CHRIS WEDGE

We can't worry about competition. Besides, you aren't competing with anyone but yourself. They have nothing to do with whether you make a good movie or not.

For me, part of the fascination with making animation is you go to a place; it's a complete immersion in someone else's fantasy.

Someday, I'd like to sit down with a small group of people, in a relaxed environment, and make a film that feels more independent. That way we can be a little more free in terms of storytelling and subject.

This technology will obviously become more prevalent. Who knows what will result? One thing is certain, computer technology will revolutionize the way we tell stories as much as movie film has.

You win the Oscar, you get to go into just about anybody's office for a month. I had a lot of meetings.

I remember feeling that technology was like trying to draw with your foot. In a ski boot. It was the most indirect way to work imaginable, but the potential had us all excited. I started in stop motion.

Fox came to us with the concept for ICE AGE and they came to us with the first draft of the script. They also gave us a mandate to make it into a comedy from what was previously a rather dramatic action concept.

I'm surrounded by a lot of live-action movie professionals, and I'm just taking their lead, as far as what to schedule to do next. I'm guessing the challenge is going to be not having two characters together, and shooting the live-action without having the animation. In animation, you get to get in between every frame and you work it all out together.

One of the things I've observed since I was a kid, is that if you work on something long enough you'll find I, even if you're lost for a while you'll find it.

On these feature films there are people on the staff who can draw 100 times better then I can, and animate better then I can, and light better then I can, write comedy better then I can. I basically am in the middle of kind of a creative typhoon and I'm just kind of talking the film up on to the screen. Minute to minute, meeting by meeting, day by day.

For me, part of the fascination with making animation is you go to a place; it's a complete immersion in someone else's fantasy.

We had no idea what we were in for when we started Blue Sky. We just had an idea of what we wanted to do. When we got to a point where it seemed impossible, we just kept doing it. After 18 years, we have a lot of it done.

What made 'Ice Age' work is that it had its shiny candy coatings, but inside was a soft, creamy center.

We can't worry about competition. Besides, you aren't competing with anyone but yourself. They have nothing to do with whether you make a good movie or not.

A lot of people have helped me along the way. But you know the biggest thing for me was when computer animation came along.

If you win the Oscar, you get to go into just about anybody's office for a month.

You win the Oscar, you get to go into just about anybody's office for a month. I had a lot of meetings.

Well, in our industry it's that the movies cost so much money to make they have to appeal to a broad audience. And I think that's part of what will loosen up in the future, as technology makes it cheaper, you'll be able to make films for a more selective audience. I think people will be able to make more personal movies.

Fox came to us with the concept for ICE AGE and they came to us with the first draft of the script. They also gave us a mandate to make it into a comedy from what was previously a rather dramatic action concept.

I remember feeling that technology was like trying to draw with your foot. In a ski boot. It was the most indirect way to work imaginable, but the potential had us all excited. I started in stop motion.

One of the things I've observed since I was a kid, is that if you work on something long enough you'll find I, even if you're lost for a while you'll find it.

Someday, I'd like to sit down with a small group of people, in a relaxed environment, and make a film that feels more independent. That way we can be a little more free in terms of storytelling and subject.

This technology will obviously become more prevalent. Who knows what will result? One thing is certain, computer technology will revolutionize the way we tell stories as much as movie film has.

The most fun is to inhabit the world where cartoon physics is king. And that just means that things move with kind of an energy and exaggeration and appeal that is different from what we see in our world. We're bound by, at least, Newton's Laws of physics here and in animation we're not. So, director's can be extremely eccentric, you can sculpt motion in animation in a way that you just can't do any other way. In any other performance medium.

I'm surrounded by a lot of live-action movie professionals, and I'm just taking their lead, as far as what to schedule to do next. I'm guessing the challenge is going to be not having two characters together, and shooting the live-action without having the animation. In animation, you get to get in between every frame and you work it all out together.

Honestly, I don't go out of my way to see animated movies. I'm mostly influenced by.. the films I tend to like are the small films, small personal stories. With characters you can believe.

On these feature films there are people on the staff who can draw 100 times better then I can, and animate better then I can, and light better then I can, write comedy better then I can. I basically am in the middle of kind of a creative typhoon and I'm just kind of talking the film up on to the screen. Minute to minute, meeting by meeting, day by day.

I grew up watching classic animation, and I have always felt that the roots of animation is in fantasy and taking it in places that you can't go, any other way.

I think I probably am doing animation because I started as a kid and I learned on my own, and I worked by myself a lot. It's the only thing I really prepared myself to do in any kind of depth. And I've just kind of imbibed the technology and techniques and the thinking about telling stories this way. It just feels natural to me.

I get a lot of credit for Tron. They called us scene choreographers back then because the animation unit wouldn't let us be called animators because we were working on computers. And we were some of the first people ever to make 3-D computer animation.

If anything, it's a little intimidating because there's usually a lot of brilliant work and a lot of brilliant ideas out there that you wish you had thought of, or that you just admire for the originality of it or the difference from what you've been thinking of.

I've been working in computer animation for 25 years. I'm obviously a devotee of the technology. I just think it's the one aspect of the medium that's going to continue to revolutionize the filmmaking. It's constantly changing and it's constantly opening up new possibilities. The technology is evolving where 2-D animation was ultimately limited by how long you could pay how many people to make a movie. I mean computers, not that it's in anyway a labor saving device, but it promises to open up exciting new technical possibilites.

You look at Japan and Hayao Miyazaki's films are the biggest films ever made in Japan; domestically there and they play to critical acclaim around the world. He won't put more then 5 or 10 percent computer imagery in his movies. It's disappointing to me. It's a silly choice that some studios made to move out of animation. It's part of the unfortuneate preconception that I think the public has going into see animation.

Animation has always been about technology. You can't have animation without technology.