This week I sit down with the “Plague of Madness” storyboard artist from Primal, David Krentz. This one was a blast! David loves what he does and it shows throughout the entire conversation. We talk dinosaurs, san diego comic con, the emmys and so much more!
Transcripts
This week I’m sitting down with storyboard artist for primal David Krantz. We talk how David got onto the show, what it was like premiering the first couple episodes at San Diego Comic-Con. We also discuss the episode that David won the Emmy with last piece of housekeeping for on this episode. If you guys like what you hear, if you like what you see, go and check us out on Patriot, where you can have access to early and ad free content.
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Thank you so much and enjoy the show. Please a general welcome to What’s My Head podcast. And he was joined today. I’m joined by Mr. David Krentz, storyboard artist for Primal. David, how are you, sir?
I am doing good. How are you?
Fantastic. I’ve been looking to this for you, this one for so long. Primal, obviously. It’s been some time. Ladies and gentlemen, we haven’t of season to. I don’t know what you’re waiting for. Go back and hit pause on this. Come back, please, and listen. But check out the end of Primal Season two because bunch of spoilers. This show, man, how did you get on this show to begin?
Well, we’ll start from there and we’ll see where the conversation goes.
Oh, all right. Well, so again, you and I had some a little bit of history. I went to Cal Arts way back in the early Cretaceous, I think, and and living across the hall from me a couple of years behind me in school was Gandhi. Mm hmm. So he lived across the hall from each other. And, you know, we talked, chatted.
You know, we were kind of earlier in the same circles. His style is very different than mine. And but he was all that. His whole class was just amazing. I mean. Yeah, incredible. I feel. Oh, yeah. Quite a few of them. And I was running with, you know, Mark Andrews. Brian Andrews, you know, that group, Tony Soprano. And but we never worked together.
We all went in the industry after that and then literally almost like, what, 20, almost 20 years. My 18 years later, after last time I saw him, he was working on a dinosaur film. It was a realistic dinosaur film. CG Animated. And then he was working with Bryan Andrews at the time and, you know, hanging out with Brian says, Yeah, you know, Kennedy’s doing this dinosaur show and it’s pretty cool.
And I’m like, looking at Brian going, Brian, you know what? Like, you know what I do, right? Like, I’m like, the dinosaur guy is like, Oh, I guess I’ll talk to him, you know? So. So anyway, long story short, Gandy hired me as a production designer and storyboard artist, character designer on that show. And it was pretty amazing for me as a dinosaur guy, you know, just designing dinosaurs and boring it at all.
And and so again, and I kind of got he saw how I worked and we had a very similar seeing that show was completely wordless, you know, which is something I’m such a fan of love that stuff. And then also it’s just like eventually, like we didn’t really hang out in CalArts at all. But I mean, is this influences were like, wow, we kind of do have the same stuff, you know, like.
CONAN And, you know, of really good silent storytelling material. And so I guess he saw that I could tell a story with no words whatsoever, you know, and I guess Head Start sort of started there. And then he kind of hired me back for the last season of Samurai Jack after that dinosaur show fell through. And he had me back for one show on Samurai Jack.
So I did that. It was the one with The Wolf in the last season. And he meets Ashley and then yeah, And then when Primal came around, you know, he, he, he called me about that and I was like, Yeah, man, this is like, again, silence sort. And my episode of Samurai Jack again, it was a lot of very quiet storytelling, just him and the Wolves.
And so, yeah, so I kind of turned out I turned out good just meeting him again, like years and years and years later and realized like, wow, he really did have a lot in common. But I never yeah, he just ran in different circles. I was in, I was in Disney feature. I’d never done TV, you know. And then I went into live action and, you know, that’s a whole other world.
And then yeah, so my first TV gig was, I think, Samurai Jack.
Man. Oh, what a way to come into the TV universe, right? Coming with Andy Austin, Right? Jack And then you rotate into Primal shortly after.
Man Yeah, I was, I was really thrilled because I love Samurai Jack and, you know, I was so proud of my friends for having worked on, you know, Mark and Bryan Andrews and just how great the storytelling was. My kids loved it and and then so being part of that legacy was even if it was just one episode, I was like, yes, you know, yeah, I was really happy about that.
And that was like one of the best wrap parties I’d ever been to.
So do tell. Why was this the best or will any of that?
