Creative Insights From a World Class Animator

Philippe Gluckman, who has been the Creative Director for Dreamworks in India and the Visual Effects Supervisor for iconic hits like Shrek and Madagascar, offers invigorating lessons for those who want to break into animation or forge successful careers in a creative field.

Broaden Yourself With Discomfiting Experiences

Philippe grew up in Paris as the only child of two doctor parents. When he was about six years old, the family moved to Seattle for a year. Flung suddenly into an all-English Catholic school as a child who did not speak English and wasn’t Catholic, he learned, from a very early age, to cope with unfamiliarity. Moreover he made the most of his immersion in the foreign setting by grasping as many words as he could.

When he returned to Paris at the end of his parents’ sabbatical, he was one of the few French kids who was bilingual. He realized, unlike many of his French peers whose English was non-existent or rudimentary, that a second language imbued him with an advantage: “Once you have two languages, you start to use them for different things.” Careful not to erode his ability with disuse, he kept up with English by watching American movies or reading books. Partially, it might have been a linguistic tug that drew him to the United States later.

Cultivate Passions From An Early Stage

In the meanwhile, back at Paris, he needed to fit into a new school and eventually craft his adolescent identity. As an only child, he relished solitude, a proclivity that has stayed with him till date. He was also ineluctably drawn to art. And to music. As an introspective teenager with an original mind, he wasn’t influenced by peers.

He didn’t care so much for pop music or rock-and-roll, but was drawn instead to Western Classical Music, Bach, Beethoven, the Romantics, and other works that preceded early 20th Century Music. He spent many hours playing these pieces on the piano, even as he conceptualized new ways to express himself. Much of his youthful energy was spent on  drawing, writing and even acting, trying like all creators do, to discover his singular voice.

Acquire Work Experience To Contemporize Learning

After school, he enrolled at an art program, and along the way signed up for an animation course. He created his first small film with hand-drawn graphic images. Since this was a period that preceded computer graphics, even films of a few seconds required immense effort, something like 24 drawings for each second. At a time when many others would take long summer vacations, Philippe was so gripped by his work, he would stay back home and draw, working almost nonstop.

Gripped by the power of moving pictures, he sought work experience at Storyboard et Associes in Paris, an animation company that was piqued by the film he had created. Sensing that the learning was more intense at his workplace than it was at the formal Diploma program, he decided to abjure mainstream credentials and to pick up hands-on animation skills. Philippe quickly gleaned that traditional animation would soon be swept aside by trendier computer versions.

Eager to master new-age skills, he jumped to a more technical studio. By then, he had started learning elementary programming. Moreover, he had the capacity to make the most of his know-how. Widening his arms and then pinching his fingers, he says: “I can make this much with this little.” Though he wasn’t getting paid yet at these jobs, he viewed them as invaluable apprenticeships: “In my world, you really learn on the job.”

Move to Regions With Wider Opportunities

Setting his sights on larger animation opportunities, he travelled to Silicon Valley, where visionary filmmakers were collaborating with avant-garde technologists. At San Francisco, he was surprised by how highly-regarded his skills were. Since computer graphics were still nascent and esoteric, animation talent – dispersed in a few places across the globe – was rare.

As it happened, Philippe was wooed by several studios including Lucasfilm, Pixar and PDI. At that point, no Computer Graphics Animation Feature had been created yet (Toy Story would be the first in November 1995), but several studios were exploring the idea. Based on his experience in France, Philippe was warmly received. In a defining moment, he was advised by a studio executive of a perfect spot to watch the sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was there, overwhelmed by the majestic view over the Pacific, that he decided to move to California and continue his career in the Sunny State, staunchly determined to join one of the leading studios.

Pick a Workplace That Resonates With Your Persona

He chose PDI, which till then, was a relatively unknown firm that had created some of the graphics for Black or White, Michael Jackson’s music video. Soon, PDI was roped in by Dreamworks – the animation company founded by three legends: Steven Spielberg, the iconic director, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the ex-Disney Chairman, David Geffen, a music stalwart.

When the relationship started out, Gluckman recalls that the industry’s emphasis was still on traditional animation. Computer graphics were still being treated like a side project – something to fiddle with – till the emergence of the first few hits, like Antz. And then Shrek, with its equally appealing sequels. Or Madagascar. Eventually, the PDI team was so indispensable to Dreamworks, that they were bought out and fused into a single entity.

Since Philippe worked extensively with Katzenberg, he holds warm memories of his interactions. Later, when Dreamworks decided to kickstart a studio in India, where Philippe was the Creative Director, Katzenberg was very supportive of the project’s success. Of the icon, Gluckman recalls: “Katzenberg was a man who was very deeply committed to animation and fought for it all his life, whether it was at Disney originally or later at Dreamworks.”

Be Willing to Rework and Rework

As someone who had a behind-the-scenes perspective on huge hits, Philippe warns that the process is a lot more chaotic than most people would imagine. Since the story often evolves, such projects involve many re-writes and re-doings. There are periods when the work can be quite intense, and like any creative project, frustrating and fatiguing: “It’s not like you draw a plan and you execute that plan and you’re done…you have to stay open for change. The story process continues to evolve almost until the release date.”

