Disney!

I'm not a very frequent blogger.   I would say I'm a sporadic blogger at best.  But it's a new year, so I figure it's a good as time as any to try starting another burst of blogs.So what have I been busy with lately?  Many, many projects.  But the one taking most of my time is a Disney project that I'm serving as a consulting producer and supervising director on.  It's the third season of a Disney animated series in China called 晓龙大功夫 or "Kung Fu Dragon" in English.  The above photo was taken last month at Disney's China HQ from a writer's meeting with KQ, the director.  In the foreground is Kung Fu actor/stuntman extraordinaire, Ian Powers who I've brought aboard as our Kung Fu and action consultant.Given the title of the series has Kung Fu in it, I figured it was a good enough reason to bring in an expert.  In fact, today I'm writing this from the animation studio where we're running part two of a Kung Fu for Animators workshop. It amazes me that there aren't more workshops like this in China where Kung Fu is such an important part of the culture and cinema. Anyway, we're at an important phase of transitioning from preproduction to production.  I'm taking a page out of my experiences at ILM and Pixar where workshops are run to improve the team's work.  So we've been running workshops on layouts, design, storyboards and now kung fu action for animators.  If all goes well, this should really improve everyone's work on this season.  It's a very practical approach to training, development and production.It seems counter-intuitive to many managers in China to take time out for training.  But a little time spent now will really help the quality, speed and efficiency of the production further down the line.  That's been my experience in Hollywood and US productions and I'm willing to bet that's going to be the case here.  I was brought in to improve upon seasons 1 and 2 and these workshops are exactly what we need to do it.Watchaaa!  Onward and upward!