Well, it was it was like a screening wrap party. They I forget where they rented somewhere in L.A. but as this big theater it was amazing theater. I mean, just it was literally a set from hell. I mean, they lit it with all these red lights and this all this crazy gothic architecture hanging from the ceiling. I try and get the name of the theater again, but and and they’re like a huge crowd outside trying to get in because they were screaming the first three episodes and this huge crowd outside trying to get in.
And then the people who work on the show, we all went upstairs and had drinks and, you know, all that stuff. And then they had to let more people in for a second screening. And the energy from the crowd, they were just hungry to see more. Jack These are people who had grown up on it and now they were, you know, all young adults and just hungry for more.
And yeah, it was amazing. And and then the show started and they had a Tyler Bates come out with this like electric like electric violin thing and just drums the taiko drums. And I had no idea this was supposed to happen. And he was playing songs from the the show. And, you know, I had a whole bunch of drinks before that and I was just like, What is happening in the lighting was incredible.
And I’m like, The crowd was so wild. It was a really amazing experience. And then the show started and then you know, you all you see your name come up on screen and and, you know, and then you’re watching your work. And now it is just a really amazing the energy was insane, was so good.
How long were you running on that high? That adrenaline rush I wrote Mad is pretty difficult to come down from something like that.
From from Jack.
Yeah. Just from that that that party. Because seeing.
Oh, my God, I’m still talking about it today. My wife and I are just like, Yeah, that was because we got into a lot of parties. Yeah, I’ve been to like, you know, Avengers and, you know, all those Marvel things and tons of Disney feature parties. But that one was just the energy was insane and it was really cool to be at a wrap party with fans, you know, That was the big difference.
And that’s pretty cool, man. So we’ll jump around here just a little bit. But but Primal man, I just had Aaron Le Plan on not too long ago. The Voice of Spirit. It’s such a cool dude. I mean, just getting to hear, like, his side and then because he told the story about you guys all going to San Diego Comic-Con and then them showing the first episode of the first season, and then he was he said he was I just blown away.
He was like, I look out and he was like, I didn’t even I didn’t say anything. He was like, I was just walking around with everybody. I was trying to and trying to absorb everything he’s like, because it was crazy. Yeah. When this show aired, I think it aired, you know, a couple of episodes aired right before COVID happened.
But he got sent home. I think it might have finished, you know, during that first year of COVID. But this show blew me away right off the bat. Like, I can echo the same sentiment. You were talking about. I love silent cartoons, right? Yeah. Because, you know, hearing and talking to the people, a lot of those people you’re talking about that Gandhi ran around with as far as the class guys like the Craig McCracken’s, that Randy Myers and Robert Alvarez, his longtime director, he had a bunch of people that have worked with them firsthand and they all say the same thing.
And I think he’s talked to I think he’s talked about it in interviews himself where when he came over to the states and he was growing up, he didn’t understand a lot of English. So him getting just being able to watch something and you don’t understand it, but you can know what they’re doing or know what they’re talking, there’s something like that.
And then I guess that translated into his style and that’s what animation supposed to be. You shouldn’t have to have dialog, even though I love dialog, shouldn’t have to have dialog, You should be able to understand what’s going on with the characters. And then, like I said, primal. I knew it was different because again, but then I watched the first episode and I was like, Wow, the game has changed as far as adult animation goes.
When you’re working on Primal, obviously this question is going to sound weird, but everybody says that you like you don’t know what people are going to latch on to until it’s out there, you know, hope everything’s a hit. I got to imagine with something like this, maybe you guys are just in the weeds so much, you don’t really have time to think about this.
But did you guys know you were on to something with the show Primal while you were working on it before it was released? No, really?
No.
That’s so insane to think about, though.
And yeah, and for me it was, you know, I saw the first show, you know, five episodes. Yeah. That came out pre-COVID, those ones. So I saw the first five episodes of those and I was like, I had done the mammoth one, you know, in that one. And again, you don’t know what people are going to latch on to, you know, which episode they’re going to like the best and whatnot.
And it was always a surprise to me that the the the one that I won the Emmys for the Plague of Madness, Cruel, terrifying. I had no just no idea that that one would resonate with people. And I mean, even Gandhi said, I think there’s better episodes. I’m like, I honestly believe so too. I think there’s better episodes, but that one just seemed to click.
