Interview: John K

Renegade animator John K is famous for Ren and Stimpy (and now perhaps for his Simpsons title sequence), but infamous for his strong-minded views on commercial animation and studios. Ahead of his spot at Animated Encounters’ Desert Island Flicks (sponsored by yours truly) Imagine got ahold with the Canadian animation director for a quick catch up.

Imagine Animation: Can you give us a three-line autobiography:

John K: I was born.
I drew silly pictures.
I came to Bristol to show cartoons and talk about them – in more than three lines I hope!

IM: What was your experience of working on the Simpsons?

JK: It was fun. I got to animate again (rather than merely direct). I rediscovered how the core of what we do is directly in drawing things frame by frame. When you try to create ideas for animation – and you are not actually animating the ideas, your ideas are not as good as when you actually sit down and see what the medium can do directly.

IM: Did they try and water your ideas down?

JK: No, not at all. They kept telling me to go further.

IM: Do you watch the new episodes of the Simpsons? What do you think of them?

I watched a few that they gave me. I laughed at some jokes and cried whenever Homer felt insecure.

IM: Obviously your style is ever-evolving, but who would you name as your current biggest influences?

JK: At the moment I am very intrigued by many of the animators from the 1930s: Bill Nolan, Grim Natwick, Carlo Vinci and a host of others whose names I don’t know but whose styles I recognise.

IM: Whose work would you consider to have been influenced by your own?

JK: I’ve seen some stuff on TV and in the movies but I’m not really up on modern media. I’m pretty old-fashioned. Most of what inspires me happened before I was born.

IM: You’ve spoken before about how in the production line process of an animation studio, ideas tend to get watered down. What’s the solution?

JK: Money, time and a complete rethinking of what are doing and why we do it.

IM: You’ve also talked before about having to retrain animators to your own working methods. So what’s the John K way?

JK: I don’t really have a 'way'. And my retraining consists of getting the artists who have learned a way somewhere else to abandon it and summon their own personalities and styles rather than just rely on a formula. Of course that takes quite a bit of drawing skill and control so sometimes I have drawing lessons for the crew. You might have a great original picture in your head, but the trick is get your pencil to put it down so others can see it. It’s much easier to give up on your imagination and instead rely on a visual cliché.

I have known some animators who in person have really unique personalities. The way they talk, the expressions they have, their gestures are all very charismatic, specific and entertaining. But when they draw, they draw just like everyone else – because the industry has encouraged conformity for so long. I try to get the artists to draw the way they act. A very few cartoonists do this naturally, but are generally suppressed by the studios they work for.

In animation today the production process seems to water down your initial ideas from step to step. I urge everyone, not just the artists, but the sound people, the actors and everyone who creatively touches the cartoon to bring something new to the scenes and enrich them.

IM: What is creativity anyway? Is it simply not repeating the same thing twice?

JK: That’s a pretty big question and if you ever find out the answer, I’d like to know myself.

IM: Do you think not going through the conventional university system contributed to your aversion to working at Hanna-Babera and other corporate studios?

JK: I went to Sheridan college for a year where they drummed Disney Disney Disney Disney into our heads every day. I already liked classic Disney cartoons but I also had a lot of other influences and didn’t want to just repeat what everyone else was trying to emulate.

IM: What is the current best animation on TV today?

JK: I don’t know. I don’t watch much TV. I watch nature shows and Turner Classic Movies. …and UFC.

IM: What are you working on at the moment?

JK: I am currently on vacation, but I’m always out pitching shows and movies. I may do a sample pitch at Encounters; we are still working out the schedule.

IM: Is this your first time at Encounters? What have you heard about the event and what are you expecting?

JK: I have heard that it’s really fun and that you get to meet a lot of other animators and see films that I might not see in America.