Designing 'Spirit Stallion of Cimarron', Character Designer, Carlos Grangel

0:00Carlos GrangelJeffrey usually had breakfast with people at 7:00. He said, "Well, Carlos, I think you are doing great, and now that you decided to go back to Spain after El Dorado and Prince of Egypt, I think it's time for you to go, but you know that we've been working on this movie for at least half a year, Spirit. I want your take on the designs." I said, "Jeffrey, I cannot draw horses. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm coming from having fun on El Dorado, and I don't mind to work on any other movie that you can give me, and"... And he said right away, he said, "Listen, Carlos, this time you cannot really select." Sometimes they gave me to a script Shrek, which I said, no. The Road to El Dorado, which I said, yes. So DreamWorks had lots of projects to work at that. Jeffrey said, "There is the door."

0:58Jawad MirWelcome back, everyone, to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams podcast, the making of stories. I'm your host, Jawad Mir. Today, my guest is Carlos Grangel. I've had the pleasure of having him on this podcast a few times. Once to talk about Corpse Bride, but today he's here to talk about one of my personal favorite films, Spirit Stallion of Cimarron. For this particular film, I have spoken to director Lorna Cook, about a year and a half, two years ago. I've spoken to Simon Wells, who had several times on this podcast who storyboarded one of the scene. And Carlos is here to talk about Spirit, the character designing, and all that fun stuff with some incredible stories with Jeffrey Katzenberg, Lorna Cook, and a whole bunch of cool things. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Carlos for Spirit Stallion of Cimarron. But let's talk about Spirit…

1:42Carlos GrangelGreat

1:42Jawad Mir... Stallion of Cimarron. I had spoken to Lorna Cook, who co-directed…

1:48Carlos GrangelYeah, great

1:48Jawad Mir... The film.

1:48Carlos GrangelSo sweet. Yeah.

1:50Jawad MirAnd I… She's a great friend now. Anytime I go to LA, we get together.

1:56Carlos GrangelYeah

1:56Jawad Mir... You know, one of my favorite animated films, along with Lion King

2:01Carlos GrangelOh, thank you

2:02Jawad Mir... In terms of traditional animation. So tell me about how you got involved on the film. I know you had been working on DreamWorks and stuff projects, but just y… the story behind that and wherever you wanna take it from there, and then we can talk about different scenes that you worked on.

2:17Carlos GrangelVery good. I… It's great that you mention Lorna because, Lorna has a huge role on me coming in, into… ... Into Spirit, you know. I obviously… Let me say one thing. Spirit and the Prince of Egypt has been the two most difficult films for me, to work on and in my life. So, first of all, both they were dramas, so they needed that touch of realism, stylized realism. Stylized realism is that narrow line that, it's not caricature, is not a fun movie, is not a comedy. We couldn't do Corpse Bride or Madagascar style. Y… you know what I'm saying? So…

3:07Jawad MirRight. Of course, of course.

3:08Carlos GrangelAnd Lorna, first of all, was storyboarding many of these, scenes, and she drew beautifully, you know, on Prince of Egypt storyboarding and on Spirit too. That was going to be her movie with Kelly Asbury, which, passed three, four, five years ago, the second director on board. So here is the deal. I was finishing on El Dorado working with my friend Nicolas Marlet and Tony Siruno, the three designers that we were working on The Road to El Dorado. And one day I got a call from Jeffrey's office, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and he said, "Jeffrey wanna have breakfast with you 7:30 in the morning tomorrow." Jeffrey usually had breakfast with people at 7:00, 6:30, 7:30, so 7:30 was late for him anyway.

4:06Carlos GrangelSo we met at The Campus and we had breakfast, and he said, "Well, Carlos, I think you are doing great, and now that you decided to go back to Spain after El Dorado and Prince of Egypt, I think it's time for you to go. But I have a… I need you to work on a movie." And I said, "Wow, it's great. I can take movies to Spain, so" He said, "Yeah, but you need to be half of the year here." So that was the deal. Anyway, long story short, he said, "You know that we've been working on this movie for at least half a year, Spirit, about horses." And I said, "Yeah, I know." And my friend Carter Goodrich, an amazing illustrator and character designer who worked with me on The Prince of Egypt, did beautiful stuff with other people. And he said, "Yeah, but Lorna is gonna direct it, and I think we wanna give… Lorna wants your take on the designs." I said, "Jeffrey, I cannot draw horses.