And I don’t know, part of it for me, I wonder, is just because it came. They did that come April 1st. So this was like basically like what, two weeks, three weeks after COVID and everyone was in a lockdown. And then April 1st came and Cartoon Network decided to air the plague of madness without any warning whatsoever. Right.
And and the weird thing was, it wasn’t the the really the next episode after those first five, it was like episode seven, not six. Yeah. And so it was. But man, people responded to that. And I would just, I don’t know, maybe that episode just tapped into a psych geist at the time. Just this awful disease that you can’t run away from.
You need to face it. It’s just sad, the loss from it, all of it, you know. And I really think it tapped into that. I think that had a lot to do with how that one hit. But we we didn’t know it would hit. We really didn’t, you know.
Yeah. I mean, everybody was kind of starved for content. They were starved for something at that point. I mean, being locked up for a couple of weeks now. Yeah, I didn’t know it was going to turn into quite a few months and then that that show was so creepy and Aaron brought that one up. It was a very creepy show.
And I remember watching In the Dark and I was like, Everybody’s asleep. And I’m like, Man, they’re going to kind of turn on the lights because it just felt like older.
Yeah, I.
Don’t I don’t do horror movies for that reason. I don’t like I don’t like being scared. But it was just like that one just felt you just felt like the creepy crawlies, you know, You just felt like your skin was good.
Yeah, it was. It was weird. And I don’t know, you know, I mean, I boarded it when we weren’t in covered. It was like, I think during the set the summer before, and I would just go to a coffee shop with just pencil and paper, you know, and just we had the treatment, basically. That’s it. Like a little one and a half page thing of we kind of want this to happen, you know?
And so I would just, you know, just thumbnail was out in it. That one came pretty fast. You know, if there’s been a few lightning in the bottle times in my life, in my career, that was one of them. It just it just it just came out. It was like I was boarding almost. I felt part of the chase, you know, just like, oh, and then this happens.
Oh, and they want to be cool. That happens. And then, you know, it just kind of kept like, you know, this happens and this happens. So I am I got through it pretty quick, you know, And then I you know, I stepped through the thumbs of Gandhi and he was just like, this is like this is it’s like like really no changes.
Maybe a little here and here. But, you know, he changed the ending a little bit, which I think it needed. But but yeah, it was it was pretty cool. Lightning in the bottle and yeah, it all just clicked.
And you got your name mentioned on a trophy that you’ll have for the rest of your life and your kids will be able to go, Dad did that episode. Miss I could imagine that feels pretty cool.
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. And what was nice about it, I don’t know if you’d see them back there on the table, but what’s cool about it is one of them was for writing and the other one was for sporting the episode. One of the of a standings artistic achievement for something. Blah, blah blah. Yeah. So it’s kind of cool.
So the one was specifically me, but I was actually pretty happy of the writing because Gandhi knows, even though, you know, Derek Bachmanns are writer, you know, and he’s, he’s amazing. But it was it’s nice to to kind of be included in that because a lot of a lot of boarding, especially in feature animation is like a lot of the story happens in the storyboards.
Yeah you know and you’re very rarely get credited for that. But it’s kind of nice that Gandhi and everybody included the board artists in that that we have writer credit at the end of the show, which is pretty amazing, you know.
So yeah and, and that’s cool man. Thanks for sharing that with like I said, we’re going to jump all over the place. Ladies, gentlemen, we’re going to probably part two, but you guys won’t know. I mean, you’ll know because we’re gonna be wearing different clothes, but we’re going to splices together a little bit later. So what I’ll do is I’ll save the fans questions for the end instead of doing it now.
So not to split them up, but flash forward into season two. And like I said, I loved I loved how it went. What was it, ten episodes the first season? Like it went everything in. Like it literally ends on Spears saying the first word ever uttered in this, and it’s just me. And I’m like, Oh, he can talk.
I was like, Oh my God. And then, Did you ever play? I’ve asked this question before to other people, but do you ever play World of Warcraft?
Oh, heck, yeah.
All right. So any time. And you’re the first person that’s actually said, Yeah, man, I played it. And I was like, No, I don’t have to really explain all this. But it’s like whenever an expansion starts, like the whole video goes and then it’s opening up the next continent, that’s what that moment felt like to me. Watching Primal, that last episode of Season one, where he goes mirror and then you see everything.
