Bird's work those first years of "The Simpsons" helped establish the network as a genuine player and the artist as one of the key members in the new wave of animation who were reshaping the world of cartoons both figuratively and literally.

He got an early start. Hired by Disney while still in his teens and sent to Cal Arts Institute on a full Disney scholarship, Bird soon found himself bristling under the authority of the corporate mouse. "I was vocal about the lack of quality and was accused of ‘rocking the boat while I was there, and then we parted ways," Bird says today.

Soon after, Bird was taken under the wing of Stephen Spielberg, and wrote, directed and co-produced the animated "Family Dog" segment that aired on the director's TV series "Amazing Stories." He also wrote the first draft for the script that became the feature film *batteries not included.

After that, it was Fox, Fox, and more Fox. Bird moved from the "The Simpson" to the short-lived "The Critic" and the hit "King of the Hill." After a few years at Fox, Warner Brothers came calling, and Bird flew from the small screen for a shot at the big one.

His new movie, The Iron Giant, is adapted from the 1968 children's book "The Iron Man," by the late British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes (who was once married to the patron saint of suicidally depressed poets, Sylvia Plath). Pete Townsend of the rock band The Who originally adapted the book for a 1989 album and 1993 stage play that he hoped to turn into an animated musical film. That didn't happen, but it's unlikely Townsend could have turned out a better picture than Bird has with The Iron Giant.

WRE met with Bird for a half hour at the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta. He was a short, rather ordinary looking guy with puppy dog eyes, who was frank in his criticism of current animated films and Hollywood in general. We liked him and his movie, maybe even more so because it was such an unexpected surprise...

I'll be honest. I was not expecting much from this movie...

A lot of people say that.

...but this is one of the best animated movies I've ever seen. I was familiar with the story, and I'm a Pete Townsend fanatic. I thought his album was pretty weak, actually, and I was worried about what kind of direction you were going to take with the movie. How'd you get involved with this?

I saw it at an open house at Warner Brothers, where they had artwork on display of all the animation projects they had in development, They had like 40 or 50 in development. I saw it and was just struck by the image of a big metal guy and a little boy. About six months later, they asked me if there was anything they had in development that I wanted to know more about. I mentioned that one and asked to read the book. So I read the book and liked it, but I kind of had a different direction that I wanted to go. So I pitched to them the idea that what if the iron guy had a soul.

Did you meet Ted Hughes prior to his death in 1998?

No, I did not. I was supposed to. I went to England and had dinner with Pete [Townsend] and [Producer] Des McAnuff. [Hughes] was supposed to come to dinner, but he couldn't make it that night. He wanted to get together the next morning, but I was already heading out. We sort of just left it that we were going to get together later, but we never did.

So he never saw any of the film?

He read the script. He wrote back a letter to my producer, Allison [Abbatee] saying how much he loved that we deviated from it, and that he was very surprised with it and very happy.

How big a role did Pete Townsend have in the picture? He takes an Executive Producer role, but that can be kind of a vague term to a lot of people. What was his involvement level?

I think Pete came [to the project] to do a musical based on the book. When I pitched my story, he sort of agreed that the musical aspect was not as crucial ... or not something that suited the direction that I wanted to go. So he stepped back a bit, but he's been very supportive of the project. I think he's happy with how it's turned out.

So it was his plan to feature the music from his album?

Well, I never read that treatment or anything, but I think the intention was to do kind of what he did on the album and on the stage, though I've never seen the stage production. I think he was used mainly...you know....putting the Hughes book in a rock musical form. I think it would have been very different movie than the typical Disney type musical. But the story, the direction I wanted to go in, was not best done as a musical. But he was cool enough and Des was cool enough to agree with that.

Why the title change from The Iron Man to The Iron Giant? It's such a small detail, but you've gone ahead and done it anyway.

