Interview With Director Tom Sito
Comic-Con seems like ages ago, but here at ColdHardFlash we’re still processing the treasure-trove of interviews we snagged in San Diego. Perhaps the most authoritative interview subject was Tom Sito, who was at the ‘Con promoting the new PBS series Click & Clack’s As the Wrench Turns. But Sito’s resume reaches far beyond this new Flash series to the most recent golden era at Disney Feature Animation where he worked on films like Aladdin (Genie animator), Beauty and the Beast (Beast animator) and The Lion King. I bumped into Tom after his Click and Clack panel and asked him about his experiences with Flash:
If you’re more the reading type, here’s the transcript:
CHF: Was this your first project using Flash?
TOM SITO: I have used Flash before. I used Flash in a documentary movie called Flock of Dodos which is about the (Intelligent) Design vs. Evolution controversy. So I had to add some sequences, like explaining why rabbits eat their own poo. So Flash is the first thing…
I also did a film title for a movie called Never Say Macbeth. I did the entire thing in Flash by myself. It was an independent movie so they really didn’t have a big budget. And it was kind of fascinating because… I wound up doing the entire film title. I thought, God, a generation later, I wouldn’t have dreamed you could have done a film title by yourself.
CHF: How did you first discover Flash?
TOM: One of my friends showed me in an afternoon, and I picked it up pretty quickly. I got a good Cintiq. It’s interesting, I’m not as adept at reusing all the heads and everything, so I wind up animating more fully than some people do. But I like doing that. It’s fun when you work very quickly. One of my mentors is Richard Williams, and Dick always used to say “In the end, sometimes the best way to do something is the hard way.”
So rather than doing alot of re-use and stuff I would just wind up just animating it fully. But I like the dexterity and the speed with which you can work… picking your own colors.
CHF: What do you most like about Flash?
TOM: The fact that you can have it right in front of you. I hate to do one of those “When I started in this business…” But when I started in this business in the 70s the fastest you could get was – you had to get your stuff done by 5pm because there was this very moody gopher/runner who would take it to the camera guy. 
The camera guy would shoot it over night. It would go to developing in the morning and you would get it by 1pm the following afternoon. That’s the fastest you could ever expect it.
At the Fleischer Studio in the 30s, every animator had a bucket of developer by their desk and after you would film your pencil test, you just took the magazine and dunked it in the bucket yourself and looked at it before it turned black because Max was too cheap to pay for the fixative. And that was testing back then. So the fact that I can do this instantaneously in front of me in color, is just amazing.
CHF: Is there an historical parallel to this this technology shift?
TOM: In 1874, Mark Twain actually told friends, “don’t let this get around to the other writers, but I really like using a typewriter.” Other writers would say “well you’re ruining the art of writing by using a machine.” But… it’s easier.
(the full Twain quote: Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge that fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the typewriter, for the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only describe the machine, but state what progress I had made in the use of it, etc., etc. I don’t like to write letters, and so I don’t want people to know I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.)
September 10th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Nice!!! it’s always great to see who’s using flash and what they do with it! It’s interesting that he doesn’t use symbols or anything, I think people often overlook Flash’s potential as a straight up traditional program!