Ian Gooding
Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
WHEN IAN Gooding left Jamaica in 1985 at age 20, he intended to study and work in live action film. Instead, he ended up in animation and was art director for Disney's first fully digital film, Chicken Little.
Directed by Mark Dindal, Chicken Little is currently trying to hold up the dark sky which looms over Disney, especially in the light of Pixar's impending departure. This fable needs to show that the entertainment giant has not had all its feathers knocked out of it. So, it's a great thing for Disney that Chicken Little ruled the roost at the United States box office for its opening weekend, this despite the film having received several hard knocks from critics.
Gooding, a past student of Campion College, began working at Disney in 1990, but he explains that Disney had got into his psyche well before because animated flicks such as Pinocchio, Jungle Book and Robin Hood, from the days when Disney was the sole cock of the animation walk, were what introduced him to the world of film.
Speaking to The Sunday Gleaner by telephone, Gooding explained that it was Star Wars that sparked his yen for making movies. Of course, with the lack of a viable Jamaican film industry, the career choice of animator seems a strange choice for a Jamaican. However, while at the California Institute of Art Gooding found that he was spending more time with character animators than those in the motion graphics department. Soon he changed fields.
Gooding began his work at Disney simply enough as an effects assistant, tackling tasks such as animating water splashes, working on The Prince and the Pauper. In 1992 he was visual effects supervisor on the television series Family Dog. His repertoire has also included the TV series of Hercules and Mulan, as background artist. Gooding also worked on visual development for Pocahontas (1995), Tarzan (1999 and Dinosaur (2000).
Of course, life at Disney has not been an easy road and, according to Gooding, Chicken Little had to learn to roll with the changing tides and the regimes which sent them in. Gooding explains that Chicken Little went through many incarnations before it got to the version that finally made it to the screen.
"It was an unusually tough movie for many many reasons, though it's good you can't see that," he said, explaining how the various upheavals which have shaken Disney in the past several years took its toll on the film-making process. Of course, such things do not merely leave films twisting in the breeze; many people also twisted along with them as Disney's shift from traditional animation to digital animation brought many layoffs.
The result is that there is immense pressure for those working in the studio to create a movie that will appeal to audiences and become a much-needed box office draw. According to Gooding, though it was never said outright, all those involved are quite aware that the company needed a turnaround. "You know that at the bottom of the line it's a money-making venture," he said. "So yeah, there's a huge amount of pressure, however unspoken."
So, though Chicken Little has had its corn squashed by some critics, its ability to corner the box office can bring with it a sigh of relief. Even critiques of Chicken Little show the plight of Disney, as some critics have even indicated that the product would have been more acceptable from any movie house other than the former industry leader. Chicken Little has been compared to Pixar's Finding Nemo and The Incredibles and Dream Works' Shrek.
Gooding reacts to Disney's current position in animation with great feeling. He points out that after a legacy of being first, Disney suddenly found itself "trailing the pack". With Beauty and the Beast, Disney had begun maturing the nature of animated flicks. By the time The Lion King roared into box offices, it seemed the sky was the limit. But soon, Dream Works and Pixar strutted forward and the sky began to fall.
He was assistant art director on Treasure Planet (2002), which had a much less favourable result than Chicken Little, at least economically. The story was a retelling of the R.L. Stevenson classic Treasure Island, giving the beloved tale an intergalactic spin, but it was shunned by audiences, so he is no stranger to some of the harsh criticism that Chicken Little has encountered.
Gooding explains that he tries to avoid criticisms; he avoids those for movies he wants to see and tries to avoid those of films which he worked on. He argues that criticism has become far too vitriolic. "Frankly, I think reviewers are just really bad and don't do their job," he said.
"When you buy a newspaper to get a review you don't just want to hear grandstanding and how witty they can be," he continued. "I got so annoyed with reviewers I just stopped reading them," he said. Gooding explained that after the movie is finished he simply tries to hold on to his view regardless of responses.
Yet, he admits that negative responses to Treasure Planet were particularly cutting. "When you spend, as I did, five years and a couple months on a movie and then people treat it with indifference, it's heartbreaking," he said. He further explains that for him Treasure Planet remains a movie film, because for him it also includes memories of friends being laid off and moving away.
Gooding, who reveals that he has just signed on a new yet to be announced project, says that the way forward is evolution. In creating their own digital animation studio, Disney shows an understanding of that, even if Chicken Little is not enough to put the mouse ears back at the top of the pile.
So, with Chicken Little now duking out Disney's fate, Gooding remains content with his life in animation and says he feels no wish to move to live action films. "I'm doing exactly what I love," he said. And Chicken Little would understand the value of sticking with what you believe, because though there may be cracks in the ceiling, the sky has not quite fallen on Disney just yet.
