RW
You’ve worked on numerous other story teams, John, including HUNCBACK. And Will, you’ve directed before.

FINN
Well, I started to, and then I quit. I was on EL DORADO (at DreamWorks Feature Animation) for three years. It just reached a point of impasse and so I left the picture. I just felt ‘I can’t be part of the solution anymore, and I don’t want to be part of the problem.’ So I got up and walked away. And a lot of people have done that before. I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years and I think roughly half the pictures I’ve worked on I’ve got some fundamental problem with, and sometimes I was wrong and sometimes I was right, but if you get to the point where you can not creatively contribute then walk away. But don’t turn it into a crusade.

SANFORD
Vendettas are really unprofessional, really petty. It’s like burning down your own house just because you don’t like the carpet. I don’t understand the behavior because it affects everyone.

Finn and Sanford did not have the easiest start on this project. While never under direct personal attack, the film itself underwent an odd sophomoric round of criticism when Sanford and Finn were assigned to direct. When the gifted and accomplished Michael Giaimo and Mike Gabriel were taken off of what was then SWEATING BULLETS, it was a painful thing for everyone involved, and Finn and Sanford have nothing but sincere praise and admiration for their colleagues. Finn, in particular, is someone I consider among the least likely Disney veterans to pay lip service to something he doesn’t genuinely believe. He is a consummate professional. To their credit, the directors have avoided street fights with the bitter and ill-informed "anonymous sources" who appear to enjoy venting from their spleens more than they genuinely care about animation. Instead, Finn and Sanford and their creative team have worked very hard over the past three years to rescue and idea and shape something different and bold that will have its shot at a fair public response soon enough.

RW
Alice Dewey said something that I thought was remarkably candid and frank, that often times - and I’m paraphrasing here - she worries that perhaps not enough real time is given to the creative talent to think through something, to let an idea brew for a while and work its way through until it’s ready.

Finn and Sanford nod in agreement.

RW
Even with that in mind, there is a product that has to be produced, you have to get something going so that you can put something out there in the market. You can’t stay in development for an eternity. You can over process.

FINN
Oh yeah.

RW
Still, there sometimes appears to be too much impatience in the film industry - and particularly in animation - for a process that does take time. The good model for developing story is one where it takes a while.

FINN
Oh yeah, absolutely. But I think we had a number of things working for us on this. First, I think we’re both real pleased with the end product even though it was made in a kind of madness of having to write it and direct it at the same time while we were in production, which was not necessarily something I would jump at the chance to do again. Hopefully we could work stuff out more, in the future.

SANFORD
When Pam (Coats) offered us the job - I know she said this to Will and she definitely said this to me - she said it would be "like jumping on to a moving train."

Sanford and Finn both laugh and shake their heads

SANFORD
But they were so supportive. They were very supportive!

FINN
They were supportive. You know a lot of people say it must be very difficult to inherit a project - of course we inherited this from Mike Gabriel and Mike Giaimo and they had gotten to the point where there was so little left of what they originally wanted to do in a western that there was really no point in continuing. So the new idea was one that appealed to John and me. People always said it must be tough to take over something when it’s in or going into production because the gun is to your head. But the upside of that is everybody is in a very cooperative mood because the gun is sort of to everybody’s head.

Plus, the studio had had a sort of a difficult time with "Kingdom of the Sun" which had morphed into "Emperor’s New Groove", and they had just shelved "Wild Life" and they really needed to make this one click, so they really did back us a great deal. We were given a free hand with the story and I think that in some of the ways one of the things that helped was that we were coming on to it in production. Also, the concept had been established - actually had come from Michael La Bash who was on story crew - and in a way because it wasn’t something we had nurtured along for year and years and years we didn’t feel like we had to be real precious about it. We sort of grew into it and figured out as we went along what we liked and what we wanted to do with it, and that premise, and how to expand it and what to do with the characters. And I think that was largely easier because it was something that was actually handed to us.

SANFORD
Yeah, when you don’t know, when you come onto something fresh like that you don’t have any prejudices. You’re not saying "Ohhh…I like Grace the way she was when we first came up with her." It’s like you come on and like "That character is not funny. We need to change it." You just react to things from a gut level and it just makes it easier to implement changes and just do what’s funny and what is pleasing.

RW
Did your story crew pretty much stay in tact as it was when you inherited the project or were there changes?

FINN
This is something I was thinking about, because John and I both have strong story backgrounds and we met in the story department on "Hunchback" and we had always touched base with each other on story ideas throughout the years, but at the point when we inherited the movie there were maybe twelve full-time storyboard artists who are all writers in their own right, four screen writers -

RW
There were screenwriters?

FINN
(laughing) there were four screenwriters writing, and uh…let’s see Dave Reynolds, Shirley Pierce who stayed with the show and worked on dialogue polish with us and…uh-

SANFORD
There were just too many, and since we’re writers in our own right...

FINN
It’s funny, uh..it became clear….

SANFORD
It’s hard to know how to get into this. Shirley was really great. Shirley was enthusiastic and energetic and a great dialogue person and a great story person and she could get in there and without any ego she could work and rough house. You know, get into the story room and really work. Uhhhh…other writers - not so much.

FINN
And Dave Reynolds can.