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[00:00:00] Intro

[00:00:00] Shannon Tindle: failure is an option and we encourage you to do it as quickly as possible. Because you learn from it.

[00:00:08] Rob Bredow: Welcome to the Lighter Darker podcast where we talk about the creative process of filmmaking and the art of visual storytelling. Thank you so much for joining us today. This is our sixth episode, six of twenty, that we have planned for season one and we release every other Tuesday.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Todd is out on vacation. And today we have two special guests to help me co host the podcast. So let me give you a brief introduction to guest number one, Shannon Tindle.

He doesn't really need an introduction. I'm sure you all know Shannon.

[00:00:42] Shannon Tindle: I think I do.

[00:00:44] Rob Bredow: Barely. Uh, he was a character designer on Samurai Jack, Megamind of course, has a story by, credit, and designed characters and did many other things. His fingerprints are everywhere on Kubo and the Two Strings. and then more recently, most recently, he show ran the beautiful Lost Ollie, which you can see on Netflix if you haven't already seen it. I highly recommend it. And then just this year, Ultraman: Rising, the feature film he wrote and directed, worked on that for a couple of years, Shannon.

[00:01:13] Shannon Tindle: Couple of years.

[00:01:15] Rob Bredow: Shannon, thank you for coming to the podcast.

[00:01:17] Shannon Tindle: So happy to be here. Y'all know how much of a fan I am of Industrial Light & Magic. So, I'm very happy to be here.

[00:01:24] Rob Bredow: It's so lovely to have you calling out artists by name, online to support the craftspeople behind the work that you're doing, Shannon. It's one of the things we want to celebrate.

[00:01:34] Shannon Tindle: Speaking of it's, it sucks that Todd's not on this call cause we followed each other for a long time on social media, but we've never met or chatted, so we'll have to remedy that.

[00:01:43] Rob Bredow: We will have to do a reprise of Shannon Tindle on the podcast not on vacation. That'd be great.

[00:01:48] Shannon Tindle: Yes.

[00:01:49] Rob Bredow: Joining Shannon is Hayden Jones, Industrial Light & Magic visual effects supervisor. He's won BAFTAs and Emmys for shows like Black Mirror and The Mandalorian. He's got credits dating back to Lost in Space and Mission Impossible 2, so he's been doing this for a couple years.

Hayden Jones: You're making me feel really…

Rob Bredow: Lost in Space I remember watching that in the theater, so, I think I might have a couple years on you. Hayden also served as the overall visual effects supervisor for ILM, and the production, working for Shannon and the team on both Lost Ollie and Ultraman: Rising.

[00:02:21] Hayden Jones: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

[00:02:23] Rob Bredow: It's great to have you here, too. And as always, our producer, Jenny Ely, has joined us as well.

[00:02:28] Jenny Ely: Hello, good to be here.

[00:02:30] Rob Bredow: as always, I'm Rob Bredow. I'm the Chief Creative Officer at ILM and SVP of Creative Innovation at Lucasfilm. and we're excited to dive right into today's shows. We've got it, organized into three sections. We're going to start with a couple of features. We're going to dive into, first, rejection letters.

And then we're going to talk about deleted dreams. And then our main topic for the day is really empathy in animation. And there's no better person, I think, to talk to about empathy in animation than Shannon, who's really, I think, continues to elevate what can be done in the art form in that way and these kind of heartfelt stories that I just love.

[00:03:01] Rejection Letters

[00:03:01] Rob Bredow: So we'll be excited to dive into that as our main topic. But before we get to the fun stuff about empathy, let's talk about rejection letters. And this idea for this section, Shannon, is, you know, people always say you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. But of course, when you get on a podcast, we always just talk about our success stories.

But people are listening to this show who have not had the kind of success that somebody like Shannon Tindle has had. So what are those moments before the moment, you know, when the door closed, what did you do, and how did you kind of overcome some of that adversity? And, uh, you know, what were those moments like in your life?

Did you have something in mind?

[00:03:35] Shannon Tindle: Yeah, I, you know, where I grew up in Kentucky, there aren't a low, a whole lot of people who do what I do. And so it's this thing that you see from afar, you know, I grew up reading Cinefax and Cinefantastique and, watching behind the scenes specials and, on making films and never really thinking that I could do it.

And I always drew too. So, we were going through Disney world one year and they had what they called the fish bowl at the time. and you could see the animators working. And I would just stay there for hours. I would sneak cause they would usher the tour open and I would kind of hide in the background and then wait, so that I could just keep staring at, uh, Bruce Johnson was actually the animator whom I've never met. and, and I would just watch and just dream of doing this. And my dad, I was actually a biology major at the University of Louisville, and I was doing well, but he was like, you know, you're not, you don't seem to be into this. You seem to want to do something else. And,I said, well, I'd like to get into film.

I'd like to get into animation. So let's figure it out. So I told him about CalArts and at the last minute, just before submitting portfolios, I'd never put a portfolio together. I'd always drawn and I'd taken some art classes in high school, but that was my only formal education. So I submitted my portfolio to CalArts within a month to put a portfolio together and I got rejected.

[00:04:59] Rob Bredow: And just to double check, you were already in college

[00:05:03] Shannon Tindle: Yeah, I was, uh, I was considering a career in medicine and being a doctor. both my parents are nurses and, uh, thought about going to medical school because I've always loved biology and anatomy and those kinds of things but, you know, dad could read me and said, let's pursue this.

So I submitted my portfolio and I didn't get in. And my dad, being my dad, maybe this is where I get some of my tenacity from, I'd certainly from my mom as well. But he called the school and he said, does he have a chance or should he just pack it up? And they said, actually, he got really close. So that was kind of the encouragement that I needed.

