Well, well, well. Look at me.
I’m writing a post! No lazy-ass video this time! Because I have one awesome interview for you!
I bring you Paul Briggs, Story Artist on Walt Disney’s ‘The Princess and The Frog’.
(UPDATE & CLARIFICATION: Oops, my bad! Paul was not, in fact, the Head of Story on ‘The Princess and The Frog’. He was a Story Artist. But he *is* Head of Story on a current, untitled project at Disney at this time. Sorry everybody! I’ve made corrections to this post since publishing it.)
How cool is THAT?
I feel all special and stuff.
And there are original thumbnail and storyboard drawings from him! Feel free to drool on your screen.
But before we get to it, I want to wish all of you a very HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON! Whatever that holiday may be for you.
If it’s nothing…well have a great weekend or something. 🙂
This interview is a juicy one, so I’ll be splitting it up into two parts. You get this one now to read at your leisure till 2009 is over. Then you’ll get the rest sometime in January 2010. (2010? My word, where does the time go?)
And the way I’ve been posting in my ‘Kid vs Kat’ haze, this could be the last thing your hear from me till June or something.
I kid, I kid! (Maybe.)
So without further ado, I bring you Paul Briggs, current Head of Story at Disney and proud new Daddy. 
Enjoy!
What is your background, education and how did you get started in the animation business?
In 1984 I was 10 years old and I was in a mall at a Walden’s Bookstore and came across ‘The Illusion of Life’ by Frank and Ollie. Even though there was no way we could afford it, my Mom bought it for me and I spent the rest of the day slamming into people, benches and planters because I couldn’t take my face out of that massive book.
That was the day I fell in love with wanting to do animation.
I went to college at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri but I wasn’t focused on animation at the time (even though I found out later that Walt himself as well as the great Marc Davis both went to KCAI!) I was focused on doing sculpture, ceramics, painting, and really solid drawing.
I was busy experimenting, having fun, and making a million mistakes and learning from them. A lot of my classmates were talented draftsmen so I was constantly focused on learning and trying to better myself as an artist. We had some amazing drawing classes –including one where we went to a medical university and drew from cadavers for a week!
One of my instructors pressured me to submit a portfolio to the Disney Internship but I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. He pestered me enough that at the last minute I threw a drawing portfolio together in a week and mailed it off. To my surprise and disbelief they called me a couple of weeks later to tell me I was accepted! I was 20 and packed everything in my Jeep and moved to Orlando to work at the Florida Animation Studio.
I trained under Pres Romanillos (supervising animator Shan Yu for Mulan) and David Tidgwell (Head of Effects.) At the end of the program they were hiring in special effects to work on Mulan and I was brought on as an inbetweener!
How did you end up as a story artist? Was that your original plan?
It was great being in special effects animation but I always wanted to do story. I always loved the development of characters and journeys to another world. In effects I saw how a sequence traveled from beginning to end through the animation pipeline and I was constantly examining why those sequences were in the film.
There were some sequences that I was really frustrated with and thought – “This isn’t working at all! I could do better than this .” So I decided “that’s it, either get into story or shut up!” So I really started to focus my learning. I started analyzing film, reading books, and showing my story tests to people I respected and admired.