Ian Gooding in New Orleans poses alongside a huge Disney fairy-tale book. - Contributed

Living his dream as an artist, Jamaican Ian Gooding has shown that following your passion can lead to big success in the real world, and in his case straight into the world of fantasy.

An art director for the Walt Disney Company, which is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world, Gooding is sitting back in anticipation of his latest project, The Princess and the Frog - which debuted in theatres across America last Friday. When The Gleaner spoke to Gooding via telephone recently, he discussed his start at the prestigious and hallowed walls of fantasy giant Disney, and about his latest works.

Born and grown in Kingston, Jamaica, when Gooding left Jamaica in 1985 at the age of 20, he intended to study and work in live action film. However, while at the California Institute of Art, the young artist found himself spending more time with character animators than those in the motion graphics department and soon changed fields.

Doing well

For Gooding, the departure to study art was met with hesitancy from his mother, whose father Claude DeSouza was a local artist and worried that her son wouldn't be earning much as an artist.

Now however, according to Gooding, his mother is one of his number-one supporters and admits that having followed his dream, he is doing well.

"When I was a kid, I absolutely loved movies, and thought it best to follow what I really loved," said Gooding. "So I went to art school which turned out to be funded by Disney. I went there for four years and ended up at Disney since 1990."

Gooding's first project with Disney was the Prince and the Pauper followed by work in hits such as Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, Hercules, Dinosaurs, his latest projects being Treasure Planet and the hugely popular Chicken Little where he worked as the art director. For The Princess and the Frog, Gooding, alongside the film's directors John Musker and Ron Clements, is one of the few people who worked on the film from the beginning to the end of its creation over three and a half years - which is less time than the Treasure Planet project which took a whopping five years to create.

LANDMARK

The Princess and the Frog is a landmark for Disney, being a tale about its first African-American princess and which is not set in the world of fantasy, but in the real life setting of New Orleans, United States of America. The plot focuses around Prince Naveen of Maldonia who deals with a shady voodoo doctor and is turned into a frog. In a desperate attempt to be human again, Prince Naveen seeks a fateful kiss from the beautiful girl, Tiana, which leads both of them on an unexpected and hilarious adventure through the mystical bayous of Louisiana to the banks of the Mississippi and back in time for Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

The animated film features voices of Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jennifer Cody, Jim Cummings, Jennifer Lewis, Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard and John Goodman.

Gooding explained his part in the project saying, "On a project like this, there are literally hundreds of artists to make this movie, so I have to make sure it looks like it was done by one artist. This means that the style needs to be consistent throughout. There are infinite possibilities of what something is suppose to look like, so I decide what the style is gonna be."

The Princess and the Frog was another major accomplishment as it heralded Disney's return to 2D hand-drawn animation. This is Disney's first 2D hand-drawn film in the last six years since the transition was made from 2D to 3D. Gooding said it was an experience he enjoyed.

"We returned to the traditional hand-drawn methods over animated movies, so people who were laid off were called back for this film," he said. "So it was actually wonderful working with people I had worked with years ago, so we really poured our hearts in it and I think it shows in the film."

Gooding said their hard work was rewarded at the 37th Annual Annie Awards, where The Princess and the Frog got eight nominations. The Annual Annie Awards recognises the year's best in animated features, television productions, commercials, short subjects and outstanding individual achievements in the field of animation.

Second nomination

The Princess and the Frog's nominations included Best Animated Feature and individual nominations for animated effects, character animation, production design and voice acting.

This is Gooding's second nomination for Production Design in a feature animated production, the first being for Chicken Little.

"I'm pretty excited about it, it's a wonderful thing," Gooding said about the nomination. Thus far, while he hasn't officially signed on to work on a new project, he has options on his table.

For others who are thinking of following their dreams, Gooding says to go ahead and always do something you love in life.