My movies continue to be found and be sold because there's something going on in them.
I'm the first to admit that I can't be as good as Tolkien, and a movie can never be as good as Tolkien.
You cant second-guess yourself as a filmmaker.
Too many of Disney animators, and a lot try to emulate Disney, are trying to hit what they call quality levels. They're boring mannerisms.
I wouldn't leave Disney to do Disney.
Most of the animated films I watched, the emotions are all prepackaged like canned music, the hand actions, the sighs.
All the old great companies were run by guys who knew what an animator meant, and guys who knew how to draw. All the companies today are run by executives.
I would like to have the original ending to my Lord of the Rings instead of the one they released. In my original cut I had the victory at Helm's Deep as the final sequence.
I hired Bob at Terrytoons. He was my assistant animator, and then became an animator himself. He had just come from Boston with his family and was a brilliant draftsman as well as a great jazz guitarist. We had lots of fun nights in Greenwich Village together and then later hanging in LA. Bob worked on Fritz the Cat , Heavy Traffic , Coonskin , and on Wizards . I am terribly saddened by his passing and will miss him dearly.
Look what Disney's done to their animation department. There wasn't an animator in charge of their animation unit!
I miss animation very passionately. Not continuously, but every once in a while I would die to do another film.
Painting pictures didn't make me a lot of money. I have to eat.
I'm from the East Coast. I love the city. I love the characters. I love the kind of people we are, the kind other people look at in amazement.
Its all big money, high rent, high prices in New York City now. The poor people completely got rolled over. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It's disgusting.
