ADVERTISEMENT

OGDEN-I want to talk first a little bit about your background. I know that you worked on Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Antz, and you were credited as Art Director on those?

CRONKHITE- Yeah, on Nightmare I was credited as Assistant Art Director (it was a little different on Nightmare because we had no Production Designer whereas we did have one on James), and on James and on Antz, I was the Art Director. So, Madagascar is my first Production Design gig.

OGDEN- Well, for those of us who don't know so much about the business, can you tell us a little bit about what's entailed in Production Design?

CRONKHITE- Sure. As a Production Designer, you're responsible for the look of the film. So, in the case of Animation, as different from Live Action, it's overseeing and being involved in the design of the characters, the environments, the lighting design… basically everything that you see on the screen.

OGDEN- Now, how does that differ from Art Direction?

CRONKHITE- In animation, the Production Designer kind of works on creating the look, and the Art Director helps move it through the pipeline, to get it on the screen.

OGDEN- So, would you look at Art Direction as more of a managerial or administrative role?

CRONKHITE- No, it's not managerial, it is creative, but it's working with all the different departments - art department, modeling, surfacing, lighting, layout - making sure the look of the film we've built on paper gets to the screen. And I kind of do that along with the Art Director. We split that responsibility.

OGDEN- So, is that checking a lot of dailies and so on?

CRONKHITE- Sure, you look at it every day. Here's how it kind of breaks down: this was a four year project. Some of them are shorter, some are longer, it depends. But the first year to 18 months is what we call Vis Dev, (Visual Development) which is kind of finding the look of the film, and designing it. And then the next year and a half is Production where you're actually creating it in the computer and shooting it on film. So, the first half, I'm actually drawing and painting and all that stuff, and the next half, I hardly get to do any of that stuff, because I'm overseeing the production.

OGDEN- I talked to Chris Wedge (Ice Age, Robots) when we were talking about his role directing Robots. And he said he doesn't have time to do anything, no real production, that basically all he felt he did was talk the film into being.

CRONKHITE- Yeah. It's kind of true. And you know what's weird for me, coming from an art background, I was good at drawing and painting, but I wasn't good at talking. I would seclude myself away and draw and paint, and I loved that. And so, moving into this new role, I've had to learn a new set of working tools, talking being one of them… a huge one. But it's sometimes very hard to describe a visual concept with words. So, being able to draw helps.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PRODUCTION ART BY YORIKO ITO

OGDEN- How detailed did you have to get with your designs to communicate the look and feel of the film to the rest of the team?

CRONKHITE- We did a lot. Films are broken down into sequences (we had 40 in Madagascar). By the time a sequence comes out of the Art Department, I'm kind of a stickler about having everything worked out on paper. That way, a modeler or a lighter or a surfacer can look at the art and know exactly what they have to do, without a lot of extra talking through it with me. It's like, "Just do that."

The hard thing on Madagascar is that the entire film is very stylized. Even our plant surfaces are very stylized. On Shrek, they used a lot of photos for leaf textures, bark textures, grass, all that kind of stuff. But we had to manipulate reality to be more cartoony, even down to our surface textures. So, when we sent out the art on a sequence to all the departments, [the design pack] was really thick, because we've worked out everything - even the surfaces for all the trees and flowers. It's all included.

It sounds crazy to do that much, but it really works. I feel like, if we're really clear coming out of our department what the vision is, then it makes it quicker further down the line. But if we have to work it out in every department, it bogs everybody down, and I find most people don't actually enjoy working that stuff out anyway.

CLICK ON THE THUMBNAILS BELOW TO DOWNLOAD PROMOTIONAL ART

OGDEN- One of the things I like most about the film is the stylization. That's why I wanted to profile it, because it doesn't look like everything else. The thing is, the computer wants to make things look real, and most of the artists coming into the business with visual effects in mind, want to make stuff look real as well. And all the tools are tilted toward that. 3D does many things well, but it doesn't want to stray far from reality. But that's one thing I think you guys did extremely well. You really found your own look on this one.

CRONKHITE- It was very intentional, and we knew from the very beginning that we wanted to go in this direction. We're really influenced in this film by cartoons from the 50s and 60s. And the jungle has a lot of Henri Rousseau inspiration in it. So, it's kind of a combination of influences. And of course, the real world enters into it, too.

[The look] started with our characters. Our Characters are very cartoony. They have exaggerated proportions, but they also have a Retro feel to them, with all those angles and sharp points, straights against curves and all that stuff. And so that was really our launching point. We wanted stylized shape, stylized graphic patterning, and real surface textures - real fur, real leathery feeling, real wet mouth and nose and eyes. So that led to our approach to the world, which was stylized shape, stylized graphic patterning, and then real surface textures.

For instance, the zoo in New York, we have a real brick texture. Even though the brick shapes are stylized, the brick and concrete textures are more real. And in the bark on the trees on the island, the line, the graphic quality of the lines, is stylized, but it has a real bark toothiness and matte quality.

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE...