Kathy Altieri has worked for over twenty five years as a production designer, art director, and painter in the animation industry. She is currently Production Designer on DreamWorks upcoming feature “How to Train your Dragon,” which will be released in March of this year. Her other DreamWorks credits include “Over the Hedge” (Production Designer), “Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron,” (Production Designer), and “the Prince of Egypt” (Art Director). Kathy was the first artist hired at the studio.
Prior to DreamWorks, Kathy worked as a background painter and supervisor at Disney Feature Animation on “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” “Lion King,” and “Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Kathy attended UCLA and Art Center College of design, where she will be teaching again this Fall. She is a fifth degree black belt and certified instructor of Aikido and Iaido (Japanese Swordsmanship).
So usually I’m the last person to post. This time I want to be the first. I’m really looking forward to meeting and learning from Kathy Altieri today. The prince of Egypt concept arts are one of my most important inspirations for the look of my film. And I know that the same people who worked on Prince of Egypt, worked on Lord of the rings which is my main source of inspiration for visuals of Legend of Arad. Thanks!
Sepehr
Ahhh, back to the normal seminar classes. I really enjoy this class because normal means one of the most powerful women in the animation industry comes and talks to us for a couple hours. Anywhere else this would be a huge event while here it is just another Wednesday.
This seminar was another one where I left thinking “I wanna do that! I wanna do that!” I spent most of the rest of the night thinking what it would be like to make a drawing and then a year later see it as a character in a hundred million dollar movie. I know it isn’t as simple as that but its still fun to think about.
Giddyness aside, I learned a lot from this class. The design of how a film looks is as important as the story but is more often overlooked. Learning this part is a big step in understanding how the complex process of animated filmmaking works.
It was really great to have Kathy come and speak with us. It was interesting to hear a artist’s perspective on film development. While I’ll probably never be a character designer or matte painter, it was refreshing to hear that people can still be visual artists in the industry. Of course, she put her art on hold for this film and is ready for a break from it all to create. This is a reminder that the managerial side is always waiting for you, especially if you want to make the big decisions. Is it possible to create and manage? I sure hope so.
Since feminism is on my mind lately, I asked Kathy about working with so many men, because it seemed like every person she mentioned that she worked with was male. She said that she didn’t really see a big difference between the men and women and the the only thing she noticed was that at Dreamworks in general people tend to step on each others sentences, which isn’t terrible, but something she had to get used to. She mentioned that there might be a biological root to why women often work different from men. That may be true, and I’ve often wondered about that. I also like to think there is a substantial amount of social training that goes into the differences between the sexes.
On another note, I always find it entertaining how when you talk with animation artists of any kind they always tell you how their work’s no good and how so-and-so is way better.
It was very enjoyable to have Kathy visit seminar and give an artwork presentation of “HTTYD”. I was unable to attend the free screenings for this movie, nevertheless after seeing Kathy share the internal processes of the long-term development for the movie I will definitely go out to watch it.
From the get-go Kathy exuded a warm + welcoming attitude, an attribute I believe all directors must obtain. Her honest insight and spunky personality revealed some often-unmentioned trends in the industry and it was very helpful to hear such things (such as ego’s, marketing mishaps, and animator treatment during crucial revisions). Despite the unavoidable frictions that the animation business entails, Kathy reassured that art+story+patience are key.
Commenting on Lauren’s post, I was very glad to see a female in a very prominent role especially in Kathy’s case where she sort of fell into the right opportunities and gradually grew in stature. With animation rising in popularity over the past several years (and hopefully more years to come) I believe it will be even more important for studios to hire an eclectic array of people (such as women, people from diverse BG’s) so that perspectives in future animation remains fresh, inspiring, and unique.
I was very entertained by Kathy’s presentation last Wednesday. It was amazing to hear the process that went into “How to Train your Dragon”. I really enjoyed seeing the many different iterations of the concept art, from the characters to the islands to the dragons. It was all so beautiful! I also enjoyed hearing her response to the question regarding how much say do non creative people have in the creative process. It’s difficult to keep in mind that the show business is still a business and that creative choices maybe compromised to turn over a profit. In fact, I experienced a little of her frustration with this aspect in terms of the marketing. When I saw the trailer of HTTYD, I immediately decided that it was a kids movie and would not see it. However, all of my friends when to the pre-screenings and said how amazing it was. The trailer that Kathy herself screened at seminar was entirely different then the one being fed to the masses, and showed more sophistication in the story. Now I want to see it!
I found the entire presentation truly enjoyable.
