蓝铅笔专访—动画大师Paul Griffin（高瑞范）

Blue Pencil Interview with Paul Griffin

蓝铅笔专稿；转载请注明出处。

Q. Have you always been artistic from childhood? Or did it start to appear later in life?

蓝铅笔：你是自幼就展现出艺术天赋还是在后期才发觉这一天赋的？

A: Well, like all children, I’d like to draw when I was very little, but I noticed it when I was in my second grade in school, I was drawing differently with other children. I was drawing one thing in three dimensions, in perspective and…yeah I guess that was young for that, but none of the other children would draw like that, so I noticed my drawings were a little bit different than anybody else’s. (That’s cool) Yeah, I guess early on yeah, the teachers always recognized me and they would put me in advanced programs so, and I found something I did well too. When I was younger, my family moved around quite a bit, so I went to seven different schools. (Both in Canada and…?) All in Canada. So I would find that when I move from one school to the next, sometimes it was difficult to maintain the curriculum, so you know, we’d be covering mathematics (Yeah, that’s difficult) and would move to something, and then I’d be, you know, move to a new school and be completely lost and have no idea what was going on, but the thing is, it didn’t matter with art, right? Or with your drawing (Right), it doesn’t matter, your drawing, painting, or your being creative. They’ll be carried from place to place, and you don’t have to relearn what they covered the previous year, coz everything is always brand new and all is developing in creative realm (Yeah, that’s right). That’s why, you see, because we moved around and it was like…that was something I was actually able to hang on to and get better at, ha ha much better than mathematics.

Paul Griffin：所有小孩都喜欢画画，我也不例外，但我在二年级时发现自己的画与众不同，因为我 画的东西都是三维立体透视的。这对于一个孩子来说非常特别，其他孩子都不会这样画，这也使得老师对我有了特别关注，安排我去上进阶课程。而我也因此找到了 自己的特长。小时候我们家经常搬家，我总是要转学。（在美加两国之间转学，还是？）没有，只是在加拿大。在频繁转学的过程中，很多课程都很容易落下，比如数学（是啊，数学很难跟上。），但艺术并不会受到影响，无论转到哪里，画画和创意这些东西并不需要之前的学习基础，一切都是全新的（没错。），这也是我在频繁转学的日子中唯一一个可保持不落下且学得越来越好的课程，比数学学得好多了哈哈。

Q. I’ve learned that you studied classical cartoon animation and computer animation in Sheridan College, right? (That’s right) and then you moved to US and went to New York Institute of Technology. Why did you turn to science at that time?

蓝铅笔：你在加拿大谢尔丹学院（Sheridan College）学习了传统卡通动画和计算机动画，是吗？（没错。）然后你又移居美国，在纽约理工学院学习理学，这是出于什么原因？

A: Oh that was part of my evil plan. When I was in animation, in computer animation and traditional animation, when I first started doing this back in around 1983 or 1984, there was no place you could go and get a degree in animation or in computer animation, (even in Sheridan College?) no, there was no such thing at that time. (Hard to believe) Yeah, we usually get a diploma but in order to get an actual degree, you had to go to a university, and there was nothing that was offered in animation at that point. So an opportunity came up through Sheridan and I was able to get a scholarship to New York Institute of Technology, (Oh that’s why) so, yeah, while I was there, I looked at all the degree programs and tried to find something that would closely match my art-related field. And the only thing that was really available was general studies program that allowed me to major in architectural design. (Architectural design) Which was three dimensional design, designing in 3D but not using computers. You design buildings and interior spaces, essentially harborable spaces for human beings. So it’s giving me great appreciation for architecture and the design of that and the art of it, and being able to build functional spaces which helped me later on in my career designing all types of spaces and we were working in computer graphics and the environments that would work, and would be believable. But the books of the courses in that program were technical or scientific (Yeah sure), so the result was that my degree ended up being Bachelor of Sciences instead of Bachelor of Arts. So people would look at it and go “Bachelor of Sciences”, but really I’m an artist pretending to be a scientist. (And then you just come back to animation afterwards?) Yeah, but that was kind of the goal - to come back in animation, but in order to get a degree, that was what was available at that time. And of course now they are everywhere, so you can get an animation degree at colleges and universities all over the world. (I never realized that it was difficult back then.) Yeah, well, you know, our industry is not very old. And back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was no computer animation that you can use. It was kinda being invented back then, and a lot of that work was being developed at academic places in universities, you know, like Brown University and University of Oregon, there were more computer science that was going on. They were building the processes that we can use to do computer animation. But there were no industries. It wasn’t until about the late 1980s or early 1980s that things started to happen (Yeah right) and then we started to get in the industry.

