 
Ryan Woodward
Ryan has animated for Warner Brothers Studios on several hit feature films, including SpaceJam, Osmosis Jones, and The Iron Giant. He created the comic book The Invincible Ed, published by Dark Horse Comics, and did animatic storyboard art on the blockbuster movie Spiderman 2. He also teaches animation classes at Brigham Young University. His animation, storyboards, and illustration can be seen at www.ryanwoodwardart.com.
Tell us about your background.
I’m from Newbury Park, California. I have always wanted to draw since grade school. I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to draw, just that I wanted to do fun drawings like cartoons or animations. I had a great art teacher in high school that motivated and encouraged me to take evening classes at a community college. She was awesome. Her name was Miss Collel. She really got the ball rolling, encouraging me to follow my dreams, so there wasn’t a question in my mind as to what I would choose for a career. I just wanted to draw.
What did you do for college?
I went to Ricks College and had awesome teachers. At the time it was just a two-year program, so it couldn’t really direct me in animation. It was more for basic foundation skills like illustration, figure drawing, painting—which was actually exactly what I needed. I had fantastic teachers there, Matt Geddes and Leon Parson, and they got the wheels going for me to move forward. But when I told them I wanted to do animation, it always seemed to get shot down. Then, I went on my mission, returned to Ricks College and finished my degree there, met my wife, put together all my work I did at Ricks and submitted it to Warner Brothers for an internship. I was accepted at Warner Brothers and started as an intern, and soon began work on my first film, SpaceJam. I went from film to film, whatever Warner Brothers was doing—mostly feature films.
So, you started out as an intern then they hired you on as staff?
Right. 1995 was a year when animation studios were looking for talent. They established a training program where they looked for people they felt had good foundation drawing skills. They brought us in and taught us to animate for three months, then if we proved that we were competent in animation, they hired us on to do films.
So, it was a test. Were there some who didn’t make it?
There were a few who didn’t make it.
Were you doing animation in-betweening?
Yes. That’s the way you start out (the “low man on the totem pole”). You take the animators drawings, and make tight, tight, intricate drawings of in-between movements. It’s actually more a technical than an artistic job. But you move up the ranks that way. And I moved into effects animation right after that and did smoke, fire, explosions, water, magic, etc.
So, did you do that on The Iron Giant?
Yes. Also, on The Iron Giant I started working with all the digital tools, since it became popular at that time. Warner Brothers had Unix-based systems, silicon graphics, which no one really uses anymore. But I used them at the time to do 3-D.
Then, I started noticing trends in the animation industry (people were being let go), so I started freelancing on the side. I took on other projects and developed other skills. I did storyboards for Rich Animation, and animatic work and after effects with storyboard artists. Then, when productions ended, I got put into a development team at Warner Brothers, because I knew those skills, w |
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