Although – amid the mire of production one — I, too, was hapless enough to have missed the advance screenings of How to Train Your Dragon, I suspect that Kathy Altieri’s presentation far surpassed the film in both educability and sheer enjoyability. That rare hybrid of artist and hierarchical supervisor, she has managed to cultivate a stable of craftsmen as talented at their respective tasks as they are reliable at churning out studio-commissioned backgrounds, characters, and overarching designs. In an industry historically notorious for being ruled by monstrously inflated egos, Altieri has had to forge a style of managing that not only rewards talent (and maintains morale) but also parcels out (and polices) those halcyonic pastures of artistic freedom* granted to designers under her supervision. Frankly, I was more than a little amazed to hear that contemporary studios would voluntarily risk slackening the artistic leashes which choke the experimentalism out of their many hired animators. Despite the frustrations Altieri voiced (mostly half-jokingly pinned on the marketing division), the working environment of the animators she oversees was a cause for colossal optimism (well, at least for me). I’d always semi-fatuously envisioned animation studios to be as originality-crushingly constrictive as their live-action counterparts (low-rent limbos** in which the Taylorization of product steamrolls artistic individuality out of existence). As HTTYD’s screenshots and preliminary designs were projected in turn upon the screen – and as my classmates’ sighs of admiration and envy over the exquisite details surrounded me – I realized that my conclusion may have been a tad premature.
*That animators’ paradise where the sun beams as brightly as a six-hundred-watt lightbox and reams of pre-punched paper grow on vines; where field sizes joyfully register themselves and the Acrylic Ocean, laced with waves of glycerin, never runs dry.
**Or so personal experience and professionals’ anecdotes have led me to assume.
This was a pretty impressive presentation. I was pleased that she showed a great deal of pre production work and spoke on how the art department works is a large studio environment. What I got out of the presentation was that teamwork is key. Sometimes one must get out of their comfort zone to create something fresh and new.
The most impressive part of Kathy’s presentation was the quantity and quality of the concept artwork. It was amazing to see the level of talent at a studio like Dreamworks. The interesting thing is that all the artwork was created as inspiration. In creative fields, artists draw inspiration from many areas. The process of creating artwork as inspiration for other artwork is interesting and exciting.
The artists involved on “How to Train your Dragon” seemed to figure out the film by creating artwork and seeing what worked.
It is difficult to predict the outcome of the film though. For all the beautiful artwork that went into the creation of “How to Train your Dragon” actually making the film seems as though it was rather difficult. The directors changed, the story changed, hopefully it was for the best. Dreamworks has created some of the best animated features ever, “Kung Fu Panda,” I hope “How to Train your Dragon” is on the same level. My only exposure to it so far has been the concept artwork, and based on that only, it seems promising. I have high hopes for this film and Kathy’s future work.
Like everyone else does, I really enjoy Kathy’s presentation and everything she showed. It is interesting to see the process how a film is developed. Especially when I see all those really cool character design and background design, I feel that it really is a pity that they haven’t been used.
What’s more, I learn a thing that everything should be designed for the overall goal, not just according to how beautiful it looks or how cool it is. And like Ian said, I also learned that the design is the same weight as the production process.
I really like Kathy’s presentation. Her personality made her presentation joyful and interesting. Although the gender is not an issue for Kathy, it is great to hear female guest from industry to talk about her experience. Since we have a business class for job, it is helpful to hear Dream Works production process. Tone, audience and story are three important elements for Kathy; I guess I would not think about the tone if she didn’t bring this element. Now it is in my mind deeply.
After her presentation and the concept of art of “How to Train your Dragon”, I am exciting to see this movie. The designs of the characters, background are so awesome. However, the overall coherence is the primary. I learn that sometimes we have killed our babies even they are so good.
I really enjoyed hearing Kathy speak this last seminar. I have always been a fan of the films she has worked on, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out she worked on how to train your dragon. I agreed completely with her comments about how she thought the marketing for the film didn’t do it the justice it deserved. I went with some other students to a press screening and was blown away by the great characters, good story and good use of stereoscopic. I wish that the film was being marketed by her department, because then, people who were somewhat lukewarm about the trailers and ads, like I was, would be excited to see this great film.
I very much enjoyed not only her useful information, but her matter-of-fact way of speaking about it. How, working in an environment with non-creative bosses can be difficult, how hard it can be to come up with a unifying, unique and engaging production design, and how to be a manager for sometimes egotistical artists.
