While I was in LA at the Disney In Home event I also had the opportunity to spend a day at Disney Animation studios where we had the chance to interview the Director Bobs Gannaway & Producer Ferrell Barron. Here are parts of that interview.

Q: Is there a third one in the works?

FB : First one. First question. Hard reporter.

BG :  You know, what’s interesting about Disney Toon Studios, again, John Lassiter is such a wonderful, creative leader. He really — and he’s a filmmaker, you know, which is great, to have a filmmaker, a fantastic filmmaker, sort of heading the studios that he oversees.

Disney Animation Studios. And Pixar. Disney Toons. And, so, what we do is — he — these things take so long to make. You know, it’s five years of your life, to make. And that’s one of those things we’re always like — insights — even though this came out a year later, still, we didn’t make it in a year.

FB : Long time.

BG : And so, they can’t feel like assignments, because they are something that you’re going to basically pour yourself into. So he really waits for his filmmakers to be inspired by something, and to go out there, and research it, and meet the people, ride in the vehicles, and come back and tell him and everyone, uh, on the team, like, what you’d discovered that was cool.

And did you know, and can you believe it, and I’ll bet you didn’t realize — and all of these sort of things. And, so it takes a long time, so, um, yeah. We hope to make more stories in this world, but we won’t — we will wait until we have — we find the right thing. That everybody kind of sort of wants to commit to, for five years. Because it’s a huge commitment, and it has to be a passion, not an assignment. So, yeah. Ultimately I hope to make more. Like I said, I’m still here.

We finished the movie, I’m still coming in every day, and no one’s said stop. So I think we probably will do some more. Yeah.

Q : We were just discussing the first one was great and it was cute and it was heartwarming but this was compelling. It was like you were cheering them on. It was the ultimate goal that they had to meet and it was just, it was amazing.

Bobs Gannaway: It’s really great because I feel the same way. No I know, I think, uh, what was really nice is Clay, uh, and his Team along with John, you know, did a good job, really great job, teaming up the world, and a lot of his choices informed our choices. A good example is Dusty’s relationship with Skipper.

Uh, we were looking at what could we do for a romantic sort of storyline here that’s not derivative of the first Film where Dusty facilitated a relationship between two Characters, and that was actually our first idea. And then we realized Oh, we just did that. So uh, we thought Oh, then again, you sort of go to truth, like what would really be happening. Oh he would have Fans, some Fans might be sort of Super Fans and may have, feel like they already know him, like happens to Celebrities. And so when we get there and he’s sort of — sort of Jeff Howard and I who wrote the script, we sort of said, well let’s take Dipper through the stages of a relationship, you know, and then Dusty never — never, you know, reciprocates. It would just be fun for her to go through, sort of like what are the phrases? How do you say things like Oh, you don’t do things like that anymore and like Blast, meet your friends. You know, things like that. And so which sort of gave her that arc and it made her sort of charming.

She’s, uh, we like to describe her as hopeful, not crazy. So uh, and then Julia was awesome to play the part cause she totally ran out with it and talks faster with me which is cool.

Q : Do you see Planes: F&R as the new Smokey the Bear?

FB : We say Scorchy is the new Smokey the Bear. [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAP]

BG : We did work with the campaign with the park service.

FB : We did do some PSA’s with the park service about that. I think for us it was mainly wanting to pay tribute to, you know, as we said, it’s the firefighters around the world. We’re focusing on wildfire air attack, but it’s really about — for all firefighters, and all of the research you saw — I’m sure you saw Cal Fire, who we worked with.

I mean, it was really important for us, after we’d met them, you know, they became more than just consultants. They really became our friend — I mean, I still stay in touch with Travis Alexander, who you probably saw in the pictures. Big Travis. Julie Hutchinson. And we still [UNINTELLIGIBLE] each other and see how we’re doing. I mean, they really became our friends. And so it was important for us to do right by them, because of all that research, bringing that truth and accuracy to our filmmaking, so that all firefighters really are honored.

You know, that we did that. I don’t know if they showed — if they talked to you, about, you know, in the movie, we have the wall of fame. You know, and a couple of the aircraft on there were actual Cal Fire airplanes that went down. You know, and we — we put them with the numbers, and it’s the actual aircraft, and we put that in there. And they were really taken aback, and, you know, it’s such an honor that we — you know, honored those — those brave men and woman that actually lost their lives, but that’s in the movie. But, you know, the public’s not gonna know that, but they saw it, and it’s something that really —

BG : Someone picked up on that. This aircraft here is one that actually crashed in Cal Fire, and so, we don’t say that in the movie, but that’s the number of the plane that crashed, and someone picked up on it and wrote an article about it, as an honor to that firefighter. And when we showed the movie to Cal Fire, they were just like, " that’s a lovely thing to do." Uh. You know. And it’s just the tiny little details like, we worked with the forest service. I mean, if you listen, the — the — the fire in the movie is caused by lightning.

Because I didn’t want it to be a whodunit situation where we’re trying to track down an arsonist and all of that kind of stuff. So, and the majority of the fires are caused by lightning. And we always talk about, like, there are over 50,000 wild fires a year in the US, it’s crazy, and these firefighters are out there, putting them out all of the time. But some of them are caused by humans, and so — if you listen carefully, on the dialogue, on the very first, right before the — I believe it’s right before the thunderstruck sequence. You hear that the caused by an unattended campfire.

And that’s something we put in for the forest service, because we wanted to — push their message a little bit.

FB : That’s part of their campaign, be careful, put your fire out.

BG : So, yeah. So it’s little things like that that we do, um, kind of because the — the people we work with, the park service, Cal Fire, they become our friends, and we want them to be — we want to do right by them.

Q : I’m curious about the process. I’ve heard you guys talk about keeping the scenes versus letting them stay. Do you ever worry about letting something go that could, you know…?

BG : Well. You, um, see, that’s what’s so great — and hard — about the animation process. It’s very different than a live-action where you’ve written a script and you go out and you shoot and script, and you have lots of coverage, and then it’s made kind of in editorial, and then maybe you do re-shoots and things like that, in live action. And you also, in a live action movie, it gets turned around fairly quickly, by that I mean, a year and a half. These take five plus years to make. And we go — so, what we do is, we write a script, and then we — you know. We do boards and — and do temp dialogue and do temp music, and then put it together in the editorial, and then we watch it.

With all of our other directors, and then even the whole studio, get everybody to watch it, and we all get notes, and then we tear down and rebuild it, and tear down and rebuild it, so it’s a constant. So the movie you’re seeing is like, the eighth or ninth version of the film. Um, and we are doing — during that time, during that two years, or that two and a half years, or three years, or however long you’re doing that, you start to sort of figure out, "We don’t need that," or "This needs to move along quickly," or "There’s a pace issue." Things like that. There’ll be scenes that are in for a long time.

There was a scene in the movie that was in for the longest time, and it was the scene where Blade has crashed. And Duty’s flying around, and he calls for help, and then we had this very lovely scene where Windlifter was carrying Blade back to base. And Dusty’s flying alongside, and we’re playing this sort of — we had like, temp music in there, so we were playing like, A River Once Stood or something. And everybody was like, "Oh. This is so emotional, and wonderful, and oh, I’m just feeling so much," and then finally, John Lassiter said, "Yeah.

That’s great, and everything, but there’s something bugging me about it." And we sat there, looked at it for a while. And he goes, "Oh, I know what it is. He’s still alive. Ambulances don’t go slow. They go fast." You know? It’s like, you know, um, funerals go slow. He’s not dead. So we’re like, "Oh my gosh, he should be — they should be like, we gotta get him back, and on the base, and then Maru is doing triage right there in the moment." So, that scene was in there for like, two years before we realized that it was completely and utterly wrong, and it was not — the characters were not reacting in this scene.

We had fallen so in love with the emotion. We had blinders on to this emotion, we didn’t look at it relative to what was actually — to what would happen in real life. But, what happened was, that little moment where they’re bringing Blade back, we sort of gave to after Dusty crashes where we’re not sure whether Dusty is alive or not. So we still got to have that moment. We just gave it to a different character. And then what we ended up getting out of it was this lovely scene where Maru, Curtis Armstrong, who was fantastic, um, gets his like, moment. He’s like, the water boy, right?

He doesn’t get to fly. He admires these guys. And, so, that’s his moment to shine. When they’re on the ground, he’s gotta put Blade back together. So anyway, stuff like that happens, and it takes a long time. Um, and — and that’s why you — you rely upon the other directors and the, um, the — the — the people around here to sort of look at you and give you notes, and you look for consensus in those notes. Because when you’re making the movie you’re so into the film, that you might need someone else to go, "Uh, just a question. That doesn’t work at all."

Yes, it does! It does work! You know. "Okay, don’t get defensive." But, uh, you know, and then you listen, and then you go, you know, eventually you’re like, "Oh, yeah, you’re right, they would be going fast," and things like that. And there are other scenes, you just do it for pacing, and things like that. You know. We had some scenes that were taken out, um, like at the very beginning when Dusty finds out he’s — he can’t race anymore, and then they go to Honkers and they hang out, and it’s sort of like the "cry in a beer" moment. Then he kind of went back to his hangar and he looked at all of his trophies, and then he kind of felt sorry for himself.

