stages.Yes. But there?s also something important that I?ve learned over the years?it?s really helpful to show the work-in-progress as it?s being made to strangers to get feedback, because sometimes something that?s really wild and crazy gets a very big laugh.When you say strangers, do you mean absolute strangers or people who you trust?People who aren?t in the business, perhaps. I?ll show it when I do appearances at schools or film festivals.You mean a rough cut?Yes. Absolutely. Very helpful.You?re a brave man.People love it. They think they?re part of the creative process. For example, in ?Guide Dog??the part where the dog floats up in the air, under this ball of birds?LaughsWhen I first showed it, nobody got it. And the reason was?they don?t know why these birds surrounded the owner. And some girl said, maybe the guy should be eating popcorn. And I thought, yeah, that would explain it. So I put the popcorn in maybe two weeks ago. And now it works. Now it makes sense. And the very last shot, where that ball of birds is flying across the screen and the guy falls?that came to me?I?ve got to have that ball in there one more time. And it works. I showed it to people and they said, yeah, that?s funny.But you?ve used recurring imagery before in your films?I guess you call it a repeat gag.And it works. People love it. It helps build the?it?s like Robert Altman bringing different characters in at odd times, sort of the same idea.

Who in your crew has responsibility for which stage of the film?I?ll walk you through production. I do the script. I do the storyboards. I do the layouts. I do the backgrounds. I do the animation. And I do the direction?the sort of overall concept. I coordinate everything?I?m in charge of all creative aspects. Biljana Labovi?she?s responsible for the scanning and compositing of the film and the editing of the film and the formatting and output onto 35-mm film. Greg Sextro is responsible for the sound effects and the sound mix. Maureen McElheron and Hank Bones are responsible for the music. And then I have two intern/assistants?Kerri Jaworski and Lisa LaBracio?and they?re responsible for a lot of the assistant work; if we need more help to scan or composit or color or stuff like that.How much did ?Guide Dog? cost??Guide Dog? cost about $5,000. I think it?s almost 6 minutes long.And what were the primary costs?First of all, I don?t pay myself. Personnel costs. Lisa, Kerri and Biljana. The sound costs are about $800 for sound personnel. Music costs are about $500. The transfer to film is a big one?that?s about $2,000. Transfer to film is done at a film transfer house?Yes?digital to film.But everything else is done in- house, in your studio?Yes, exactly.Between commercials, spots and your own films, you?ve completed many animated shorts and several features. Are there any surprises left when you start producing a new film?What do you mean by surprises?When you?re out on location?there?s always a surprise?The only surprise I have is whether the film is a big success. For example, ?Guard Dog;? I was surprised that it was such a success. But [feature film] ?Hair High??I was surprised it wasn?t a big success. No distributors picked it up, and that to me was surprising. It?s got some great voices, big name voices. David Carridine, Keith Carridine, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Silverstein. Great music, great humo,r but it just did not connect with distributors. Audiences liked it but the distributors shied away from it.Any thoughts why?Maybe one reason was that it was 2D and the flavor of the month is CGI. There are some scenes in the film that are very graphic?not X-rated, but very visually?there?s some blood. But that?s a mystery because ?Saw II? is one of the biggest moneymakers of the year. The thing that I?m guessing is that animation is stereotyped as a children?s medium. And maybe they felt like you can?t have blood in an animated film. Or you can?t have nudity in an animated film.Your films deal a lot in violent action, outrageous sex, yet your soft pencil style seems in contrast to that. Is that something purposeful?No, I never noticed that. That?s the first time I?ve had that comment. The pencil style is just the style I like to draw with. Pencil is good because if you make a mistake, you can erase it. It?s very fast. I can do a drawing in five minutes. Whereas a Disney film or a Pixar film takes a day or a week to do one frame. So I like pencil because it?s quick and it has a nice feel to it. So there?s no connection at all between the violence and the pencil look.How long did it take to make ?Guide Dog??That was a truncated process because we had this ?Shay?s Rebellion? in the middle and we had the Kanye West music video. So we started in?I think this time last year. But if I were to say that we had an uninterrupted time to do it?probably a month to a month and a half.Is that your average length of production?For a short film, yeah. It?s very fast.And is part of that speed because you control so much of it?Yes and because it?s on pencil. Something like Wallace and Gromit?they?re lucky to do two seconds a day. Whereas I can do 30 seconds, sometimes a minute a day. Fully draw it, animate it and color it.

