May 26, 2026 • 42 mins
Mark Kirkland, Emmy Award winning animation director and one of the most prolific directors in The Simpsons history, joins Andrew Ramsammy for a conversation about storytelling, artistic growth, and the creative process behind one of television’s most influential animated series. From making silent films as a teenager with his father to studying animation at CalArts and directing 84 episodes of The Simpsons, Mark reflects on the experiences that shaped his career and creative philosophy.
The conversation explores what it actually means to direct animation, how classic cinema influenced iconic Simpsons episodes, the evolution of animation technology from hand drawn production to digital tools and AI, and why storytelling and humor remain at the center of great creative work. Mark also shares advice for aspiring animators, the importance of community and collaboration, and how he has stayed creatively inspired throughout decades in animation.
Timestamps:
1:41 Meeting the director behind The Simpsons
2:56 Early filmmaking with his father
8:57 Winning a Student Academy Award at CalArts
14:39 Joining The Simpsons
18:43 How directing animation actually works
22:51 Directing iconic Simpsons episodes
24:44 Referencing classic films in animation
27:37 How The Simpsons became pop culture
30:23 Did The Simpsons change television animation?
32:29 The production timeline behind The Simpsons
33:19 Technology, Pixar, and AI in animation
35:44 Advice for aspiring animators
37:57 Staying unapologetically creative
39:07 Humor, optimism, and storytelling
39:56 The unexpected cultural impact of The Simpsons
41:04 Mark’s favorite Simpsons character
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Just like a live action directorwould work with an actor, I have
to work with an animator. And sometimes we'll block out a
scene an we might even get U andwalk around and say, well I want
Homer to slouch into his sofa like this and I might even act
it out and someone's going to draw that.
(00:26):
Welcome to Unapologetically Created, a podcast from the
Vermont College of Fine Arts, where we celebrate bold
artistry, transformative creativity, and the audacious
voices shaping the future of thearts.
I'm your host, Andrew Ram Sammy,and in this series we dive into
honest, inspiring conversations with artists who are pushing
(00:50):
boundaries and redefining what it means to create work that
resonates and endures today. We are incredibly privileged to
speak with a true animation legend.
Mark Kirkland is one of the mostprolific directors in animation
history, having worked on The Simpsons doing 84 episodes since
(01:12):
the early 1990s. More than anyone else, he's a
Cal Arts alumnus, a three time Emmy Award winner, and today
we're going to dive into his creative journey from student
films right here at Cal Arts to beloved episodes of The Simpsons
and explore how he continues to do it by pushing his craft in
(01:32):
new directions. So with that, let's get started.
Mark, welcome to an apologetically creative.
Thank you, Andrew. It's a pleasure to be here.
I can't believe I'm sitting nextto someone who mark.
I have to admit, as a child I was not allowed to watch The
Simpsons. Sorry about that.
So if my parents were alive, which they are not, I would
(01:54):
immediately call my mom afterwards and say mom, I have
met the person and one of the rare few people who has directed
the most episodes of The Simpsons, to which you never
allowed me to watch. What do you say to my mom now
who's dead? Well, my apologies for doing
that. It is funny.
(02:16):
Earlier on, I would meet people a lot and tell them.
They would ask me what I did fora living.
And I would tell them I'm a director for The Simpsons.
And they would say, I hate that show.
And I would say, which episodes have you seen?
And then they would say, well, Ihaven't seen any.
Yeah, so. And now, you know, we were a
(02:39):
considered edgy, Yeah, you know,but now look who owns The
Simpsons today, Disney. And they're very, very popular
and they're considered mainstream.
Yeah. So I'm pleased and proud of what
the show has done. Well, before we get kind of deep
into The Simpsons, let's talk about your early career.
(03:00):
You started making films at the age of 13 alongside your father
who was a famous photographer, Douglas Kirkland, and then you
studied animation here at at CalArts.
How did those early kind of hands on experiences shape your
your career and inform your career?
Well, completely, you know, so Igrew up with my dad and he was a
(03:21):
image maker in in the family. And my earliest memories of
finding art at all was preschool.
Dad and I would sit on the floorin our apartment at that time
and we would draw pictures and tell each other stories about
our pictures. And he liked my stories and I
(03:43):
think that affected me and it helped my esteem.
And he recognized or he saw something in there.
And then he would show me how hewas doing things and he would
explain to me why he was drawinghis way.