As I have been interested in production design for live action films for some time, it was great to hear about it in the animation world. Also, I was glad to hear about a creative person, who is now working in a managerial position, and although finding rarer circumstances to draw or paint, she still is able to be creative through other outlets.
Kathy Altiera’s presentation last seminar was entertaining, inspiring and very informative. I really enjoyed both her spunk and her candor when discussing the realities of feature animation production. As nice as it is to hear people from the industry talk about the positive, creative side of working at an animation studio, I find it helpful to hear about the industry’s “dirty laundry” as well.
Hearing Kathy’s story about the marketing drama on “How to Train Your Dragon” was particularly amusing because it gave us a real window into the absurdity of the animation industry as business. While her story was right in line with much that I have heard about the involvement of non-creative, business people in the animation industry, the desecration of the dragons’ character designs was extremely disheartening. It’s not that I haven’t heard similar stories before, but I suppose this instance really illustrated how much power is given over to people twice or three times removed from the project.
Ultimately I would say that Kathy Altiery’s seminar was a crash course in studio politics and the art of collaboration. I found her insights very helpful and also quite amusing.
The aspect that I enjoyed the most about Kathy’s presentation was when she discussed how open Dreamworks seems to be about bringing in ‘outside’ talent. It was great to hear that they brought in Roger Deacons to be a main resource for the cinematography of the movie. Animation and live action are so hard to decipher these days that it makes sense to take the best from each to build a team. I think it allows for the technology that constrained early CG pieces to truly grow into a complete art form. From the pieces we saw in seminar they seemed successful. I’m hoping it will hold when I get to see the film in its entirety.
Kathy had such a wonderful energy and love of her work. Her confidence and candor were both inspiring and refreshing.
One of the many insights that stayed with me after Kathy’s presentation was the idea of tone, as Chia-Lin mentioned. It was fascinating to see the creative struggle of aging the characters and finding the right feel to different environments and landscapes. There were so many forces and influences as the film took shape, from the studio’s intentions, to the individual artists, and even the subsequent marketing efforts.
Kathy has also shed some light on how a creative artist or animator might work and thrive in a more traditional studio setting. Like Rachel, I was heartened to see the amount of gorgeous artwork that the film produced. I really admired the way Kathy was able to make decisions about the visual direction of so much great work, and how she was able to direct the particular personalities of different artists.
Kathy helped to shed light on the fact that creating within the context of a team, as opposed to auteur filmmaking, presents its own challenges and requires its own set of skills for success. Her presentation underscored that such a large accomplishment as a feature length movie necessarily includes the efforts and collaboration of a diverse group, from the “clipboards” to the creatives.
I really enjoyed last weeks seminar with Kathy . For obvious reasons production design is something Im with very interested in so seeing it from the perspective of someone in the studio system. Often I like concept work more then the final but that is part of the process it was good to hear someone talk about working with a team and how the personality management works as well as conducting a group into a singular goal, that is a hard thing to teach at school without doing it so its good to hear about. As for the specifics of Dragon I am more interested in seeing it now then I was before both for its story and the look as well as seeing the outcome of everything Kathy discussed.
I loved Kathy’s presentation! I really like learning about the early steps of creating an animated feature from someone who has been in the industry so long. The presentation was especially interesting to me because I was fortunate enough to get to see one of the advance screenings of “Dragon”. I really enjoyed the movie and it was such a treat to get to see all the pre-visualization and hear about the process of adapting the children’s book and moving towards the final product.
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Kathy Altieri’s lecture was very formal. Her work at Dreamworks mainly consisted of design elements and drawings to assist in the process of making movies. She spoke about her school experience and how it led her to Dreamworks.
Along with her production stills, she showed clips of the film “How To Train Your Dragon.” Most of her work is collaborative so it was difficult to tell what her personal drawing style is. Although at the very least, her manager skills inform the lecture hall of what to expect at a big studio setting.
I like her personality. She drives the lecture active and interesting. Most of her lecture consists of a new movie’s art work. But it wwas not just arrange of art works. She comments lots of relationship among different departments and working process. These facts really intrigue me to be totally involved in the seminar.
Plus, the quality of art works is amazing. All works has those own unique style, and experimental elements. It was excited seminar to see those art works on the huge screen with detail comments about each art work.
For me, the Prince of Egypt and The spirit are the best animated feature films, or we can say they are very artistic and unusual. Their scripts and art design were not like normal Disney films. Even they were not very successful at the box office, but in my opinion, they were very good exploration for animated feature films.
