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David Silverman - The Simpsons Animation Director

Starting out
  How did you get into animation?

I got out of UCLA in 1982, and there wasn't much happening in animation at the time, it was a real low point.

I had won a film festival in '82, then in '84 I went to the festival again, to revisit, and another guy called Bill Cop won in '84 and we formed a friendship. I was doing little bits of animation, I did a lot of freelance illustration.

Bill Cop got together with some other animators, and a friend of his, Savage Steve Holland, did an action film called One Crazy Summer. That had ten minutes of animation in it, that Bill directed, and I was involved in, with another animator named Wes Archer. I'm leading somewhere.

Wes Archer had worked for a very small company called Klasky Csupo. Klasky Csupo got the contract to do the Simpsons for the Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, and that's how I and Bill Cop got involved in animating Tracey Ullman show shorts, The Simpsons.

Then it was just me and Wes Archer - Bill left to follow his own star - and Wes and I animated the bulk of the Ullman shorts from '87 to '88. Then in '89 we got the word that The Simpsons was becoming a series, and Wes Archer and I became directors. And that's what happened.

Cutting edge
  How has the technology evolved from the early days to now?

The technology is roughly the same as far as the animation is done by hand. What has evolved, I would say, is that because of having computers, especially the Adobe Premier system, our animatic shooting is much quicker.

First animatic testing that we would have to do if we shot on film now is all through computers, and that allows much quicker pencil tests. You do some sketches, you can see the results in seconds, shoot it on the camera and go, "Oh, that animation's going to work."

So that's the biggest thing that's happened in that respect, you can test your animation much quicker and therefore you can do more animation, or more improved animation, much quicker.

The second part is [computer painting]. Most other shows have made the switch years ago, because after the Little Mermaid, all the films from Disney were computer painted. We only went with computer painting last year, and that has been a boon. We waited for some other systems [to come along], and in some ways it's a good thing we waited because we really have a good system now. No bugs, and there's nothing to worry about.

Are you a lover of the technology?

Yes, I'm a big fan of the computer technology, of 3D animation. I love what you can do enhancing 2D animation with 3D properties. We've done that too, in a couple of episodes. We've had some mechanical things that are hard to draw that we've done on the computer. Or at least worked out and then they were hand-traced, but the movement was worked out on the computer.

Playing with fire
  When you were at school, what was the naughtiest, most Bart Simpson-esqe thing you ever did?

Well, let's see. I guess I can talk about it now. I think I almost set fire to the school. But it wasn't that bad. It was a foolish prank, but it didn't turn out to be that way. Kids! Please don't play with matches, especially around the schoolyard, that's all I can say.

If you had the choice, would you rather have Homer Simpson or Ned Flanders as a neighbour?

Oh gosh. Homer, much, much, much more. Sure, my insurance would probably go up, but I'd have an awfully good time.

Top titles
  Is it true you developed the Simpsons title sequence?

Yes, the first thing I did. We finished the Tracey Ullman shorts into '89, and we started The Simpsons in April '89, and the first thing I did was work out the title sequence.

Wes concentrated on doing the model sheets for the characters, and I think he also took a vacation. So I was left to work out the opening title sequence, and I worked that out with Matt Groening and Sam Simon. I designed the whole idea of coming into the city, talking with Matt and Sam of course, and we came up with different jokes for all the characters. That was the first thing I did.

What would be your favourite blackboard gag or your favourite couch gag?

Well, I've done so many couch gags myself, so my favourite couch gag that I had a hand in was the Escher couch gag.

For blackboard gags, I think there was one we did, "I'm not a thirty-five year old woman." About Nancy Cartwright doing Bart's voice. There's been a lot of them, there's hundreds and hundreds of blackboard and couch gags, but those two come to mind.

Perfect guest
  Which has been your favourite guest star, and are there any that have got away?

One that I enjoyed, although I didn't work on the show personally myself, was James Woods. He was fantastic, he was hilarious. I think his performance in that inspired Disney to cast him as Hades in the Hercules film.

He was so funny and he really did ad-libbing. You want to get people who hesitate, it's great for animation. The more a voice is hesitating and thinking about it, you can put that in the animation and the animation character feels more real, it doesn't seem like a cartoon, because, hey, it's thinking like a human.

I enjoyed doing the Krusty gets Kancelled cartoon, and that had a lot of great voices, Johnny Carson and Hugh Hefner, a great combination.

Sting was hilarious Actually, I think we couldn't get Bruce Springsteen for that episode, for the parody of We Are The World, [called] We're Sending Our Love Down the Well, but in some ways Sting was a better choice, because he's very active, so plotwise it made more sense. We haven't hooked The Boss yet.

Extra extra features
  What do you think of the Simpsons season three DVD set?

I think every set, we do a little bit better. Everything we do on The Simpsons, any kind of packaging, we try to do as good as the show, we don't just go, "Yeah, here it goes out to everybody."

I went through my archives of old drawings and so did Wes Archer and the other directors, trying to get as much information [as possible], like old drawings and development drawings and so forth.

What's great about this one, is that we have the voice actors adding their commentary to the tapes. That's really great, to hear their perspective, along with writers and directors. I believe this is even richer, with additional materials, easter eggs and so forth.

I haven't seen the final thing put together. The people who did it were very conscientious, and they wanted to cram in as much as they possibly could.

Silver screen Simpsons
  Is there anything happening about a Simpsons film?

There has been some serious talk about it and there's been some serious progress, I would say, in terms of getting a writing staff together, and going ahead with it. But nothing has been, shall we say, green lit, or we haven't said, "Yes, we're starting to write this film" yet. It will happen eventually.

Would you have it while the Simpsons was running, or wait for the show to end?

Well, my feeling is that The Simpsons will never run out, so I don't think we can wait that long.

If The Simpsons went live action for a film, who would you cast?

I can't conceive The Simpsons as a live action film because to me the thing that makes it work ultimately is that they are animated. So I think that's one of the great things about it. Everything about it is brilliant, the writing is brilliant, the voice actors are brilliant, and I think the animation is brilliant. I think you need all three components.

Simpsons abroad
  What Simpsons character would you like to see guest star and on what other show?

I'd consider Krusty the Klown on Letterman, or the Leno show. I'd like to see Comic Book Guy on Frasier or Professor Frink pay a visit to Friends.

I could see one of these characters doing something very bizarre on any show. I guess Homer could probably show up on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Monster time
  Tell us about your work with Pixar.

I got involved in '98 and I had the great fortune to work with Pete Doctor on Monsters Inc. as a co-director. That was fantastic.

That project was already in development when I got there, and I felt that the idea was great, the whole concept of monsters. We were referring to it as the international door chase. Those were the two big key things, and I just thought the door chase thing was a great thought. It went through quite a bit of development once we really rolled up our sleeves, but that was always a key element and always a great idea.

I hadn't really worked with computers that much. The most I had done was work with 3D when we did 3D Homer, so I had a little exposure to it, but I certainly had a great deal more at Pixar. Really great people there.

Coming soon
  What are you working on for this season of the Simpsons?

I've been working with the directors on storyboards and performance things. I can say that I think Artie Ziff will be making another appearance, and there's a lot of really interesting episodes coming up.

I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, but it looks like Milhouse might have to move away. A lot of great themes - the whole thing of a best friend moving away hasn't been done yet. There's a show that features Maggie a little more predominantly, we don't have a lot of shows that Maggie's featured in.

And I may be directing an episode at the end of the season. The last one I had a great time directing was the Halloween episode, last year.