'An American Tail, Fievel Goes West' & 'We're Back!', Director, Simon Wells

0:00Simon WellsThe biggest, if you like, personal change, was, "Hey, I gotta not be an asshole." it was, when I'd been on Who… on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I was, I was very young. I'd started at the age of 26. I was a very fast animator. I did, I did more animation than any other animator on the show.

0:18Jawad MirRight.

0:18Simon WellsSo I was very arrogant about that. I mean, when I use the word arrogance, I am aware that was actually absolutely... I got a bad reputation. There were a number of people who actually seriously hated me as a result of my behavior on that film.

0:40Jawad MirI was watching some of the behind-the-scenes featurette of, Fievel Goes West: American Tail, and

0:46Simon WellsOh, Lord. I don't think I've ever seen that, actually. I don't…

0:49Jawad MirYeah

0:49Simon Wells... It's, I kind of avoid watching those things in sort of…

0:51Jawad MirYeah, that… That's why I said, who watches that, right? Because you don't. But, you know, it was interesting that time and how, but one thing that I found very consistent was just I think you still are the same person that you were back then based on what I saw, which is really good. It's, it's obvious…

1:09Simon WellsIs that good?

1:10Jawad MirYou know?

1:10Simon WellsIs that a good thing? I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

1:11Jawad MirI think so. I think so. In some ways. I think it's, we all change, obviously, but…

1:16Simon WellsYeah

1:17Jawad Mir... That overall persona and everything kind of, you know, stays somewhat more or less the same…

1:23Simon WellsOkay. Well, yeah

1:23Jawad Mir... Which is good to see.

1:24Simon WellsI look at photographs of that era and just like, "Oh my God, we were all so young." We, I mean, Fievel Goes West, we set up a studio, I think the average age of the studio was about 26. We had no idea what we were doing. It was hilarious.

1:40Jawad MirYeah, and which you already told me the story about, you know, how, Spielberg sort of asked you to direct. And I was watching the featurette, and, I saw the film a while ago. I haven't seen it recently. I was watching the featurette and how the lady, I don't remember who she was, she was talking, it's like a news report type of featurette, that how she was saying that, you know, Spielberg decided to open up an animation studio in UK because you couldn't compete with Dis… Disney in the States. And…

2:10Simon WellsWell, it was also that there was a, there was a whole crowd of animators that had worked on Who Framed Roger Rabbit…

2:16Jawad MirYeah

2:16Simon Wells... Who…

2:16Jawad MirYeah

2:16Simon Wells... Hadn't, at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a lot of the, like, lead animators were offered jobs at Disney. And some difficult and argumentative people like me didn't take the offer, and sensible people like James Baxter did. But, y… y… yeah, there was a, the, then there was all of the, like, the junior animators and the assistants and in-betweeners and all the other staff who weren't offered the chance to transfer. So, you know, it was quite evident there was a huge talent pool in London that wasn't being kind of used in features, and, 'cause, you know, there'd be a feature film every two or three years that would get made…

2:58Jawad MirYeah

2:58Simon Wells... You know, When the Wind Blows and things like that. And they made some really good stuff, but it wasn't, it wasn't being used. Mostly it was commercials. We had a, there was a huge commercial operation in London at the time. I'd started doing commercials for Dick Williams before he got headhunted for Roger Rabbit. So, and in fact, my wife started up a small commercial studio and did a bunch of commercials while we were doing, Fievel Goes West and, We're Back and Balto. In fact, I know some of the people who were working in our studio were moonlighting for her, so

3:37Jawad MirYeah. It's interesting you mention that James Baxter went to Disney and you went to Amblimation, but at the end of the day, both you guys ended up at DreamWorks. You know, it's, it's, it's…

3:46Simon WellsYeah, well, James came to DreamWorks, the weird thing is James came to DreamWorks because of, the films they were gonna make.

3:54Jawad MirYeah

3:54Simon Wells... He was offered much more money to stay at Disney. Disney literally said, "Look, we will, we will offer you buckets of cash." And he said, "Yeah, you know, I'm already making enough money. I wanna work on things I'm interested in working on," which I have enormous respect for, 'cause cash is scarily attractive, you know?

4:14Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, no, 100%. You know, going to An American Tail, so the first one, Don Bluth, who directed that, came out in 1986, and the second one came out in '89, which I think was the same year as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, if I'm not mistaken, or around then.

4:33Simon WellsNo. Roger Rabbit came out in '88.

4:36Jawad Mir'88.

4:36Simon WellsActually, we started work on Fievel Goes West in '89, very beginning of '89, and it actually came out in, I think, '91.

4:46Jawad MirReally?

4:47Simon WellsYeah, 'cause I think it was '91, and then We're Back came out in '93, and Balto came out in '95.

4:53Jawad MirI think I am, either I misread it or IMDb… oh, yeah, you're right. I misread it. '91, yeah.

4:59Simon WellsYeah, 'cause I…

4:59Jawad MirThat makes more sense

5:00Simon Wells... 'cause I, yeah, we, I, finished work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, in kind of s… I'm trying to think. Early in '88, I did some commercials for, like, Burger King and stuff like that using, you know, with the Roger Rabbit characters. And then I did a bit of work for Passion Pictures, later on that year. But yeah, I know it ca… the Who F… Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out in '88 because that was actually also my wife and my honeymoon. We went to New York…... For the, for the premiere of the film as part of our honeymoon.

5:37Jawad MirYeah, I think I'm mixing it up with the Back to the Future, but, you know, go…

5:40Simon WellsOh, yeah

5:40Jawad Mir... Going, go… going back to, what my original thing was, that Don Bluth had directed all these films, in the, in the world of Disney. Like, you know, in the '80s and the '70s and even before, it was all Disney. It was always Disney.

5:55Simon WellsYeah.

5:55Jawad MirAnd, you know…

5:56Simon WellsAnd then he, then he, made, he made, Banjo the Woodpile Cat basically in his garage, and that resulted in being able to get the financing to do, what was it?

6:08Jawad MirSecret of NIMH

6:09Simon Wells... Se… Secret of NIMH, right.

6:10Jawad MirYeah.

6:10Simon WellsAnd, And Secret of NIMH attracted Spielberg's attention, which is why they then did, the first, American Tale with Bluth. Then after that, they did Land Before Time, and Land Before Time, from my understanding, I was not connected to it in any way at all, but my understanding is that, the relationship soured somewhat.

6:37Simon Wells... And, when Bluth actually delivered the film, Spielberg and, Lucas looked at it and said, "We can't release this film." And they radically recut the thing. I remember talking to James Horner 'cause he'd scored it already when they did the recut, and he ended up having to patch together bits of his score using synthesizers to connect one bit to another. The whole story order was completely different. I don't know the film that well to be able to talk authoritatively about it, but, it was very different and there was a lot more violence and stuff in it that, Spielberg and Lucas, I think probably quite sensibly said, "This is not gonna fly with parents."

7:19Jawad MirYeah.

7:20Simon WellsSo that was kind of the end of the relationship with Don Bluth. So then, you know, they were looking around. Spielberg wanted to carry on working in animation, and he was just looking around for, like, "What are we gonna do?" And, I don't know whose idea, Robert Watts was involved in, i… in sort of spearheading setting up the studio in London.