I was always curious about the background of these films. It’s so good to see such an important person behind the screen. Even some scenes in “How to train your dragon” reminds me “Avatar”, it’s still a good feature film.
Kathy’s presentation was a great overview of the process of visual development in feature films. “Dragon” still doesn’t interest me, but like any other film, pre production is always a fascinating to look at. I felt that a lot of the initial designs were better than what ended up in the film, but probably more difficult and impractical to deal with. The Q&A was very revealing, showing more of the chaos that goes on in a feature animation pipeline.
It’s great to have guests from a variety of aspects of making of an animation. Having a production designer as a guest was really very informative and enlightening in many ways.
As for the film ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, I have seen it a couple of weeks ago in a preview screening and I think it is the best film Dreamworks ever made. It was great to see the back story of how it evolved over time. Especially the design of toothless. Even though I loved the cutesy old one, new design definitely hit the mark. One thing that really impressed me but I could not point my finger to as to why was, how it felt very different and much better than other Dreamworks movies. Kathy’s instruction on the addition of a master cinematographer to the crew and the changes on the color pallette and lighting was very enlightening in that sense.
The only bad thing about this movie in my opinion was that trailers don’t really give the film justice and I hope that it doesn’t hurt the film.
This was one of my favorite seminars so far! I loved all the concept art and seeing the many iterations of the characters in varying styles by each of the talented artists. I especially enjoyed seeing Chris Sanders’s storyboards and was impressed/surprised/amazed/delighted to see how cinematic he boards.
Kathy was also very informative of her job position, which is personally helpful to me, as someone who may look into such a position in the future. (Note to self after seminar: look into a job with more in the art-producing and less meeting-attending, haha.)
After this seminar and hearing Kathy comment on the lack of “correct” marketing for HTTYD, I now stop judging movies by their trailers…One would think the company wants to market the movie, true to the movie! I still can’t believe that the marketing people went as far as to change the eyes of the dragons! I don’t know what’s up with that…
The concept art sketches amazed me just like those pencil-tests-animation always does. I appreciate those pre-production art works besides the very final finished film. I really enjoyed Kathy’s presentation not only because of the amazing art works she showed us but also she is definitely a wonderful speaker. Since I didn’t have a chance to see the pre-screening of How to Train Your Dragon, I’ll go see it for sure.
Kathy’s informative lecture gave us a very deep and thorough insight into the visual development side of feature animation, and the intricate balance between developing an idea and ensuring return on investment.
This type of discussion is so useful for helping to determine a direction in terms of career, and informative for the types of compromises and decisions we will have to make in the future.
Late to comment for this week, but not because of lack of enthusiasm. Kathy Altieri gave a fabulous presentation that was also really informative. She was the first guest so far, I think, to really convey the team effort required to make an animated film. Her experience at successfully working as a member of teams has led to her current position–a very nice, powerful position where her decisions matter as much as her skills–so it’s nearly impossible to ignore what she was expressing.
Like the John Musker presentation before, this lecture was centered around a new movie. But just like with Musker, the real meat of the talk, hiding in between the lines of the buzz generation for the film, was solid information about how to be good at your job in the industry, how to be who you need to be to make it.
I think it’s been mentioned before by my classmates, but also too cool for words to see a woman in power. Also amazing to see her ability to be flexible and composed in the face of execs with bad ideas, artists with big egos, and marketing teams with no clue.
I appreciated Kathy’s enthusiastic presentation. It really showed just how much thought and deliberation even the most minute detail, such as small differences made in a character’s design, can affect the film that is ultimately presented to the audience. It really can drastically change the tone of the film. This also applies towards the marketing of the film, and how one misstep in having a potential audience interpreting that the tone of the film might be as opposed to what it actually is can sink a film that really has no right to be considered a failure. Thankfully, in the case of How to Train a Dragon, it is doing quite well both critically and financially.
I believe Kathy Altieri is our first speaker came as the role of a production designer. I even didn’t really know what production designer is, thus it makes today’s seminar a special one to me, in many ways. I learned that how a marketing department and a production department of the same company can be so uncooperative in the same project. I really didn’t have any interest for watching “How to Train Your Dragon” in theater when I first saw its trailer.
In the past, I was always not appreciating DreamWorks’ lighting in their feature animations. Like what Kathy herself mentioned, I thought they always light up everything in a scene and therefore reduced the cinematic atmosphere. So I was very surprised that in “How to Train Your Dragon” they did such a great job in lighting. I’m really looking forward to watch it in the theater.
Allen