The Playlist: Brad, you last made “Ratatouille” here in 2007. Since coming back to work at Pixar what’s been the biggest change you’ve noticed with the staff?
Brad Bird: Well, I went straight from “Incredibles.” They kind of drafted me onto “Ratatouille.” And there was only one film between those two films and yet the rigs of “Ratatouille” were way ahead of what they were on “Incredibles.” We were breaking absolutely virgin ground on “Incredibles” and by “Ratatouille” a lot of the improvements had happened. So, even though it was like right away, the next film, not very much time elapsing, the rigs improved a lot. So, they’ve improved even more now. The average audience member won’t be able to [notice]. They’ll feel very comfortable that everyone looks right and everyone feels like the same characters and everything. But the truth is we got them much closer to what we originally intended them to look like in the first one. It’s just that we weren’t experienced with it yet. And so for me, the characters finally look like they should’ve in the first one. They got as close as we could possibly get them then. But now, we can get ’em exactly right, so that’s a pleasure.
Nicole Grindle: And just to say, I think that both the technology and the artistry of the studio has improved dramatically. I mean, you can do anything you wanna do here with this group of people. Some of them are people who’ve been here a long time. But also, just the artists who are coming out of school right now are really good and the tools support the work that they can do.
Brad Bird: Yeah, people wanna come to work here. And so, we had a lot of good animators on the first film, but there was a point where they kind of dropped off, meaning that they needed more help to get the animation to match the other animation. Now, the newbies, the ones who are not that experienced are already so adept at computer animation that the whole level, the level of starting animators is also higher. E verything’s been elevated. So that’s probably the biggest change.
The Playlist: During our presentations today we met the one animator who was in charge of the raccoon character that encounters JackJack. Watching that sequence it almost feels like a little old school Warner Brothers animation influence in that sequence with it. Was that the idea?
Brad Bird: A little bit. It’s definitely over the top. There was a guy who was one of the main contributors on “Incredibles.” The guy that I brought up who worked on “Iron Giant” named Teddy Newton. And he designed the characters in “Incredibles” with Tony Fuccilli. And he had generated story ideas. He was great at design, but he came up with this idea [about the raccoon] on the first film. And it was hilarious and kind of wrong. I mean, he went further. He had them tumbling into the pool and dropping to the bottom and all this stuff that is just-
John Walker: And a whole gang of raccoons.
Brad Bird: Whole gang of raccoons who were all hostile. And it cracked me up so much I felt like, “This is wrong and yet it’s so right.” And when I couldn’t have … I couldn’t, there was no place for it in the first movie because the movie had its own momentum. That was another thing I said: “This movie I’m gonna get that stuff in,” because that’s a great idea, having him assume that the raccoons are robbers and then the superhero in him must respond.
The Playlist: The first movie also had nods to ’60s spy films among other genres. Is there anything in this film that you wanted to use as a motif or theme? Is there anything new in that respect?
Brad Bird: Yeah, there’s a couple of hat tips. One that’s kind of unusual. But do we wanna talk about it or do we want people to just see it?
The Playlist: Is it going to be in a trailer in two weeks?
Brad Bird: No, it will not.
The Playlist: You could tease then.
Brad Bird: Ah, let’s say I mention it in some of my influences. There is a very affectionate hat tip to something. Yes. Deep affection and love.
The Playlist: On the producing side, how difficult has it been to make this movie made so quickly with the earlier release date? Or was it easier than we might think?
Nicole Grindle: No, it was hard.
John Walker: It was challenging.
Nicole Grindle: It was hard.
Brad Bird: Well, it’s hard because no one wanted to have it be any lower-quality than any other movie here.
Nicole Grindle: Right, right.
Brad Bird: If we had said, “Ah, we’re doing it fast. It only needs to be as good as a lot of other animated films because a lot of people are making feature animated films now and they all have a certain slickness that is kind of there. But our thing was, “No, we don’t want to compromise the look of it in any way.” We wanted it to be as well-produced as anything that’s come out of this place.
Nicole Grindle: And truthfully, you can’t lower the bar with Pixar.
Brad Bird: They won’t do it
Nicole Grindle: They won’t do it. And so, what you have to do is work to make them produce that kind of quality quickly. And because Brad was in the middle of writing we didn’t know how long it was going to be and we didn’t always know what we were gonna be producing down the road because he was still writing it. And so there were a lot of challenges there in moving forward with confidence on the stuff that we did know, but making people move quickly to be ready for the stuff that we didn’t know was coming. So, there was a lot of that.
John Walker: And inherently all these movies are chaotic, but when you squish ’em together and cut a year off ’em, they get even more [so]. And trying to calm people through that. When he’s got half of it made and half of it unmade, we’re still making it and it’s coming out in 3 years and, “Hey, is this gonna be okay?”
Brad Bird: We had to put medication in the water supply. (Laughs.)
John Walker: It was messy and, frankly, that’s all we did every Monday morning. We had these crew meetings and essentially, all we did was say, “Yeah, we know it’s a mess. Hang in there. Don’t panic. Panic is not good.”
Brad Bird: You can see from the snippets we showed that we didn’t lower the bar at all.
The Playlist: No, and in fact, the detail in the flooring in the family’s new home…
Nicole Grindle: The terrazzo?
Brad Bird: Terrazzo. Yeah, I love terrazzo.
The Playlist: I’m guessing you are are of the difficulties that they went through to make that flooring, correct?
Brad Bird: Yeah, I’m aware there are lots of difficulties. And I feel guilty that I am responsible for many of them. (Laughs.)
The Playlist: I have one last question for you. The Iron Giant is a big part of “Ready Player One” and, in many ways, a whole new generation is now getting to experience the character or aspects of it for the first time. How did you feel when Steven came to you to put him in the movie?
Brad Bird: He didn’t come to me. Warner Brothers owns “The Iron Giant,” [movie]. But, you know, Steven gave me my big breaks, all my first writing jobs and directing jobs and all of that were with Steven. So, I owe Steven a lot. And when I heard it was in there I was delighted because he’s one of my very favorite filmmakers, and I’ve studied his work a lot, you know. He’s fantastic. So, if The Iron Giant is gonna show up in anybody’s movie I love that it’s Spielberg’s. That’s just wonderful.
“The Incredibles 2” opens nationwide on June 15.