“I like to draw everything that has a sense of give to it, and a sense of life, and everything that will support the idea of the pose and then build the anatomy on top.”
The interview concludes in Part Two where Eric Goldberg shares his extensive knowledge and appreciation for animating as he talks about many of the projects he has directed including Pocahontas, Rhapsody in Blue, and The Monkey’s Tale while the conversation continues to touch down on the details of the craft of animation. Eric is currently animating on the upcoming film The Princess and the Frog.
Continue for Show Notes, audio file download links, and comments…
Get the MP3 here: Show 30: Eric Goldberg, Part Two
(29.1MB, 1:03:19 minutes)
Or get the enhanced version playable only with Quicktime, iTunes, or iPods.
(Includes chapter breaks, pictures and links in addition to the audio.)
Get the enhanced podcast here: Show 30: Eric Goldberg, Part Two
(30.9MB, 1:03:19 minutes)
SHOWNOTES
- 00:00 The Intro Voice
- 00:05 Sponsored by -
- 00:23 Introduction
Character Animation Crash Course - 01:36 Approach to drawing
- 05:29 Anything to add on the Genie?
- 09:31 The style and tone of Pocahontas
- 14:13 Pocahontas: Adventurous art direction
- 17:02 Pocahontas: Most difficult film to date
- 19:35 Pocahontas: Defending its biggest criticisms
- 22:11 Directing shorts vs. features
- 25:49 The breadth of sidekicks
- 28:37 Less accessible projects - The Monkey’s Tale
- 36:41 Storyboarding for animation
- 42:46 Eric Goldberg - cartoon voice
- 44:48 What is possible in CG that hasn’t happened?
- 56:06 How is it at Disney today?
- 57:42 Conclusion
- 57:55 Voicemails/Feedback info - Email Clay - Link to Voicemail
- 1:02:16 BOLT
- 1:02:42 Sponsored by -
CLAY! So good to hear from you. Listening………
Alright Clay! Back from the dead! Cheers - really appreciate you putting these out!
He’s back!!!
*Starts downloading*
Thanks a babillion, Clay!
Yay! Clay’s back!! You said that by the end of the year, you were about to give us the rest of the Nik Ranieri series. Either that or a new guest would fit us good.
Thank you for your continuous effort in delivering us these great podcasts Clay. I really do enjoy listening, and take away so much from each interview you put out there. Thank you.
-Andrew
HOOOOOORAY!!!!
Now I can get my animation fix.
TAP = meth for animators
also… <3 the animation podcast
Cheers,
andy
Just got done listening while animating at work. That was fantastic! What a way to end it! I definitely love the longer shows. Thank you so much for doing this!
Awesome show, Clay! So glad to have another show with Eric. Can’t wait to see who the next guest is, and of course, the upcoming exclusive Animation Mentor podcast! As a student of AM, I know I’ll be listening to that one forever. Any chance we’ll get an interview with Bobby Beck, Carlos Baena, or Shawn Kelly one day?
Keep up the great work!
- Rob
It’s that time in production when I end up rigging for a month, with no time to animate. As usual I’m adding a bunch of toony features we’ll never have time to fully use. Listening to Eric, however, makes me push the effects even further. Thanks a ton, Clay and Eric, because when I’m rigging these pod casts keep the animation flame burning bright. I end up cacheing up all the motivation, so when I’m back on frames, I’m on fire. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
cheers,
andy
Great to have another podcast Clay! Love the interview. Keep up the awesome work and my daughter and I will definitely be out to see Bolt opening weekend. Take care!
Thank you Clay! I love these podcasts. You were the supervisor for the hamster in Bolt!? I haven’t seen the film yet, but in the clips I’ve seen, the hamster is the strongest character. Congratulations!
Hi all, thanks for the welcome for my “return.” Gee, now I miss two months of shows and you guys act like I’ve been kidnapped! anyhow, it’s great to put out another show. I haven’t decided what’s coming up next, but I’ll try to make it good.
Some people’s ears were blown out by Eric’s laughter in the first part and I hope I took care of that here. I’m no audio expert, but I think I figured it out. Let me know if this one was easier to listen to.