And then I spent the whole next year. Putting a portfolio together, and I worked full time too because I knew CalArts was expensive And I hoped to get some scholarships, and then I was just saving every penny I had you know

[00:05:54] Rob Bredow: Were you going to school at this time too, Shannon? Or was it just all, you burned the bridges.

[00:05:58] Shannon Tindle: Yeah, I burned the bridges. I was working full time at a printing company And, working second shift, which allowed me to go to the zoo and do drawings and work on the portfolio during the day.

And that was seven days a week I was doing that, getting it ready. and what actually was helpful too is we flew out to visit CalArts. Dad's if you're going to go for this, let's fly out. And I met the teachers and I'll never forget, I met Corny Cole, who was a legend in animation. He worked with Chuck Jones, one of the few artists that got screen credit on later Chuck Jones cartoons for layout along with Bruce Noble, and just a lovely quirky individual.

And he kind of took me under his wing and he would send me photocopies of artists I should study and he would look at drawings. So I put that portfolio together and then, okay, here comes the time again. I've just spent another year, will I get in or will I won't after having been rejected once. And right when the results were going to come in, my little town of Shepherdsville, Kentucky, as prominently featured in Lost Ollie, floods and we weren't getting any mail.

And I'll never forget, I was working at the printing company and my dad had called CalArts and said, Look, here's the situation. We're not getting mail. The town's underwater. Can you let us know? And my dad called me and I'll never forget he, he was crying on the phone. He said, you got it.

And that was, one of many trials and rejections there've been many over the years.

And, you know, some people say you need to have something to fight. I certainly don't have a problem, as Hayden can tell you, Rob. Uh, not fighting with Hayde, but fighting for something that I believe in and what I want to do. And to have parents who were so encouraging, is the reason that I think I stuck it out and why I've continued to be stubborn about this business.

[00:07:47] Rob Bredow: What an amazing story. You know. I have a CalArts rejection story too. I brought my portfolio but it was all computer graphics art. And at the time they had computer graphics, this early 90s. And, computer graphics was in the experimental animation section. And they didn't really have, at least the people we talked to at CalArts at the time, didn't really have a way of evaluating a portfolio of someone who wasn't able to do the life drawing at the level that people like you were able to do at the time.

So they basically said, you can apply, but it's very unlikely you're going to make it here at CalArts because there's a certain level of minimum competency you're going to need to have with a pencil to be able to do this. So I actually didn't go to CalArts. I went to another university and majored in radio, tv, film, which was an interesting process, but such, an amazing story for you to have persevered through that first round.

[00:08:37] Shannon Tindle: what it allowed me to do, too, it was kind of a blessing in disguise, I was able to save more money. and then I actually got some scholarships as well. So, and I have to give Frank Terry a shout out too, Frank was the head of the department at the time who, and he's no longer with us, but he was just, an incredibly, kind man.

And, you know, I didn't have a whole lot of money in second year when it came around to stick around at CalArts. And I went to him, I said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to come back. And he made sure that I got the help I needed to be able to stay. So, yeah, you gotta, you, we all have those people too that I always want to call out is, you know, there's me trying to do my thing, but I wouldn't, my career wouldn't be possible without the people who've helped me along the way.

So.

[00:09:18] Rob Bredow: Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, that's an amazing story. And quite, there's that legacy, that era, actually many eras of CalArts, but that era of CalArts, the people who came out of those classes in that time have all gone on to such success. Certainly some of your classmates. Was that, were the years that you were at CalArts also overlapping with a lot of other people that you're still interacting with today?

[00:09:42] Shannon Tindle: Yes, I actually, You know, my closest friends who I still not only hang out with, but we work together. I just showed Ultraman at Pixar and my good buddy Pete Soane, who was at CalArts at the time, directed The Good Dinosaur and Elemental. You know, he's doing alright

[00:10:00] Rob Bredow: Pete's such a delightful person.

[00:10:02] Shannon Tindle: And then guys like Pete Browngardt, who's over at, Warner Brothers doing all the Looney Tunes stuff over there, just exceptional work from Pete. And then Shane Prigmore, who's the exec at Disney and Skydance, but he's now, back at Warner Brothers directing a new film that I don't think I can talk about.

But, yeah, I still, I'm still very close with those folks. Andy Shuler. Anna Chambers, who Pete married Pete, and is an incredible artist, as well. So yeah, we had a lot of good folks here, and I think around the time that you were trying to get in, Rob, that would have been like the Genndy, Craig McCracken era.

So, Stu Mashwitz, I think, was there as well. They were doing those crazy films. If you've seen the killer films, you gotta watch them.

[00:10:43] Rob Bredow: I ended up not getting to go to CalArts, but when my first job in the industry was a little company called VisionArt Design and Animation. And I was working next to a guy, Wayne Vincenzi, and another guy, Ed, whose last name is escaping me right now. They both had just graduated from CalArts and knew all of those people who were just graduating.

So I got to sit next to them and build up my artistic skills, learning from these people who had just had all this amazing experience. So you, getting to balance the artistic and the technical side was such a joy to get to do on the job when I didn't have the opportunity to do that at the school.

[00:11:18] Shannon Tindle: Yeah.

[00:11:19] Rob Bredow: Amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that setback story, but also the optimism behind that, Shannon. It's so much fun.

[00:11:25] Deleted Dreams

[00:11:25] Rob Bredow: We're going to move on to a second feature called Deleted Dreams, and the fun about this is you're talking about a shot or a sequence or a minute that had to be omitted from a film to serve the greater needs of the film.

