For Paul Dutton it was a case of going back to where it all started in terms of him becoming an animator.
Dutton, a former Yorkton resident who worked as Animation Director and Assistant Director on the film 'The Illusionist' which was an Oscar finalist for the Best Animated Film, was back in the city for the first time in more than a decade for the annual Yorkton Film Festival. Friday Dutton returned to the Yorkton Regional High School to talk to art students.
Dutton began by crediting his former art instructor Diane Koch. He said she might push students, to the point "you want to kick her in the shins," but it's only because she believes students can achieve more. He did add he was glad he hadn't kicked her in the shins himself.
Dutton said he wanted to visit the class because a visit from another animator Greg Holfeld, also formerly of Yorkton to the classroom proved an inspiration for the then student.
"Talking to Greg I thought if he can do it, I can go and do it too," he told the class Friday.
Art instructor Diane Koch said she appreciated what a visit from a successful artist can mean to aspiring students.
"It's pretty special," she said, noting it provides students with evidence you can start out in Yorkton and follow their art dreams. "Part of it is to inspire them."
As for Dutton, Koch said she knew he could be successful.
"For his age group he had the imagination. He had the creativity and he had the ability," he said. "I could tell back then he was something special."
While Holfeld's class visit was sort of an epiphany for Dutton, his love of animation began as a young kid.
"I watched animation with my brothers," he said, recalling shows such as the first animated Spiderman and Rocket Robin Hood. "My brothers stopped (watching). I never did. I just loved cartoons."
Dutton said while he enjoys being an animator, it is not a career with the promise of wealth. He said it's something you must almost need to do.
"People who are compelled to do this can't envision doing anything else," he said.
Dutton said he recalls his first professional work.
"I threw up," he said, recalling his nerves of having someone look at the finished work.
The first real work for Dutton was on 'R-rated' German movies, something that paid but made resume building rather difficult.
"Everything I did was slightly off-colour," he said.
Ultimately Dutton said to break into the animation field artists need to "be a little bit belligerent." He told students to keep working their art, and to keep sending it out to studios if they are serious about animation.
In his case Dutton has stayed steadfast in his avoidance of turning to computer generated (CG) art, adding there is a shrinking stable of hand drawn animators like himself.
"I really stubbornly avoided working in CG," he told a filmmakers at a seminar Saturday. " I do love the hand-drawn movie It's an atmosphere you can achieve." He said with CG he feels he is "manipulating something that already exists rather than creating something."
As for The Illusionist, Dutton told the art students it was an amazing and challenging project to work on.
The film had an initial budget of 11 million British pounds, but ended up chewing through 13.5 million, and took three-and-a-half years, a year longer than planned.
The film is also done as a silent film.
"We did the whole film in mime. Trying to express the story without dialogue made it extra challenging," said Dutton.
The Illusionist is also hand rendered. With every second of animation using 24 frames, Dutton noted there are three-quarters of a million drawings, coming from some 24 artists associated with the film.
"They are all hand-drawn on paper we went through piles of paper," said Dutton, adding illustrators were assigned particular characters so they could "get into the mood" of scenes and characters more completely.
As Animation Director Dutton noted he had "to know how to draw all the characters," and help get the director's (Sylvain Chomet) vision fulfilled.
At times the vision changed and created issues too.
A rugby scene which had artists working on it for four-months was cut from the final film, said Dutton.
In another case Chomet decided a female character needed nostrils and clips in her hair, and artists spent weeks going back over the entire film adding the embellishments.
With the film being such a massive project Dutton said, "there were tears of anxiety. There was stress."
Dutton said he expected frictions over the project.
"Artists are pretty strange people. We're wired a bit different. You're going to have drama, going to have tears," he said.
Dutton is now back in Calgary working to build a local studio.
"The ultimate goal is to grow the industry here," he said.
Building an animation sector in Calgary does mean challenges for Dutton.
"Calgary is not the center of the world in terms of animation," he told filmmakers Saturday.