7:45Jawad MirThat answers my question because I was curious how Don Bluth wasn't even involved as an EP or in any capacity as a producer, so that makes sense.

7:54Simon WellsYeah.

7:56Jawad MirYou know, what was it like being given s… you know, Don Bluth is such a big name, even at the time, like, to counter somebody like Disney, even though he had worked at Disney on films like, I think Rescuers and Pete's d… Pete… Pete… Pete's Dragon…

8:13Jawad Mir... And a bunch of other stuff, and to kinda take that and this be your first film, obviously, you know, you were not the only director. You had, you had a partner in crime.

8:22Simon WellsWith Phil Nibbelink as well, yeah.

8:23Jawad MirYeah. So but just taking on that and just diving into something that is completely dominated by Disney and maybe Don Bluth.

8:32Simon WellsW… what you have to understand is my appalling level of ignorance married with a, an o… outstanding arrogance that I had at the time. You know, there I was, I w… I was, like, 28 when, you know, Spielberg asked me to do this, and I thought I knew everything. You know, I thought, "I can do this." I, you know, I've directed lots of commercials and, you know, I'm a decent enough animator, and, you know, Spielberg and Zemeckis and people like that all think I'm great, so course I can direct a film. I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, truly, the level of, the level of both ignorance and arrogance, astounds me now when I look back on it, so I shouldn't have had anything like the confidence that I had going into making that movie. And, you know, the, comparatively low quality of… I mean, the movie actually, weirdly, there's a lot of fantastic work in the movie.

9:35Simon WellsI think the story overall kinda sucks. It's not, it's not... But I didn't understand the first thing about story, not at all. It was, it was amazing. So, and actually for many years, my, m… my kinda technical understanding of how to do, like, how to put shots together and how to do animation and how to get, like, you know, animation performances far exceeded my understanding of kinda what makes a good story or why a film is worth watching. You know, I just didn't have a clue about that.

10:14Jawad MirBut I think that's everybody, Simon. You know, obviously, with everyone it comes at different stages, and being young you have to be, you have to be, and somewhat, you know, arrogant if you wanna call that, and you have to show confidence because otherwise nobody will believe in you. But having said that, everybody has that, like, "I know it all." I mean, you and I have talked about this, like how I thought I would be able to d… I directed my first feature doc. I'm like, "I don't need to hire an editor. I'll just do it myself." And then you learn, and then you just…

10:44Simon WellsThat's how…

10:44Jawad Mir... Hire somebody else after

10:45Simon Wells... This is, this is why we pay editors a lot of money.

10:47Jawad MirExactly.

10:47Simon Wells'Cause it's actually really hard to do, yeah.

10:49Jawad MirEx… well, every aspect, right? And now…

10:52Simon WellsYeah

10:53Jawad Mir... Even though I have always sort of loved narrative and that's always been my thing, now I'm getting into the world of narrative filmmaking, and the things that I'm learning as we go along, even though I thought I knew them, and I'm sure I will find more about them, you know, on production…

11:07Simon WellsOh, yeah. You can, you can study everybody else's work…

11:10Jawad MirYeah

11:10Simon Wells... But when you actually sit down with a blank sheet of paper in front of you and like, "Well, I've gotta tell a story from the ground up," it's, it's a whole lot more interesting.

11:20Jawad MirIt is. But my point is I don't think you should beat yourself up about, around it because it's just part of your growth.

11:28Simon WellsOh…

11:28Jawad MirThink that's it

11:28Simon Wells... Yeah. I mean, I'm just astounded that, you know, that people did believe in me and Phil and actually gave us, gave us the money to not just make one film but three films, and it's like, oh, man. It was...

11:45Jawad MirI'll tell you a, I'll tell you a story. I took this, directing course I would like to guess probably 10 years ago. This gentleman named Peter Marshall, he had been AD on a lot of films in Hollywood. I don't remember which films or whether, but he had been AD…

12:00Jawad Mir... On a lot of film. And he told us a story about, he says he had, I'm not gonna name the name of the director, I'm not gonna name the name of the film because otherwise you'll know. He goes… ... There was a film, where the director was hired first time, and on his resume and his interview, he was just full of confidence, like he knew what the hell he was talking about. And on the day of the production, he got cold feet. And he had no idea what the hell to do. So in order to save the face of the production and to keep the production going, the AD, first AD, Peter D. Marshall, he directed the entire film, but the director got the full credit.

12:40Simon WellsYep.

12:42Jawad MirSo, and I don't know what happened to the director afterwards, but I mean, the story, it's something that, I guess, that confidence sometimes gets overblown and then it backfires on you. But in your case, obviously it hasn't. You're still around, still working.

12:55Simon WellsWell, I've, I've survived. I, you know, I don't do a lot of directing these days, but, part of that's through sort of, I have actually turned down a bunch of things that I was offered at DreamWorks 'cause just, like, I just don't have the... I don't have the dedication to put, like, three or four years of my life into a story unless, you know, unless I really want to do it now. But, yeah, I... Directing's really hard. I don't really recommend it to anybody. It's like, you know, it's a thing you should only do if you really have to do it, you know? I…

13:35Jawad MirYeah

13:35Simon Wells... I think I sort of, I was chasing being a director at first just 'cause I liked the idea of like, "I'm, I'm, I'm a Hollywood film director." I like, liked that idea. I don't know that I had a particular drive to tell stories, you know, weirdly. I have much more so now. I'm more interested in that, and I... But at the same time, I only really wanna do the stuff that I do. I find very few projects that I l… read and go, "Oh man, I want to, I want to direct that," you know? Just something else some… somebody else has written and developed, and I look at it and go, "Yeah, that one I could direct."

14:16Jawad MirSo it's not that you don't wanna direct. Is it more so perhaps, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, like the pressure of a studio and just being completely... I mean, that happens in any production, but i… is it something else than that? Or is it just, is it too much, too much pressure? Is that…

14:34Simon WellsI think I'm lazy. I, you know, I

14:38Jawad MirI don't think that's true, but

14:41Simon WellsYeah, it, but it is. It's the, yeah, it's an enormous amount of effort and commitment, and sleepless nights, and, you know, stress, and all those things which, you've gotta really wanna see that film on screen to make it worth doing all that stuff, versus…

15:02Simon Wells... You know, I can, I can make a very nice living storyboarding for other people and not have to worry about, and it doesn't keep me up at night. So, yeah, I... And in terms of directing, like just directing for hire, I'm not... It's funny, I've had that discussion. I remember having that discussion with, Kevin Lima, who, he really wanted to get back in the directing chair. He liked being in the directing chair. He liked that kind of, you know, getting to play with all the toys and getting to work with actors and all the technical people, and, yeah, he missed it. And I… there are parts of it, I really enjoy some parts of the filmmaking process, and other parts of the filmmaking process are hard. And I've had varied experiences with it, so it's not like all of my experiences have been wildly positive. I mean, if I'd had more experiences like making Mars Needs Mums, then yeah, I'd probably be, I'd probably be missing directing, 'cause that was a truly joyous experience, and I loved all the people we worked with, and it was great.