I’m like, Oh, this is a World of Warcraft event. This is opening up the entire world to sphere, you know, and then you open up the his whole quest is trying to find a mirror for season two. This everybody, everybody that I’ve ever seen talk about this. They said season one so much better than season two. I don’t think so.
I mean, season two, you guys hit a strike like I think you already knew where you were going. Once you finished season one and then season two picks up and it’s just like banger after banger after banger. Like every episode hits hits, it is building, building, building, building from that word mirror. But when you remember what episode you started with on season two, as far as building and writing goes.
Yeah, that would have been the second one where we’re saying needs red things.
Red Yeah. And we got a lot of questions about, about the dinosaurs too. So like I said, I’ll save that for the second part.
Yes.
A lot of people will throw a free question out. There were our first question now, what’s your favorite dinosaur? There’s a lot of people that want to know what would David Faber Dinosaur.
Oh, geez, I’d have to say Greg Saurus.
Yeah, I don’t know what that is like.
My is it’s, it’s like a it’s like a, a very graceful version of T rex. Yeah. I don’t know if you saw the Walking with Dinosaurs 3D movie maybe is basically the main dinosaur bad guy in that one. So did you.
See the last Jurassic Park movie. Jurassic Dominion?
No, I have avoided it. I have not. I passed the first two. I’m done that.
But it wasn’t bad. It was fun. It was fun. But I wonder if that’s the same because it looked it looked like like one of the Spinosaurus met a T-Rex. They had a baby and it was just very a long gate. It had these weird, droopy arms and stuff. So I wonder if that was the one like because whenever I watched, I watched them with my son.
My son, Super and a dinosaur was like, Oh, really? All in all, these is his first job. But he said, I want to say this is like six, seven years ago. He just turned or he’ll be 13 in January. But he was like the first job. I asked him, you know, what do you want do when you get older?
He’s like, you know, I want to be a ninja. That snorkel slash scuba dives that also hunts for dinosaur bones. And I was like, Bro, that’s three really good jobs. I mean, I don’t know if you’ll be able to do all of that at once. You might want to just he’s like, Man, I can do it because there’s going to be dinosaur bones underwater.
Honestly, I was like, Yeah.
There are. Yeah.
I was like, Yeah, I understand that. And he was like, I might have to fight somebody off if they find the bone. Well, man, you kind of got me here. So kids, he’s working the first part, but he’s got his brown belt and Campo karate, so he’s working.
Well, when he gets older, I can hook up with the paleontology part.
Yeah. So, I mean, I let. I let. I let him know I don’t even know where we’re going. Oh, favorite dinosaur. That’s where we’re.
Dinosaurs, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Triceratops been.
My gosh. I mean, yeah, I mean, like dinosaurs and animation are just. They go hand in hand. Yeah. When I saw King Kong as a kid, I was just like the 33 version of King Kong. I was just like, Oh, my God, Yeah. Then I thought, I remember Cinefix. They had like about the version of Willis O’Brien and Cinefix and just reading, you know, how they and stop mode these dinosaurs of the Oh my God and then land of the lost this, you know, it’s just like and you know this is 1970s if I’m going to age myself here but but you know making stop motion films and play with dinosaurs in them and yeah
so it was always hand in hand.
Oh my my interaction with dinosaurs is going to be a lot less romantic than yours. Mine. Mine was actually the Power Rangers, you know that I was born 89, so seeing the Power Rangers and the the Green Ranger before he turned into the White Ranger. And if you ever watch too much the power in the nineties. But he’s a bad guy.
Yeah. Most people didn’t most people didn’t past my age. But you know Triceratops, I guess there’s always been a cool looking dinosaur. Always thought he was really cool and would be a dinosaur to ride around on. You know?
Here I show you my new the that and okay, yeah, this is going to go really well in the podcast but this is it that’s my new that’s sculpted this one you did that? Yeah. Dude, that’s crazy. Yeah. So I sculpt them and, you know, Z brush, and I 3D print them and sell them as resin kits or bronzes and.
Yeah.
So that is so awesome. Yeah. Do you have a store for that? All the links that you’ll ever want to be in the description, you have a store for that where people can go in?
Yeah. There’s a guy. Yeah, it’s got Dan’s dinosaur. He sells my stuff now, so I can send that link to you guys.
Yeah, Cool.