So even though I, I think I was independently watching
television and interested in animation and special effects
(04:04):
and things like that were the most fun things to watch.
And so I started thinking, how can I get to do that?
And I was exposed enough with mydad to see how films are made.
And you know that your shoot andthen you go to edit the film,
physically edit film. And so at the age of 13, my dad
(04:29):
bought me something I begged for, which was a Super 8 camera.
So I used that camera to start making films.
I was still drawing and doing illustration and I was making
silent movies because back then my camera was a Super 8 silent
(04:49):
movie camera. It wasn't sound right.
And it made me start paying attention.
Even at 1314, I'm paying attention to Charlie Chaplin,
I'm paying attention to Buster Keaton and silent film makers
and I start making my own films and in silent films.
(05:11):
And along the way, you know, when it was starting to become
time for me to think about wheredo I go to school?
A friend of an actual Co studentfriend of mine had gone to Cal
Arts in the art department. And I, she, I saw her and I
said, how do you like Cal Arts? And she said, oh, they have a
(05:33):
really good department animation.
And it started to occur to me with animation it I can do
filmmaking. And it started to dawn on me
that my interest in drawing and illustration and filmmaking was
I could merge those two things. And then there's this school
(05:55):
Calarts, who offers a program. And I thought, wow, that's
great. And then, you know, hearing the
Walt Disney Company had and WaltDisney personally had a hand in
shaping this school, I said, oh gosh, where, you know, where can
I go better? And when I got to Cal Arts, what
surprised me was it just sort ofexploded my mind all these
(06:20):
different styles. My first year particularly was
eye opening year for me to say, wow, there's a lot, a lot of
ways you can go with with animation.
It's a very creative field. It was frankly starting to
explode and special in the worldof special effects and graphics
(06:41):
television. It was starting to go into
people's homes. And I remember early television,
their title cards were practically painted cards.
Yeah, pretty stiff. And then after 2001, they
started emulating like special effects.
(07:02):
And you'd see like these high end special effects on
television, which by the way, I ended up working for one of The
Pioneers who was doing that, a guy named Harry Marks.
And he basically worked for ABC and he was an art director and
he started funding and getting special effects companies to
(07:27):
upgrade their, you know, the look of their network.
And, and so everybody in the across the country was starting
to be exposed to a higher level of animation.
And, you know, I was lucky to work with at Hanna Barbera and
(07:48):
meet Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera. They were old school completely,
but they had, you know, they were, these are the guys who did
the Flintstones and I did some Flintstone reboots and Scooby
Doo's. I, I worked with the guy who
designed scooby-doo. And my first day on the job at
Hanna Barbera, I'm with Iwo Takamoto, who designed
(08:10):
scooby-doo. He said to me, we're not in the
art business, we're in the entertainment business.
He just wanted to clarify that like the decisions we're making
and we used a very much an entertainment dialogue on the
job. And as a layout, as a young
layout artist, you know, settingup shots for the film and
(08:35):
drawing key poses, it is kind oflike you're directing on paper a
show. And we would talk to directors
and people and my I became a supervisor pretty early, but we
would talk in terms of master shot over shoulder.
So we were using cinema language, but we were drawing,
(08:55):
right? Yeah, right.
Yeah. So in 1978, you won a Student
Academy Award for a film that you did here at Cal Arts I.
Think it was earlier 70. 676 sorry, 76 I'm I'm looking at it
wrong here. Yes.
So in 76 that must have had a huge impact on you.
On me in the school, yeah. It was the third year that Cal
(09:18):
Arts no, that the Motion PictureAcademy gave out an award to
students. And the story on that goes a
fellow student, my friend Richard Jeffries, still great
friends after all these years. We were both in Jules's
department and he had seen a letter down in our film cage
(09:41):
where you get the equipment. And it was a come on letter from
Bert Sugarman Productions sayingif any film.
And I'm sure they sent them to all the film schools.
Sure, if anybody can make a, a film to music, you know, you
might get a chance to have it aired.
And the big prize was they wouldgive us $500 if they aired it.
(10:03):
That was that was their that wasthe money they talked about.
And so Richard showed this to meand said, would would you like
to do a film with me? And I said, yeah.
So he had he had brought up Fame, which was a David Bowie
song, which we knew. And I liked the idea.
