A Quote by Dan Scanlon

I think the biggest difference is in live action, you show up, and there's a set there and a ground to stand on, at least, and in animation, there's kinda nothing. You are making decisions on everything.
I think the No. 1 lesson I learned from 'The Simpsons' was just that animation could be as funny as live-action. That animation could be funnier than live-action. That animation didn't have to just be for kids.
I think I kind of approached music with this sort of, like, weird thing where I kinda set myself up where I could kinda be myself but not really. I kinda had a backdoor out. So if you criticized me, I kinda had my defenses working. And the problem is that some people seize on that as inauthenticity, which is understandable. So that's painful because it's not that you're being inauthentic...there's a difference between being a poseur and being someone who's so emotionally challenged they're kind of just doing their best to show you what they've got.
I do have more directorial control over animation, because it's like trial and error: If something doesn't work, you can always go back and change certain things. Whereas in live action, every day is a challenge, and you have to make decisions on an hourly basis. So in live action I have more freedom as a director, but in animation, I have more control over the final product.
It's not quite the same as other kinds of performing, but I love animation. It is just a different kind of experience. The difference is that making a live action movie you are using your whole body.
In terms of writing characters or stories, at least initially, there's no difference between live-action and animation. A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.
Even when I'm writing animation, I think of them as real people. I think of them as completely three-dimensional beings, even if it's a talking teapot. I don't think of them as one-dimensional drawn characters running around. Maybe that's why, to me, there's really no difference in writing the two - animation versus live action.
I prefer that animation reach into places where live action doesn't go, and it seems like all of animation nowadays is trying to go where live action is.
Luckily with animation, they give you a lot more leeway than a live-action show.
I'm surrounded by a lot of live-action movie professionals, and I'm just taking their lead, as far as what to schedule to do next. I'm guessing the challenge is going to be not having two characters together, and shooting the live-action without having the animation. In animation, you get to get in between every frame and you work it all out together.
I get asked a lot if I'd want to get into live-action movies, and the answer, honestly, is 'no.' I'm an illustrator, and I think animation is an extension of that way of expressing myself. That's not to say I'd never make a live-action movie, but I don't strive for it.
If I really feel that I want to shoot live people and live backgrounds, then that movie will become live-action. If I don't have any particular actors I want to use, I'd probably consider animation for that project. Which medium I use doesn't really make that much difference to me.
I love the culture of animation. What stop-motion has in common with live-action is that it has many of the same departments. There's hair, costume, makeup in the form of paint, gaffers, electricians. So there's the same sense of real stuff, real light. But it's not like everything happens at once, like it does in live-action. It's all subdivided into these small sets. It's where my strengths are. Live-action is just an utterly different world, and I'm not a public enough persona to be big and loud at the front of the ship. I'd rather more quietly interact with the artisan animators.
I knew I wanted to be in comedy but the path of least resistance was doing stand-up in folk music clubs where I could get on stage. I guess you could get up no matter how bad you were and you didn't have to audition. You just got up. Everything else required an audition and if you auditioned for a TV show, you would stand in line with a hundred other people. But at the clubs, it was okay just to get up, so that's why I started in stand-up.
I think animation can tell more than live action.
People often avoid making decisions out of fear of making a mistake. Actually the failure to make decisions is one of life's biggest mistakes.
On an animated movie, I'm learning as I go. There are so many details in animation. Doing the voices was the easy-part. Doing live-action, you have to be on the set, every day.
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