-Interview by Steve Ogden

So many people are involved in the making of an animated feature film. We all know about the army of artists it takes - designers, animators, story artists, modellers, texturers. But very little is known of the Layout department. As luck would have it, Nick Walker, the head of the Layout Department on the Shrek series stayed late at work after finishing his work on Shrek the Third to talk to us about his job and the role of Layout in animated films.

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AW: This is nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule. I'll go quickly so you don't have to stick around too long.

NICK: [Laughs. You can hear the exhaustion.]

AW: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

NICK: I've worked on all three Shrek films … plus the amusement park ride, plus the conversion into IMAX, plus the Christmas short … pretty close to everything.

AW: Wow. Yeah, you've done a lotta Shrek, huh?

NICK: Yeah…

AW: And what were your roles on all of these different things?

NICK: Well, I started as a rank-and-file modeler on the first Shrek, making the props and environments, some of the characters and that sort of thing. About midway through the first Shrek, I switched over to the layout department, which is kind of the camera crew and set dressers and that sort of thing [on a CG production] and I started out as rank-and-file in that department, and kinda worked my way up until on this Shrek, I was the head of the layout department.

AW: Well, that's a really great example of how to start off at the bottom and sort of work your way up, huh?

NICK: Yeah… you pay your dues and you get there.

AW: How have you enjoyed it so far?

NICK: There's ups and downs like in any job, but I have learned just an unfathomable amount of stuff not just about computer animation, but also storytelling in general and working with other people and… everything imaginable I feel like I've been learning about. Especially on Shrek III, being in that leadership position, and so much closer to the storytelling process itself, I've definitely learned tons about filmic storytelling during the whole process.

AW: Which of the roles do you prefer? Do you have a preference?

NICK: Honestly, I think head of layout is about my favorite job.

AW: And what is it about that that appeals to you?

NICK: I've just personally got a definite interest in camera work and framing and just how to tell a story visually and bring a filmic language to it. So being the head of layout, I'm getting to solve those sorts of issues all day, every day, and work really closely with the directors to find a way to best express their story from a visual standpoint.

"There's ups and downs like in any job, but I have learned just an unfathomable amount of stuff not just about computer animation, but also storytelling in general and working with other people and everything imaginable." --Nick Walker

AW: So, can you tell us a little bit more about what that job entails?

NICK: We are the first step in the process of actually building shots in the computer. My job is very close to director of photography on a live action film. I have some other duties, but it's pretty similar. We've got our virtual set, we've got our virtual actors, our virtual props and it's being shot by a virtual camera. The whole film does get storyboarded, but those storyboards are really almost more of a scriptwriting phase quite honestly. Our story artists are these fantastic storytellers, and they work out the emotional beats and connections between the characters and not worrying so much about, you know, are they in the right space given what the set is, and how are we actually shooting the story, so, when it comes to us, we figure out that part. We've basically got a visual script if you will, and we go into the set and figure out, working with Editorial to work on the actual cut of the film and what groups of shots and flow of shotwork do we want to use to best express and support the story and make the story feel natural.

AW: So, Editorial is actually involved in the beginning of the film as well?

NICK: Oh, yeah. Editorial is involved throughout. I wind up having a very close relationship with the Editor on the film, because from the get-go, the storyboard artists are drawing lots of boards and that sort of thing but they've basically got to be assembled in Editorial into a bit of a story reel with some temp dialog put over it, temp score, temp effects, that sort of thing, and try to get the beginnings of a rhythm going, and try to get everything figured out before it gets to us. And then, when we begin creating shots, we rely on them to help us cut things together. There are times when we'll even work much like a live-action film, and we'll just kind of shoot some coverage for a scene. You know, here's our wide shot, here's a couple of inserts, here's a couple of over-the-shoulders. Here ya go, Mike, just put that together in a form that works for you.

AW: I'm actually surprised that more people don't take that approach.

NICK: Honestly, I think it's a great approach, and I love to use it when we can. I think the main reason why it often doesn't go that way is because of the fact that we start with storyboards out of the story department, and sometimes we stick pretty close to them, and sometimes we completely away from them, but there's always that mental image of, 'We've already got a bit of a structure going here, we don't need to build it completely from scratch.'

AW: It's true. Well, I know from way, way back when we were all drawing these movies by hand, there's a real sanction against throwing away a frame. You want to keep every single frame because by the time it gets to Production, you really should have ironed it out.

NICK: Especially when people are thinking about it in terms of somebody having to go through and animate all this stuff, the animation process takes so long, you don't want to waste all that time. But if we can convince people that we're talking about Layout here… my team was super-experienced on this film. Most of these guys have done three or four films in Layout already, so they can go and blast through 10, 15, even 20 shots in a day just creating from scratch. So, we can generate a fair amount of stuff fairly quickly so I think it's an approach that I think hasn't gotten it's due yet.

AW: What's great about that is that coverage is a luxury, and if you can provide that to the editorial staff, you have that extra little buffer on the back end. You're always looking for that one extra shot.

NICK: Yeah…

AW: What do you feel the role of Layout is?

NICK: There are kind of two things that are really fascinating to me about the Layout Group. Number one, there is the visual thing. We're figuring out what is in the film. We're figuring out what the shots are going to be that are going to get carried through to the rest of the process. We're actually building those shots. We're placing the characters. All of our character animation winds up getting thrown away, but the general flow of, 'OK, Shrek's going to be standing there, then he's gonna run over to there, then he's gonna stop for a minute and talk over here…' All those sort of general concepts are worked out in the Layout stage, even to the point of Effects. We'll block in certain very rough, obviously not-meant-for-prime-time effects, nice, quick, ugly indicators. 'OK, there's going to be an explosion here, there's going to be a splash here, there's going to be some important smoke over here….' We work out these sorts of effects things, and then the Effects Department goes back in reference to that. It winds up becoming very much a blueprint for the whole film.

All of us in Layout keep joking that we'd love to actually see the whole film put together and played just in its Layout form. I think it would have an audience of about the 20 of us in Layout, but we would enjoy it greatly.

But then, the other element of Layout, which is a little less obvious to the world outside of it, is that Layout winds up becoming this really kind of central hub to the whole process. We wind up working really closely with practically every other department in this building. Editorial, when they have a new cut, it comes through us to process and send out to the group. After we've got the general shots all figured out and ready, and we send it on to Animation. Then, we do some other preparation and then send it on to Lighting. We block in some stuff so that we have a blueprint for Effects. All sorts of information winds up passing through this department and so it becomes really a kind of central hub for the whole process.