A day at DreamWorks

I have returned from my weekday vacation way out in California. It was a great time going there for the first time. But I don't think I could have ever been prepared for what Dreamworks had for me that Wednesday. It was the greatest day of my life.

The original plans for the day seemed like it would only be about an hour or two, but more and more things kept getting added on to the day. The total event lasted 5 hours!!!

Upon parking in their garage and walking out into their beautiful campus, I was greeted by Angela Lepito, a Production Manager, and Sheri Conn, the Dragon franchise manager.

I was also greeting and followed the whole day by David Joyner, who guided me to each person I met. This guy is seriously awesome, he's been with DreamWorks for 17 years!

A nearby film crew of 3 interns came over to do a quick interview. They followed me through most of the day as well. I was told it was to put together an internal video for everyone to see, so they would get a better insight of fan reactions and thoughts on their work.

I was then brought inside, and taken to a small conference room where the film crew was already waiting.

I will also say now, I had two new Toothless plushes that I had made taped up in some boxes that I was giving to DreamWorks. Because nobody else was in the room, and the others standing at the door were looking around the corner awaiting someone with excitement, I knew what was coming.

Dean Deblois and Bonnie Arnold came in. It's amazing the aura these people have. Just being in their presence was such bliss. Bonnie did not come in empty handed though. She was carrying the Art of How to Train Your Dragon book, which inside had beautiful large signatures from them both, and a cute drawing of Toothless from Dean. She also carried a new How to Train Your Dragon 2 poster, signed by them and other artists. And this wasn't your typical poster either noooooo, it was a Translucite poster that movie theaters use on their lighted displays.

As I told Dean and Bonnie how grateful I was for their phone calls, and all their work on the films, I saw Dean's eyes tear up a bit, which made me do the same. If I had died then I would not have cared, for my life had already felt complete. Then someone said that Jay Baruchel was in the other room doing voice recordings, and we should stop in before he left.

All three were very nice and so cool to talk to. Basically everyone at DreamWorks is the nicest person ever, it's pretty amazing.

After lunch, I was given a tour of their campus by Brennan Foti, which is clearly very well kept. They carefully designed everything to keep everyone stress-free.

Throughout the day I met with: Their character modeler James Stapp, who showed me their Hiccup and Toothless models in various stages(through a few clicks he could turn different armor and clothing on and off, it was neat). Their animator Simon Otto, who let me use his tablet to stretch and play with Toothless's face (Not the old model either, this was the brand new Toothless for Dragon 2 in a scene straight out of the movie. I opened his mouth, showed his teeth, twisted his tongue, played with his eyes, all that fun stuff. It was amazing. He explained how he first sets keyframes of important moments, and then slowly fills in the detailed parts in-between. When he showed the spectrum a individual changes made to Toothless's body on a 3 second clip, it looked like a rainbow of billions of curvy lines. Very immense details. He also showed scenes from the first Dragon in about 10 different stages of the animation process, from super rough and stiff to the final version). The storyboardists Tron Mai and Johane Matte, who showed me how they draw the sequence of images and present them (I got to watch the whole teaser sequence, and then some, in its rawest 2D form, with sound effects provided from "Tron", lol)(Johane let me draw a terrible Toothless head on her tablet, and then she proceeded to draw a really cute nice one). And their character designer, Nico Marlet. He let me go through many of his original drawings of the dragon characters, including new ones not yet shown. I recognized some of the images from the art book. It was while I was going through his images when he handed me a drawing of a Nadder with a chicken. He drew it just for me. I was in shock. I just looked at him with a pause, and said "Thank You"(like a boss). I proceeded to praise him much more for it, and soon it was time to go. Everyone there was so awesome, I wish in an alternate reality we all could have been best friends growing up.

A funny thing I should mention, is that every time I met someone, my new plush was already set up somewhere in the room for presentation.

Walking through the halls was sooooo awesome. I could have stopped and stared for minutes on end. So many images, finals and story boards of dragons and scenes not yet released. Even a movie or two not announced. My favorite thing I saw was this gigantic multi-layered poster depicting a scene from Dragon 2. It was so epic and detailed, with dragons flying out in front of a scene behind them. I had never seen anything quite like it.

On the campus tour we had a stop in their motion capture room. It was very large, and their screens were showing off the dance fighting scene from puss n boots. It was neat to see how the software created rigging on the people to use in animation.

About half way through the day was when I was taken to view their new trailer for Dragon 2, and about a 3 minute continuation of the scene from the teaser. I could tell this was a very big moment for them, because they brought in a second camera to film me as I watched. They told me that hardly anyone, inside and outside of dreamworks has seen the trailer. On the computer monitors, I could see everything in its raw, cut up form in Avid. It reminded me of my own projects, tons of layers, thousands of tiny pieces.

(Edit: I know the trailer is out and you have all seen it now, but I will keep this part here anyway, as it still shows my initial reactions)

And then it began. Only 10 seconds in and my eyes were so watery I almost couldn't see the screen. I could feel my lip quiver as I approached the brink of bawling like a baby. Never has a video moved me so strongly like that before, and so fast. It was truly glorious. I practically felt frozen in time as it played out. I regained composure after a bit, and stared like a 5 year old gazing at the stars for the first time. After a couple minutes, it was over. I didn't even have 10 seconds to calm myself before the next video was played, which was the scene I mentioned. It was this combination of videos that totally eliminated all my fears that I had about this movie. Hiccup and Toothless are more adorable than ever, and the detail of the environments is so far beyond the first film. I'm probably already pushing the limits on what I can say about what I saw, so I better stop. I don't mean to hype up the new trailer to an impossible level that ends up disappointing you when you see it. Remember that I was having the best day of my life, and being one of the first viewers of these clips. All I can say is, if you thought the teaser was amazing, just wait until you see this, because you don't know what amazing is.

My final stop of the day was the full interview. I was brought into their beautiful lobby, which had bookshelves and artwork of all their stuff along the wall. I heard it was fairly new. They sat me in a chair and had me hold the new plush I brought. They asked me many things, such as what did I expect that day before I arrived, what it was like meeting everyone, what made me decide to make the plushes and mail them, what it was like getting phone calls from them, and more. I was doing fairly well answering questions at first, then towards the end my brain started locking up and I got a bit sloppy. Even as a film major, it's tough not to glance or pander to the camera and use buzzwords like "experience", "exciting" and "amazing". I overthink things, and I keep thinking of soooo many things I wish I told them that I know they would have loved to hear, but them's the breaks I guess. I did my best and that's all I could hope for.

After that is was time to go. Before I did though, I was told I could buy some things in their store that they had. They told me that their stuff is not sold anywhere but there, so I jumped on that and got a bunch of different things. They then told me that it would all be given to me courtesy of Shari, the coordinator there. Just when I thought they couldn't surprise me any more. There was also a rack of shirts there that had many of the recent Design Contest shirts on it.

I grabbed a couple outside photos, like the one I uploaded, and then left for the night.

I felt like a king for a day. These people truly love their fans, and I never could have thought they would go through so much effort for me. I wish there were much stronger words I could use to thank them, because the level of love and gratitude I have for everyone there and their work is beyond speech.

But actions do indeed speak louder than words, and if this is what they wanted to do as thanks for my plush and love for their film, then I truly understand their appreciation.

They create these films from the heart, to bring enjoyment to us. I was told many times, that the love I have for Dragon is the reason why they make these movies. So to all you fans out there who feel the same way about one of their movies as I do, don't forget...

It was made for you.