And we both, we did it in six weeks, but we both did parts of
(10:28):
it. We both concepted it.
For his part, he was a good graphic designer and he did a
lot of graphics and titling. And I had been exposed to Andy
Warhol and I thought that sort of Andy Warhol's cheeky view of
fame in his silk screens with icons, you know, the iconized
(10:53):
photographs. An I did something with just
drawings doing that using magic marker fluids, but I painted
those. I did the drawings and Richard
and I went into a camera. We got the camera and went in
and shot all the scenes. And I remember staying up all
(11:14):
night and shooting the bulk of it and it was pre edited with on
exposure sheets. And we shot that and took it
down to Bert Sugarman Productions.
And they guy, I remember a guy come on in kids putting it up on
(11:34):
a 16mm projector and he watched it and he said wait a minute.
And he went out of the room and he brought two other guys in
with them and they all watched it And they looked at us said
this is on, this is going to go on.
And they said, and they wrote usa check for $800.
(11:54):
Oh wow. Instead of the $500.
And we, we were excited and it was going to be on Bert
Sherman's show, the Midnight Special, which was very popular
TV show. I think we had ratings of 8
million people, which was phenomenal.
I mean, for me to tell my parents we have a thing on
(12:16):
television and we had our names right.
The very last credit said Made at Cal Arts.
We added that that was a standard thing we that Cal Art
students did was to add the Madeat Cal Arts and that aired.
And I later heard David Bowie liked it and he, I later heard
he used it in his concerts. This is before MTV.
(12:39):
Yeah, 1976. And so we went into the, we
entered it into the Student Academy Awards.
And I remember Jules Engel, who was part of the Academy, kind of
coming downstairs and said saying to us, it's looking
really good, guys. And we were like, OK, well,
(13:01):
let's just see what happens. And then we found out you're
nominated, which meant, OK, we've got to go.
Right. You got the invitation.
Yeah, Yeah. My biggest problem is I didn't
own a suit and I was working in the bookstore at Kell Arts for a
guy named Bert Walker, who's in his late 50s.
So he loans me a suit, an I had to keep my jacket shut because
(13:27):
under it I had cinched U the pants.
They were too big. They were too big.
Yeah. O the school.
This was the first student Academy Award that Calarts had
won. Winning the awards heled bring
in other students. It helped the school.
It helped. The calling card.
Right. I mean, the president, yeah, the
president of the school at the time was Bob Fitzpatrick.
(13:49):
And he, he was sending us letters of congratulations.
And the Student Academy Award became we're doing something
right. And it it it unleashed it, You
know, some contributions came inand school's still here.
So I was lucky to come to the 50th anniversary of the school
(14:14):
last year and I saw Bob that I saw Bob Fitzpatrick and I
reminded him. I said we did.
I was one of those that did famethat won the Student Academy
Award. He goes, you're damn right you
did. So.
So he remembered it and it was, it was exciting times.
(14:38):
Now that you've, you've graduated, you, you've gone on
to, you know, to do so many things.
And then I'm sure when you started on The Simpsons, you had
no idea how big that show would become.
Or did you know how how big thatshow would become and how your
animation training led to being able to to do that show?
I was very excited to. It was a show I wanted to get
(15:03):
involved with. How did you get involved?
I had been doing all kinds of animation, going from job to
job, but I had started to directlonger forms of animation, going
from commercials and special effects to working with.
I worked with a producer named Bob Rogers, who has still and
(15:24):
he's still working. He's brilliant.
He he was an offshoot from Disney and Wed and he did
corporate films. The other kind of filmmaking
that really interested me was communications animation, and I
like the work that Saul Bass haddone for titles.
By the way, as a Cal Art student, we met Saul Bass up
(15:46):
here, Jules Englewood have Saul Bass come up and talk to us.
So we would hear about him doingthese great movie titles like
Man with the Golden Arm and and Judgement in Nuremberg and films
like that right where he did thetitles.
But that that end of itself is its own specialization.
Very, very, very special. And so I was doing that kind of
(16:06):
work led me to working with Bob and that led me to working on
World's Fair films and directinglonger pieces.
And we did one for Disney and I helped him.
I helped him secure that with know how and getting the right
people in there. But we did a very big project
(16:27):
with for Disney on how they did animation for The MGM studio
tour in Florida. And I helped pull in director
Jerry Reese, who had been a a schoolmate of mine classmate
under in Ken O'Connor's class. But that film starred Robin
Williams and it and Walter Cronkite.