But you know, you can still love it. You can still celebrate the beauty that went into that. And I don't know, Hayden, if you brought anything, if you had anything in mind that you wanted to share, because all of us have these stories of omits.

[00:11:46] Hayden Jones: I think one of the things that really resonated is actually on Ultraman and, there was a point, during production where it felt like there needed to be almost like a title sequence to do a kind of, you know, a bit of backstory on some of the characters. And, I remember Shannon going well, you know.

This is the kind of story we want to tell. And these are the, all the beats. And we just been sharing, the human target, which is a great graphic novel by, Greg Smallwood, the illustrator, amazing,

[00:12:19] Shannon Tindle: Yeah. Written by Tom King, I think.

[00:12:22] Hayden Jones: Tom King. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. I mean, really beautiful kind of graphic novel.

And I was wow, you know, maybe we could kind of use a little bit of the themes of the illustration from that, but kind of give it an anime manga kind of twist. And I think you pitched it. To us on a Friday. And I spent the whole weekend just imagining what this whole sequence was going to be like.

And it was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to do a pitch deck and we're going to, we're going to really wow, Shannon, when he comes back on Monday with what we've got. And I remember getting on the call and Shannon was like, I think everyone wants to go in a different direction now. And I was like, but I've got this beautiful pitch deck and it's great.

And I can almost see it in my head and I really want to make this. And, it was like. Yeah, no, I think it's all going to go in a different direction. And we were like, Oh, well, next time we'll,kind of like have it.

[00:13:14] Shannon Tindle: We tried it. I wrote it, and we tried it, and every time we boarded it, it just felt like it added time without actually adding too much information. And, it's one of the things that I think you see in a lot of animated films, especially because you're building, and there, a lot of the instinct is, well, let's tell everybody, let's set up the whole world.

I kind of go the other way. And say, no, let's throw them into the middle of the world. As you would if you dropped into the middle of a TV show. When I was a kid and I found Ultraman, I didn't start from the first episode, I started from the middle.

[00:13:48] Hayden Jones: it, you know, as the film is now, it's great because it has this pace at the start where it doesn't need to slow down for a title sequence. You don't need that kind of exposition. And it was so the right choice

[00:14:02] Shannon Tindle: You know, one of the things I've said too is, it's a Ken Sato story. It's a family story. It's not really about Ultraman. He happens to be Ultraman. So that's about the family. but yeah, they were like, I was excited too. I remember when you were pitching that stuff.

And what's interesting since Greg Smallwood has posted his inspiration as being 101 Dalmatians. So drawing from animation, feeding back into it, but. But, yeah, there was, there were things, I tend to be more of the things I wish we'd kept.there are things like, man, this would have been great if we could have kept it like that.

The epilogue that we had for Ollie.

[00:14:38] Hayden Jones: oh, the epilogue for Ollie would have been fantastic, heartbreaking and inspirational at the same time, there's so many moments as well and I think. I think it's really difficult whenever you're working on a project because you see that project with a completely different view to how the viewer sees it because you see all of these kinds of terms and places that the script once went and now it doesn't anymore.

And so I think when you're working on a show, you have this almost like constant director's cut of everything and everything you've ever seen. because there's so many moments,that you wish you could kind of resurrect on a show. Yeah.

[00:15:24] Rob Bredow: Of things that give you that perspective of the first time viewer?

[00:15:29] Shannon Tindle: It's always changing. It's never the same. That's one of the reasons I get bored,it's never the same. You're constantly evolving. I would say the core of what we did with Ultraman is there. and much of the details of it remained as well, but it's constantly moving. And sometimes for the better, sometimes you're learning a lesson, sometimes you're trying things and you're moving.

You don't really have time to get bored. And Hayden knows this too. Like I'm usually working on about three or four other things as well that kind of keep my brain fresh so that I can come to it every day. And the way that you get fresh eyes is everybody on your crew, they're not seeing the whole thing.

They're kind of focused on one section of it. So when they see the whole thing, you get plenty of opinions and plenty of honesty about what should be fixed and what should be changed. And then you have to figure that out. Same thing with the studio. and then there are the little Christmas packages that keep me going every day when we would get a sync sketch link from you guys.

And I knew I was going to be seeing new stuff. I got, I got giddy because it's, you know, it's been in my head for so long. And now it's been passed along to exceptional artists, and there's their version of it. And it happens not, it happens internally in the art department, with the story team, really with everybody.

And then when you actually see, you're doing rough layout, or you're doing lighting and comp and animation, all those steps add to the excitement of it to keep it fresh.

[00:17:06] Hayden Jones: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think,I think as well that goes through supervision too, because you never want to be completely prescriptive about it. You want to allow the artist to have this kind of flexibility and a conversation about what the shots could be. And it's those,times where you see it in dailies and go,

I never realized that it was going to go together in this way. It's better than I imagined. Let's get it in front of Shannon. That's where the excitement comes day after day. you're always on this kind of like tsunami of excitement where if you can inspire the rest of the team, the rest of the team then returns the pleasure and inspires you back.

[00:17:44] Empathy in Animation

[00:17:44] Rob Bredow: Love that. Well, that's kind of a perfect segue to talk about, to transition to talking about our main topic, which is empathy in animation, and I think it's such a perfect thing to talk about with this group, because whether you're thinking about Lost Ollie, or Kubo, or Ultraman, these are such empathetic characters and stories, and there's so much emotion on the screen, and I guess I'm curious first, Shannon,what draws you to these kind of stories that have,this much heart, how have you worked that in to be such a theme of your work?