5:10Carlos GrangelI'm sorry. I mean, I'm coming from having fun on El Dorado, and I don't mind to work on any other movie that you can give me, and"... And he said right away, he said, "Listen, Carlos, this time you cannot really select." Sometimes they gave me to a script Shrek, which I said, no. The Road to El Dorado, which I said, yes. So DreamWorks had lots of projects to work at that time. And Jeffrey said, "There is the door. Spirit or Spirit, you know. Spirit or Spirit, there is the door. You can go to back to Spain, have a nice life, your siesta, sangrias, enjoy the beach and paella." He said right away. I said, "Jeffrey, I'm sorry, you said that you were going to give me another possibility." He said, "No, we want you to work on Spirit." He said, "This is my story He said, "I ask, script writer John Fusco to write story about the Americana seen under the eyes of a wild horse.

6:17Carlos GrangelThat's, that's my movie, Carlos. Do you understand what I'm asking you?" And I said, "Okay." I said, "Let me call my brother, which is my partner, and I get you back tomo… He said, "Tomorrow at 9:00 is late. You call me before 9:00 AM." So he gave me 40, 24 hours, 23 hours because it was early. Anyway, I called my brother and he said, "Listen, guy, after doing The Prince of Egypt, it shouldn't be any harder than that." And I said, "Yes, 85% of the script, it's, it's, scenes with horses, you know? And horses are so beautiful, full animals, you know, so perfect, you know? Nature designed them, you know? And my jo… my brother always has a nice take. He said, "Yeah, but those aren't the horses that the conquistadors left there, so they are coming from the Andalusian horse down there in Spain, which they are coming from the Arab horses, from north of Africa."

7:23Carlos GrangelAnd I say, "What do you mean, Jordi?" I say, "Well, somehow are related to us, you know? So, these horses, they're, they're running wild since, they, the conquistadors lost some battles in South America. Those are, the genes are horses that they came from Europe, and obviously even before from Arab… Arabic peninsula or Africa, you know? So I said, "Okay." I said, "Jordi, what do you mean?" And Jordi said, "If you're coming back and not living more in LA, we need a job, you know? So get that damn script and get it back to over here and let's start working on those horses, you know?" So the day after, I called Jeffrey at his office and talk with her assistant and said, "At 7:00 o'clock", and I said, "We're gonna do it." So and right away that day, which I was in LA still living and working and in El Dorado, I met with Lorna Cook, you know?

8:25Carlos GrangelAnd she's the sweetest director I ever worked with, you know? You know Lorna, and she drew spectacular horses. She loves horses.

8:36Jawad MirYeah.

8:36Carlos GrangelI believe she had horses.

8:39Jawad MirShe still does

8:40Carlos Grangel... Horses.

8:40Jawad MirShe still does.

8:42Carlos GrangelYou know?

8:42Jawad MirYeah.

8:42Carlos GrangelSo I said, "Lorna, you are gonna help me with this because, I'm coming from a cartoony film, Tulio and Miguel: The Road to El Dorado, you know? I like more caricature." And she said, "You will, you will. I trust you so much, Carlos." And she said something, "You do appealing drawings, and we need something very appealing because they're not gonna talk. The horses are not gonna talk. And this is gonna be through their movements, expressions, and all that." So I started early 1999, and I remember a meeting, I remember a meeting when after so much struggle, three months trying to draw horses myself in my room 12 hours a day, my hand, my right hand was painful because I just couldn't get the right thing that I wanted, you know? Obviously with the help of Lorna and going every day to the equestrian center in Burbank, which they have horses, you know, and sketching horses.

9:49Carlos GrangelSo three month after, we got the first approval, we got Spirit approved, you know? On a meeting with Lorna, Kelly, and Kelly Asbury, which he joined right away, two or three weeks after I joined, with Jeffrey and Mireille Soria, producer, and Matt Hauer too was at the beginning the producer. But Mireille Soria was the one that stood during all the movie, and we got Spirit approved. And Jeffrey said, "Well, not that bad. After three months we have Spirit." And I said, "Not that bad, Jeffrey? On El Dorado you were approving characters every week. It took us three month to get the main hero, you know?" He said, "Yeah, but you see, good things takes time." And that was the roughest meeting I had with Katzenberg and directors on board because I said, "Jeffrey" Jeffrey didn't like that, what I said. And it's true, but I say it from the bottom of my heart.