Actually, that wasn't our idea. The title change came with the book. Because in the U.S., Iron Man is a [Marvel] comic book character. So, the book in the US, when it's printed here, is also The Iron Giant. So we just decided to call ours The Iron Giant as well. I don't have any problem with Iron Man, but I also think Iron Giant is a fine title.

Iron Giant certainly says he's big, while Iron Man might not.

Right. It could be the Tin Man, it could be a little iron guy.

Warner Brothers has not had a real good track record with feature animation, critically or commercially...

Space Jam was successful. But that was kind of a blend.

It did okay, but it didn't match the expectations. It didn't do Disney numbers.

No.

Did this cause you any concern to hook up with a studio that hasn't had a breakout animated film?

I don't know. I've had a tendency to kind of align myself with collapsing regimes. I think that's because collapsing regimes are the only ones who are open to suggestions, while Disney, you know: "We make things this way and you will do it this way or you will not direct at Disney!" So that kind of situation is good for Disney as a company, but it's not very good for me, because I want to do movies differently than Disney does them. So, before Disney, I was at Turner, and Turner was another sort of thing the whole time I was there. It was closing down or they were unable to make a decision. So I think that the downside of it is that people don't feel secure about themselves the way Disney feels secure about themselves. But the upside is that they are open to being convinced about going into a different direction, and that was the case here. Because Warners did not have a good experience trying to emulate Disney both in the kind of material they were doing and the way the films were produced -- Disney's structure is very middle management heavy, where there's ten VPs for every artist, and I think it's maybe not the greatest environment for somebody trying to do something different. At Warner's they tried to emulate Disney in those two senses and it didn't work for them, and I think for many ways Quest for Camelot bought us the opportunity to do this film. Also, they were tough on us for the budget, we had a lot lower budget than Quest for Camelot, and A LOT lower budget than Tarzan or Prince of Egypt.

So what was your budget?

I'm not supposed to say. I will say this though: We could make three of them for the cost of Tarzan or Prince of Egypt. We had a schedule that was about as half as long. But in exchange for this, they gave us tremendous elbow room. If we had a good idea, we could simply act on it. We didn't have to submit it to a bureaucracy. And to me, that was worth every bit of the tradeoff. We were racing the entire time we made the film, because our ambitions were high and our schedule was tight, but we were exhilarated by the fact that we could really do the movie that we wanted to do and a lot of us knew we might never get that opportunity again.

A lot of trades say this is it: If this movie doesn't make it Warner Brothers' animation division goes in the crapper.

Oh, I don't know. I would hope Warner Brothers would not look at the viability of an entire art form resting on a few films. But I would give the glass a half full answer and say that if this movie does well, more well produced movies with different stories than the kind Disney does will come in the wake of it, whether they are made at Warner Brothers or somewhere else. There has been a tremendous separation between doing well produced animation and interesting material. If you do material that deviates from the formula, you gotta do it for a buck-ninety eight and send it to Korea. If you do something that is elaborate, full animation, it seems like you also have to do stories that have been told a hundred-thousand times before and slap five broadway songs on it and have annoying comic sidekicks...

Gee, who are you referring to?

(laughs) Uhh, I'm just saying...well, you know... uhhh, I think a lot of films follow that model, and if we succeed at deviating from that...I mean this is the first opportunity I've gotten to take high quality animation and do interesting material. If we succeed at that, I think it will lead to a lot of other exciting films.

The film's artwork seems to be dated on purpose. The whole picture doesn't really have that high gloss look, it looks like it was made in the 50s.

Well, we drew on influences from the 50s, whether they be Saturday Morning Post covers, or comic books of the period, but some of the up to the minute...you mean, we didn't have a scene with a thousand cranes flying over a sparkling river is that what you mean?

Well, that but...

Well that was as much a function of how we had to move quickly as it was...you know...also, our story is not that kind of story. I would have loved to have more time and money, but...

No, no, I'm saying it served its purpose and was refreshing. I liked Tarzan, but there was a lot coming at you, to the point of almost being overwhelming. And here it seemed like the story came first.