[00:18:17] Shannon Tindle: It's the kind of stories that I'm attracted to in other media, whether it's books or games or TV shows, films. I'm a huge Dickens fan and there's a lot of empathy in his work. If you read Great Expectations or Oliver Twist, Christmas Carol, even Christmas Carol's empathy toward the villain.

The villain is the star of the story, right? I often say, when I get the note, I don't know if that character's likable enough. And I'm like, imagine if you'd said that when you got the first draft of A Christmas Carol. We'd never have that story.He's despicable. But that redemption story is such an incredible thing to read.

And the other thing too, is I don't mind if you hate my thing, whatever I've made, the worst thing is for you to be indifferent about it. Be like, eh, whatever. It's forgettable. That's the worst. And I think empathy is one of those ways where no matter what the subject matter is, whether it's, you know, in the case of Ultraman, and it's about this. 150 foot tall superhero or Lost Ollie. It's about a little handmade toy You can call it whether you're into characters like Ultraman or not or whether you're into things that you might normally think would be just standard kind of kiddie fare I think there's an opportunity there to reach a broad audience by speaking To things that everybody can relate to No matter where you are, no matter where you came from, we've all dealt with the loss of a loved one.

We've all dealt with feeling inadequate in a moment or not feeling that we're living up to the legacy that's been established before us by our family. We all feel those things. and I think it's the most memorable stories, the most timeless stories, and I think it's what is so remarkable about, you know, Spielberg's catalog, or somebody like Frank Capra.

You know, Frank Capra got criticized. They called it Capricorn because they would say he's, he leans so much into it. But people are still talking about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. People are still talking about It's a Wonderful Life. And I think what a lot of people forget about a film like It's a Wonderful Life is it's hard.

It's, you know, that character, George Bailey goes through a lot. He loses things often. He loses his dad early in the film. And to put somebody in that position, is something that allows them to connect with your work. But also, being able to put your own experiences into your work.

You know, it's, things like. Kubo, for example, his mother losing his memories. It's an experience that I had with my mother in law. It's an experience that I had with my family. I've lost several family members to Huntington's disease, which is a horrible disease. And, I think it's why memory recurs in my work.

This idea that you have all this history you've built over years of a life, and that it could all be forgotten. And what a precious treasure to lose. And, but also I think it's a mistake to avoid talking about those things. The more you talk about it, the more empathy you can inspire people.

And you can make it, I wouldn't say easier, but make it more, a part of life. These things happen and there's loss and we can mourn someone and we can also celebrate them. The other thing I think empathetic filmmaking does is allows us to see other people's experiences. and maybe experiences that we haven't gone through, but I can still connect with the character and understand them through the moments I'm seeing on screen. That's why it's, endlessly, engaging for me. I'm fine laughing for 90 minutes, but if I don't feel anything after it, It's like junk food.

You know, it's fine. You feel like you enjoy it while you're eating it. Then you kind of just feel empty afterward. And I'd rather, you know, give you more of a home cooked meal.

[00:22:20] Rob Bredow: as you were describing. those scenes that make you feel that way. I mean, my mind flashes to the campfire scene out in the wilderness, and you describing the importance of memory and the personal value in that, and then the, for his father to be showing the kind of interest that he never knew he was going to, and then committing those to like physical items on the wall, it makes that sort of demonstration even more meaningful.

[00:22:46] Shannon Tindle: I think it's why, too, not to give an excuse for my peccadillos, but it's probably why I'm a bit of a hoarder, too. I don't like to get rid of anything. Because, you know, you go through those things, and you're cycling through them, and you start to see Oh my gosh, here's an old picture. Oh, here's a drawing I did.

Those are things that I show to my daughter. I'll say, okay, you see how I draw now. Look how I drew just 10 years ago. Not great. You know, it's a work in progress. So one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was, Regina Dugan, who was my boss at the ATAP team at Google when I was doing a spotlight story.

And she said, failure is an option and we encourage you to do it as quickly as possible. Because you learn from it. And to have that freedom, to have somebody over you who is as smart as Regina, but Regina is also a very empathetic person, to say, it's okay to fail. We're in, like we have whole projects here that we try that don't work.

But we learned something huge from them by trying it. and it's the same thing. When you make things, I wish more companies would do this, would take the fear out of the thing that you're doing. I think that they would probably get much better results. And you'd get bolder ideas and more long lasting things.

And investing in all these original things that we've been strip mining for years now. Let's make way for some new ideas because those bold ideas are why you're able to benefit off of it years later. But there's such a fear around it. There's a fear of failure. But just say it's okay to fail.

It's not catastrophic. We learned something from that. Maybe we need to learn how to do it better. Or learn how to do it differently. Or learn that maybe we shouldn't do that. But at least give it a shot. Try it.

[00:24:31] Rob Bredow: Well that's the kind of culture that I think Hayden and the team experienced on your two projects that we've just recently done together where it, all the feedback from the artists on that show, from the production teams, from the support staff, it was universal that everyone was on the same team pulling together, trying stuff, and of course there's always setbacks in something as complicated as a film or a series like this, but every time it was like okay, where do we go from here In a very constructive way, where you get amazing, people are so motivated to do some of the best work of their careers in that kind of environment.

[00:25:08] Shannon Tindle: Well, and when you work at a team like that, if there's a mistake made or if something is tried and it didn't work out, you still know that nine times out of 10, everybody on the team is trying to support what that idea is. I'm forever grateful for a bunch of people getting together and me having had an idea.