10:51Carlos GrangelI said, "Do you know, do you wanna do this movie in two years and a half? It's gonna take you three and a half. Do you know how much are gonna suffer those animators, you know, and the entire cast of artists, you know, doing these horses?" And he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "I mean that they are so, it's so painful. It's, it's just so painful. I've been every day going and doing live drawing two, three hours a day, coming back to my desk here at the campus in Glendale at DreamWorks Animation, sleeping five, six hours." "Well, like me," he said. Okay, you, but I'm an artist, I need to rest well. You know what I'm saying? He's a businessman. Anyway, long story short, I said, "It's gonna take forever." And he went crazy on me. In fact, he called me to his office the day after and he said, "You don't say this in front of people because you scare the team."

11:53Carlos Grangel"I believe you are a good leader, but you don't say this. You understand what I'm saying?" And I said, "Well, I warned the team because I had the problems. I'm warning them, and I'm warning you in case you wanna screen this movie one year earlier." And it, they took them three years and few months. So it was a painful movie to do. I remember supervising animator of Spirit, James Baxter, had so many problems too. And James can draw, you know what I'm saying?

12:26Carlos GrangelSo every, everyone in Spirit was giving the, not a 100%, the 1,000%, you know? That movie was a daily struggle with everyone, you know? We had animators coming from Shrek and The Road to El Dorado, those were totally different movies, you know?

12:47Jawad MirYeah.

12:48Carlos GrangelThe level of draftsmanship. There is a sentence from Glen Keane when they started working on Tarzan, he said, "This movie is gonna divide men from kids," you know? He mean it is gonna be tough. So that sentence can be applied to Spirit. It really make, like The Prince of Egypt, it really make people... I'm not saying that we were the best, the ones that stood on Spirit. I'm just saying that it was so hard, you know, Jawad? So…

13:22Jawad MirOh, yeah

13:22Carlos Grangel... So it was a…

13:24Jawad MirYeah

13:24Carlos Grangel... A tremendous difficult movie. We had so many great storyboarding people. Lorna, obviously, but she was directing most of the time, but doing some boards. But we had Jennifer Hugh, you know, director of Kung Fu Panda 2, I believe. We had Jorgen Graz. We had lots of people. At some point, probably Simon Wells sketched something for a story. We had so many good people on that show. And then we had great painters, Luc Desmachelier, who actually was the art director too. Bill Kaufman. We had all the great painters from The Prince of Egypt, you know, on the backgrounds. And, but the issue was to move, to animate, to design horses. That was the main issue. They shouldn't look like dogs.

14:25Carlos GrangelYou know? They shouldn't look like... They had to move perfectly.

14:31Jawad MirYeah. And they did because, so one of the things I didn't mention earlier, along with Spirit and Lion King, Prince of Egypt is one of my favorite films too. Like, I've, I've seen that movie so many times. And I remember specifically Spirit, when the first teaser came out, they actually used the teaser as the opening of the film. Like, the first…

14:50Carlos GrangelYes

14:50Jawad Mir... You know?

14:50Carlos GrangelThe prologue.

14:51Jawad MirAnd…

14:51Carlos GrangelYeah.

14:51Jawad MirYeah. The, and they had Robert Redford narrate it later.

14:55Carlos GrangelIt's true.

14:56Jawad MirYeah, and he just passed away yesterday.

14:59Carlos GrangelYeah.

14:59Jawad MirAnd then obviously the film was with Matt Damon. But the movement of the horses in that film, when I saw it, 'cause I have ridden horses too growing up. It was just so incredible with the breathtaking visuals and the ca… the 3D camera movement.

15:15Jawad MirYou know, especially when the horses come on the hill…

15:18Carlos GrangelYeah

15:18Jawad Mir... And the camera goes sideways, and then it goes up. Like, you had not seen anything like that in a 2D animated film at the time.

15:24Carlos GrangelNo.

15:25Jawad MirAnd you could see the horses in every angle, and that's a testament to all the work that everybody did, right? And it paid off. Maybe not box office-wise, but I think it's one of the most amazing films ever made. Like, and not just animated films, it's just, to have not see animals talk in an animated film. Yes…

15:45Jawad Mir... That may have caused the film box office to go down south, but that was such a bold move and it worked throughout the film.

15:52Carlos GrangelYeah. The, you know that film when was screened at, in Cannes at the festival 2, 2002, you know, 2002?

16:02Jawad MirYeah.

16:02Carlos GrangelIt had one hour people clapping.