About how many drawings go into a short like ?Guide Dog?There?s about six drawings per second (calculating) maybe about three to four thousand. And you do those all yourself?Yes.Is that unusual in the animation world?Yes. It?s very rare.Do you ever wish you had more help doing your drawings?Frankly, no. I used to have people come in and help. But they couldn?t see into my brain the way I see the characters. And I would have to look over their shoulder?that foot?s too big; that hands not drawn right. And by the time I corrected them, I could have done the drawing myself. Also, it?s cheaper; it saves money when I do it myself. And thirdly, the drawing part is the fun part. Why let other people have all the fun? And you know what, that?s a really important fact about animation, or actually about anything in life. If you?re not enjoying what you?re doing then there?s something wrong with it. It?s either a bad story or bad character design or you?re in the wrong profession. It should always be a joy.You don?t take a salary on your films, but do all the profits come back to you?Yes. I have three agents. I have a foreign sales agent for the short films. I have a feature film agent for the U.S. and the world. And I have a commercials agent. And they send me checks every month or every so often for the sales of all my films. Also, I do sell stuff on the Internet. I sell DVDs and videos and music and art work?original art work?and books and so I get a lot of money through the Internet.So the Internet has done well for you.Very well. In fact, when I start my new feature film, probably next time this summer, I?ll hook up a little Internet camera to my drawing board so people can watch as every drawing is completed for the film.That sounds like a good school for animators.It?s wonderful for young kids who don?t really know how animation is made. It?s odd because so many people are surprised that I?m still drawing my films and not making everything with computers.Did you use any computer software for ?Guide Dog??You?re asking the wrong guy?but I think we used PhotoShop.And would PhotoShop be used for??For the compositing. Putting the dog on the background. Moving him across the screen.But the animation is still done in the old-fashioned way?Yes?still drawing by drawing?like it was done 90 years ago.So the one thing that?s changed is that the drawings aren?t shot on film.RightIs there anything new in animation software that you?d like to try some day?I?m sorry; I just can?t answer that question. I just don?t follow the computer stuff.How do you feel about other computer animation?Well, I like the Pixar films. I think they?re really wonderful stories, told very well. But I generally don?t like the images, the pictures. I think they?re too mechanical. They?re too perfect. They?re too lifeless. Whereas hand-drawn films are human, they?re warm. You can even see the mistakes. You can see the imperfections. And that?s what makes it more appealing, I think. It?s like going to a museum and looking at a Degas drawing and it?s so full of life and humanity.Of course, there aren?t any human voices in ?Guide Dog,? but how do you cast your voices?human and otherwise?Sometimes I do it. I have a few friends who do voices and I will ask them to do it. The film ?The Phantom and the Flower??that was an interesting story. Dan O?Shannon, the writer of the piece, is a writer/producer at ?Frasier.? And I thought he would get Kelsey Grammer or David Hyde Pierce to do the voice. He said no, he couldn?t get them, they were too busy. And at this point I told him I was going to be at the Oscars for ?Guard Dog,? and I said let me see if I can find a good voice-over person at the Oscars. And sure enough at the Governor?s Ball I saw Paul Giamatti and I said, wow, I love his voice, he would be great. So I took a couple of big swigs of vodka and sort of trundled over there and tappd his shoulder and said, ?Excuse me, you don?t know me, Mr. Giamatti, but I?m Bill Plympton and I do animation.? And he goes, ?Wow?Bill Plympton?I love your stuff.? And apparently when he was living in Seattle he was attempting to organize an animation studio. He wanted to be an animator. And just at that time, he had a little cameo in the Cameron Crowe film ?Singles? and that was his entr into acting, so he never did the animation thing. And he was wonderful. He did it for scale and he got it on the first take. So sometimes happy accidents like this happen.Of course, it helped that you were at the Academy Awards.Yes, it was a lot easier. If I had to go through his agent, it would have cost us $5-$10,000, which obviously is not in our budget.