Like I had an idea. This is a crazy idea. I thought we'd tell it as a story. When people are going to give of their time, and that's time away from friends and family they're giving to you, working long hours, you know, of course I'm going to listen. Of course I want to hear what folks have to say because they're going to make your thing better.

They're way better at a million things that you're not good at. and trying to recognize that and then having support. And I got to give a shout out to all the great producers I've had as well. You know, Tom and Lisa on Ultraman. They espouse the same sort of philosophy, working with Peter Ramsey, working with the folks at, you know, Josh and Emily at 21 Laps, on Ollie, Teddy Biaselli.

Those folks were people who said, yeah, let's give it a shot. Let's try this thing. And it's so funny too, when they talk about Ollie, they're, I think there are things that people thought that we got the heaviest notes on, which like the harder things in the series, we rarely got a note on those things.

They believed in that series and they supported those big swings. You know, doing an episode that is mostly, for the first 10 or 15 minutes of episode 3, there's not much talking. So that was a big swing that we took and that was supported by, by Teddy and the folks surrounding us. So, of course, when you have people at the caliber that I get to work with, why wouldn't you trust them?

Why wouldn't you lean on them to say, Hey, I'm not quite sure what I want to do here.

Throw your ideas out there and let's see what happens.

[00:26:58] Rob Bredow: Yeah, that's great.

[00:26:59] Hayden Jones: But I think that's definitely the best way of working with the team because I think that empathy pays back to you. You know, you get the sense that all of the crew understood that's where you were coming from and you communicated it so effectively to them, Shannon, that, you know, they were empowered to do.

Like a really special thing, they were there pushing that extra 10 percent just to really nail what your vision was. But I think it was because they realized it was almost like a safe space. They always knew that you were going to be really grateful. And even if it was, even if it was like, this is great, but no.

They knew that it was like a respectful no, and it was like a kind of, no, that's not where I want to go, but it's great. Let's go in this direction. Instead, it works so well. And it's almost textbook of how to really communicate creatively with a

[00:27:49] Shannon Tindle: But let me ricochet that back to you as well. to you and to Steph and to Christine on Ollie and Sean, on Ultraman and all of our supervisors. There is just a way, I'll tell you this, I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again. When I was a kid, I wish I, I wanted to work at ILM to be able

[00:28:10] Hayden Jones: Me, me too. Shannon, me too.

[00:28:11] Shannon Tindle: Here you are, and to be able to do it now.

And to have had the experience I've had where it's, again, the philosophies and the things that I hold dear have been shared by the teams that I've worked on, which is why I keep trying to figure it out. I tell Rob, I may have told you this before, but I know I've said it to Hayde a million times. I wake up many times thinking, man, I've got to get this next thing going so I can The folks at ILM again.

So, um, so, uh, yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it, and I bring it up when I go into a meeting, you know, who'd be great at doing that thing that we have to do. I'm trying to be as, as neutral as I can without revealing things that I'm working about to work on. So yeah, very secret things. But, it's, you want, when you get a team together, when you get a great team together, you want to keep it together.

There were lots of problems with the old studio system. Lots of problems. But the things that they got right were, you had groups of folks, like when John Ford was doing a movie, he got to work with the same crew again and again. He got to make lots of movies, because he was under contract to make lots of movies.

So making lots of movies with the same people over and over again, You're gonna get better at it, and you're gonna get better at it together. And when you have, just take one person being really good at something, or one person with a team where they're all together working on it and getting better at it, man.

I told Hayde, I was like, imagine after having done Oli, after having done Ultraman, imagine what we could do in the next one. Because we're all, I know Hayde you were doing it, Steph was doing it, Christine, Sean, everybody down the line, It was like, Oh man, what if we tried this next time? Or what do we learn from that mistake?

So I'm constantly, I have a little journal of the things I got wrong. and I do it on a daily basis. I'll write a note down on my phone or how could I have communicated that clip more clearly? Maybe we will try this next time. Maybe we do this. Why was, maybe I shouldn't have been so insistent on this, all those things to go back in and say, how can we get better at it?

Because. Everybody on this call knows how hard it is to make the things that we make. It's a privileged position to be in, but it doesn't mean it's not hard to do and then you want to do it well.

[00:30:32] Hayden Jones: It's really interesting because for many years, I used to have quite a heavy level of imposter syndrome. And you used to kind of sit there thinking, I'm making this up as I go along, but I think it was a kind of superpower in a strange way, because every project you were believing you were making it up as you went along, but the next project you were going to do it better, and the next project you were going to do it better, and the next, and it meant that you were always constantly trying to focus on the things you could do better next time.

And as it went on, then your imposter syndrome kind of settles down, you go, actually. Kind of, we've been through this enough times now where I think we do know what we're doing and we're just getting better and better at it. So, yeah, I'm completely with you, Shannon. You just got to kind of iteratively get better each project.

[00:31:21] Jenny Ely: Shannon, I have a question. I do follow you on Instagram and your Jim Gordon series is just one of my favorite things ever. And I'm curious if, do you use that to sort of practice those like looks in those situations of empathy? Because some of them are just heartbreaking.

[00:31:36] Shannon Tindle: So, I started doing those drawings during covid and I did the first on some Ingram animation paper and some black wing pencils, and I just started drawing them. but it's the way I get, like certain things that I'm feeling out, some things are not connected to me. People have actually reached out when I posted, are you okay, man?

Are you all right?

I want to keep my drawing chops up. So I'm always drawing and trying to do it. But it's been so incredible that Gordon, just something I do on my own is the thing that gets brought up more than anything else. When I meet people for the first time. That is because it's me.

