How To Train Your Dragon

Interview with Simon Otto - Head of Character Animation

1. Where did you study animation?

I was lucky enough to get into the renowned French animation school, “Les Gobelins” in Paris.  I’m originally from Switzerland, so I was very grateful that this amazing French School took me in and trained me to become a professional.  However, as great as that school was, animation is something you learn by observing real life. I’ve been drawing my whole life, so I would say that I’ve intensively been studying animation well before I even realized it.

2. What films have you worked on previously?

Prior to “How to Train Your Dragon,” my other CG experience includes working on “Flushed Away” as a Supervising Animator, animating on “Bee Movie” and “Shark Tale,” and serving as a Character Designer on “Over the Hedge.”  Before all that, I worked in the 2D/Traditional Animation realm, as a Supervising Animator on “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas” and Spirit on “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” and as an Animator on “The Road to El Dorado” and “The Prince of Egypt.”

3. Which musicians and artists inspire you?

Oh…there are too many to name. I’m constantly migrating to new artists whose work I admire and study.  As a child I was crazy about Belgian/French comic artists such as Franquin (Spirou), Herge (TinTin) and Uderzo (Asterix), and still draw inspiration from their work today.  These days, I’m as inspired by my cat as I am by reading Kafka.  No, really…to answer this question properly, we’ll have to sit down over a couple bottles of wine.

4. Can you briefly describe your job as head of Character Animation?

As the Head of Character Animation my main role is to oversee the team of animators and everything related to Character Animation.  I have been closely involved in the creation of all the characters, from design to all the engineering aspects of the character development (Modeling, Rigging, etc), and have been responsible for making sure the directors’ vision is carried through in the performances of the characters.

5. Was it a challenge developing personalities for the dragons?

The dragons were uncharted territory for us.  Most of what we have seen to date in terms of dragon animation was either done crudely in early adventure films or more or less successfully in different types of visual effects films.  The challenge of those movies was to create creatures that were believable and therefore had to be perfectly integrated into “real” photography.  Our challenge on “How to Train Your Dragon” was actually an opportunity.  We didn’t have those constraints, so we decided to find a playground where we can create characters that look and feel real, but we were allowed to have fun with them. We ended up mixing and matching different types of animals and creating dragons that reminded us of, let’s say, “a bulldog-crocodile that hovers like a helicopter.”  When you watch “How to Train Your Dragon,” we hope you’ll feel that we had fun with that and that the designs of our dragons break the stereotype of what dragons should look like.

6. Does working in 3D create any problems for an animator?

Yes.  As animators we are used to animating to a single camera view, which allows us to cheat a lot in depth.  As long as the illustration of that flat image looked good we were safe.  3D literally introduces a new dimension to us, where we now have to be incredibly accurate
when it comes to how fast or slow things move towards or away from camera.
Of course it also creates tremendous opportunities for us.  You can grab the audience much more on a gut level when you create certain actions, because the audience gets much more immersed into the world.  Some of our dragon sequences really grab the audience by the throat and give them a rollercoaster ride thanks to that new filmmaking vocabulary.  Even more subtle scenes feel more tangible, which allows for the audience to connect with the characters with a sense of “this is really happening here in front of me right now.”

7. Did the study of other animals influence your approach to the animation of the dragons?

Very much so.  Every dragon we’ve created is inspired by a mixture of two or three real-life animals that we studied inside and out. I think this is how we were assured that we were doing something different. Our character designer, the insanely talented Nicolas Marlet gave us an array of fun ideas with his designs.  We then researched what fits best with the story and matched those designs up with familiar animals.  The Deadly Nadder, for example, is a cross-breed between a parrot, an ostrich and a T-Rex.

Additionally, one of our big goals was to get the audience to connect with our dragons the way we humans connect with our pets.  For example, with Toothless, the tricky thing was to appeal to owners of cats as much as to those of dogs and horses.  We decided to mix it up and find the right balance.  When watching the film with the rest of the crew, we realized that “dog people” think that Toothless is just like their dog and “cat people” think he’s definitely a cat.  At the end of the day, we hope that Toothless becomes a bit of a magical creature that connects with the audience on multiple levels.

8. What do you do in your downtime to relax?

Feed myself or feed my son Max.

9. What sort of films do you like to watch?

I love movies that show me a world that I don’t know and that allow me to feel how it must be to experience somebody else’s life…which describes pretty much every decent movie that has come out since the dawn of cinema.  I guess this one would require another bottle of wine.