Paul Griffin：这是我的“邪恶计划”的一部分。我从1983、84年开始接触动画，当时世上还没有动画学位。（即便是谢尔丹学院也没有？）也没有，当时还没出现这样的学位。（很难想象啊。）是 啊，我们只能拿到毕业证书，在大学里也没有动画专业学位。后来通过谢尔丹学院的关系，我得到了纽约理工学院的奖学金，我查遍了所有相关专业，试图找到一个 与艺术领域最接近的专业，最后选择了建筑设计，是3D设计，不过并非是在计算机中设计。主要是室内设计和建筑设计。这让我对建筑和设计艺术有了新的认识， 对我后来的职业发展也有很大帮助。但当时的教材都属于技术类和科技类，所以我毕业后就成了理学学士，而非文学学士。其实我是顶着科学家帽子的艺术家。（所以之后你又回归动画？）是啊，学动画可以说是我的初衷，但为了取得一个正式学位，我必须做出那样的选择。当然，现在动画学位早已遍地开花。（很难试想当时会有那么难。）是的，但动画毕竟是个相对年轻的行业，在六七十年代甚至还没有出现CG动画，像布朗大学这样的院校正在开发计算机动画，但尚未形成一个行业，直到八十年代才出现，我们也是在那个时候接触到计算机动画。

Q. You are a director, producer, executive producer, animation director, also visual effects supervisor and an animator… which area do you enjoy the most?

蓝铅笔：你身兼导演、制片人、执行制片人、特效总监、动画导演和动画师等多个职位……那你最喜欢的是哪个职位？

A: I like doing all those jobs because they’re all very creative and bring different challenges and I always learn new things and different types of people in the course during these positions. But the thing I like doing the most is animation director. That’s the most fun I have at work. (That’s my answer too, so why do you enjoy this part?) I love the process of sitting with animators and working through performances, and we often cooperate with the idea of how to approach the character, and you know the animator would come up with an idea and say “what about this? What if we add this character to this?” and you see between the two of us, or between the group of us, you see something that was like a good performance, also great performance. And it’s funny and interesting and has entertainment value to it, and you know the audience is really going to like what you do, and you have fun doing that. And what I love about doing animation is that every day, I get to put on different suit. I put on dragon suit or dinosaur suit or put on fish suit or whatever. And it’s not like I’m putting on a physical clown suit, but I’m getting into that role (Yeah, cool). It’s like a dancer, you know how dancers learn how to dance. They’ve got muscle memory. They’ve learned how to move through the performance and remember, through the muscles. That actually happens for animators too. So it’s funny when you are sitting there, you are actually moving like a fish or whatever, and you’re doing the things or you get up and it’s interesting because some animators sit there in their chair and animate all day long and they don’t get up from their booth. I’d go: “how do you do that?” (You have to act, right?) That’s right, that the element of acting is so critical to be a good animator I think. (So do you have to do that yourself? I mean, you have to act as a director?) Totally, I can’t tell you how many videos there are of me just being an absolute idiot, you know, standing up on a table and dancing or doing silly things. And the thing is, once you free yourself from being afraid of being foolish, you can learn so much more from doing that. And it’s funny because some animators would say: “that’s not my process; I don’t do that, I’m afraid to do it.” But what I’ll do is get the group together, and we’ll start essentially workshop through our process and we’ll act. And we’ll get up, and I’ll get up, I’ll do something, and eventually it’s interesting coz you’ll see those people, they’ll go:”what about this?” We’ll get up and try something and just realize you just did what you didn’t say we’ll gonna do. Because you become involved and become vested in, and then we realize it’s valuable too. And the ones that don’t do that, they’re kinda left behind. The animators that are not willing to get up and actually… Because at the root of it, animation is acting; it’s performance, and if you’re not willing to adopt that and take that on, then you’re probably not to the right job; you probably should do something else. (I think so too.)