Absolutely love the podcast. Not an animator, but I can’t get enough. I don’t even know how I learned about it. It is wonderful to hear artists speak with such passion about their craft. You do a terrific job of asking thoughtful appropriate questions and then staying out of the way of the answers.
Thanks very much. I was anticipating this one, and it was well worth the wait. I enjoyed his insights on Pocahontas, shorts vs. features, approach to drawing, etc.
Good dynamic between both of you since you’ve worked together (as on the excellent Fantasia 2000 NYC short).
Great thoughts! Animation is after all a reinvention of life!
Thank you so much! Eric has such good insights on drawing. The idea of drawing your character from the inside out, from the simplest line of action to the anatomical detail, is one of the biggest epiphanies one can have as an artist.
I currently work as an illustrator and character designer.
As someone who has never done any character animation at all, which book would be better for me to start with - Eric Goldberg’s “Character Animation Crash Course!” or Richard Williams’ “The Animator’s Survival kit” ?
Oh, and by the way Clay. I meant to gush about the podcast too. It’s really amazing. I’m about half way through listening to them all for the second time.
Thanks a lot!
A compliment to Eric: my mom loves “Rhapsody in Blue” from “Fantasia 2000″ because she loves Gershwin and so do I and we like his laughter. it’s one of the funniest laughs ever.
Hi Clay!
First of all, thank you for this great effort you’re doing, I believe we all really appreciate it.
I’ve been wondering if you’ll be interviewing Mr. Glen Keane again someday soon. I’d like to send to you a couple of questions for him to answer if it’s possible.
Thank you again!
Big regards from Mexico.
(sorry, posted this on the Timeline post below by mistake <_<)
Hey Clay! Great interview. Eric Goldberg is my hero
By the way… saw Bolt today… excellent job on the animation and kudos to all the animators (including yourself) who worked on it!
Thanks for another great interview, Clay. I never want these shows to end. By the time you guys were closing — I wanted another two hours.
It reminds me of the times we talked with the old Disney guys back in the fifties. We never wanted those talks to end. I sure wish this technology had been available back then.
These interviews are going to live forever…Floyd is right, it would have been nice to have had this technology available during the golden era….
Congrats to the Disney guys for Bolt! It’s great to see Disney pushing the state of the art again….Dogs on 4 legs acting like dogs…boy that was refreshing
Hey Clay. Just read your interview on CGSociety on the Rhino rig, cool stuff! You should post the link on the blog. I’m a 3D character animation student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, currently finishing my first 2D animation class. I’m one of those guys who never drew as a kid and got into animation purely through 3D. Despite that I now feel like I’m finally getting it, just because I had to sit down and figure out keys and breakdowns on paper. My problem in 3D animation has been structure, it usually becomes messy and unmanageable really quickly. Now it feels like I can go back in there and make sense of it all. Listening to all your interviews again, which I do regularly, (especially now, since I spent hours and hours in the garage animating!)suddenly all the stuff that James Baxter, Ken Duncan and all the others said on technique makes a lot more sense :-). Right now I’m on my way to listen to Eric Goldberg talk about animation and have him sign my brand new copy of his book. I’ll say hi for you ;-). Hope I’ll have time in the coming weeks to take my 9 year old to see Bolt, looks really good.
Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.
Clay,
I read your bio and have been really inspired. It is awesome to think that I can achieve my goals just like you did. I am attending animation mentor starting in January. I was/am really worried about not being able to draw. I have a very similar background as you and was wondering if you could direct me to some helpful books/websites/hints about learning to draw thumbnails. I have caught the animation bug and want to become the best animator I can be. I was going to email, but decided to post instead just in case someone else is going through the same situation as me.
Thanks for your time.
I hope you’re enjoying (or enjoyed, if you’re back at work)your vacation, Clay. I’m currently going back to school to get a better knowledge of this 3D animation thing. Anyhow, Eric Goldbreg really gave me some hope on this new medium, that there is still hope for 3D animation.
Do you think that traditional animation might cross over to Flash Animation?
Also I was thinking if you maybe interesting in interview Bernard Derriman. He seems to be one of the few animators who are using Flash MX for their 2D animation.