16:06Jawad MirI'm not surprised. It was, it wasn't…

16:08Carlos GrangelIn France. They were…

16:09Jawad MirIt wasn't…

16:09Carlos GrangelThey were not expecting anything like that. I think that's, it's true from day one that was a film that Jeffrey wanted to do, like The Prince of Egypt. Jeffrey and Steven, you know, Spielberg. And… ... But Spirit was more of Jeffrey Katzenberg idea alone, you know? And it wasn't a blockbuster on the box office, you know? And we know, but it was an amazing movie that many people nowadays still remembers. And they said, "Hey, Carlos, do you can you draw a Spirit for me? Or can you..." and it's one of the... I have three movies on my mind, Prince of Egypt and Spirit and Course Right, and lately Pinocchio from Guillermo del Toro. But that, they are three outstanding movies of my career, you know, of my lifetime, you know? And yeah, one of them is Spirit, by the difficulties and by how beautiful it turned out. And I remember that first teaser with the horses coming down a hill and then showing up…

17:22Jawad MirYeah

17:22Carlos Grangel... Tremendously beautiful. And Spirit running and moving his neck and mane, you know? And even getting more speed, you know? That, it's, it's every one of the animators at that time that stood on Spirit, and it's true that they were somehow torture because Lorna knew exactly where the... Lorna, which is a tremendous animator too, you know, knew exactly where the mistakes were and how to put things in place, on place, and knew where, muscles were, sorry, were, and legs and manes and tails. So she was checking every rough animation, you know? And in a, in a very sweet way telling you, "Look at there. There is something there," you know? Or, "Look at your design here. It can be..."

18:24Carlos GrangelShe always will say, "Forgive me if I am wrong, but do you have a piece of paper and a tracing paper and draw on top of my drawing?" And her drawing was so beautiful, you know? I still have some of them, her…

18:39Jawad MirOh, that's nice

18:40Carlos Grangel... And I'm not really brown-nosing her, you know? She really, she really helped me out to all through the movie. We had some ups and downs because, it's, it's, it's, it's not a secret, but I can tell you now, James Baxter…

19:00Jawad MirSure

19:00Carlos Grangel... Wanted to do designs, the designs on the Spirit, James. So at that time, the animators from Disney, and even before, like Milt Kahl or Marc Davis used to do their own designs, you know? So James, arrived in the middle of Prince of Egypt and stood on El Dorado and, but still he wanted to do the designs on Spirit. And obviously he did Rafiki on Lion King and blah, Belle in Beauty and the Beast and many characters at Disney. But at DreamWorks, the designers designs and the animators animates, you know what I'm saying? There is a status that they brought these amazing designers from East Coast like Goodrich or Peter DeSeve, and then Nicolas Marlet from France, myself from Spain. DreamWorks wanted guys who could design, who knew about animation, some of them too.

20:01Carlos GrangelLike, I did my animation training of three years, and Nico was an animator in France, you know, coming out from Gobelins school in Paris. Anyway, long story short, we had a tremendous battle with James presenting his designs to Lorna, and Lorna holding and saying, "Hey, we know what we want. And these are beautiful, James, but are too caricature. This is the horse of Milt Kahl on Sleeping Beauty, you know? So…

20:33Carlos Grangel... We need something real." And our designers are working hard. I remember I was there kind of leading a three, four great designers and great animators too, like Preston Romanillos, Tony Siruno designing, Patrick Mate designing too. Pierre-Olivier Vincent, who is an art director or production designer on... He did, he did many movies at DreamWorks. Anyway, we were doing a very strong team on design, you know? And finally, James understood that, working on a... It was a team effort of design. It wasn't a solo, you know, thing. You know? If you wanna be The Beatles, you n… need Lennon and McCartney, but you need Ring… Ringo and the other guy, you know? And anyway, he understood, and finally he was okay animating whatever was coming approved from design department, you know?

21:35Carlos GrangelBut, this is one of the secrets I hold on me, but now I think we can talk about it, you know?

21:42Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's nothing bad. I mean, it's just these things happen at any production, right? Like, and later in life you realize that, okay, you know, maybe that was this and this was that. But, you know, I'll get to those scenes in a bit, but I just wanna mention something. And, Lorna told me this, a few times f… maybe last year when I was, with her. We were talking about Spirit and DreamWorks and she mentioned... And we're talking about how films change people's lives, right?

22:12Jawad MirThere was this one person who came up to her and said, 20 years later, that, "I was on the verge of suicide, and Spirit took me away from that thought."

22:24Carlos GrangelOh, wow.

