I recently had the pleasure of having an interview with Zootopia animators Renato dos Anjos (head of animation Zootopia) and Chad Sellers (animation supervisor Zootopia). If you’ve followed me for any length of time then you know by now I love interviewing animators. I’ve done so for about nine years now at Comic Book conventions. There’s always a common denominator, they are super cool, laid back and ready to have fun. Needless to say there’s a lot of pages of laughter in most of the transcripts that come off of these interviews.
So get yourself in that place, because the room at Disney Toon Studios where I interviewed Renato and Chad was small but big with energy. These two are talented guys and it was an absolute honor to discuss the creation of Zootopia with them following my interview with filmmakers.
Interview with Zootopia Animators Renato dos Anjos and Chad Sellers
We started the Zootopia animators interview with Renato walking us through the process of animating and researching for the film. Renato was on the team that went to Africa, which we discussed with directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore. He also went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom and an animal rescue.
Renato and Chad placed into perspective the complexity involved with animating animals with regard to scale and movements.