(16:48):
An interesting pairing, but it told the story of how Disney did
animation. Then I did a world's fair film
for Osaka, Japan. These are one year projects and
when these finished up I was looking for something and it was
during that time that Simpsons premiered and I saw it on
television and I looked at it and I loved the humor.
(17:11):
It made me laugh. A lot of animation really didn't
make me laugh very much, but those made me laugh and I
thought, Gee, this looks like a kind of a Saturday morning
animation layout job that I knowhow to do.
And it looks like it's got a little bit special effects,
which I also know how to do. So I ended up doing some
(17:33):
projects at the company that wasdoing the animation.
This is just a short intro room.I directed a commercial, 22
commercials. 1 was a Levi's commercial with Wes Archer and
he turned to me and said The Simpsons had done season 113
episodes by the time they aired.The after they aired the first
(17:58):
one, they knew they had a hit, right?
It kept growing and growing. It became epic in it became like
a giant hit, a blockbuster. And they weren't even finished
showing the original 13 episodes.
They had five directors. Two quit or went on to other
(18:20):
things, leaving them with three.The next Fox order came in at
22. Then they added two more.
It went up to 24 episodes. They needed a they needed
directors fast. So Wes Archer and I are working
together and he was one of the original directors.
He said. Why don't you join us on The
(18:42):
Simpsons? And can you help explain when
someone says I I could certainlyunderstand seeing directing a
film. What does it mean to direct an
animation, especially a television show?
An animated television show? Great question, and it's the
question I get asked the most and have for years.
So think of this. If you know a film production at
(19:02):
all, you know there's live action director, he directs a
crew. What's on that crew?
Cameraman sound person actors, art directors, makeup, costume
they work with casting directorsto find the people that thing.
Now think of animation all thosedifferent parts of storytelling.
(19:26):
We live action animation for television both start with a
script and the first person who gets that script after after
it's written, it's, it's the director.
They want the director to be like the architect of how do we
design and make this into a film?
And so the director works with artists.
(19:52):
They're all artists. The animators, by the way, think
of themselves as actors with pencils.
So those are your actors, but you have designers who design
the locations. You have character designers who
design the look of characters. So the director has to work with
them, just like a live action director would work with an
(20:13):
actor. I have to work with an animator.
And sometimes we'll block out a scene, an we might even get up
and walk around and say, well, Homer's going to slouch into
his. I want Homer to slouch into his
sofa like this. And I might even act it out and
someone's going to draw that. So I work with a team, all the a
(20:35):
set team, everyone has a specialjob.
In the end, it's all filmed and we storyboard.
That's maybe a a difference. Live action still does
storyboarding, especially special effects, movies,
animations, completely storyboarded.
Whereas live action, you'll go out and shoot, maybe, I don't
know, 5 to 1/6 to 1:10 to 1:00 and then trim it down in the
(20:58):
editing room. There's a very little waste in
animation because we build it the other way.
We have to build it one drawing at a time.
In the end, a show like The Simpsons has 20 to 30,000
drawings in it for an episode, and it's all got to be managed.
And if anyone drawing doesn't work, it hurts the story and
(21:20):
it's got to be fixed, and it's on that director to get it
fixed. So you're directing a team, you
all all have to know the script and everyone has to be a pretty
good artist to do this. And and they specialize.
Yeah. So, but but that's, that's what
the director does. He works with a team.
And I had, I typically had a team of 12 people every day I
(21:43):
was working with. And then there were different
departments like designers that would drop in and in the end
too, we would get this all back on film.
It's been assisted, it's been colored, and I would work with
the colorist by the way, but it would all come back on film.
We'd sit down on a flatbed and trim it and cut it together to
(22:03):
the original soundtrack. Another thing I want to point
out with animation, dialogue driven show like The Simpsons or
Family Guy, the acting voices come first.
They take the script, they act out, they cut together a rough
cut so we can hear how is Homer talking or Bart.
And then we try to feel the proper emotion in our drawings.
(22:30):
But we use body language a lot, which actors understand.
And that's what animators understand.
Yeah. But we think in terms of camera
angles, like wide shots, close-ups, cutaways.
We think like film directors, weare film directors.