I think

"I’ve had a tendency to align myself with collapsing regimes...because [they’re] the only ones who are open to suggestions, while Disney, you know: 'We make things this way and you will do it this way or you will not direct at Disney!'"

there is a tendency -- not only in animation, but in live action films -- to act as if the audience has a remote and they're going to change the channel. So there is this franticness to them, where some loud noise is always happening or about to happen, the cuts are coming faster and faster, the action is speeded up, as if the audience has this incredibly short attention span. And filmmakers are not that secure about their stories. They have to keep throwing crap at you in order to keep you interested. But to me, movies are like music. If you repeat one constant pace, it very quickly loses its impact. You feel much more exhilarated accelerating to 100 MPH from 15 MPH than you do simply staying at 100. At it's also exhilarating. in a different. way to hit the breaks. But if you just stay cruising at Mach 5, it doesn't feel like you're moving after a while. And there's this sameness that is deadening. So I tried very much to slow down in certain spots in this film, and have quiet moments where it's all about anticipation and something about to happen. A stillness. All of my favorite old Disney films have those moments. If you're saying the movie's old fashioned in that sense, well, thank you very much.

There's no hip hop music, or modernized heavy score, no love song theme at the end. I've got the soundtrack and it's really obscure material...

That's the soundtrack. There will be another CD, the score for the film, which to me is very lush and huge sounding. I love the score.

Yeah, but there's always pressure, like with Disney, they always have that big love song...

Oh yeah! You got to have the five songs! You have to have those five songs! You've got to have the "I want song," where the character sings what he or she wants [begins singing] "I want a firm mattress..." and they get the firm mattress just before the end of the movie. Then there's the anthem song. Then the love song, which is reprised over the end titles with contemporary R&B artists. Then there's the comedy score, where the wacky people sing about how wacky they are. Then there's the often gay villain song. And there's a sameness to them that's cookie cutter. And I think even the Disney animators are really hoping this film does well so they can have legal precedence set for them to break free.

What's the secret to convincing adults that animated films are not just extended cartoons that appeal only to children?

I think the only hope lies in making films that adults will enjoy. As I've said before, there are films definitely geared for adults now. I think both TV programs I worked on, "King of the Hill" and "The Simpsons", were squarely aimed at adults. But I think

"[Today’s] filmmakers are not secure about their stories. They have to keep throwing crap at you in order to keep you interested. But to me, movies are like music. If you repeat one constant pace, it very quickly loses its impact...There’s this sameness that is deadening."

there has been the misunderstanding in Hollywood that if you do high quality production value, familiar stories like Disney does is the only way you can do it. And it's kind of a Pavlovian response, because every time you see high quality animation, that's the kind of story they're telling. If someone deviates from that, like Yellow Submarine or Animal Farm, or Ralph Bakshi's early work [Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic], it's always done with really inferior artwork. It doesn't move smoothly. All the characters move the same, they don't have distinctive patterns of movement.

So it's as if the only good film directors did westerns and all the other genres were handled by hacks. There would be the misunderstanding of a lot of people that westerns were the only films that could be good because they were the only films that were really well produced. But if you took Disney-level artists and went somewhere different with them, you could also do a compelling science fiction film, a really ultra scary horror movie that's animated, any other form. You just have to start really pushing the quality aspect of it. My argument has always been that an adult audience likes really good animation, but if the only thing that really good, well produced animation does is fairy tales, then you'll never get the opportunity to prove it, because fairy tales are fine for some adults but other adults go "Eh." If you're going to do an adult script, you can't keep producing them for a buck-ninety eight, because then the people who really like well produced stuff are going to go "Eh." It's a cliche, but you've got to build it and really hope that they'll come.

You mentioned something that you had a shortened amount of time to get this out. But I read this whole process started for you in 1996...

...Late 1996.

That cuts the time frame to about two-and-a-half years. So the normal animation process from green-light to release is five years?