22:25Jawad MirYou know, you know? Stuff like that. Like, I'm, I'm sure there are so many other stories. I mean, there's another story on Prince of Egypt, which you worked on since I… you worked. I don't know if I told you, so please tell me if I told you. This, woman came with her kids after the screening to Brenda Chapman, or no, to

22:43Carlos GrangelSimon Wells

22:44Jawad Mir... No. Not Simon Wells. Steve…

22:46Carlos GrangelSteve Hingler? Steve Hingler.

22:47Jawad MirYeah.

22:48Carlos GrangelYeah.

22:48Jawad MirYeah. After, again, 20 years, she came with her kids. She goes, "You know, I went to s… I w… when Prince of Egypt came out, I was, before we, w… I w… a day before w… my husband abused me physically and, I took my kids to go see Prince of Egypt. And when I walked out of my theater, I made a decision that I'm, we're not going back." And that changed the entire trajectory of their life. They never went back.

23:17Carlos GrangelWow.

23:17Jawad MirYou know? It's, I mean, it's just amazing. D… but what does Prince of Egypt and Spirit have to do with suicide and, you know…

23:23Carlos GrangelWell, it's a story of…

23:24Jawad MirI know, I know

23:25Carlos Grangel... Yeah

23:25Jawad Mir... Triumph and all that, right?

23:27Carlos GrangelYou know?

23:27Jawad MirLike, there's all those messages. It inspires you…

23:29Carlos GrangelRedemption, you know?

23:30Jawad MirYeah, and the theme of the film is, like, it's horses, and it's, like, you know, a messenger. I'm just saying it's like these films have such an impact. And because you were involved in it, I thought I should tell you that, you know, it do change, they do change people.

23:42Carlos GrangelNo, I had no idea. I…

23:44Jawad MirYeah

23:44Carlos Grangel... But it's, it's an incredible story. I know that 85% the people that loves Spirit and comes to me or they write me, "Can you send me a sketch of Spirit?" are women. I don't know why. The women, they love horses, naturally. But yeah. And I know many people, loves the first one, not the sequel that they did l… much later, you know? They ask me why they did that. I said, "I don't know. I don't work on sequels," you know? Not even on the ones that I work on the original story. So anyway, it's a very powerful story. And listen, there were even more powerful stories inside that they took out because they were too strong. For example, there was that rail, they were going on the train and people shooting buffaloes with the Winchesters, you know, from the windows of the train just for fun.

24:49Carlos GrangelThat ha… that historically happened, you know? So, they took out some things that they were really n… bad about the history of America, you know, or the history of the conquest of the West, you know? So it was really even more powerful. I don't think it was Lorna, it was more a studio.

25:13Carlos GrangelThe studio realized that it was a kind of very dramatic movie, with the same impact or superior that, The Prince of Egypt because what happened on The Prince of Egypt, it happened on the Middle East. But what happened on the Spirit, it was America. You know what I'm saying?

25:31Carlos GrangelAnd many Americans, they were not ready for that. So it was kind of massive killing with Native Americans, you know, with the tribes. Massive killings of buffalo and other species. The conquest just for the gold, you know, with the, with the train going back to the West, you know, and making it to, all the train workers, Chinese workers that they were on the area of California up, you know. It was a touchy film, you know? So…

26:08Jawad MirWow

26:09Carlos Grangel... So they kept it. You know one thing that I wanted to talk is the day that, they approved that Spirit, you know, and with Spirit on their hand, you know, that was one of the sketches, you know?

26:27Jawad MirOh, nice.

26:27Carlos GrangelA sketch. But that is the color of him, correct? That is him, you know?

26:34Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

26:34Carlos GrangelWith the herd. Anyway, I've been doing my research today on my arc… archives. So Jeffrey Katzenberg sent, asked for an assistant and said, "I want this horse. I want just, what we just approved." And it was a Kiger Mustang, beautiful kind of, dark orangy. We did it that way basically because they exist, but because it's more distinctive on the herd, that orange, and against the grass of, you know, of the beautiful backgrounds. Against the green you can see the guy right away, okay? So Katzenberg said, "I want that horse. Find it," you know, to her assistant. And they found the horse in a ranch in Oregon. Obviously, his name was Donner, not Spirit. You know the story of Donner?

27:33Jawad MirI think Lorna may have mentioned this to me, but go on, please, on the…

27:36Carlos GrangelYeah

27:36Jawad Mir... On the podcast, yeah.

27:37Carlos GrangelSo they got Donner, and obviously the owner didn't want it to sell Donner. They arrive with this small airplane into ran… the ranch in Oregon. I think, Jeffrey went with Steven just big ranks. They offer him so much money that they sell the horse, correct? So they, once they brought Donner to LA, you know, to Glendale, they kind of built a little ranch inside the campus, okay? In Glendale.

