Hi friends,

Twice this year I've been in a room where a Disney filmmaker got asked about AI. Two studios, eight months apart. The answers lined up in a way I haven't stopped thinking about.

February, at Pixar. We were in Emeryville for a first look at HOPPERS, and I sat down with director Daniel Chong and producer Nicole Grindle. I asked them straight out what AI means for the way Pixar makes movies.

Grindle went back to where she started, in hand-drawn animation, before computer animation took over. "I remember that we were all really worried about what CG would mean for animators," she said, "and a majority of those 2D animators were able to adapt." Her hope is that AI becomes "an artistic tool," and "that it'll not take the place of the human element."

Chong went somewhere I didn't expect. "I think what AI starts to remove is this feeling that great art takes a lot of work," he said. "I hope people can start to understand that if you want to make something really good that connects with people, it's really hard to do."

October, at Disney Animation. At the studio's early access day for HEXED, a reporter put the same question to producer Yvett Merino. She didn't answer with a policy. She answered with people:

"It really is just something special with that human touch of it all that you're not going to get anywhere else, and you're not going to get through automation of anything."

Then the HEXED team spent the rest of the hour making her point without saying it. Director Fawn Veerasunthorn talked about the studio's effects designer, Dan Lund: "He comes from 2D, and you can tell the shape language is very particular." The film's magic, she said, "was done initially by hand first just to test out the look of it, and then the CG side comes in." Director Jason Hand described a shot where Billie's hands rest on her desk and "those sparks of magic are popping off, and they actually hit the desk and bounce off."

Here's what stuck with me. Grindle has already lived through one tech shift that was supposed to end hand-drawn animators, and she watched most of them adapt. Eight months later, at a different studio, a 2D-trained artist is setting the look of HEXED's magic by hand before the CG side comes in. Neither studio said a computer can't help. Both said the work is the point.

Chong's line is the one I'd underline for all of us in the audience. If we stop believing great art takes a lot of work, we stop noticing when someone actually does it. That's the beat I want to keep covering here: the people who make these movies, in their own words.

See you next week,
Jordie

P.S. Missed last week's HEXED feature? The full story, cat-hair spells and all, is here: https://www.disneyexaminer.com/p/made-by-hand-disney-animation-s-hexed-makes-the-case-for-human-made-magic. HEXED opens in theaters Nov 25.