16:17Simon WellsAnd if I could go back and do that again, I would. So yeah, I don't know. It's a bit of a… ... It's a bit of a mixed answer. Sorry, not very clear there.

16:29Jawad MirNo, it's, it's fine. While we're on that subject, do you, do you... I know it's been a long time, but if you can recall on, American Tail: Fievel Goes West, when you realized that, "Oh crap, this is way more than I expected it to be, and how am I gonna go through that?" And how you came over that. Do you, do you remember that time at all?

16:54Simon WellsNo, because it kinda didn't happen on Fievel Goes West.

16:59Jawad MirOh, okay, it didn't.

17:00Simon WellsIt was, it sort of, that's more of a gradual realization over the space…

17:06Jawad MirOkay

17:07Simon Wells... Of, I don't know, probably 10 years.

17:09Jawad MirOh, okay

17:10Simon Wells... Yeah, I think the, there were parts of making Balto which, I by that point, yeah, kind of the stress was getting to me. Actually, I took up transcendental meditation during Balto because I was suffering from, sort of such severe stress that I was being sick at mo… almost every weekend. I'd make it through the week, and then I'd spend the weekend, you know, curled up with stomach ache and actually throwing up, which, eventually, you know, I did a whole lot of medical checks and had, you know, a barium meal, and X-rays, and all of this and to find out if I had, like, a rumbling appendix or something like that, and it turned out to be completely psychosomatic. So I guess, yes, the weight on my shoulders was actually starting to register. But I think it was starting to register, if you like, subconsciously, subcutaneously. It wasn't, it wasn't a thing where I was actually sort of thinking, "Oh my God, I've got all this work to do."

18:13Simon WellsI was just kind of,.. But I think part of me was very aware of it. Yeah.

18:20Jawad MirWhat was something that you learned on American Tail: Fievel Goes West that you Took it to We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story, and from there to Balto

18:30Simon WellsWell, actually, the, probably the biggest, if you like, personal change, was, hey, I've gotta not be an asshole. It was... W… when I'd been on Who… on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I was, I was very young. I'd started at the age of 26. I was a very fast animator. I did, I did more animation than any other animator on the show, by a, by a factor of about 50%. I think Phil Nibbelink was averaging 11 foot a week. Andreas Deja was averaging eight foot a week. Most animators were averaging five or six foot a week. I was doing 16 foot a week, and that's not my numbers. That's, that's the numbers that the staff were tracking.

19:17Jawad MirRight.

19:18Simon WellsSo I was very arrogant about that. I mean, when I use the word arrogance, I am aware that was actually absolutely... I got a bad reputation, and, there were a number of people who actually seriously hated me as a result of my behavior on that film. Plus, I was kind of a favorite of Dick Williams and of Bob Zemeckis, the director, and I'd fly out to US and do storyboarding for Bob and I was clearly in Dick's confidence. And so, yeah, there was, there was a good deal of quite well-based resentment of me in the studio. And then so we come to try and... I go off and actually I, storyboard on Back to the Future II and III, at the end of '88 and, well, actually, it was the beginning of '89. And then Spielberg asked me if I'd be interested in helping set up the studio and doing Fievel Goes West, which I th… I actually, I wasn't sure about, and I talked to Bob Zemeckis about it, and I actually remember going in, 'cause I was on my way to a meeting when…

20:25Simon Wells... Spielberg waylaid me, and so I then go on to see Bob and say, "Steven just asked me to direct a film." And he said, "Well, you're gonna do it, right?" I said, "I don't know." And he said, "Come on, you direct a film, now you're a film director. Then people will listen to you, and if you have a film you wanna do, people will pay attention. You gotta do it, Simon." So I was like, "Oh, I guess I gotta do it then." but come trying to set up the studio, there were a bunch of people who wouldn't come and work at Amblimation because of me. And when I…

20:59Jawad MirInteresting.

21:00Simon WellsYeah, because I was an asshole. And so I suddenly realized, oh, I've gotta, I've gotta really seriously change behavior. I've, I've gotta, I've gotta treat people better. I've got to, you know, not think so much of myself and so on. Be more respectful. So, that was, that was a big change actually going into Fievel Goes West and the whole Amblimation experience. But no, I think probably, to be honest, all the films, even Balto, I didn't really understand how much one is supposed to shape a story and how a story takes shape. I very much relied on, kind of what the writers would create and then Spielberg's notes. And to be honest, Spielberg's notes were generally about filmmaking things, not about story things.

21:58Simon WellsSo, i… in a way, I was, I was trained to think more about the filmmaking than I was about the storytelling, and it wasn't really until I came out and started working on Prince of Egypt and worked with Brenda Chapman in particular that I really recognized, oh, this is, this is actually what filmmaking is about. You know, I brought a lot more in the way of cinematography and technical understanding, to that film than Brenda did, but Brenda was, you know, head and shoulders above me in terms of understanding how to shape and create a story. And, I learnt a great deal from her from that experience, but then didn't apply that at all when I went off and did Time Machine. And that was partly because I was working with Walter Parkes, who, very much…

22:59Jawad MirYeah

22:59Simon Wells... Was fingers in the pie. And in fairness to Walter, I didn't know a lot about what I was doing, so, you know, he was stepping in and filling that void. And it really was at the end of, Time Machine that I started thinking, "I need to understand more about storytelling." And so I actually started…

23:22Simon Wells... Started with a blank sheet of paper and started actually writing things and trying to figure out, okay, how does, how do you construct story? How does story end up being a, you know, a satisfying thing?

23:36Jawad MirYeah

23:36Simon Wells... Wrote a lot of bad scripts before writing things that were halfway decent.

23:42Jawad MirYeah. But h… here's my question though, right? Like, so on An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, you had a partner in crime. On We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story, I think there were three or four directors along with you.

23:54Simon WellsTechnically, there were four directors. The way that worked out was actually, Phil and I had started, that film, and then, the opportunity to develop Cats, the Andrew Lloyd Webber film, came up, and we didn't want the Zondags to do that. We wanted the Zon… we said, "We want to direct Cats." and the Zondags brothers, Dick and Ralph Zondag, took over, We're Back. And, eventually Spielberg wasn't very happy with how that had all gone, and also, the whole Cats thing fell apart.

24:33Simon WellsAnd that's a million stories as well. But, and w… and Phil and I were asked to come back and kind of fix We're Back with no time and no money. And actually what w… we had started developing Balto as well, Phil and I together, and, the decision was made by Amblin that the smart thing to do would be to split us up and have me direct Balto and Phil stay with We're Back and sort of see that the right way through.

25:06Jawad MirRight. So Balto you directed by yourself.

25:09Simon WellsYeah.

