Many families flocking to see Disney's latest blockbuster, Bolt, willl recognize the voice behind the four-legged star of the show as John Travolta's. But most moviegoers won't realize the furry canine is actually the handiwork of a St. Louis native.
Today Steve Meyer lives in California and works for Disney. But before joining the animation studio for Meet the Robinsons, he was a Webster University student majoring in studio art and media communications. During the past five years, he's worked on everything from a car commercial to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Finally, he landed a gig with Disney in 2005.
"When I first started here, my friend Kevin told me we used to watch Duck Tales together as kids, and I'd say that's what I want to do when I grow up," Meyer told St. Louis Magazine in mid-October. "He said, 'You are the only guy I know who actually lived to do what he said he'd do when he grew up.'"
What was the first CGI movie you watched and thought, 'This is the future'? I remember being in theaters during Toy Story and just being blown away. I couldn't fathom how they did it, which is how my family reacts when I try to explain it to them now.
There isn't really a "Disney animator" track in college. How did you get into it? After graduating from Webster in '99, I moved to California with my girlfriend at the time — now my wife. I still didn't know what I wanted to do, and I was waiting to become a resident of California. At some point, I found this animation workshop, the Post Reality School of 3D Design and Animation. It taught us the basics for Maya [a 3-D animation program used by Disney animators]. I came out and didn't have a demo reel. My head was still spinning. So I bought a book about Maya, got the program from a friend and taught myself. As an animator, once you learn the ins and outs of one program it's not difficult to apply to other programs. A lot of houses have proprietary software, and they'll teach you.
There are so many different jobs in CGI: modeler, rigger, animator. Then there's lighting, camera surveying, texturing, compositing and effects. How did you know which route to take? What I always tell people is just dip your toes. It depends on what you want to do. You might have to do everything in house if it's just you. Most of the bigger houses like Disney and Pixar don't have need for generalists, so they want you to be very focused.
Can you walk me through the process of putting together an animated film like Bolt? The way Disney works is they have a story team that develops a story. Back in the day, the animators were more involved. Nowadays the characters are developed on a piece of paper, and then the story is laid out on reels. The drawing is given to a modeler who takes a 2-D image and makes it 3-D. It goes from there to rigging and animation. We test the character to see if it will hold up while talking or expressing emotions. We're constantly kicking it back to the modelers and refining. The end goal is to have the characters be as realistic possible.
It seems the animation only gets better, down to everything from the shading to the pores in Bolt's nose. Is it eventually going to evolve to the point that it looks like we're watching real actors? I love it. That's one of the most powerful things about CGI is the level of detail you can put into it. I haven't seen it with anything else. There's something to be said for having total freedom. The sheer freedom is really enticing.
It seems like a huge team effort. Is collaboration a key component, or is it mostly sitting alone in front of a computer screen? It's absolute collaboration. In the early stages, you're collaborating across departments. In the later stages, it's constant collaboration with director and other animators. You're always getting notes and showing it around to get as many ideas as possible. Even one shot has so many people's ideas. Starting from scratch, it took us 18 months to make Bolt. We had more than 60 animators who were sometimes working more than 75 hours per week. Some of us grew playoff beards while working on it. When we finished it, I shaved and made an animation of it.
What was your specific role in creating Bolt? I mostly worked on Bolt and Mittens the Cat. There were some stragglers, like the hamster ... There's a nice sequence where Bolt learns he doesn't have superpowers anymore. It's all in his face. I'm pretty proud of that part.
After all that work, what's it like to see it all come together in the end? We see chunks of it as they finish. There's a lot of the film that I still haven't seen [as of mid-October]. I want to see it at the premiere. They do test screenings, but we don't see it until the cast premiere.
I know you've also worked on some shorts. Anything up your sleeve right now? Not at the moment. We are so busy at Disney right now that I don't get a lot of spare time ... But something that might be worth mentioning is a short that's called Glago's Guest. It's from the same director as Bolt. I'm not sure if it's going to be shown before Bolt, but it's about a Russian soldier who leads this lonely life in Siberia until something comes along — dum, dum, dum! I believe it will be up for an Oscar for Best Animated Short.
I noticed you also run an online company called 367Creative that sells rock band-related merchandise. Do you make it to many concerts? I went to a rock concert in St. Louis recently and saw this band, Metal Studs. It's a mock glam band that dresses up. It's a lot of fun. My wife and I try to get back to St. Louis whenever we can.
What's the future hold for you? We're working on Rapunzel now. After Bolt was finished, Disney decided which animators they wanted to keep, and I was lucky enough to stick around ... My wife and I also have a kid on the way. Co-workers with children always say their kids are saying, " I have the coolest dad in the world." I can't wait.
Click here to see a sneak peek of Bolt and Steve Meyer's handiwork.