28:09Jawad MirYes. Yes.

28:10Carlos GrangelFor animators and designers to design, to draw him. And when he had came, he was way beyond beautifully that the design. He was amazing, an amazing horse. Obviously, you will call him Spirit and he didn't even turn, obviously, you know?

28:28Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

28:29Carlos GrangelIt was Donner. Was kept for a year or two, not in the Glendale campus. Was coming every day, but they had a better facility near the Castilian Center in Burbank, very close nearby. But it was coming for all the animators and designers to really design the horse and after that we could do beautiful things like that, you know?

28:56Jawad MirWow.

28:57Carlos GrangelWith... But this is after having Donner in the campus. Then is when we knew because we had a horse in front of us, a horse that was exactly like Spirit. Then, from that day and all that year having Donner in the campus designing and drawing, all the animators, all of us, all the designers, anyone from storyboard, we went much faster and we knew a lot about horses because we could see the guy, you know, there, you know? That is a beautiful story. Then when it happened that the movie was ending, it came a big dilemma at the studio what to do with Donner, you know?

29:45Jawad MirYeah.

29:45Carlos GrangelWhich at the time it responded by a Spirit was already two years and a half in the campus. So he knew he had two names, Donner his native name, and Spirit. So the executives, they wanted him to go to the premieres in New York and go up on the Empire State on the elevators and all that. The artists and directors, we wanted him a nice retirement in a ranch running wild, free, you know? And we won the battle. So right now, Spirit, from that day that we donated Spirit To the ranch in Santa Barbara that is running free. If you check on the internet, Spirit, you know, the Kiger Mustang is in a ranch and is still alive, you know? In Santa Barbara in California.

30:40Jawad MirReally?

30:41Carlos GrangelYeah. When we finish the interview, you go and check and you could see him and he's still beautiful. Obviously a bit older, you know? But still alive up to this date. I check it out last week, so.

30:58Jawad MirWell, I'm, I'm going to LA, I don't know if probably I'm gonna have time next week, but when I do come in October I'm gonna make a trip to Santa Barbara because that…

31:05Carlos GrangelYou should go and see, and see…

31:07Jawad MirYeah

31:09Carlos Grangel... And see, and see Spirit.

31:11Jawad MirThat is so cool. I'd love to…

31:11Carlos GrangelIf you, if you want, I never went inside. I didn't go. But if you are there those days, we, I think we can call and ask and try to check…

31:23Jawad MirSure

31:23Carlos Grangel... At least for an hour. Santa Barbara is really close, you know? A couple of hours.

31:28Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

31:28Carlos GrangelYou know?

31:29Jawad MirLet's, let's do that. Let's do that.

31:31Carlos GrangelSo we should go and see the guy, you know?

31:36Jawad MirI'll ask, if you want I can ask Lorna too if she wants to come because she'll probably want to come.

31:39Carlos GrangelOh, it would be amazing. Yeah.

31:42Jawad MirYeah. I'm seeing her next week. Let me bring that up to her.

31:45Carlos GrangelAsk her.

31:45Jawad MirMaybe we should go, yeah.

31:46Carlos GrangelAsk her. She knows well that... I'm pretty sure Lorna went and visit the Spirit a few times for sure.

31:53Jawad MirI'm sure because she still has a horse that she, takes care of.

31:57Carlos GrangelShe…

31:57Jawad MirSo she's really into…

31:58Carlos GrangelYeah

31:58Jawad Mir... Into that.

31:58Carlos GrangelSo ask her. Ask her.

32:00Jawad MirRight.

32:00Carlos GrangelTell her that I am coming in October and we can really go, you know?

32:05Jawad MirThat'd be super cool, man.

32:07Carlos GrangelThat's a good story.

32:08Jawad MirYeah, no, when Spirit, you know, with animation films especially, I mean, also with m… live action, but animation there's a lot of, like, storyboard test screenings within studio, but then there's also, like, screenings for audiences just to kind of see how they're reacting. What, was there, and you could, you touched upon some of the sequence that were too dramatic, but was there anything after the test screening that dramatically changed some arc in the story or a scene that you can remember?

32:40Carlos GrangelI... DreamWorks and Disney and Pixar obviously, all these big studios, they do screenings with people.

32:45Jawad MirYeah.

32:45Carlos GrangelYou know? And all the studio thought it was going to be a better success than what it was, you know? Somehow. Obviously, it wasn't a movie for all the families.