25:10Jawad MirLike, there was not... You know, you can't say that, going back to what you were saying, that, you know, you didn't know what you were doing in terms of story because Balto, I remember watching it when it first came out, probably not around the same time, but maybe a few years later. I really liked it, and I was probably like s… 17, 18, and I've, I don't know why you would say that you didn't know what you were doing when you were the only director directing it, if in fact…

25:37Simon WellsWell, in terms of constructing story, I think it was a…

25:40Jawad MirYeah, it was still pretty good

25:42Simon Wells... Yeah, no, it was a well-constructed story in script form. You know, i… in the, in the early version that Phil and I read, we looked at it and said, "This is a movie. We can see this as a movie. This is, it, you know, it has a satisfying ending." It's kind of inherent in the story it's going to be a satisfying ending. The dog that saved Nome, Alaska, you know, it's gonna have a triumphant ending. There's, there's a bunch of stuff in the movie that I think probably could've been constructed better. It's, it's a bit kinda lumpy in the journey. And I think there's, there's elements like Jenna, who we didn't really develop and use properly. There's, there's a lot of ways I look at the story of that film and think it could've been done better. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's, it's, it's a pretty satisfying story, and it's one of those movies that, I'm, I'm constantly surprised how beloved it is.

26:44Simon WellsParticularly like my children's generation, that, they, you know, they grew up with it as being one of the films that was regularly put on, you know, the VHS or the CD, the DVD of it. And so yeah, it's surprising how many people I meet now, and like young storyboard artists and stuff I work with who go, "Oh my God, that was my favorite film when I was a kid." which is really nice. It's really satisfying.

27:14Jawad MirYeah.

27:14Simon WellsBut, and there are elements of the film which I am, I'm enormously proud of. I think there's, the look of the film is really remarkably good…

27:23Jawad MirIt is

27:24Simon Wells... For the budget level.

27:26Jawad MirYes

27:26Simon Wells... And there are things that we were very smart about, the use of effects work and stuff like that, when we had a very limited budget on how much visual effects work we could do, and yet it feels very full and complete. And just the, yeah, I mean, the backgrounds, most of the backgrounds which were painted in oil paints 'cause that captured the kind of luminescence of, snow and things like that. So yeah, overall I'm, you know, I'm pretty pleased with it as a film. I'm, I'm very pleased with the love it's held in by so many people. But, you know, could I write it better now? Yeah, probably.

28:04Jawad MirOf course.

28:04Simon WellsOr, yeah.

28:06Jawad MirYeah.

28:06Simon WellsYeah.

28:06Jawad MirBut that's anybody. Anybody would do something better, whether it's a film or it's running a company or hiring somebody or letting go of somebody.

28:12Simon WellsYeah, I guess that is true.

28:13Jawad MirYeah.

28:13Simon WellsSo yeah, I felt that Balto was a reasonably good movie, and it's a thing that at the end of the day I was proud of.

28:20Jawad MirSee the…

28:20Simon WellsWhere…

28:20Jawad MirYeah. Go on.

28:22Simon WellsI, you know, when I'm, when I'm honest, I kind of wish I'd taken my name off We're Back. I don't like the movie. And I don't know that I have really that much authorship of it to even have my name on it as a director. So, you know, I directed on it for maybe like a year of its three-year existence and so, you know.

28:44Jawad MirYeah, that's one third of the film right there.

28:47Simon WellsWell, not really, no.

28:50Jawad MirBut you know…

28:51Simon WellsBut anyway

28:51Jawad Mir... It's, it's, it's... So I'm telling you my perspective in the '90s. So a lot of people, if not all people, when it comes to animation, up until the '80s, I would say, you know, the first name, it would automatically be it's Disney, right?

29:05Simon WellsYeah.

29:05Jawad MirLike, it's Disney. And then Don, Bluth came into the picture, and then, you know, Secret of NIMH, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Land Before Time, Fievel, Balto, We're Back. And I don't know about other people, but for me, like I was just a huge fan of, you know, back in the day we used to call them cartoons, right?

29:31Jawad MirLike, it's on the Saturday morning cartoons or whatever…... Films were there. I was very fascinated with the fact that there is another... I didn't use to think into so many words, but it was like there's another team in town that is…

29:47Simon WellsYeah

29:47Jawad Mir... Trying to tell stories in animation. It wasn't really articulating at the time this way, but it was just like, "Oh, this is something I have to see. They must be really good that they're competing with Disney." And I, and, you know, it…

29:59Simon WellsYeah, it's not just a monoculture as well. It's like…

30:01Jawad MirYeah

30:01Simon Wells... You know, it's, it's like there may be other flavors out there, yeah.

30:04Jawad MirAnd I wonder, not to take anything away from Katzenberg or Dreamworks Animation, I wonder if there was no Don Bluth or other animation, features or shows, would it ha… would Dreamworks have been the way it came out in the early '90s, or sorry, late '90s and early 2000s?

30:23Jawad Mir'Cause they really, Don Bluth really set up the platform, including yourself and your colleagues and everybody.

30:28Simon WellsWell, on a really practical level, we would not have been able to do Prince of Egypt had Amblimation not existed because…

30:36Jawad MirThere you go

30:36Simon Wells... Easily half of the staff of Prince of Egypt, at least, at the beginning of the show, were our crew from London. We moved 120 artists over from London, and we had been working together, many of us had been working together for five years by then, or four years by then. And so, I me… I remember Katzenberg really being surprised by the quality of the artwork that the European artists could do because he sort of imagined he was gonna be able to, I don't know, you know, poach a lot of people from Disney and drag people in from other areas. But, you know, Disney was the pinnacle as far as he was concerned, and then he started seeing the kinda stuff that, people like Christophe Sarandont and William Salazar and Rodolphe Guenoden and Patrick Mate and people like this, they were doing this am… amazing, brilliant animation. And it's like, "Oh, wow, maybe Disney aren't the only good animation…

31:41Jawad MirYeah

31:41Simon Wells... People in the world." so yeah, I think, I think Katzenberg was surprised by that. So yeah, y… in a sense you're right that Dreamworks wouldn't have been able to come out of the gate, you know, at full speed, had the, those European studios not existed. And so y… yeah, I think that's a, that's a reasonable point. And…

32:11Simon Wells... Yeah, I mean, all of this, I think, to be, to be honest, an enormous amount of it comes back to Richard Williams because Richard Williams, back in the '60s, was a kind... He was a person who really kinda kept the flame burning in London and probably pretty much in Europe. He'd studied under the, you know, the Disney people. He'd, he'd, you know, gone and got, you know, like Grim Natwick and, sorry, Art Babbitt, and Milt Kahl. He'd, you know, he'd studied with these people, and absorbed as much as he could, and then he was, he was just disseminating that to anybody who was prepared to come and work and study under him. And so his commercial studio was the thing that kind of, it kept the knowledge.

33:11Simon WellsIt was, you know, it was the Library of Alexandria. It was and everybody… ... Fed off that. And because, frankly, Dick had a, he was explosive personality, people would come and work for him for, you know, three or four years, and then generally leave and go and set up their own studios. But, yeah, he was, you know, I... Most of what I know about animation, the actual art of animating, comes from learning from Dick. And, an awful lot of animators I know, you know, that's, that was their way in. And…

33:48Jawad MirYeah

33:48Simon Wells... You know, people like Eric Goldberg, who's like, you know, a lion of the industry now, yeah, where was he, what, 40 years ago? You know, he was working for Dick Williams.