Paul Griffin：这些工作我都很喜欢，既有挑战又有收获，但我最喜欢的还是动画导演，因为它最有意思。（我也是这么猜想的，那你究竟喜欢它什么？）我 喜欢和动画师们围坐在一起探讨和调整表演，最后想出一些绝妙的点子。这个过程既有趣，又有意义，因为我们怀着让观众满意的心情去做，大家就变得更有动力。 我喜欢动画是因为我可以扮演不同的角色，一条龙、一只恐龙，或是一条鱼，可谓无所不能。这就像是跳舞，舞者会因舞蹈产生“肌肉记忆”，动画师也一样，有时 候你做着做着就会不由自主地做出鱼游泳的动作或其他动物的动作。（自己表演起来了是吗？）是的，要做一个优秀的动画师就要学会表演，我认为这点非常重要。（所以说，虽然贵为导演，你还是得亲力亲为地去表演咯？）那 是当然，我有很多自己表演的视频，看起来很蠢，比如站在桌子上独魔乱舞或是做些傻动作。重要的是，当你放下矜持去像一个傻瓜一样做傻事时，你就可以有很多 新认识。有些动画师会说：“我才不干呢，这不是我的风格，我害怕做这种事。”但我作为导演，会把所有动画师纠集起来一起完成作品，一起表演，大家纷纷想出 新的动作姿势并跟着做，尤其是一些用语言无法生动表达的动作。在这过程中，所有人都会参与其中，具有集体归属感，这是难能可贵的一件事，没有参与的人反而 会觉得落单了。说到底，动画也是一种表演，如果不愿亲力亲为，那你可能要换工作了。（没错。）

Q. Among all the projects you’ve been working on, which one is the most challenging one?

蓝铅笔：在你参与过的所有项目中，哪一个项目最具挑战性？

A: There are several that have been really challenging, but let me explain why they’re challenging. It’s not because they’re difficult technically, or there’s something that comes up in the course of it in the physical producing of it that is difficult. The ones that have been most difficult, the most challenging are the ones you have people who are difficult. (So you have to work with different groups of people?) Yes, and sometimes you have to come up with very creative ways to manage that difficulty. (Sure.) And I have no trouble with people; directors are very demanding, and they want certain things; they want a level of quality. But those people have to do their job and be directors. They have to say what they want. The ones that are difficult are the ones that don’t know what they want. And they say “I’ll know when I see it.” And as soon as I hear that, you know, you can hear cash registers going off in your head; you know it’s gonna be expensive. That’s because somebody doesn’t know what he wants; that means you’re gonna go down one avenue and chase something, and if that’s not gonna work, then you’ll gonna try something else, and if that’s not gonna work, and you’ll try something else. And eventually you’re just gonna run out of time, and it will be whatever the last scene you’re working on, that will end up in the film. And that’s not a great way to work. What you want at least is somebody who have a certain level of direction, that’s the way you’re going. And what you wanna do is if that is a valid love of direction, and you always have to trust the director to believe that’s a valid choice. What you can do is you can help that; you can oddment that; you can bring things to that that help make it better; that make it more entertaining. But as long as there’s a level of vision, there’s something you can build on. So, as far as being…I wouldn’t say that the majority of projects have been that difficult. Because most of them I’ve enjoyed to work on. They’re really pleasant and pleasurable. But there’re the occasional ones that we ran into somebody who just doesn’t know what they’re looking for. Those ones were difficult. (There’re a lot of that kind of occasions or just once in a while?) Just once in a while. Thank goodness it doesn’t happen all the time. Otherwise I don’t think I can do this all the time. But yeah, like everything else, it’s like…you deal with it, and it may be very difficult at the time, or very political, but then the project is done, and you move on, and you’ll forget how much it hurts.