Yeah, I’ve been doing that this stuff since the 97. I was working on Disney’s Dinosaur as a lead character designer on that. And just as a catharsis to putting lips on or kissy faces on on dinosaurs. I had that just like I need to make some real dinosaurs. Just get this out of my. So ever since then I’ve been like, you know, making these things and selling them and it’s sort of, I guess it keeps my artistic identity, you know, it has nothing to do with film.
That’s just.
Absolutely been.
Me and scientists and, you know, just love it. So it’s totally different.
Yeah. I mean, I can completely understand that, man, because I cook for a living, right? I’m in the restaurant industry and it’s fun, but it’s also probably I was in the military for a little while, too. So I’ve been in places where people absolutely hate you just because of where you come from or, you know, you just look different than everybody else.
And I’ve never had that much stress when I was in the military compared to in a kitchen where I get to go home at the end of every single night. And I was deployed three times. I didn’t get to go home every single night. So I just saying something. So I do this for a living. And then it’s funny, most people in my profession don’t do anything with food outside of what they do because you cook all day.
Nobody wants to cook when they go home. I’m that rare breed that whenever I get home, I love. Like whatever I’ve learned that week, whatever I’ve tried differently, you know, I like to implement at home because I don’t have somebody over my shoulder and I love the guys I work for. I don’t have somebody over my shoulders like, Hey, you need to do this.
You need to do that. You need to get to do whatever I want. I put on some music or I put on show Primal and I cook and I watch and I veg out essentially. So it’s something. It’s something nice. And like you said earlier, cathartic about doing something that you really enjoy, but you’re not really on the clock for, if that makes any sense.
Oh, totally. Yeah. It’s wonderful. Yeah. I mean, I still keep it up and, you know, and now I have a my own 3D printer, so it’s like the Santa Claus machine. I can just like, you know, because I used to sculpt in clay all the time and, you know, that was fun. But, you know, being a father of three, I mean, the times are you can just sit in your garage for hours on end and wax poetic.
And, you know, it’s like the days are gone. So I but I was an early adopter of zebra slate. I bought it version 1.5, I think it in 2004 and, you know, I’ve been using it ever since to to make these things and yeah, so it’s beautiful man.
So sticking on premises of to you, what was your favorite episode you had to board on that?
Oh man, the one I’d say I would say, yeah, Plague. Plague was really good to board on. The mammoth one is the first one I did. Whatever. Cold, cold death, I guess. So I was kind of getting the feel for the show at that point and just how it, you know, like when he when he takes a rock and just, like, smashes the mammoth in the eye.
I was like, You know, just let’s just do that and see how that flies. You know? It was like, Oh, that’s awesome. I’m like, Really? Because I was watching it with my daughter, you know, and she just, like, screamed and ran out of the room. This is the worst thing you’ve ever given, you know, like, okay, that’s where we’re going with this show.
We want emotion. Like, you get my chops there and just kind of seeing how far you could go, the acting of the the the animals. Mm hmm. But I think honestly, like the the episode with Neera, I really enjoy just because that dynamic was so cool and I got to do a lot of you know, it was kind of a little bit of there’s a little bit of a love triangle kind of thing going on.
And I think the same thing happened in later on with them. Shadow of Fate Is that the name of the where she meets Red Fang meets Red?
I think I was.
Thinking sort of the love triangle, you know, and it kind of I kind of like that dynamic, the one the one Episode ten and season one was staying with a little more like it, just like a big dog that was jealous of the girlfriend moving in, you know? But I yeah, I really enjoyed that one because you got to see a side of things or sorry, a sphere that you really hadn’t before.
So maybe a little in some flashbacks and things like that, but humanized them.
Yeah, stupid as that sounds. You humanized the human.
Yeah. Yeah. And also the rule the the religious element came in. You know, she’s connected to a larger world, you know, That stuff just felt right to me, you know? It just. Just felt right. And I also love doing some of the acting with saying, like, when you know, climbing up the Rock Center, it’s like he’s just like, you know, they first meet her and she’s backed up against the cliff, just like, just staring at her, you know, it’s like the expression, well, animated, too, you know, was.
The expressions you do with these with these dinosaurs. And you specifically before it before I go down that route, did you do the Red Mist episode as well?
No, that was Mark. Mark.