I think in my purest form of just being honest with no notes and just putting down, and I've got, you usually got like six or seven that I'm working on at once and I just,I'll move away from it because it's just, maybe it's technically hard or I don't have the time for it, but that always means a lot when people bring it up.

And speaking about empathy too, when people bring their own experiences to things, we'll talk about animators, like bringing those experiences to things, I think it's one of the reasons, anybody who knows me and sees Emi in Ultraman sees my daughter.

But people who don't know me at all say, that's my daughter, that's my niece, you know, that's my nephew. They recognize themselves in it. It's because as a collective team, not just my experiences, but the experiences of everybody involved in the film informed who that character became. And that's why I think there's been this connection with her.

In a way that I was hopeful for, but wasn't expecting that there'd be anybody who's seen the film has seen her, I see this a lot on Twitter. That's my baby. That's my child. It's funny how these things go out into the world, they become everybody else's.

They're no longer just yours. They're shared with everybody. So, there are great things about it. And there are not so great things about it, but it's pretty incredible to watch.

[00:33:29] Rob Bredow: Pretty fun. from a, kind of a day to day. Craft perspective, Shannon, when you're working on some of the quieter scenes that are carrying all this emotion, usually in the subtext, how, especially in animation, when everything is so calculated and you've got a team of people trying to execute those notes, how are you kind of striking that balance between being too on the nose with the animation notes and the performances to where you're kind of Everything is too visually demonstrated, not held back enough, but just enough to where everybody knows exactly what you're communicating.

Your shows do that so particularly well, and I'm curious how you're working with the teams to kind of help that happen.

[00:34:08] Shannon Tindle: Well, it's reminding yourself of the initial thing that you pitched or being reminded of it. And I need to have people remind me sometimes, this is, remember this is what you pitched, and this is what I responded to in your pitch, and you're like, yeah, you know what, you're right, I forgot about that because of all the other noise that's happening.

And then, I think just repeating it, what are the goals of this film, what does this character want, what does the character want in this moment, those are the questions that I do. And my writing process is, you know, I get up really early, get up at five or five thirty in the morning. Make coffee, and I get right into it.

I don't dilly dally, I get right into it. Then, I'll go for a walk. I'll go on a big walk, and I'm writing while I'm walking. And I'm really it in my head. I usually put a piece of music that is appropriate for the thing I'm working on with Ollie. It was a Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson, that album, which is an amazing album.

And also Daniel Hart's score for A Ghost Story, which is a very powerful ,moving, film. And, it's just getting my head in the right space and seeing it. What time of day is it? What's the weather like and how does that affect the character? Are there things that can frustrate the character in a moment?

There's that moment where Coach Shimura is walking out of the locker room in Ultraman and he bumps his shoulder on the door and that was inspired by a story I'd heard. about a legendary filmmaker being frustrated in a meeting and how little things that happened during the meeting made this person more frustrated.

Or the idea of Ken's dad, when he's getting into the car, he's dropping his keys, making him more embarrassed. He's already embarrassed. He's already feeling shame because he's had his own mistakes called out to him, but he's also been misjudged.

And we've all been through that, right? You know, when you're having a rough day, But let's just. let's make that feel worse for the character in that moment while he drops his keys, which I think was the idea of the animator, in that scene. It's layering it, going back in and revising it, and that's what filmmaking allows, especially with animation because you're working on it for so long is, you know, you get out those basic beats, the basic character beats, then you get more specific about it.

I'm doing it right now on a project that I'm doing. and I did a whole outline for the whole season and the primary focus of that outline was sharing the relationship with these two characters and how it begins, how it evolves and changes and how it resolves. That was the primary focus.

But then once I've written that, then I gotta go back through it and say, well, here are how these other characters are involved as well because it's a bit of an ensemble piece. So let's go back through it and do that. Then when I go in to write the script, then I'm like, okay, now I'm getting down to the details of those little things.

What are the little habits those characters have that don't really mean anything for the scene? Let's find those things in the animation that we do every day in our lives that you see actors that you get just naturally in live action.

It's why I wanna use more real time in my work. Because you can be more spontaneous if you're shooting real time or if you're using real time things. Things can present themselves to you, which is just harder 'cause every frame is cared for and in animation.

So how do you keep it spontaneous? So I think it's just, it's two things. It's you challenging yourself every day to do it, but also. Making sure that you have people on the team who are going to constantly challenge you. And say, no, that's not good enough, this needs to be better. Or, I don't believe her in this moment, or I don't believe him in this moment.

Or, I'm not connecting with them at this moment. Okay, let's examine it and figure out why. it's getting back in there and trying to get it right. And thinking about it again and again. I always feel like there's something I'm chasing in every project and you chase it and chase it and chase it.

and Rob, you were asking earlier about like, how do you stop getting bored with it? When I get bored with it is when I'm done with it. When I'm done with it, I can't look at it for a while. I don't want to watch it. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to talk about it. It's when I try to distance myself because it takes so much. Out of you to do it so you want to move on to something that's fresh and new. It doesn't feel like a demolition derby that you just went through.

[00:38:26] Rob Bredow: Yeah, exactly. the iterative process that gets you very close to every single detail. Do you find yourself, Shannon, especially with most of your work, writing and directing or writing and showwriting, where you had an emotional beat in mind, and you know what the heart of the thing that you were just referring to, that you're going for, and then, and you've written it, and then you find in animation that the animators brought something to the performance that makes you realize oh wait, I can do that without that line now.

It's all playing on the character's face, and when you see it, or is that pretty common for you?

