Andreas Deja, Disney Animator

A Disney animator since 1980, Andreas Deja lived through the Mouse House's lean years, when Disney's animation department, in shambles and full of inexperienced editors, had to rebuild the studio through films like "The Black Cauldron," "The Great Mouse Detective" and "Oliver and Company."

Deja helped spearhead the company's resurgence, animating characters like King Triton in "The Little Mermaid," Jafar in "Aladdin," Scar in "The Lion King" and serving as lead animator on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

Most recently, Deja helped spearhead the print restoration on Disney's classic "Bambi" in preparation for its Blu-ray release.

Deja sat down with us and discussed his work on "Bambi," his animation process and the responsibility he has working for Disney.

Can you tell me a little bit about the work you did on this version of “Bambi”?

Andreas: Yes, I was part of the group doing the restoration on these classics, and what we usually do is go back to the old negative, which, at this point, is very old and brittle, and we digitize every frame and look at it — look for scratches and dust and dirt and all of that, and digitally paint those out. And we also look for little painting mistakes some of the old folks did. Sometimes a certain area of a character, for instance, Bambi’s toes, is colored as his skin tone, so we would paint that and correct it. We looked at some of the original artwork in the archives to make sure that the colors are right and hopefully come up with the most pristine version of the film.

That sounds like a pretty painstaking process. Are you watching the film over and over as well or just looking at the negative?

We watched the digitized film a few times, maybe five or six times, then slow it down and point out the mistakes, so then the people work on it.

How long does a process like that take, and in particular for “Bambi”?

We had anywhere from seven to 10 meetings, where we get together and see sections of the film and scrutinize it. Getting the film to a pristine HD version takes about three to four months.

Andreas, you’ve been an animator at Disney for years. Can you tell me a little about the process of animating? It looks like you tend to focus on one character at a time.

Yes, you do one character at a time. And if you can base the character on someone you know, it becomes somewhat more real. If you remember “The Little Mermaid” where Ariel’s father was angry with her because she was going to the surface and falling in love with the human, the way he was raising his voice at her, shouting at her, he was almost like my dad. I have an older sister, and she was out at the disco, and she’d come back home at midnight rather than 11, and my dad would wait up for her, and he’d get very close to her and point in her face. These kinds of experiences help to make these characters more real.

I saw the documentary “Waking Sleeping Beauty,” and interviewed Don Hahn. You were animating for Disney right at the time chronicled in "Beauty." Can you tell me a little about the resurgence of Disney as a company at that time?

It started kind of slowly. When I started animating in 1980, animation was a kiddie thing. No one thought an animated film could make the box office of something like “Star Wars” or “Jaws.” But we proved that to be wrong. My first film was called “The Black Cauldron,” and that’s a film where you can really see our inexperience. We were all just out of art school. We couldn’t do what those old animators did. We didn’t have the experience. So we got through that, and we moved on, and we worked on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” in London. Of course, that was live action and animation. Then we did “The Little Mermaid,” and I think people finally started to think, “Wait a minute, this isn’t just for kids.”

I asked Don Hahn this same question. Do you feel a sense of responsibility working for Disney to carry on that legacy? Is there an extra weight on you working for this studio that has produced these classics?

I don’t know about weight …p ositive pressure, I think. They set the bar so high; when you look at things like “Bambi” or “Pinocchio,” the things they did were amazing. They’ve aged absolutely beautifully. There are scenes that still baffle me — the scene where Bambi falls down and everyone is saying “get up, Bambi, get up,” and it’s all from his rear view. We don’t even see his face, and you see one foot, then the other, then you finally get the balance, and it’s all done to the rhythm of the music. That’s like animation gold. I look at that with a sense of awe and also pinch myself sometimes that I work for Disney.

Have you had a moment where you looked at something you did that you were reaching that pinnacle?

No. {laughs} I don’t compare myself to those old animators. Luckily, I had the chance to meet them all when I started in 1980. They weren’t working in animation anymore. Some of them were writing books on Disney animation, and I called them up and invited them to dinner. I really hung out with them the next 25 years and I asked them questions. How did you do that? What did you study? What were your influences? It was important for me to make these guys human. I looked at them as such super artists. But then I started learning they were human and they had their own flaws and weaknesses. They were just regular guys who were really motivated.