33:05Jawad MirYeah.

33:05Carlos GrangelYou know? It's, it was just, too painful for kids and underage people to go. I don't remember how was rated, PG, 13 or I don't remember.

33:21Jawad MirI don't know if I'm not sure on that one.

33:23Carlos GrangelI'm not sure. But, obviously the entire studio was expecting more box office on the, on the opening weekend and the rest. It was a kind of, disappointing for the entire…

33:37Jawad MirYeah. So it was rated G actually. I'm surprised.

33:41Carlos GrangelOh. Yeah, I'm surprised too. That's why it had a bad, not a bad, it did not perform well with all the families going to the cinemas, you know? It's…

33:53Jawad MirYeah, and…

33:53Carlos Grangel... Kind of, it's because obviously it's, it's, it's, it's a hard movie. It's a true drama in a way. It was worth it. I would work again, you know…

34:10Jawad MirYeah

34:10Carlos Grangel... To do, to do that movie. But

34:13Jawad MirI think…

34:13Carlos Grangel... The studio, it didn't got the reports that they wanted on the previous testings. So that's why probably some scenes were cut out of, you know, the big fire, the mine sequence with the mine. We had a horse, a Percheron horse called Ody that was, took off the movie. That one, you know?

34:34Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

34:36Carlos GrangelSo many things came and went. On all the movies happened, but in Spirit they were more often trying to slow down on the drama, you know? On the pain to all the horses that they were suffering the drama, you know? They were the horses from the cavalry that they were tainted and suffering the drama of the army. Okay? Then there were the wild horse, horses captured by the wranglers, you know, and the cowboys that they were making the money selling them to other people. The drama of the Indians, you know? The tribes and their horses, the Appaloosas. Rain is an Appaloosa horse, you know? Those horses, they were, they came from Asia and the Steppe from when the Bering Strait was joining Alaska, you know?

35:35Carlos GrangelThousands of years ago, you know? Before the horses from the conquistadors arrive, you know? So it was too many things, too many touchy subjects. But still, I mean, I sorry and Jeffrey Katzenberg believed it so much on the movie, you know? And the critiques were amazing in Europe, you know, about how great and how, challenging was that movie, you know? And by the... As you said, it's so difficult to show emotions without talking, you know?

36:15Jawad MirAnd I think that, well, one of the reasons it worked in Europe is because Europe is completely different in terms of art when it comes to, like, you know, especially France when you said…

36:23Carlos GrangelYeah

36:23Jawad Mir... Cannes Film. It's like a completely different audience. Like, they understand art way differently than they do here

36:29Carlos GrangelIt's true

36:29Jawad Mir... In North, in North America. Obviously I think the talking part went against it, but if there was talking it would have ruined the film in my opinion. Do you…

36:37Carlos GrangelYes. Yes, yeah.

36:38Jawad MirRight?

36:38Carlos GrangelI believe the same

36:40Jawad MirAnd one thing that we don't talk about very much, and not many people, I mean, I think Spirit was designed beautifully. Everything, the scenery, the music, everything. But the character of Rain and the colors, you know, you showed me some of the sketches and it just reminded me. Not many people talk about that. I think that really was like a kind of like a hidden gold in the film that…

37:05Jawad Mir... Really spoke to audiences in a very interesting way and a subtle way. And maybe that's the reason that new series that they started, it was a computer animation one…

37:14Carlos GrangelYes

37:14Jawad Mir... Spirit Un… Untamed or something. It's like kinda with a girl and a, and a female horse, right? So…

37:20Carlos GrangelYes

37:20Jawad Mir... I just wanna, I just wanna mention that Rain, to me, really contributed to the film a lot even though she had, you know, she comes in like halfway into the film.

37:30Carlos GrangelYes. And Rain, actually, when we wanted... It was coming from storyboards, but, Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook, they really wanted to have a different sensibility, you know… ... For the female horse, and another type of breed of horse. So we went for the Appaloosa, the Indian horse, you know. Obviously, it, Little Creek had, that horse, you know, you know? That it was…

38:01Jawad MirYeah

38:01Carlos Grangel... Coming from. So we could make the comparative on the design of a really subtle lines, more fem… feminine, you know? Really whimsical shapes on Rain, and then Steed, Spirit, the stud, you know, the stallion, you know? And very muscle and kind of, elegant. Very elegant is still Spirit, but kind of more the macho guy without, you know, pretending to be the big stud ever, you know? And it's true. I think Rain balanced the entire herd of horses.