Paul Griffin：很多项目都挺具挑战的，但首先我要解释一下挑战来自于何处。它通常并不在于技术上有难度或制作过程本身有难点，而是在于你要在怎样的团队中工作。（您需要与不同的团队合作是吗？）是的，在处理这类问题上你必须要非常注意。（没错。）我 通常与人无争，但导演一般都对效果要求严苛，他们毕竟是掌舵的人嘛，对质量等各方面都有自己的要求。比较有挑战的就是遇到不清楚自己到底想要什么的导演， 他们会说：“看你们做出来的效果，我再告诉你是不是我想要的。”听到这句话我就能猜到，这部片子的预算要滚雪球似的膨胀了，因为导演自己都不知道自己想要 什么。这就意味着团队要做很多无谓的尝试，直到最后时间耗尽，草草收尾。这种工作经历会很糟糕，我们需要的是一位至少有明确方向的导演，这样你才能沿着那 个方向走下去，当导演能让你信服他的方向是正确的有价值的，你就会努力去完善它，让最终的效果更完美更有意思。但这一切的基础都是导演要有一定的方向和洞 见，其他人才能在此基础上增砖添瓦。大部分项目都不会那么困难，制作经历也都非常愉快。但偶尔也会遇到没有方向的导演。（这种情况发生的频率高吗？）不高，幸好不高，不然我都不知道要怎么撑不下来哈哈。但和做其他事情一样，当时可能会非常煎熬，但时过境迁之后也就渐渐淡忘了。

Q. Yeah, some of the projects must be very fun, right? what are some of your favorite projects?

蓝铅笔：总会遇到一些比较有意思的项目，你最喜欢的是那些项目呢？

A: Oh, wow, there are so many that I really enjoyed. I think the most recent big project was the Happy Big Feet 2 practically in Australia, and because we had so much fun with that crew. (I love that movie.) Oh, terrific, I’m glad you did. And before that, I enjoyed designing shots for King Kong. I think that was a lot of fun working directly with Peter Jackson, and he was like, you know, no other director I’ve worked with before. He really trust his creative development ideas, and then he cuts them together and complete them in a different way. So he just has great talent as a netter, so he can see things and he’ll ask for certain shots and tie other shots together. (And make it easier, right?) Yeah, and that’s a fun way of work. And it was nice to be involved and see some bigger brand films like Star Wars and Lord of Rings, and I enjoyed doing something very ground breaking work that my team and I did on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, you know, Brad Pitt starts very old and becomes younger over the course in the film, (right, it’s amazing.) I’ve also enjoyed a lot of non-film projects too. Every year we’ve got to work for ILM on some of the Super Bowl commercials for the Super Bowl in the United States. Those commercials are very highly creative and there’s generally a lot of money that goes into them, so you can make them very creatively beautiful. And some of the game projects are really fun; we had some of the Star Wars cinematics and we did for Bunny Hunter, that was a fun project with the crew and we developed new ways of working because we had to be very efficient with our technology, and the crew really enjoyed it; I really enjoyed it. It’s just very enjoyable. I could cross the board. (Sure.) And like I say, a lot of it depends on the people you’re working with. (Yes, that’s true.) Not necessarily the project; sometimes you look at a project and you just go:”I don’t know, I don’t find this screenplay that appealing. ” But what’s great is that you can look at who’s gonna involve in the film, and that makes it much more pleasurable and much more fun to work on when you have really great people working with you. (Sure, do you have to travel a lot for your work?) Yeah, actually, in the last ten years, I found that I’ve been travelling a lot more. When I was in ILM, of course, when you work in one company, that was almost ten years. And since then, I’ve been..I’ve worked in Santa Monica, Hollywood, Australia, New Zealand, can be China now, which is great. (Welcome!) Thank you! It’s good to hear.