So that's it. It's just we're working in a
graphic world, a drawing world. So, as I mentioned earlier,
(22:52):
you've directed 84 episodes of The Simpsons, including landmark
episodes like Last Exit to Springfield and Lisa the
Vegetarian. How do you balance staying true
to each episode's tone while keeping your own kind of
directional identity? Great question.
Well, I always approached it. I studied while at Calart's Film
(23:16):
History and I did see films by great film makers like Kurosawa
and John Ford. And then later while I was here,
Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Those things came up.
But I admired Orson Welles classic films.
I I studied their styles and I found the ones that I like the
(23:38):
most were the most direct, like and always clear.
I always tried to make the storyclear.
I always tried to honor the script and bring something more
to the table. And I was always looking for the
improvisational things that we could do, like even if it's the
(23:59):
way Homer's walking or little humor, little bits and gags.
Now I I that said, I always tried to fit in the house style.
I never wanted it to be a Mark Kirkland.
I wanted it to be a Simpsons. And you know, and I was
directing at 1.3 and 4 episodes a year and I, I just tried to
(24:26):
make my, my, my work good and funny.
I wanted it to be high quality. So that was my, that was what I
was aiming for clarity. That's the other thing was do
jokes land? Do they read?
And I thought if I can do that, that's at, that's a lot right
there. How would you handle episodes
that would either have callbacksto or homages to other things,
(24:48):
you know, like Jaws or, you know, we're bringing in a cameo
or like, how do you handle thosetypes of kind of special
episodes codes? Well, on Simpsons, that was
every episode. And the first thing you do is
you get that film that you're looking at.
And we had a an ability even back in the early 1990 of
(25:10):
printing out. We, we could pop in Avhs watch
like a scene from Gone with the Wind, let's say.
And I did a scene in 1990 or 91 where Seymour Skinner's standing
in front of the school and it's a sunset and it's silhouette.
And he's saying, you know, Springfield Elementary, I will
(25:31):
get you back again. And it's a reference to Scarlett
O'Hara from right. So I staged it.
First of all, I printed it out and I handed it to my layout
artist. And they said, let's, let's get
a tree like this. Let's him put the school back
here and let's position him so we we match the blocking the
film. They say we probably emulated
(25:53):
the most or ripped off the most was Citizen Kane.
And we did that with thinking ofMr. Burns Castle and I Castle,
his mansion being like William Randolph, her I mean Citizen
Kane, Charles Foster teens. So we would reference these big
vacuous places in this little tiny man living in there.
(26:13):
So, but we would watch any film they were often in in the
script. What I remember doing scenes
like from Godfather 2IN last exit to Springfield and I
storyboarded those and I I oftenwould storyboard those little
special scenes. I did one for last exit of
(26:34):
Springfield. I storyboarded the yellow
submarine bed. I storyboarded Homer the dawn
like he's walking down the street instead of picking up
like Robert De Niro in GodfatherPart 2 picks up like a Peach and
or a tomato and takes it. And Homer picks up a doughnut
and eats it. So I but I, I storyboarded those
(26:56):
little Sig segments out. But yeah, study and try to match
it. And Sam Simon hired me on The
Simpsons. He was one of the show runners
at the time and I remember talking to him and him saying if
we're using classic movie references, he said even if
(27:19):
people don't know the reference,it's still classic staging, it
still works. And I said absolutely correct.
So, but that's, you know, we studied the source and we're
satire and we would mimic the real film, so.
So much of The Simpsons has become part of of pop culture.
(27:42):
And I remember back, you know, being a child, the dole, you
know, like all of that. And now it's social media
content, it's memes, it's Homer,you know, disappearing into the
shrubs and all of that. When you see it that way now,
kind of how it's become so part of the culture and the fabric
and on social media, what do youthink it says about about
(28:02):
animation and specifically The Simpsons that is so pervasive
across the cultural landscape? Wow.
Big question. I it's, it's amazing to me that
it has the staying power we've had, but it's the brilliance of
(28:23):
the characters. It's the brilliance of the, the
original idea. It was a good idea to begin with
and then the management of the company was always to bring in
good people and and keep it good.
And that start with the writing.You know, you've got a brilliant
(28:43):
team of writers from James L Brooks, Sam Simon, and then
bringing in these guys who, you know, Harvard grads and, and
used to work for. Some of our writers work for
Harvard Lampoon, but also David Letterman, Saturday Night Live,
(29:04):
Conan O'Brien, Conan O'Brien. Well, Conan O'Brien was one of
the writers. I knew him, you know.