34:01Jawad MirWow. 40 years seems like a long time.

34:06Simon WellsYeah. Tell me about it.

34:09Jawad MirY… you talked about Cats, and you said there's a whole big story around that. Is that something you're comfortable talking about? Because I obviously have no clue about it.

34:18Simon WellsW… with reservations, yeah. So

34:23Jawad MirWhatever you're comfortable with.

34:25Simon WellsThere are, there are stories and there are jokes and stuff. A… and I have to tell you a joke which I heard, which…

34:31Jawad MirSure

34:31Simon Wells... Is in, there's, there's no authority to this at all. So Spielberg, has a, an apartment in, oddly enough, Trump Tower, and he notices in the other people who have apartments in Trump Tower, there's Andrew Lloyd Webber. And so he calls up Andrew Lloyd Webber, and he says, "Andrew, you're like the most successful, musicals producer in the world, and I'm the most successful film producer and director in the world. We should do a movie together." And Andrew goes, "Well, I don't know. How much do these movies make?" And Spielberg said, "Well, my film, ET grossed $400 million at the box office worldwide." And Andrew goes, "I don't know. Hardly seems worth it, really." Anyway, that's entirely apocryphal. It did not happen.

35:27Jawad MirYeah. I'm sure it, yeah

35:29Simon Wells... But no, they got talking and the idea came up to do this as an animated feature. And, they got, I think it was Richard LaGravenese to, write a script, which was actually a really good script. It managed to weave the,.. 'Cause basically Cats as a show has…

35:51Jawad MirYeah

35:51Simon Wells... Almost no narrative. It is, it is a series of characters. It's a series of character, cameos held together loosely by this concept of the Heaviside Layer and the, you know, one person will be chosen. And, which works very well, by the way, for a stage show. It's a tremendous stage show. It's run forever. It's made all kinds of money. But in terms of a feature, you know, I think LaGravenese very sensibly said, "This needs more of a narrative through line, and you need to feel like the characters, each of these characters contribute something to the journey." and so he put this together, and I don't think Andrew read the script. And we started doing, you know, storyboards and sending them to Spielberg. We were at the same time negotiating our contract, but, Phil and I naively continued working.

36:58Simon WellsJohn Napier, who was going to be the production designer, who had several meetings with us and was a very nice guy, he absolutely vehemently refused to do anything until he actually had a contract, and he was the sensible man in all of this. After about five months or six months of work, I think Andrew finally looked at something that, you know, some of these storyboards, and hated it. He just absolutely hated it. And there was a big summit meeting at Andrew's house, in West London. I'm trying to think which square, but it doesn't matter. But anyway, you know, he has a magnificent house. He has a grand piano in his hall, you know. And Spielberg is at one end and Andrew's at the other, and they basically completely failed to communicate or come to any kind of conclusions.

38:08Simon WellsAnd by the end of the meeting, we all knew, well, that's it. The movie's over. It's dead in the water. And I think, you know, they had very different views about what the movie should or could be, and Spielberg comes from, you know, the narrative storytelling point of view, and Andrew's point of view was that this is a fugue, and it's a m… it's a piece of music primarily, and the songs go in a certain order because they have, you know, structural reason musically for being in that order. I'm not sure I entirely understand his argument, but that's what he claims. And therefore, you know, any reordering, such as had been done in the script, was anathema. So I think it was just, you know, worlds colliding, or actually worse than that. It wasn't worlds colliding. It was worlds completely failing to come anywhere near each other. You know?

39:08Jawad MirYeah.

39:08Simon WellsWorlds missing each other by a million miles. So yeah. And then Phil and I had a struggle actually getting paid for all the work we'd done on the, on the show, which was another painful experience. But anyway, we put that behind us and moved on to…

39:27Jawad MirYeah

39:27Simon Wells... You know, finishing off We're Back! And doing Bolter. But yeah.

39:32Jawad MirAnd that resulted, and that resulted into about 30 years later to make, to get Cats the movie made and which I don't know if anybody watched. I haven't seen it.

39:41Simon WellsI have seen it. It, there are a lot of things about it that are not good. A lot of choices that were made which, I don't know how Andrew Lloyd Webber felt about the film. I have a certain level of resentment of my experience on trying to make it so…

40:04Jawad MirYeah

40:04Simon Wells... There's, there's a level of sort of schadenfreude about like, yes, other people took it on, and they didn't really fare much better either, so, but you know, that's me being mean and petty, and I shouldn't, so

40:18Jawad MirNo, it's okay. And it's funny you mentioned, you know, you talked about Spielberg's and Andrew Lloyd Webber's meeting and how they were looking at two different things, you know, musical versus narrative, and it just reminded me, the, there was a play by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Evita.

40:37Jawad MirAnd, I think Tim Rice did the lyrics, and the movie with Madonna and Antonio Banderas I think was coming out in 1996. And the way they marketed the film and everything, and keep in mind, I had no idea who Andrew Lloyd Webber was at the time

40:52Jawad Mir... And what theatrical musicals are like. So I go in, I sit down, and I'm waiting for dialogue, and the movie ends. It gets... It's an entire musical, right?

41:05Simon WellsYeah.

41:05Jawad MirLike, the whole movie, if my memory serves me right, is an entire musical, and it didn't work for me. Like, I just, I didn't get it. I didn't understand at the time. And I think, not to take anything away from musicals, they're very... Now if I watch it, I'll probably appreciate it more. But at the time, I think that idea of narrative, even now, is necessary. I mean, Evita did have narrative, for sure, but it was just…

41:31Jawad Mir... At the same time, the musical element in there, I don't know if it sits well with the audience to watch something that is completely musical or almost without a narrative, right?

41:40Simon WellsYes, 'cause they did that also with Jesus Christ Superstar, which

41:44Jawad MirYes

41:44Simon Wells... I'm not terribly keen on the film. I love the original, the original recording with Ian Gillan's, doing the voice of Christ, and it works really well purely as a musical. You don't need any dialogue in between the songs because the songs sort of fully illustrate it. I mean, you know, however I feel about Andrew Lloyd Webber, some of his musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar are extraordinary pieces of work. They are. They're really marvelous. I think the film is sort of interesting, and I, and I think my main objection to it is I just didn't really like the singer who did Christ 'cause he just didn't compare to Ian Gillan. But, anyway.

42:26Jawad MirYeah.

42:27Simon WellsBut yeah, I know what you mean. There's like a pure musical where there is no narrative. There's no, sorry, no dialogue at all…

42:35Jawad MirDialogue

42:36Simon Wells... Is kind of... I mean, it ought to work. It ought to be possible to make that work. You know, as I say, it works on the stage, so.

42:47Jawad MirBut I think there's a different audience for that though, right?

42:49Simon WellsYeah.

42:49Jawad MirLike pe… people who go to theater… It's different audience as opposed to people like the masses that'll come to see movies. The masses don't go to theater…

42:59Simon WellsYeah, and you…

43:00Jawad Mir... And watch plays

43:00Simon Wells... It's also, you're expecting a different experience.

43:03Jawad MirYeah.

43:04Simon WellsYeah.