[00:38:56] Shannon Tindle: That happens all the time because you tend to overwrite in a script, especially dialogue. Dialogue is there's a great podcast that Chris McQuarrie was on and, you know, what an incredible writer and director, Mr. McQuarrie is, but he was talking about, I think, a sequence in one of the Mission Impossible films where it had a ton of dialogue and he ended up taking, I think all of it out because he realized he didn't need it.

And sometimes you have to prove that to yourself by seeing it. There have been times when I wrote it and thought, this is absolutely essential. And then I saw it on board and was like, no, we don't need that.Or it is an animation. It's a little harder in animation because it's a lot more expensive but if you can catch it at least in rough layout or at least in a blocking pass on the animation and say, Oh, we want to take, and those are the harder ones to make because you know, somebody put a lot of work into it and you know, by you saying, we're not going to do this anymore.

We had, you know, plenty of those moments on things we've worked with, you know, worked on Hade, where it's just like we're going down this road, it felt good at the time, but once we're seeing it in the context of the whole movie, we don't need it, or it's redundant, or it's revealing something too soon, those are the, but you have to be okay with it, and also saying, Look, we might not use you here, but we're going to use you here and here and here.That's one of the things i'm constantly because i've been in that position on a crew as a character designer and storyboard artist doing dozens of designs and not getting it until That the final one or it was you know A collection of all the work that the whole department had done I've been there and I know what it feels like and it and people can say all they want that it's just business It's not business.

It is very personal the things that we do are very personal You And, and I require folks that work with me to lay it out and to be honest, somebody was telling me on the crew at ILM, they said on Ollie, you know, Shannon, you would tell this story and we're like, Oh, here's another story. What are, where are we going now?

And by the end of it, you were like, Oh, that was an animation launch because there was an emotion. I usually want to connect through a personal experience I've had and encourage other people. You don't have to tell me the story, but, you know, be vulnerable in that way. And it's hard to do. It's hard to do because even if other people don't know what's behind that emotion, you put it up there, but I see it with animators all the time.

And those are some of my favorite surprises, but not just animators, but everybody along the line, it's Oh, I tried to do this. Or I wanted to give this a shot and this is based on a personal experience. And, those are the things that are most precious to me.

And they're the things that I remember. I mean, like a little look, those little quirks, you know, Ken bouncing his knee up and down. A lot of people talk about that. That's something I do when I'm nervous, but then making his dad do it as well. So they both have that same quirk, even though at the beginning of the film, they feel like they have nothing in common.

Finding those little things is the thing that allows you to watch it again and again. And again, it's like my favorite filmmakers. If you look at Jaws, when Brody gets that first phone call that there's the body on the beach, you know, his kids are playing in the background and they're kind of doing their whole thing and asking, it's what real life is like.

And then they've already moved outside and are on the swing set. And as he's getting in the truck and leaving, that's why that movie is so good. The shark, those sequences are amazing, but they're only amazing because I care about Brody and want him to make it back to his family. And, you know, it's, you take two superpowers, David Lean and Dickens, and you see that version of Great Expectations, that version of Oliver Twist.

And. You can see what was written by Dickens on the page, but also there are very specific personal experiences that I don't know about, but I can feel them when I watch it. And, or something like Moonlight. You talk about a movie that's got a lot of depth that expresses an experience that I haven't experienced, but man, Do I empathize and do I want to understand that?

And do I want to be a better person and help somebody who might be in a situation like that? Those are the kinds of, and it's all of the specific details of those things that feel like real vulnerable things that probably are.

[00:43:22] Rob Bredow: That's amazing I mean, there's no question why movies have the authenticity that they do and the emotional authenticity that they do. Even though they're made by hundreds of people, they're on the same wavelength because of the way you're directing that and guiding that

[00:43:39] Shannon Tindle: I can't do it on my own. It really is. like I can give you an idea, but I can't make you do it. What you bring to it, and those great surprises I get every day where it veers in a completely different direction than what I had anticipated. Or, hey, what if we tried that? That really is, that's the, it's my, it's the surprise of making movies.

And you get a million surprises every day. They're not all great. But you remember the great ones because it's that,You know, those moments where you got that nice surprise of oh, I hadn't seen it that way. Oh, one of my favorites is on Ultraman when we have the big battle at the end and it's Ken and his dad. And I spontaneously came up with the, like we were in a meeting and it was John and I was like, John, get over here. And I acted the whole thing out how I wanted to do it. Then we. shot it, we were animating it, and Kim in Singapore came up with that drifting shot. His look, this wasn't, yeah, this wasn't the original shot.

This wasn't how it was. We gave you that shot, but I wanted to try something. And it's one of my favorite things in the movie. I had nothing at all to do with it. It was just Kim going, what if we did this? And man, does it get a reaction. I've seen people cheer in audiences because Kim had that great idea.

And Kim's an animation soup, not a camera soup, not a director. but that idea, that is just a great storytelling idea. And he knew if he shifted that camera around a little bit more to reveal that it would be even more powerful. And it's tight and close with giant characters, but it still feels intimate.

It's such a brilliant idea. So big ol hats off to Kim for that amazing idea.

[00:45:26] Hayden Jones: I remember that coming through with dailies and you just thought, Oh my God, this is so much better than I ever imagined it could be. And yeah, it was one of those magical moments. There's, there's, there's quite a few magical moments, but like that was a truly special one. Um,

[00:45:52] The Martini

[00:45:52] Rob Bredow: Items, a recommendation, something to pass along to our audience?

Maybe Shannon, we'll start with you.