And then he — the next morning he sort of snuck out early and went flying. And John said, "No, no, no if he’s really in denial, he’d go flying right then." So we cut all of that out, and just go to him flying, so while they’re at Honkers all talking about it, he’s gone, and they go right to him flying. So things like that. And, oh, would he really just sit around and like, feel sorry for himself and wait till the next day to be in denial? Or he would just go like, no, no, no, I’m a racer. I can still do this, I’ll prove them wrong. I’ll just go fly now. And it ended up being cooler, because now, it’s at night, and now the fire’s caused at night, and visually that’s more exciting. So, just takes a while.

You just go through that over and over again. That’s part of the — what we call the process.

Q : Had a question about voice actors. How do you select those? Do you have specific people you’re like, "Oh, this person would be perfect for this character," or do you audition and decide that way?

BG : Well, um, we cast characters that we feel embody the spirit of the character. And so we’ll — we won’t say "oh, here’s an actor, and we want to work with them, let’s create a character for them." We don’t do that. We’ve created the character, and then we go out and find an actor or actress who we feel like embodies the spirit of that character already. The only — so, there’s a couple of times when you do have someone in mind already, when maybe you sort of — you already know you have a character.

Um. Harvey and Winnie, down there on the bottom, which are Stella Ramira, right behind you, you know they are the perfect example, basically. So, you have two Winnebagos who are on their 50^th wedding anniversary, coming back to Piston Peak to celebrate that. And you want to have instant chemistry between them, and then, from a filmmaking standpoint, it’s a plant, because they are gonna be used later. And so, um, so — from a casting standpoint, we got Stella Ramira who are a comedy couple who’ve been married for 50 years, you know, and you didn’t have to do anything. It had come preloaded with the chemistry that you’d want to create, so they already embodied the spirit of those characters, and so it was a natural for them to fit into it.

Dale Dye is a veteran, so he’s playing the major ex-military aircraft. Wes Studi is obviously American Indian, and so he’s playing our, you know, American Indian helicopter. Like, we got Ed Harris as a tough guy. So, it’s like Julie — we wanted to have Dusty’s biggest fan. Someone who’s just on the verge of being a little crazy, um, hopeful is a better word, and so Julie was fantastic for that.

And, Curtis, I’d worked with many times, and I know how great of an actor he is. And I need somebody who could yell at you, but you don’t take them that seriously. And so Curtis is sort of, you know, when he shouts, he’s — [LAUGHTER] the more he shouts, the funnier he gets. So you kind of go in and you figure, who already the spirit of the character? Barry Corbin, plays Old Jammer, and he [UNINTELLIGIBLE] very sort of, you know, from the heartland characters. So.

FB : And you should know it’s really — voiceover work is really hard work. These actors, you know, they’re confined in a small isolation booth, right, alone? Because 98 percent of the time, they’re recording alone. They don’t have another actor with them. They’re just there with headsets out, separated out, having to stay on the mics, can’t have them doing a lot of movement.

BG : Not in costume, obviously. [LAUGHTER]

FB : Not in costume. You know. Exactly, yeah. They come in and whatever, and give — the director, the voice director, which is always, usually, Bobs for us, outside, with a sheet of glass between ’em, reading the lines with them, and that’s — they have to perform.

They have to be on cue. And most of these are live action. Ed Harris, he’s used to being in front of a camera with another actor, and like, working a scene, like in theatre, and having another great actor with him. And that’s not the case in animation. So it was — some of them, it was their first time to do animation, and it was — they had a — it was a big adjust for them, as an actor, to be on, and — and embody that character, and, you know, and — and bring that emotion just to the forefront every time, and they all did a great job. And they — we always depend on, you know, having high caliber actors like Ed, like Julie, who we know are gonna bring more to what — to the character than what the script may provide.

Like we always say, Bobs is really good about having the script being a starting pint, that dialogue. Right? Start there. But, if you’re the character, like, if you feel like you’re gonna say something else, say what you feel like you’re gonna say. And, most of the time, a lot of it went in the movie, stuff that they may have just ad-libbed. And Bobs liked better. And that’s what we keep, and we cut in, and it’s great. But it’s a lot of hard work, and they all did — they are so — that’s a big part of elevating the movie, too, is the actors you hire. So it’s a long process. Of figuring out who we think is right, because it’s also about the voice quality, and you want that to be right.

And, uh, it’s a — it’s very important in animation. So —