43:04Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. 100%.

43:06Simon WellsSo, yeah. But yeah, I've never been a huge musicals fan. It's not a thing. You know, I don't, I don't go out to a lot of musicals, and I don't know a lot of musicals, so.

43:19Jawad MirYeah, same here.

43:20Simon WellsYou know, it's, it's…

43:21Jawad MirI…

43:21Simon Wells... I'm not really, I'm not really a qualified person to comment on that.

43:27Jawad MirSo you most recently worked on Kung Fu Panda 4, correct?

43:33Simon WellsThat's the last film that I worked on that's actually come out, yeah.

43:37Jawad MirYes, that's a come out.

43:38Simon WellsActually… ... Oddly no, wait a minute. There's actually, there's a film that's come out since then, called Ultraman, which, oh, lordy, I've forgotten…

43:50Jawad MirOh, it's called Ultraman…

43:52Simon WellsYeah

43:52Jawad Mir... Rising from the Netflix.

43:53Simon WellsAnd yeah, and I actually storyboarded stuff on that, like, four years ago.

43:59Jawad MirOh, wow

44:00Simon Wells... And apparently I have a credit on it, so, 'cause somebody had seen it and said, "Oh, I saw your name in the credits of this film, Ultraman." It's like, "I have no idea what you're talking about." But actually, after a little bit of kind of triangulation, I realized, oh, it was called Super Baby Daddy when I worked on it. That was, like, its working title. So

44:20Jawad MirSuper Baby Daddy to Ultraman.

44:22Simon WellsYeah. But anyway…... But I, yeah, I need to see it. Well…

44:25Jawad MirYeah, I didn't know. I've never heard of it even on Netflix. It's, it's a Jap… Japanese science fiction media franchise. Yeah, it's…

44:33Simon WellsApparently, yeah

44:34Jawad Mir... Seems interesting. I gotta…

44:36Simon WellsBut an American director

44:38Jawad MirYeah

44:38Simon Wells... And…

44:38Jawad MirOf course

44:39Simon Wells... And I've forgotten his... You've got it in front of you. I've, I've, his name has slipped my mind. I'm embarrassed, 'cause he's a great guy.

44:47Jawad MirIt's created by, it's a Japanese guy. Let me just look on IMDb.

44:51Simon WellsNo, that's, that's, that's not the movie...

44:55Jawad MirNo, hold on. Creators, let me go under directors. Oh, Jeff Nimoy or…

45:04Simon WellsYeah

45:04Jawad Mir... Kenji, Shinji Aramaki. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong series.

45:10Simon WellsNo, it wasn't a series.

45:10Jawad MirOh, no, it's…

45:11Simon WellsIt's, it's a feature.

45:12Jawad MirYeah.

45:12Simon WellsIt's a feature film, not the series.

45:13Jawad MirOh, okay. Okay. Hold on. Ultraman movie. Ultraman as in U-L-T-R-A-M-A-N, right?

45:22Simon WellsI think so.

45:24Jawad MirNo, that's not coming up.

45:25Simon WellsYeah, well, that, you know, I hope you're gonna edit this out of your final release.

45:31Jawad MirYeah. I will.

45:33Simon WellsWatching us look things up on the computer. Anywa…

45:37Jawad MirYeah. Anyways, sorry. Sorry about that.

45:39Simon WellsYeah. Well, I, hang on, I can find, I can find out 'cause I can look up

45:46Jawad MirI mean, you should know what you worked on.

45:48Simon WellsWell, I know, but I've worked on so many things that…

45:51Jawad MirI know, I know. I'm just kidding around

45:53Simon Wells... What if I search under those terms? Yeah. Oh, God, it's, it was 2017 when I worked on that show. Holy cow.

46:11Jawad MirSo it is the one that I was talking about.

46:14Simon WellsOh, Shannon Tindle. Shannon Tindle was the director.

46:18Jawad MirBut it is it Ultraman series on Netflix? Is…

46:20Simon WellsI believe, I, no, I think, I think it's a, it's the, it's a feature film, not a series, and I think it's called Ultraman. I think it's come out under the title Ultraman, but, you know. Let's IMDb Shannon and see what latest thing he's had come out.

46:47Jawad MirWhat's his full name? Shannon...

46:49Simon WellsShannon Tindle, T-I-N-D-L-E. He was the director of, Kubo and the, and the Three Strings and

46:57Jawad MirOh, Kubo and Two Strings? Okay.

46:59Simon WellsYeah, Two Strings. Oh, sorry, whatever. Yeah.

47:00Jawad MirUltra… Ul… Ultraman Rising, it's called.

47:03Simon WellsOh, okay.

47:05Jawad MirSo it is Ultraman, but Rising.

47:07Simon WellsUltraman Rising. Okay. Well, apparently I worked on it, yeah, like, actually seven years ago now, so

47:14Jawad MirAnd it just came out this year.

47:17Simon WellsYeah. Happens.

47:19Jawad MirOkay.

47:20Simon WellsYeah.

47:20Jawad MirYeah. And, you know, going to Kung Fu Panda 4, I still haven't… ... Seen it. I haven't had a chance. What was, what was your experience on working some… on something that sort of been out of... You know, the first one came out in 2007, and I think the second one came around…

47:38Jawad Mir... 2010, and the third one maybe a few years after. But…

47:41Simon WellsI worked on all of them, yeah.

47:43Jawad MirYeah. So it was, like, a long gap, right, before they started sort of kind of coming back?

47:48Simon WellsYeah, I don't, I don't particularly know why. There was, there was a time when they were thinking about rebooting the franchise and doing it as a live action animation combo thing where, Po would come into sort of the human world, or at least it would be a world which real human actors would interact with animated characters. I don't know the wisdom of that one way or the other, but, yeah, th… this, the final version that got done, I think Mike Mitchell came on board to start directing it. Might have been during COVID. I'm not quite sure. But yeah, I've, I've worked with Mike Mitchell many times over the years. I've, I've known him, must be 15 years or more, and, no, more, actually, more like 20. So yeah, it was, it, there's a, there's a bunch of animation directors I have very comfortable, experiences with because I've worked with them either, you know, in parallel to the time when Mike Mitchell was, you know, still drawing storyboards and, so yeah, it was, it was a good experience in that, you know, Mike trusted me.

49:08Simon WellsHe could, he could launch Man of Sequence confident that, you know, I was gonna, I was gonna deliver what he was after. He's very good at communicating what it is that he wants and kind of his vision for how a scene should play. And, you know, open to suggestions and ideas. So yeah, that whole thing, it's a, it's a very good working experience. Now, you know, a lot of what you do ends up getting cut out. That's the nature…

49:36Simon Wells... Of storyboard for animation. You, I think it was Brenda who said, "You know, everything you draw is on explosive bolts." It's just any moment just boom, it's gone. Yep, that's no longer in the movie, or that's gonna be rethought and restaged, and somebody else may take it on and change it all. So there's a whole lot of stuff I did for the movie that didn't end up in the movie, but, a great deal of the... There's a whole battle between, the chameleon and Poe…

50:06Simon Wells... And I boarded a lot of that. So yeah, you know, I, it was… I think I probably worked on the show for somewhere between four and six months, something like that. I tend to move around quite a lot. I'm, I'm a very expensive storyboard artist, so I get shuttled from show to show. So typically, I storyboard on maybe four movies a year.