[00:46:02] Shannon Tindle: I am reading a book series now called Hollow Kingdom. And, the first book is Hollow Kingdom. The second book is Feral Creatures and it is, it's, I'm gonna, I'm not doing it any service by distilling it down to this, but it's a zombie apocalypse told from the perspective of a domesticated crow.

And, it's funny. And it's heartbreaking, and it's hopeful, and it's all the emotions of life, and read that series of books. Kira Jane Buxton is the author of the Hollow Kingdom series.

And I can't recommend it highly enough. It was given to me by a friend, and the moment I read it, I was just like, Oh my gosh, this is my kind of book.

[00:46:45] Rob Bredow: So, check out, Hollow Kingdom zombie apocalypse from the perspective of a domesticated crow. That is unique.

[00:46:53] Shannon Tindle: it, it's, it's one of those ideas, like it, it sounds, you think you might know what it is when you hear that pitch, and then you start reading it. And I actually recommended it to Hayde, I was like, Hayde, you gotta read this book dude.

[00:47:04] Rob Bredow: Excellent. Well, we'll link to that in the show notes. Uh, Hayden.

[00:47:07] Hayden Jones: I've already covered Human Target, which I can't recommend enough, but after finishing Ultraman, I've got to say my Ultraman Bible was this book called Animate Architecture. Unbelievable. it's by Stefan, Reichels and it just covers. all of the amazing artwork from Akira all the way through to Tekken King Creed.

It was by my side all the way through Ultraman just as a kind of like a go to reference for, you know, different animation styles, Japanese culture, you know, how we could make things look. So, it's just one of the best reference books for that style of art. It's amazing.

[00:47:44] Rob Bredow: Jenny.

[00:47:45] Hayden Jones: Perfect.

[00:47:45] Jenny Ely: Yeah, so my martini this week is a video game that I've been playing. I am a Nintendo girl, through and through. And this is Luigi's Mansion 2. I actually played Luigi's Mansion 3 first. It was specifically made for the Switch. It's one of my favorite video games ever. This one is actually enhanced.

This was originally released on the Nintendo 3DS, I think, 2013, and it's been enhanced and updated, the controls are updated, the visuals are much better, and it is so much fun. It's just a really kind of low stakes, easy game where, you know, it's.It's a little stressful at times when you're fighting multiple ghosts at once, but it's just a delight to play.

So, I think if you like kind of Halloween creepy things like I do, I would definitely give this a play, and also Luigi's Mansion 3.

[00:48:35] Shannon Tindle: I just pulled out my consoles today, because I have some, I pulled out my Steam Deck and I pulled out my Switch, so I'm gonna have to check out Luigi's Mansion.

[00:48:45] Rob Bredow: My Pleasure lately has been the third season of Welcome to Wrexham. I don't know if everybody's been watching that show.

[00:48:52] Shannon Tindle: yes.

[00:48:53] Rob Bredow: It is so much fun. So Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, bought a football team in the UK, which is a soccer team to us, silly Americans. It's on FX. you can stream it on Hulu or I think Disney plus if you're connected in some way, oh, it's on Disney plus in the UK.

I think you get it most places in the world. Lovely story of, of a football team down on their luck for many years. I, and it's a very well done documentary. My wife's not a particular football fan, but loves the show. And she's the one to say I think we still have an episode or two left to watch, this one.

So you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy the show. Cause it's really about the behind the scenes and the care for the town and the drama and everything that goes on. It's very delightful. So.

[00:49:38] Shannon Tindle: are a Wrexham family over here as well, and we're not, and for American listeners, it's soccer. so, but, you know, football, but man, is it a great show, and I'm not a soccer fan, but yeah, I love that show.

[00:49:53] Rob Bredow: It's so delightful.

[00:49:54] Shannon Tindle: Yeah.

Oh, Snoop Dogg at the Olympics. That's my bonus. That's my bonus one.

[00:49:58] Hayden Jones: Oh, yeah, that was,

[00:49:59] Shannon Tindle: the Olympics.

[00:50:00] Jenny Ely: Wait, let me raise you Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart together on the Olympics.

[00:50:05] Shannon Tindle: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,

[00:50:06] Jenny Ely: That's next level.

[00:50:06] Shannon Tindle: Yeah, that was pretty incredible. I love that. He just, I was watching this thing, called, very high tea time with Snoop Dogg and he was in the UK and he was having tea and, the host used the word etiquette and he just named it. He goes, yeah, me and my friend, Martha Stewart, we talk about etiquette a little bit.

I'm like, that's a name to drop right there.

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:33] Outro

[00:50:33] Rob Bredow: Well, thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast. If you have a question from the show or you would like to suggest a topic, email us at lighterdarker@ilm.com. And you can find, I don't know, Shannon, if you'd like people to find you on social media.

[00:50:49] Shannon Tindle: You can just type my name in on Instagram. I'm on Twitter, you know, a mix of drawings and, union ravings and political ravings every now and then, although I try to keep it mostly about art and film and, but, uh, yeah, you can find me on those things. Just look up my name.

[00:51:07] Rob Bredow: Look for, Shannon Tindle and Hayden. Yeah.

[00:51:10] Hayden Jones: I'm exactly the same. So on both Twitter and Instagram, you can find me. I think I'm at Haydzilla, which is the easiest one. It was the shortest one I could find.

[00:51:32] Rob Bredow: We thank Industrial Light & Magic for hosting the Lighter Darker Podcast. The show is produced by myself and Jenny Ely. Today's episode has been edited by Chris Hawkinson, and we want to thank the entire PR team led by Greg Grusby, who worked behind the scenes to make all this happen. Thank you so much for listening to the Lighter Darker Podcast. And until next time, may your pixels be both lighter and darker.