Okay. In my opinion that is that episode is I don’t even have words for it, dude. It’s just I’ve watched that episode at least once a week since I saw it air, you know, like four or five weeks ago, whatever it was. Yeah, that episode phenomenal in But the expressions that you do in specific in particular with your episodes, I absolute Oh man I love the I love the artwork back there man in particular the the expression like you were talking about when they’re making that climb up the mountain and you just see you see fang and it’s just like I’m unsure about climbing up there, so I’m unsure about jumping in in the water
or I’m unsure about doing this, how you guys convey emotion, how you guys convey the thought process of a dinosaur. And I don’t want to make it sound like it’s very simple, but it’s 922 minutes. What you guys can do in 22 minutes with characters that don’t speak very much, that aren’t from the same species that we don’t have any kind of connection with because we didn’t I hope we didn’t grow up with dinosaurs, at least because I’d be terrifying.
It’s just second to none. I mean, I’ve never seen a show where I can see or watch like I can. I can just look at this dinosaur and I know what it’s thinking. I know what his plans are noticed motivations are. I know what his drive is, hasn’t said anything. And it’s just the simple of I can’t I can’t raise just one eyebrow like the rock with the really raised an eyebrow or just the the corner of the mouth coming up or coming down to show it’s happy or sad or anything like that.
It’s just.
Yeah.
How much of that is coming from you? How much of that is coming from to blades from people like Genndy or whoever is just checking out your boards on a day to day basis. I imagine it’s a lot of it’s coming from you.
But yeah, I mean, yeah, the original boards, absolutely. But you know, part of them, I mean, we worked on that other dinosaur show was called Giants. You know, like I mentioned before, we worked on that dinosaur show for almost a year. And so we had fully boarded the whole thing and some scenes twice or three times. So we we kind of knew this could be done and we knew how far to push it.
And I’d done a ton of dinosaur stuff before where it was like that. But so there was a little bit of practice there, and I think any kind of knew that, Yeah, yeah, we can do this, you know. Yes. So, you know, I would put it in my, my, my boards and stuff and try not to get too cheesy.
You just kind of treat him as a big dog. Yeah. I mean I, I, I always say this whenever, you know, I’m on a show or something, and there’s a realistic creature and they’re all worried about it, showing emotion. So they’ve got to build in eyebrows and, you know, a mouth that can move and it’s got to emote more and more humor.
And I’m like, not seriously. Yeah. I mean, an iguana can look at you blink and turn its head and you give it emotion, right? You put your feelings into it. And it may not be correct. For all we know, dogs could be just total jerks and hate our guts, you know, for all we know. But we, we dump ourselves into it and it’s really just really simple body language, like, you know, a tilt to the head.
That’s curiosity, you know, sitting up a little bit more of, you know, being taken aback, at least in Primal, but being animated, You know, it’s like like I mean, dinosaurs can’t really move their their eyebrows at all. It’s just a poster orbital And it could but in live action, it’s just simply you would just tip the head down and you would get an angry, you know, But in primal at least, hey, he could he could be move his eyes up and down.
He could move the corner of his mouth. So there’s a lot more there to work with, but you just treat it like a big dog. And I think everyone can can dump their emotions on it. And then then the same thing happened with with Spear. There were so many times where we be, you know, I’d be boarding it and I’d show Jimmy and then we’d just go, you know, let’s do we need to be super?
Do we really need to spell this out? You know, like, like what he’s thinking. And it was just like, you know what? I think this is one of those times I think the audience is going to with the music and everything, the aliens is going to put themselves in his place and dump their own baggage in there. Yeah.
Without the character saying it. And therefore it’ll actually meet a broader audience, you know? And there are a lot of times where that was that was totally intentional. Like, let’s just leave it like this and see what people put into it. Yeah. And that is, you know, so many people tell me I love it when, when Spear is thinking this sounds like, well, that’s not really, but I’m glad you got that.
You know, that’s really cool. You know, you watch like, review videos online and oh, look at this. He’s thinking that I’m like, okay, he could be, you know, that’s.
Something I’ve always tried to stay away from because I’m the best fan and also the worst fan of anything I’m into. There’s movies out there that people absolutely hate. They think it kills a universe. But I enjoyed because going to the movies and I’ve said this so many times on this podcast, ladies. Jamie So I apologize. It’s like my Disney World for, for what kids are, right?