50:35Jawad MirKinda going back to the beginning of our conversation then to the end, would you have imagined 40 years ago or 30 years ago that you'd be doing what you're doing right now at DreamWorks as a storyboard artist, and that's something that you'd be excel… excelling at, and probably one of the most expensive storyboard artists? Like it was something that…

50:55Jawad Mir... You probably…

50:56Simon WellsI could actually in a sense take it back further than that. I… You know, when I was seven years old, what I really wanted to do was draw pictures, and if people would pay me pic… pay me money… ... To draw pictures, I have in effect, ended up with the career I dreamed of having when I was seven years old. Now, I didn't know storyboards existed. I used to, I used to draw little, you know, cartoons in the corners of all of my textbooks and, or at least my rough books. And, you know, my parents were very concerned because I wouldn't concentrate on my schoolwork, but my books were always covered in these little drawings. And they were always, they were always storytelling drawings. They were always drawings where something was happening. It wasn't just like, "Oh, here's a nice bowl of flowers."

51:43Jawad MirYeah.

51:43Simon WellsIt's always, you know, somebody's kicking the bowl of flowers off the table, and it's about to land on somebody else. That, you know, it… So I kind of imagined I was gonna become an illustrator and maybe comic books, but I had no idea how you get into comic books. But I had some idea that you could be an illustrator. So that was sort of what I had originally envisaged. I… the whole film directing thing wasn't something that I had dreamed of doing at all until it kinda,.. I guess actually until seeing the first Back to the Future. When I saw the first Back to the Future, it's like, "Oh my God, I've gotta work in film. I… th-this is the stuff I ought to be doing." And then a little after that it's like, "Well, if I'm gonna work in film, maybe I should be the director," 'cause the directors are the most important people. You know. But, yeah, I mean, I think until I started working in commercials in '84, I didn't even know storyboards existed.

52:47Simon WellsI didn't know what a storyboard was. And until working on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I didn't understand how storyboards worked in feature films. And until really working on Prince of Egypt, I didn't understand the kind of the Disney story process of how you develop a film and how you keep reworking the storyboards and revising and changing it and, you know. 'Cause the Amblimation stuff, it's like you pretty much, you storyboarded it went into production. You didn't do a lot of storyboard changes. So you know, what I do for a living now, I, yeah, I get paid to sit on a couch and draw funny pictures and, that pays my mortgage, which I'm very happy about. And, you know, the nice thing is that now I'm in a position where I get to, you know, I get to choose who I work with. I don't have to work with anybody who comes along. And I also, I find it, I find it's actually… I've, I haven't really found many directors I didn't like working with.

53:51Simon WellsAnd a lot of that's to do with the fact that, you know, I early on, I always say to them, "Look, I've sat in your chair. I don't want to be sitting in your chair. I'm not trying to take your job. I am here to deliver whatever it is you've got in your head. Frankly, I'm not even gonna judge what your ideas are. They may be good, they may be bad. I will make them work. They will show up on screen. They will sing. They will be pieces of cinema. Now, you may look at it later and go, 'Well, this doesn't work in the story of the movie at all,' and you can cut it out and that's fine. I've already been paid." You know, I've done so much of this now, I really don't mind if my material gets thrown out and…

54:33Jawad MirYeah

54:33Simon Wells... Other stuff replaces it, or I get asked to revise it, whatever. You know, when I was a younger artist, I was very, you know, very possessive about my work, and I still see, you know, young storyboard artists who y… you know, gripe about the fact their stuff gets changed or, you know. It's like, nope, that's, that's the job. You know, you come into a story team, check your ego at the door because it's not about you. And, You know, if your stuff ends up being in the movie, then great. Or you may have just helped get them to the place where they needed to get to in order to tell the story properly. And you may have done that by showing them a whole lot of ways they didn't want to tell the story, and that's okay too. That's just as useful. But yeah, it's, it is a hard change for young artists who, you know, you draw pictures, you paint pictures, you create things, and you have a love of the thing that you've created.

55:37Simon WellsAnd to get to a place where that is dispensable, that is disposable, is emotionally very hard to develop. It's, to get that kind of thick skin where I don't mind, I don't care. I mean, I care. I care enough to do a good job, but if that then gets thrown away, I'm not, I'm not grinding my teeth and gnawing my knuckles with rage and frustration anymore…

56:04Jawad MirYeah

56:04Simon Wells... Which I'm very glad about, 'cause that was a lot of energy.

56:09Jawad MirYeah. But I think that comes with time, right? Like, also…

56:13Simon WellsYeah

56:13Jawad Mir... With a lot of work, like if you keep yourself, if you get, end up getting a lot of work, eventually then you start realizing that, okay, I'm not that, you know, I'm not that special, for the lack of a better word. Like, my work is not that special.

56:25Simon WellsYeah.

56:26Jawad MirIt's just

56:26Simon WellsOh…

56:26Jawad Mir... Integrated

56:26Simon Wells... And believe me, I still find this, to this day that, yeah, I'm, I'm quite in demand as a story artist and people, respect my work, which is nice. But I also, I belong to story teams and, I mean, just yesterday a guy called Dave Walter, who is, quite an experienced story artist, delivered a sequence for this movie which was, it used a lot of very extreme anime kind of filmmaking, techniques and conventions, and it was hilarious and breathtaking and a completely different take on the scene than I would've been able to come up with. And I looked at it and went, "Man, okay, I'm challenged by that." You know? Dave has done something that right now I couldn't do. And, so maybe I need to, I need to step up a bit and do something a bit more remarkable.

57:28Jawad MirYeah. It's a healthy competition…

57:30Simon WellsWhich is great

57:30Jawad Mir... Right? It, yeah.

57:30Simon WellsOh, it's, it's, it's terrific. I love that. You know, actually, I've been very lucky in the last couple movies I've worked on that, the story crews I have been with have been kind of all the A-list storyboard artists that DreamWorks have. Partly 'cause they haven't got a lot that's at that level of development, so they've just been taking this whole, this gang of four or five of the top artists and just moving them from one movie to the next. And that's, yeah, the, I... There's nothing better than the feeling of, oh man, I wonder what Katherine Reeder is going to come through with. I have to make sure that what I'm doing is as good as it can possibly be, because I don't want to be overshadowed by her. 'Cause…

58:19Jawad MirYeah

58:19Simon Wells... I will be, 'cause she's really good. Or, you know, what's Rob Koo going to deliver? It's gonna be hilarious and brilliant and, y… you know, I'm, I've gotta work hard.

58:30Jawad MirYeah. That's, that's…

58:31Simon WellsWhich is nice

58:31Jawad Mir... Pretty much w… that's pretty much what it is. It's all about just topping your game, and sometimes, I mean, a prime example of this is, like, you know, Disney versus DreamWorks, right? Like, Disney was ruling the world in terms of animation. Lion King had come out. Toy Story had come out. And then when DreamWorks landed in, you know, things kinda got shuffled. Like, you know, w… they had…

58:55Simon WellsYeah, I mean, a… and Disney carried on making some very good films.