For instance, in Madagascar, King Julien XIII is the king of the lemurs, with Maurice as his crafty advisor or sidekick. In an earlier version, Philippe says, the roles were inverted –Maurice was the king and Julien the sidekick. When the voice performances started flowing in, with the British actor, Sacha Baron Cohen playing Julien and adding unexpected nuances to the character, they decided to flip the roles. In general, Gluckman observes, that with makers like Katzenberg and Spielberg, if anything could make the film better, the change would inevitably be incorporated.

Usher Innovations Into Live Productions

Moreover, since computer animation was a new form, productions demanded constant experimenting. One of the requirements was to make the animated characters look as human as possible – unlike the earlier Disney movies, where the characters looked distinctly cartoonish. Gluckman was personally involved with many of these aspects, like imbuing Princess Fiona in Shrek with humanish skin. Modulating the lighting required many redoings: “We did it and we redid it. You have no idea how much we struggled with her,” says Philippe with a chuckle.

Sustain Interests Outside Work

While Gluckman personally loved California, and especially its outdoorsy vibe, which he explored deeply as a runner and a cyclist, he was unexpectedly bewitched by India during a visit. When the Dreamworks team arrived at Bangalore to make a presentation on Shrek – with the intention to attract future team members and partners – he decided to move himself. The leadership in California was thrilled that a Senior Leader was willing to relocate.

One of his concerns about moving to India involved sustaining his personal passions. After all, running and cycling had become intrinsic to him, and given the different road conditions and excessive traffic in Indian cities, he was unsure of his ability to persist with these.

Acclimatize To New Cultures and Spaces

At first, with running, he was afraid of stray dogs. As someone who was not a natural ‘dog person,’ he was unsure if they would snap at his heels, or even worse, bite him. But as he started wandering about Whitefield, Bangalore and beyond – into villages in the outskirts – he realized many of the fears were overblown. Especially with regard to the “nayagalu” (Kannada for dogs, a word that Philippe says with a pitch perfect accent) that simply ignored runners or were usually companionable or harmless.

More than that, he started falling in love with many of the people. With the enthused animators at work, and also people he met during his runs. Including many who lived in villages or slums, where Philippe often ran in, with a zeal to learn about lives that were markedly different from his usual encounters.

Stray From the Beaten Track

Even during his runs, his creative antennae were perked up. To document the sights he was stumbling on, he started carrying a small camera; and eventually started sharing prints with elated subjects.

Since he often revisited the same villages or slums, he also built relationships – was invited in by eager kids or by their equally hospitable parents to share food and drinks. This was an aspect of India that struck him vividly: the culture’s ingrained hospitality and warmth towards a visitor: “There was one particular village where I started to go more and more regularly and it was like a feast. Everybody would call me to their home and none of this was planned, that was the striking thing.” Adapting himself to the fluid landscape that characterises most Indian cities, he decided to just go with the flow: “My philosophy became that whatever happens, just go with it.”

One of his personal motivations was to understand poverty better. After all, it’s one thing to dwell on poverty in the abstract, and another thing entirely, to steadily interact with the everydays of those who live on impossibly constrained means. He also ran through worker camps, where migrants lived in temporary, corrugated shacks, acquiring a first-hand feel of how tenuous everything was. Of the manner in which schooling was a “hit or miss” for migrant children, who often had to care for younger siblings while parents slogged at construction sites or elsewhere. “I got a vision into that world,” says Philippe.

And though Gluckman himself has mastered Hindi now and can speak a few smatterings of Kannada, at that point, he needed to communicate without knowing any languages. At one village, he realized that all the younger kids spoke English and hence served as translators with adult onlookers. At other times, the photographs became a means of communication. He recalls, “The kids were very inventive. They always had ideas of what if we did this, and then took a photo of it? They also made all these things for me and it was quite amazing.”

For Philippe, these interactions took another unexpected turn, because he met his wife in this way. His wife, who is orginally from Tamil Nadu, also speaks Urdu, helping Gluckman burnish his Hindi.

Leverage the Best from Each Culture

One of the goals of the Dreamworks studio in India was to make their work indistinguishable from studios anywhere else. Gluckman discovered that many in his Indian team members had a distinct artistic sensibility. “As you get to know people better, you realize how much artistic practice there is. And it’s everywhere, in the music, in religious practices, in architecture, in temples.” He feels that the nation is almost like a “paradise” for those with a creative orientation.  

In general, Gluckman feels grateful for having worked with extraordinary teams in both India and California. When Dreamworks eventually shut down its studio, Philippe always considered where he wanted to remain. At every juncture, he started feeling more profoundly rooted in India. So he moved to Mumbai to work with an animation studio and is currently committed to staying in the region, bolstering his contributions while he engages with a culture that is ancient, modern and everything in-between.

Spend Time Alone

Though Philippe does not yearn to be alone at all times, he needs his fill of me-time before he gets on with tackling other parts of the day. “I also call them the holy hours of the morning or whenever I can be by myself.”

Advice to New Animators

To new animators entering the industry, he advises that they continue to stay creative, even as they leverage opportunities in a booming market. “Many studios are coming to India now because they see the value in it. It’s still a journey that needs to continue.” As he puts it, one of the keys to staying original is to constantly imagine what you would do with a particular piece of software or tool. How can you push the knowhow in hitherto untried directions? And how do you impart your distinct voice to it? “Can I do this other thing that nobody thought about? That is the mentality you need.”