So I go there. I love the smell of popcorn, I love the red carpets, I love even I hate stubbing gum. I love the tackiness that you step into when you go into a movie theater and somebody spilled something. You stepped in gum, something I love the entire I love to romanticize about going to the movies. Right. And and getting to getting to do this, like watching these shows.
I always hate trying to put my personal opinion of what that thing was thinking of. So when I say I’m the best fan, worse than if I’m entertained for 2 hours, but I’m transported to a different place for an hour and a half, 20 minutes, whatever it is. I love this stuff. It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks or when anybody says, Whenever I want something with somebody, whenever I explain something to somebody, especially primal, in particular, I got to go was like, Hey, man, what did you think?
I was like, No, no, no, don’t. Don’t listen to what I’m going to think because I’m going to tell you something was probably wrong. You going to experience this show for yourself? I there’s a couple there’s a couple of things that I’ve got like a kick in the nuts guarantee for. And Primal is one of them. If you’re into comic books, it’s always been Scott Snyder’s run on Batman with him and Greg Capullo.
There’s a few books out there as well that if, if, if you don’t like this man, you can kick me in the nuts. Because, like, what if I put my stamp of approval? So my sex on the line for you guys is what I’m getting at. David And you guys haven’t let me down. Nobody’s kicked me in the sack yet over Primal, So thank you for that.
I appreciate it. As we start to wind down here and I only got a couple more minutes, the two questions that I gave you upfront and we’ll end up with that and we’ll roll right into fans questions the next time we talk. You have four plus one. So for people on your Mt. Rushmore, plus an honorable mention animators.
I’ve heard Van Halen’s come up here. People’s wives and husbands have come up as inspiration. But who’s on David’s Mount Rushmore? And an honorable mention.
God, Yeah, this changes all the time, depending on where you are in life.
Absolutely. I got seven episodes back to back to back to back where the only consistency or the only constant is candy. So I know mean.
I guess I would say filmmakers, I think once you start with the obvious here, filmmakers, I think Ridley Scott early, Ridley Scott, you know, growing up with Alien, you know, the Duelists oh my gosh, the Blade Runner. And again, if you look at those, a lot of it is visual storytelling. You can turn the sound down on all of those and get it.
You know, and yeah, and it’s just really subtle stuff. I love early Ridley Scott.
That first Alien movie is terrifying because there is no words. It’s all suspense. You’re all left. They’re going, When is this alien going to object there? You know, And that’s it.
Is quick to say, okay, yeah, my baby sitter brought me to see it when I was 11 years old. So. Wow. Yeah, it just him, Dude, it was the seventies, you know? Yeah, I’m sure I was like, you know, smoking a cigaret and drinking a bourbon at the same time, you know? But yeah, so that that’s. That’s. That’s a clear winner.
Oh, my God. I’d have to say somewhere between Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen, you know, just, just stop motion. Also, they put so much character into creatures without words, you know, same thing like Kong. It’s just is amazing. You know, that little 18 inch puppet, what they could get away with was pretty cool. So that’s another one. Filmmaker wise.
Oh my God, this is so hard.
I know. I love this question. I love these two questions that I ask every episode.
Yeah. Filmmakers. Filmmakers. Yeah. I’m just sticking with filmmakers now because it’s it’s Oh, man. Okay. A lot of these are going to be the same. Oh, you know, it’s only Sharknado. Yeah. Yeah. I like the fire. I saw fire. I kept telling like, you have to watch Quest Earth.
You’re right. That one down, he never won.
Oh, my God. It’s Ron Perlman’s best. Yeah. So Quest for Fire again. It’s silent storytelling. No one’s saying a word. They’re saying caveman things. But the it’s it’s just. It’s really powerful in it. In. That was the one that showed me you’re you’re putting your you can put yourself in these characters. Yeah. You know and feel what you’re going to feel.
Oh I feel isolation you know, like when Luke Skywalker walks up and stands and sees the two sons in the music score hits, as a kid, that one was just like, Oh, that hit my knee. You know, I saw a theater and I was just like, Yes, I feel that way. Yes. I don’t know why, but I feel this way.
You know, I don’t know, maybe growing up in Winnipeg, Canada, and feeling there was something else for me, I don’t know. You know, that that brings me to maybe another one. I mean, it’s hard to it’s hard to ignore the George Lucas influence. Yeah. Um, you know. Yeah. You know what I’m going to have to say, Lucas? The first the first two Star Wars films and.