59:00Jawad MirYeah.

59:00Simon WellsAnd not every movie DreamWorks made was…

59:03Jawad MirOf course

59:04Simon Wells... That superb. But, yeah, I mean, right now I'm, I'm selfishly very glad I'm working for DreamWorks. I think they're making some very good films. And I think they've got a couple of films that are going to be extraordinarily good. I'm really looking forward to Wild Robot that comes out, and I…

59:23Jawad MirOh

59:23Simon Wells... I have, I have absolutely nothing, no knowledge of at all. I did… I didn't work on it, so I'm actually kind of resentful to Chris Sanders that I didn't get to work on it because I've, I've worked with Chris on a couple of movies and, it's like, "Dude, why did you not employ me?" But yeah, watching that trailer, it's like…

59:42Jawad MirI know

59:42Simon Wells... Holy cow, I, that film looks like it's gonna be something really remarkable.

59:47Jawad MirYou know, it reminded me, when I was watching it, I felt like I was watching Iron Giant…

59:54Simon WellsYes

59:54Jawad Mir... In a way.

59:54Simon WellsYeah. It…

59:55Jawad MirAnd…

59:55Simon Wells... Looks like it's gonna have that same emotional whammy that Iron Giant had.

1:00:00Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:00Simon WellsAnd 'cause Chris does charming, like, unbelievably well. He, his, you know, his personal drawings have charm just oozing out of them, and somehow he has, he has a very, like, puddling around in wet clay kind of working technique. He's constantly changing and fiddling with things. But what he comes to at the end, is extraordinary. It can be very frustrating working with him, but at the same time he ends up with something where you go, "Yeah, okay, it's worth it," because it, he's doing something. I don't quite know what the alchemy is that he uses to create that, but, yeah, I, just from the trailer, you look at it and go, "This is gonna be a tearjerker," you know?

1:00:49Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:49Simon WellsI'm gonna be that connected and involved with this.

1:00:52Jawad MirI think it's gonna, I think it's gonna make a good amount of money, and I also think it's gonna dominate the awards season. It, I just, it, I can just feel it, like, looking, again, like, looking at the trailer.

1:01:02Simon WellsIt just kinda has that smell about it, doesn't it?

1:01:05Jawad MirYeah.

1:01:05Simon WellsYeah.

1:01:05Jawad MirIt does.

1:01:06Simon WellsYeah.

1:01:06Jawad MirIt does. There's just something about it that it clicks.

1:01:09Simon WellsAnd, as I say, the, there's a couple movies I'm working on at the moment unannounced which, have, the, you know, the work I'm seeing that's getting done on it just in terms of story development, is amazing. And

1:01:25Jawad MirOh, wow

1:01:26Simon Wells... And by contrast, I have to say the last few movies out of Disney have not been great. And I…

1:01:33Jawad MirPixar too, I would say.

1:01:36Simon WellsYeah.

1:01:36Jawad MirI, at least I…

1:01:37Simon WellsYeah

1:01:37Jawad Mir... At least I would say that, yeah.

1:01:39Simon WellsThey, yeah, I mean, Pixar make reliably competent movies even when they're not, like, blockbuster amazing movies. Although, yeah, I think, th… there were things conceptually wrong with Lightyear. I think it, in itself it wasn't a bad movie, but it, if it hadn't been connected to the, you know, the whole Toy Story franchise, but because it is…

1:02:06Jawad MirYeah

1:02:06Simon Wells... It was disappointing. Now I mean, it was, it was a well-made movie for and of itself. It wasn't, it wasn't bad. Where I've gotta be honest, and I'm really sorry to say this, but I just did not think Wish was a good movie. I, y… you know…

1:02:27Jawad MirOh, yeah

1:02:27Simon Wells... In any, in any frame, I'm afraid. And I feel bad saying that because working in animation, you know there's like 3 or 400 people who have put, you know, years of their life into these movies. But, I mean, I sort of, I'm afraid I felt about it the same way I felt about some of Don Bluth's later movies where, you know, you look at them and you go, "All that work and effort in pursuit of that," you know, that sort of disappointing concept was, is just, it, there's a level of outrage I feel on behalf of the artists.

1:03:09Jawad MirBut I think that happens in sports, in films. W… we all go through this arc ourselves, right? Like, where we feel like we're ascending, and we get to the point, and then we start taking it for granted to some degree sometimes, and then we start going down…

1:03:25Simon WellsYeah

1:03:25Jawad Mir... And like, "Okay, we gotta wake up again," and, you know, it's just like…

1:03:27Simon WellsYeah, there's this kind of ebb and flow of like…

1:03:29Jawad MirYeah

1:03:29Simon Wells... Yeah.

1:03:30Jawad MirYeah

1:03:31Simon Wells... And look, you know, I also have to, you know, have the humility to recognize that I haven't made any films that have been enormously successful, so who am I to be looking at something like Wish and saying, "Well, that's not a very good movie." It's like, well, yeah, what have you done?

1:03:47Jawad MirWell…

1:03:48Simon WellsYou know?

1:03:48Jawad Mir... You're an audience member too, right? So you're supposed to be…

1:03:50Simon WellsWell, yes, I, sure.

1:03:52Jawad MirYeah

1:03:52Simon Wells... But yeah, I do recognize that, you know, I, as a film director, I haven't had a particularly successful, career. And so it's hardly for me to look at other filmmakers and say, "Well, you know, what you did is lousy." But yeah, I... Th… there are films you come out of like, I remember going to see Zootopia under extreme pressure. I did not wanna go and see Zootopia. It's a bunch of, like, what I term cats in pajamas. It's, it's like…

1:04:31Jawad MirYeah

1:04:31Simon Wells... It's just fluffy animals dressed up in human outfits pretending to be things, and I've done movies like that. I don't like them. And my kids dragged me along, and I came out of Zootopia feeling that may be in my top five animated movies of all time. That was an incredible, brilliant movie.

1:04:50Jawad MirYeah, it was.

1:04:51Simon WellsAnd so, you know, I, and of which, by the way, I'm professionally enormously envious, you know. But, yeah, so, movies can totally, can win me over. But, yeah, I…

1:05:12Jawad MirYeah

1:05:13Simon Wells... Yeah. Anyway, sorry. That's…

1:05:15Jawad MirNo. It's, it…

1:05:16Simon Wells... A bit of a wander off into the wilderness there.

1:05:19Jawad MirIt's completely okay. I do that all the time. Yeah, but it's, it's, it's great. You know, thank you so much, Simon, for joining in. Let's, let's talk, keep talking when the films are announced, and maybe whenever they come out we will have more to talk about. I always have a great time talking to you. It's always a pleasure.

1:05:36Simon WellsOh, likewise, yeah. So good to talk to you too.

1:05:40Jawad MirWonderful.

1:05:40Simon WellsOkay.

1:05:40Jawad MirAll right. You take care now.

1:05:42Simon WellsAll right.

1:05:43Jawad MirBye.

1:05:43Simon WellsSee you.