Not from green-light. From the start of development. Like Mulan was five years, but three years were preparation and two years were actually doing animation. We were about half what a big animated feature is.

That's still twice as long as the normal live action movie.

Depending on the live action movies. Not Star Wars. Not Eyes Wide Shut.

Those are exceptions, and two-and-a-half years, still, that's a long time. Does that stretch of time ever get to you?

Sure it does. I have a lot of stories that I want to tell and some part of me goes, if you tell these all in animation, you'll die before you have one-tenth of them done. On the other hand, I get a lot of very strange reactions from people because because they like the film and they anticipate it is going to do well, and they say "Surely you're going to get out of animation now, you're free!" and I go, "But I really like animation." People assume that if you're a serious filmmaker, you must want to get out of animation as soon as possible. I want to do both. I want to do them until I die.

Do you have another project picked out?

Yeah, I pitched one to Warner Brothers, it's animated, that they really liked.

So that's what's next?

I'm hoping. We're developing it. Whether or not they green-light it is up to them.

You talk about getting creative freedom. On the "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill," did you run into many problems with Fox looking over your shoulder?

I think that the only good experiences that I've had in the film industry until Iron Giant were in the shadow of 800 pound gorillas. Steven Spielberg. gave me my first chance to direct and really allowed me incredible freedom that I haven't had to that degree until this project. But on the "The Simpsons", the 800 pound gorilla was Jim Brooks, who cast a very large shadow over the land of television, so no executive at any network is going to mess with Jim Brooks. So Jim Brooks granted the freedom to the writers and artists on the "The Simpsons" to go where no TV series had gone before and I totally credit the freedom that we enjoyed to Jim Brooks. Not that the guys who ran the show didn't have their struggles with Fox. They did.

What's the biggest difference between directing a sitcom and a feature?

There are several. I think it gets exponentially more difficult with length. I think that a half hour show is more than three time as difficult as a 7 minute short and a 90 minute film is more than three times as difficult as a half hour program. The longer something gets, the more elusive the rhythms are. Things that you are sure that you are going to need, once you put them down on film, don't seem necessary at all. And the rhythms of a good feature film are a challenge because you are trying to not have the same pace but always keep people engaged. You need to vary the film. I go to see a film like Armageddon, and it seems like you could walk in at any point and it's exactly the same kind of filmmaking, whether it's two people talking or a planet blowing up. They're all shot in two second takes that seem to be almost randomly chosen. It gets down to that MTV kind of movie making that I really don't admire. All of my favorite directors vary their rhythms are are willing to stay with a long shot and let it unfold if that's what called for.

The original book was set in England. This movie is set in Maine in the 1950s. But one of the driving points is that it talks a lot about guns and violence. Did you ever think about setting the movie in contemporary America?

There were pressures to do whatever seemed more commercially viable to different people. I felt that the 1990s would have made a lot things look unbelievable, that they couldn't locate a 50 foot metal thing with all the technology they have now. I also think there is something very specific about the Cold War that is wonderful and there are very few films that are distinctly set in the exact period they are made that age well. You tend to need more distance. There are exceptions to this of course, Hard Day's Night and several of Woody Allen's films. But I'm happy with this time period. There were discussions brought up about setting it now, and putting a hip hop thing to it. [Starts rapping loudly] Raw! Iron Giant! Giant! Gi-Gi-Gi-Giant! He's big! He's Bad! He's the Iron Giant! Giant! You know people would have loved to do that, because it seems like it'll sell.

You could have gotten Will Smith.

[Laughs] Yeah! He's the Wild, wild giant!

He's got a big iron giant in his movie, too.

Does he? I haven't seen it. I haven't had time to see anything. I've seen Eyes Wide Shut and Star Wars. That's it.

Wow.

I know. It's terrible. I've got to start getting out again. I want to see Red Violin, I want to see Blair Witch, there's a whole bunch I want to see.

Michael Clark & T.W. Siebert