Now that you?re better known, do you still do a lot of traveling for film festivals and screenings?I probably travel more now than I ever did, simply because it?s very enjoyable. It also helps promote the work. It?s like a rock band touring with an album. I tour to promote my films.And do you feel that your presence at festivals helps?People turn up to see Bill Plympton. For example, I just went to Oporto, a wonderful festival in Portugal. Because of that they bought my whole portfolio for Portuguese television.I was also at Sitges in Spain and now Spain is negotiating to buy my complete works for television. Distributors like to meet me?they like to talk to me and my agent is there. So it?s definitely business and pleasure.Is it still important to you to hear the audience laugh?Absolutely. It?s still the most important thing.Has the Internet helped you get your work out to a wider audience?I think so?again this ani-cam over my drawing board?I also did it for ?Hair High??and it was a wonderful tool to promote the film. We?re also starting to sell a lot of my shorts on iTunes for iPods and that?s a big market, too.You know, it?s interesting that a guy who eschews computers for his art work is up on the latest in technology for distribution.Well, I?m not. My people know how to hook it up. I say?can you do this? And they say, yes. Well, I guess you?re right. The ani-cam is sort of revolutionary. I know why other people don?t do it?Disney and DreamWorks would never have a camera in their studio because they have proprietary concerns and they have marketers who are astute about keeping a project secret.That doesn?t bother you?I?m not that secretive?no.And you don?t mind sharing your animation techniques with the world?I love talking about it. That?s why I?m doing this interview. I think right now we?re in a second golden age of animation. The first golden age was 1930 to 1950. The second started around 1990, I believe. And for that reason, there are a lot of young people who want to be animators, many more than when I was a kid. It seems to be the occupation of choice now. It used to be kids wanted to be athletes or rock musicians or novelists?but now it?s animators.So I think it?s good for kids to see what goes into making the film. And I just want to be totally open and tell them the facts. That it?s possible, that anyone can be an animator.Don?t you need a basic drawing ability first?No, you don't.Why do you say that?It?s all in the writing and the humor. It would be good to be a wonderful draftsman. But there?s someone like Don Hertzfeldt?he does stick figure drawings and they?re the funniest films in the world. He was nominated for an Oscar for a film called ?Rejected? that came out two years ago. So you don?t necessarily have to be a great draftsman. But if you can make people laugh?that?s golden.?Guide Dog? is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival isn?t it?That?s right. For a long time, Tribeca?well, actually, New York City?has neglected the animation community. So I convinced the Tribeca film festival to put a spotlight on New York City animation which is, without question, the world center of independent animation. So it?s very easy to get articles about Jim Jarmusch or Spike Lee or Martin Scorsese or any of these independent live-action filmmakers, but animation has always been neglected. So the purpose of this screening?not just me?there?s other animators in the program?is to make the world and the city aware of the independent vibrant animation community in New York.So this is Tribeca?s first foray into animation? How did that come about?Well, I?ve been trying to break through for a long time. I got a phone call from Peter Scarlett, who?s the program director, about this Kanye West music video I did. And I said?by the way?are you aware that New York is the world center of independent animation. And he said no. So I said I would love to program an hour of the hottest animation in New York City. And he jumped on it. It?s on May 1, 3, 4 and 7.What?s your next project?I?m starting a new feature. The title at this point is called ?Idiots and Angels.? It?s about a slob guy?sort of selfish, insensitive guy who starts growing wings on his back and it?s a whole process of adjusting to these wings that are forcing him to do good things and he doesn?t want to do them.Any particular inspiration for this idea?No. It?s going to have no voices?all music and sound effects. Very dark and David Lynch. Very surreal. It?s going to be non-commerical?which I?m used to. But I think it will be a real departure.How so?Because it?s so dark?and not a lot of jokes?there will be humor, but more surreal than funny.

All images copyright Bill Plympton 2006