Paul Griffin：我喜欢的项目还挺多的，比如最近的大项目《快乐的大脚2》。（我很喜欢这电影）你喜欢就好。此外还有《金刚》，能与Peter Jackson直接共事是一件乐事，他与我之前合作过的导演都不一样，非常重视创意，并会将一些想法进行解构，再用不同的方式重新整合。可以说，他是个善于重整的人，因此可以根据自己对效果的需求将各种镜头进行自由整合。（这就让大家的工作变得更加顺利了，是吗？）是这样，我还有幸参与了几部大片的制作，如《星球大战》、《指环王》、《返老还童》，在《返老还童》中，布拉德·皮特刚出场的时候非常老，并随着影片的进程逐渐变得年轻。（是啊，很不可思议。）我 还参与了其他非电影类项目的制作，美国的超级碗大赛期间，我也会为工业光魔制作一些广告。这期间的广告都颇具创意，因为预算经费很足，所以可以做得非常精 美。除此以外，有些游戏项目也很棒，我们曾经做过《星球大战》游戏和《Bunny Hunter》，尤其是后者的工作进程非常顺利，开发了新的流程来提升效率，所以我们都制作得非常愉快。总之，如我之前所说，项目是否顺利取决于和你共事 的人是否容易相处。（是的，确实是这样。）并非一定要好项目，有时候你接到一个项目后的第一反应是：“说不上好，感觉剧本不怎么吸引我。”但如果演职人员表中有一些很棒的人跟你共事，这个工作就会让人愉悦很多。（是啊，那你要经常出差吗？）没错，尤其是过去10年。在工业光魔的10年比较稳定，后来就在圣莫妮卡、好莱坞、澳大利亚、新西兰之间辗转，现在又来中国啦。（欢迎！）谢谢。

Q. What are your major influences? Any artists in particular or other media like movies and music?

蓝铅笔：什么对你产生了重要影响？有没有对你产生很大影响的艺术家或者其他媒介，比如音乐或者电影？

A: That’s really dangerous to ask me that, coz there are so…we could be here for like a few hours, but I’ll try to hit some high points. Of course, all the Warner Brothers’ directors like Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Bob Clampett had tremendous influence on me because every Saturday afternoon when I was growing up, we got one television station. (One television station?) Yeah, one television station. But every Saturday at 5pm we watched the Bugs Bunny Riven. My family would gather around and we’d make popcorn. We just loved this cartoon as kids, and we’d quote them all, you know, all the lines from it, so that was big influence. When I was a young animator, we travelled to Montreal one day to the National Film Board, and we got to meet Art Babbitt. Art Babbitt was the gentleman who designed Goofy for Walt Disney. And he was 93 years old, and we spent a day with him. It was just a really great day. He was so in love with doing animation. Still, at 93, it was amazing to watch. It was a great experience. And then, when I was living and working in New York as a young animator, essentially my first job, I got to work with 3 gentlemen there, and they were Johnny Gentilella, Earl James and Dante Barbetta. And these gentlemen were also quite aged, they were either in their late 70s or early 80s at the time, and Johnny Gentilella was a Popeye animator from Fleischer Studio and he used to tell us great stories of being a student, and Earl James was a Betty Boop animator. He was one of the original animators on that, and Dante Barbetta was… also from that area; he used to work at MGM Studios and a lot of studios on the east coast and he was an excellent excellent animator. And these are all guys who influenced me greatly just because of their love of what we do, and the stories they would tell and how they would transform when we become animators and get into roles, and you watch that and they go from very quiet and very reserved to be very boisterous and fun loving guys and I actually loved that, these gentlemen are very low key but when I talk about animation, they all get very passionate about this.