38:39Jawad MirShe did. And even as a, and as a character in the film, like Spirit was... Any time you see Spirit, there's something going on with him, right? Unless he's with Rain. There's that sense of calmness.

38:51Carlos GrangelYeah. It's true

38:52Jawad Mir... Right? Which w… which is, which is true and evident in our li… in our human lives too, right? Like, you know, we come home, we want peace because everything else out… outside is chaotic. So that was really beautifully done, I thought. I mean, I never looked at it that point when I was watching it when it came out in 2002.

39:09Jawad MirBut now, you know, 23 years later, it's a completely different perception. I gotta see it again. I mean, I've seen that movie so many times that every time I watch it I find something new in it that I didn't pick up before. Maybe it's because when you grow

39:22Jawad Mir... Every year, you know, your maturity level goes to another level. But yeah, it's, it's an incredible film, man. Like I can't tell you how much it had... It had, didn't have an impact on me like the stories that I tell you, but it was just that perseverance and that consistent…

39:38Jawad MirI think that character's perseverance is kinda something that maybe subconsciously is in me because that's something that I do all the time, is like I just keep going and keep going. You just, you have to get to the destination no matter what, right? And it happens in life in much longer than 90 minutes in a film.

39:56Jawad MirBut yeah, I can go on, man. It's, it's incredible and beautiful film. And then Hans Zimmer music, oh my God, and Bryan Adams songs are just phenomenal.

40:06Carlos GrangelYeah. Yeah.

40:06Jawad MirYeah.

40:06Carlos GrangelIt's, it's, it's, music-wise it's, it's incredible. Katzenberg had two or three people in mind, and then we couldn't... At some point at the very beginning they mentioned Bruce Springsteen, but, oh, I don't know what happened that finally was Bryan Adams. And Hans Zimmer, I think he did some stuff, no? Now that you are talking about how quiet is or how whimsical and balanced Spirit, on Spirit, I got actually a lot of people congratulating me for Rain too, you know?

40:44Carlos GrangelSaying that she's beautiful and her forms are more roundy. And thing that we did kind of, subliminal without thinking, you know? And then as we did subliminal, many people says, "How can you do a horse that is so beautiful and good-looking?" You know? And I said, "Well, I don't know." And he said, "The face is such a good-looking guy, you know? It shows on a horse, you know?" And it's true. I went into the internet and there is this debate, you know? That is a horse very interesting. I don't know, probably they were the, something on the eyes, you know? And he's acting obviously in the animation, you know? But it was something on the eyes. We were working on these horses and then we had the problems that they were not going to be talking, so every time that they did something they had to turn because, you know, the horses, they have the eyes on the sides, okay?

41:45Carlos GrangelThis was talking to Lorna. And we were talking to Lorna. Lorna said, "Okay. Look at these sketches, Carlos, that you did over here. The eyes are closer together. Almost he's looking on the front. Let's go for this because it's connecting more to the audience, you know? And we don't need the horse moving the head." And I said, "I'm sorry, Lorna, I did it by mistake." You know, sometimes you put the eyes further, sometimes... You know, an artist never does a drawing the same way, you know, a sketch. And he said, "Yeah, but we're gonna go with this because..." And I said, "Yeah, it's looking more human." But he said, "Yeah, exactly. It's not gonna be human, but it's gonna be horse humanized, you know?" So that was something that it was, it's there, you know? And

42:36Jawad MirIt's, it's interesting you mention the eyes. And as you're talking about the eyes, in my head… ... Literally all I see is the visualization of the eyes

42:46Carlos GrangelYes

42:46Jawad Mir... Of Spirit, right? I was talking to Simon Wells, about bunch of different things, and Spirit came up. And I'll send you that episode. And he actually showed me, he did that scene where they try to, like, tie him down.

43:02Carlos GrangelYes. He worked on that one.

43:04Jawad MirSo he showed me the progression of storyboards on the podcast and how the eyes were in there too. And I mean, again, like, we can talk about Spirit forever. I can... You know, it's just…

43:16Carlos GrangelYeah

43:16Jawad Mir... It's a lovely film, man. And I'm so glad that you guys worked on it. At the time things may not seem as great, but over time, you know, people tend to appreciate…

43:25Carlos GrangelIt's worth it. Yeah. Yeah.

43:26Jawad Mir100%.

43:27Carlos GrangelVery good, Joel.

43:29Jawad MirSo, yeah.

43:29Carlos GrangelIt's, it's always a pleasure, you know?