What I Learned on "The Iron Giant"

"He's a giant robot Dean; it's a little...undignified"

In 1998, I had the privilege of working as an animator on The Iron Giant at Warner Bros. Feature Animation, under the direction of Brad Bird.  Working on Brad Bird's "The Iron Giant" was one of the best experiences of my career in animation.  

We had just come off "Quest For Camelot", a movie which had suffered from low morale - and which did not perform well at the box office.  

After Quest, Everyone at Warner Bros was excited for Brad's Iron Giant - and the team was confident it would be a hit. After all, with a strong story, a great director and a great animation team - what could possibly go wrong? 

A Director with a Vision

Brad Bird

Brad Bird was a director with a clear vision.  He knew exactly what kind of film he wanted to make - and how to get there.  His storyboard reel was one of the strongest I have ever seen - a tough trick to pull off with just rough sketches to tell the story. 

Brad had learned from the Disney classics how to find the emotional beats in the story - especially the relationship between the giant and Hogarth. He found the emotional arc between them that makes us all get wet eyed when the Iron Giant says, at the end of the film: "no following...".

Brad pushed us to think about character motivation in every scene. The Giant wasn’t just a robot; he was a big kid learning about the human world, learning about friendship - and developing a soul.  Brad reminded us constantly that animation is acting - every frame has to reveal what a character is thinking.

Animation Dailies with Brad Bird

"And you have him doing...Arts & Crafts"

At Brad's animation dailies, each animator's shot was broadcast on a giant white board, on which Brad would draw over your animation poses in a dry-erase marker and correct your work.

This could be terrifying, but it was highly effective.  No animator left that room without a clear vision of where to go next.

During one dailies session Brad said to me "you've done the exact opposite of what I wanted".  I cringed, wanting the ground to swallow me up.  But when he showed me what he wanted instead, I made the changes, and the shot got approved. Years later, it's still on my demo reel.

The Blockbuster That Wasn't

Everyone who worked on The Iron Giant knew for certain it would be a huge success. How could it fail?  But fail it did.  For whatever reason, released at the end of the summer of 1999, The Iron Giant flopped at the box office, performing little better than Quest For Camelot had done two summers earlier.  Was it bad marketing? Or no marketing? Did the "suits" at WB deliberately kill it off? Did the retro poster confuse the audience?  Animation folks (like me) have been arguing bitterly about the reasons ever since. 

Warner Bros Feature Animation

Warner Bros Feature Animation did not close - not yet anyway. It took the hit, staggered on, and made one more feature film - Osmosis Jones.  When that too was a box office disappointment, Warner Bros finally shut down its feature animation division.

The Legacy

Iron Giant does have a legacy, and it did eventually find its audience. It was a critical (if not financial) success, and it regularly appears on lists of the Top 100 Films of All Time.  I was (and remain) proud to have been a part of it. 

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