Paul Griffin：这个问题的风险很大啊，因为对我产生重要影响的事物太多了，聊上几个钟头都聊不 完，我尽量挑重点的来讲吧。最重要的当然是华纳兄弟的几位动画导演了，如Chuck Jones（恰克·琼斯）、Friz Freleng（弗立兹·弗里伦）、Bob Clampett（鲍勃·克兰皮特）等都对我产生了极其显著的影响，因为在我小时候，家里只有一个电视频道，每个周六下午5点，我们一家人都会一起围坐在 电视机前，边吃爆米花边看《兔八哥》。我们几个小孩子很喜欢这部动画片，会引用片中的台词，还能背出几乎所有台词，可想而知它对我的影响有多大了。在我成 长为一位年轻的动画师后，我们曾去了一趟位于蒙特利尔的加拿大电影局，去见了Art Babbitt，就是那位创建了高飞狗（Goofy）这一经典角色的动画师。他当时已经93岁高龄，我们和他待了一整天，这是具有非凡意义的一天。他对动 画充满了热忱，即便如此高龄依然热情不减，让我们大开眼界。后来我去了纽约发展，算是我的第一个工作，并在那里与三位动画大师共事，分别是Johnny Gentilella、Earl James和Dante Barbetta。这三位大师都年事已高，都是古稀耄耋之辈。Johnny Gentilella曾为Fleischer Studio做过《大力水手》；Earl James曾做过《贝蒂娃娃(Betty Boop)》，也是一位元老级动画师；Dante Barbetta曾在MGM Studios（米高梅）以及许多美国东海岸的工作室工作过，是一位非常出色的动画师。这些都是对我影响很大的人，他们对动画的热爱、他们所讲述的故事、 传授的经验，都深深地影响了我。他们平时安静低调，但一聊到动画就变得神采飞扬，津津乐道，充满了热情，我非常欣赏这一点。

(So they’ve always been passionate their whole life?) I would think so. I mean, being that old and still being passionate, I don’t think that’s something you can fake. (Sure.) But musically, I’m a musician myself too. I think there’re great parallels between doing animation and being a musician; between how you craft music and how you craft animation. And that’s a whole different topic, and it could take another couple hours to talk about. But you know I’ve always loved the great music scores of John Williams and James Corner and there’re so many scores I buy because they are just so rich and so powerful and so emotional. And I love listening to that, and I think there’s great influence for animators to… and I’ll mention one more; I used to work down the hall from Carter Burwell. Carter Burwell is also a great resent composer and he organizes music for a lot of films. And what I really liked Carter is how versatile and how variable he is in putting together film scores; he does a lot for the Coen brothers, just for every film they’ve done. But anyway, I was in the office down the hall where worked as an animator… (Would you like to use your own music? Maybe someday in your own movie?) I do, sure. So whenever I do something that needs some music, I’ll just write my own and produce in piano and overlay some base tracks coz I play keyboards in base and guitar. Not a very good drummer; my son is a drummer. (Brad?) Yeah, so yeah, we’ll do our own music, it’s fun.

（他们一辈子都对动画如此着迷吗？）我想是这样的，都那么大岁数了还仍然保持那份热情， 装都是装不出来的。就音乐方面而言——我自己也算的上是个音乐人——我认为动画和音乐之间有着互通的关系，动画的创作和音乐的创作之间也是如此。这又是个 新话题，讲上几个钟头也讲不完。不过，简单来说，我很欣赏John Williams和James Corner的曲子，我买了很多专辑，只为感受它们所蕴含的强大而撩拨心弦的力量，对动画师也很有帮助。…差点忘提另一位我喜欢的作曲家——Carter Burwell。我之前的办公地点与他很近，隔了条走廊而已。Carter Burwell是一位伟大的当代作曲家，为许多电影配过乐。他在配乐方面非常多才多艺，也善于变通，曾为Coen兄弟创作了许多插曲配乐，他们的每部电影 都有他的作品。（你会不会某天在自己的电影中采用你亲自编写的曲子？）当然啦。每当我在做一个需要用到配乐的作品时，我就会自己编曲，用钢琴弹奏，并加上一些贝斯乐——我是个贝斯手和吉他手，但不会打架子鼓，我儿子会打。（你儿子Brad？）是的，我们会自己谱曲，很有意思。

都看到这儿了，点个赞再走呗。 (/ω・＼)

蓝铅笔·发现艺术之美。