- I might just start by doing something really simple,
like trying to get the basic structure of his head.
How his features go together.
You know, see if I can get this guy.
And then, I just did a whole bunch of different versions of him.
This one, the pants really aren't right.
This one, the head shape--
It's just kind of off by a little bit.
And then, it evolved into something more like this.
- This is beautiful. I mean... - Oh!
- It's such, it's such a nice likeness of him.
Last winter the Wendell Scott Radio Broadcast
aired on Morning Edition.
- He started racing in 1952, and, you know,
it was like Picasso, like a great artist doing his work.
- And, we were all in that mindset,
"Would this one be interesting to animate?"
It has a lot of action. It has cars driving fast.
You have a larger-than-life figure in Wendell Scott.
- I'll tell you my honest first thought,
"I hope this one doesn't get chosen,
because I can't draw cars." [laughter]
I had to listen to it, you know, like about five times.
And then I just, like, starting doing little roughs.
Just pictures that I see in my head while I'm listening.
So, it really gets your imagination, you know, churning.
After I kind of get through this really rough pass,
then it's time to see if your ideas work with the timeline.
So, then you hit right to the animatic from there.
- He had death threats not to come to Atlanta.
- You take from that animatic the sense of the timing,
and that's where you see designs for shots.
And this one, in particular,
only has two drawings that move:
this one and that one. That's really limited.
I think I would add a few more drawings to this;
and instead of this position and that position,
there'd be this, this, this, this.
- So one great thing about Julie's work is that
she approaches every story looking for, you know,
what style will best suit it.
- What I'm learning is, cars are all about lines.
Whereas with "Haggerty," that was like a soft story,
in a way, like it's such a tender memory.
And that was all about shapes and textures and colors.
So your idea is to put a beard on Wendell Scott, Jr.?
- Oh, I mean, he had a beard, that could be a way of differentiating him.
What do you feel?
You don't, you don't like the beard.
- It's going to hide his head shape.
- We're finishing up the design part
of "Wendell Scott" story, right now.
With this one, the question I had is sort of
the differentiation between the track and the stands. - Oh, yeah.
- They sort of blend together for me. - Yeah.
- Why did you decide to do this sort of
this speckly treatment for the people here?
- Well, we wanted to have texture without detail. - Mm-hmm.
Then, we're going to be moving into rough animation,
which means Julie will start working on
the actual movement of the characters.
- We didn't have that leisure time.
You know, we couldn't go to the playground.
- When the animation comes in, it, it feels like Christmas.
So, suddenly something that a few weeks ago
was line drawings with no color
is full-color and all cleaned up and smoothly animated.
And, it feels a little bit like magic.
*