Don Bluth Quotes

When I'm in the studio, I'm strictly thinking about the beats, the rhymes and the song. The decision I make once the songs are created, and there's a barcode put on the package, and I'm out there in the street selling it, those decisions as a businessman are different than the creative decisions you make.

What I do is draw but if you make an animated feature obviously it takes a whole team of people, and Zippy is my work. I felt that turning it over to a team of people would be wrong.

As a director, I'm not the one animating every frame, every shot. I'm moving around like a surgeon on rounds, or a farmer checking in on all the plants being grown, pruning and adjusting. For me, it's a very exciting job.

I don't believe that an animation studio should be an executive-driven studio.

Pixar is going in the direction of the early Disney. And it's also corporate, where they have four or five projects in the works. I don't want to get into that subject.

If you're an artist, it's great to have a knowledge of the business and be educated about that, but you've got to keep the balance right between business and artistry; otherwise, you get cynical.

When better business decisions are made, economists won't make them.

When I first got into business, I made a lot of bad decisions.

You seldom get that in film where you're lucky if you get any say at all in the final cut.

Nothing's occurring in animation - you manufacture everything.

Look what Disney's done to their animation department. There wasn't an animator in charge of their animation unit!

I try to choose the projects that I think are the most well-written and well-executed, and the rest of it is so beyond my control to be almost not worth thinking about at all.

Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business - everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs.

I can only go with my gut and say what I would like to do, and then my producer comes in and makes it happen.

Paintings don't just happen. I am not a proponent of the idea of an artist as someone who kind of magically makes things and has no real control or isn't willfully producing a certain kind of thing. It is labor-intensive, and it is research-intensive. You are making one decision after another, trying to get at something you think is important.

A producer has to want you. And if the producer trusts you and asks for your vision, it frees you up so much, not having to explain or fight for every decision. You're allowed to create.

As the director, you have it in your mind how you want the part done, how you want someone to do it, and so sometimes you just say, 'Why don't I do it myself?' So for a little role, I'll just do it.

I've always believed that the script is the boss.

One thing I've learned as an actor as well as a producer is to trust my own instinct. When I first started acting I would sometimes have ideas about certain things, whether it's a scene, or a character or certain dialogue, that wouldn't be followed. I was never in a position to have the power to press the matter. Sometimes it wasn't even about my character. But I'd watch the movie afterwards and think I was right.

I'm a big fan of the Pixar movies, and Ed Catmull, who wrote a book about his experiences producing them, talks about how it takes three or four years to get it right.

It seems the deeper, truer personality of the artist only emerges in the making of decisions... in refusing and accepting, changing and revising.

Directing is a mixture of compromise and perfectionism. When you lose the judgment of which is more important at any particular moment, you're time is over. They find you out and send you packing.

A budget is not an issue. I mean a budget is used if you need more weeks or more time or more elements, but the creative process is exactly the same. In some instances you become more of a boss when you are doing a small movie. So that is not so relevant. The only thing is that the bigger a movie is in terms of budget, is that there are more people giving opinions.

The creative process for a musician is very different than for a filmmaker. I have an idea and I can pretty much execute it. As old as I am now and as long as I've been doing it, I can pretty much get it done in a week. While a filmmaker has a great idea that should be out tomorrow, but he has to go through this process of getting financing, then selling it, then casting. I've always been in awe of filmmakers and their patience in realizing their vision because I could never do that.

Those titles, Executive Producer or actor, are unimportant. I always try to approach my role as an artist. The first thing you want to do, that you attempt to do as an artist, is to have some sort of input into the material that you are working on. That is how my process begins; I say to myself: "I want to do this kind of work or I want to do that kind of work."