Yeah. Oh, my God. And then there’s Spielberg in it.
We still got an honorable mention. So a Spielberg be on a.
Spielberg to like Jaws and Close Encounters and E.T.. Um. Oh, we got a whole bunch of other ones. Oh, my God. I rewatched Empire. The Sun is out. It’s called Empire of the Sun. Yeah. Yes. And of his some of his silent storytelling shots. Or he gets so much story into just one shot, you know, just amazing work.
And it’s in it sometimes it’s not just like hell, but it’s like the only thing you can do in film is move from here to there to here in a building, building a story with just the visuals, you know? And many times what was happening in the background had absolutely nothing to do with what was being said by the characters.
You know, it was the subtext. So yeah, so I think filmmaking lines, yeah, I’m going to have to say those. I am not I’m not like an animation nerd. Yeah. You know, it’s like, it’s like what I it’s like what I do. I’ve made a living at it, but I kind of always look to I always look to to live action stuff.
Yeah. I don’t know. It’s really weird that way.
No, that’s no problem at all. Like I said, Primal feels like a film. Like, it just feels like one whole movie just chopped up into individual parts. And like, I’ve had that talk with so many people that, like, you watch it, you’re like, This is so much more than than what we’re seeing. Like just it’s it’s I hate saying this word because it makes it sound like I’m very pretentious when I know and I know what I’m talking about, which I don’t know what I’m talking about.
I just know what I like. Primal is a masterpiece. It’s a perfect show from start to finish. I don’t care what anybody says. Nobody can change my mind. No fan, No, not even Gandhi came. I was like, Now, this one really that great? No. Gandhi? No, no, no. Everything perfect about the show but the next one. And then we’ll end it here for for this.
This part two books that are on your shelves that you think every fan of animation or anybody working in animation or in the film industry. Since you said you weren’t an animation nerd.
Yeah.
What two books do you think everybody should have on their head?
Honestly, I know this has such and such a like trope, the illusion of life. Oh, it’s, you know.
Yeah, it comes out. It’s.
Yeah, like I bought that my first year. CalArts, you know, it’s like you have to buy this. All right, I’ll buy it. Like I say, I wasn’t an animation nerd, you know? There it is right here. Yeah, but there are times you flip open that book and you’re just like, Oh, wow, You’re glowing about, like, just so much stuff you forget about take for granted.
They had to build this stuff from the ground up. I mean, it is. It is just all so good, you know? I mean, I think, you know, anime has certainly influenced a lot of styles these days, you know, and how to tell stories and camera moves and timing and all the rest of it. But still, you just got to remember that these guys, like, had to make this stuff up.
They really foundation.
Had to figure this stuff out. And you you cannot pooh pooh that. You just can’t you know. So that would be one. All right. Trying to think of another another book.
And it doesn’t have to be on animation, but what would you recommend everybody that’s in the film or animation that should have on their shelves? You got one that sticks out.
And oh, man, I mean, I have one, but I if I recommend it, it’s impossible to get.
Oh, that’s perfectly fine. There’s plenty of books in Alex talking.
I’m going to say this one because it, it, it really influenced me in my my staging, my lighting, I’d say. So my storytelling was there was this book that came out in the in the seventies or early eighties. It was it was a photo book of the movie Alien.
Okay.
Good luck finding it for under a lot of money. But it was every scene in that movie, a photograph of every scene with just like the words of the text underneath it. And it was like literally a comic book version of the film.
That’s really cool.
And it wasn’t like cut up into small panels. They were still the wide screen. So it was like I kind of learned, Oh, how they’re using the screen here when they go to a close up. And and I could, you know, when I would draw comics, you know, as a teenager, I’d always go back to that book and just study how he’s setting things up.
And I always telling the story and the lighting, his lighting is so good. You know, that was that was another one. So as far as putting it on your bookshelf, good luck with that. But as far as what really influenced me, I would say that things and I still have it. I, I go to the mall and see that at the bookstore as a kid and look through it.
You’d see all the like the bloody pictures, you know, cool and then but then I could never buy it because I was too young. But then later on I got a copy in the high school somehow, and it has stayed with me since. And it’s just it’s just dog eared. I mean, is just thyroid, but, but one had a huge influence on me.
Beautiful. And then we’ll end it here, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll pick it back up.