What was it like working with him?
He's a he's a great guy. He's funny as hell and honest.
He's he, you know, I, I've got anice picture in my archives of
me sitting next to him at, at one of our animatics.
(29:28):
But he he would also pick up a guitar and sing and.
Would you get work done with himaround because he seems like the
kind of guy that could just go. Off I would meet him, you know,
animation tended to be done. We're our own world.
I was with animators. Where I would see him is when we
would come in with an animatic. An animatic is a pencil version
(29:50):
of the. Like a down and dirty.
A down and dirty, but it's a chance to see it with the voices
and staging and then rewrites would happen in that stage
before it went to color. And I would meet like Conan at
those screenings where we're going to watch it, but I would
watch him interact with the writers.
And he he, he was hilarious and he had the writers laughing.
(30:14):
And these are, these writers arebrilliant.
And he had brilliant writers laughing.
They, they all could do that. They were on that, on that
level. So.
Would it be safe to say that without The Simpsons, we
wouldn't have so much of the animation that had had come
thereafter? Things like South Park, things
like Beavis and Butthead. At one point in my career, I
(30:34):
even auditioned for a voice on Daria.
Didn't get it, But we won't talkabout that.
But I mean just the the landscape of television
animation and the amount of animation that that started to
come out as a result of The Simpsons, Do you think that that
we would have as much animation?I don't think we would.
Yeah, I think now there's the Disney route.
Where? Where and I was friends in
(30:54):
class. You know I was in the same class
as here. But specifically TVI.
Mean yeah, I'm talking first thefeature people who went to
Disney, they were one school andthey opened it up with Little
Mermaid and and that exploded the feature world.
But Simpsons opened up the television world.
There hadn't been a popular animated primetime series,
(31:20):
really one that went more than one season.
There hadn't been one since The Flintstones, which is now you're
looking at the 60s. And even Matt Groening, when he
was trying to push the idea of ashow, he was hoping to get a
very small budget. And he was saying if I get a
budget like Rocky and Bullwinkle, I'll be happy.
(31:42):
And what we're going to do with it is make funny ideas, good
voices. We're not going to, it's not
going to be fancy animation, butit's going to be funny
animation. And that's what Matt was hoping
for. And truly, if you look at early
Simpsons, that's what they were,right?
They they, you know, the sound is much simpler.
It's a simpler, but it made you laugh.
(32:03):
And the show has grown and grownand grown and it has a very rich
look. But out of that show, once
Simpsons was a hit, all the networks were scrambling to have
animation in those early, heady days to.
I remember reading in the paper that Steven Spielberg loved on
(32:23):
Sunday night when we were on Sundays, he loved to get a box
of popcorn and sit in front of his TV and watch The Simpsons.
And I thought, that's pretty cool.
Yeah. You know.
So. And the timeline for producing
animation for TV is very different than the timeline for
producing for a feature film, I'm assuming.
Well, those yeah, it's not an 18day shoot, right?
(32:46):
It's a takes about nine months from script to being on air
ready. And the way we did that many
shows was we had multiple directors and we had four or
five different teams that would rotate to director to director
and you know, so The One Show would go into production and a
(33:08):
week later another show would gointo production.
So we there have been Simpsons in production since the TV show
started. Somewhere in the world.
Continuously. Yeah, yeah.
And trains keep. Rolling, yeah.
When you think about now where things have gone to in terms of
animation and now everything that's happening in AI.
(33:29):
So I mean, you went from literally, I mean, and then
there was the Pixar effect, right, of all digital animation.
Yeah. Talk about those kind of waves
of how technology has impacted the space.
It became a new golden age of animation, the technology,
because when I started on Simpsons and for 15 years we
worked on paper flipping, the technology was the same as what
(33:58):
they did for Steamboat Willie. You know, flipping paper,
shooting it on a camera, editinga piece of film.
And then we went digital. And we still have to draw
organically. We still have to understand
comedy. We still have to do all that.
But we're now working with a computer.
And we went through some maddingtimes, certainly like most
(34:22):
people do with computers. We also saw like, Pixar films
come out, and that blew. That always blew our minds.
But, you know, the technology keeps getting amazing and better
and better and better, but not necessarily the ideas, you know,
and, and what we had was good ideas and that and as far as AI
(34:45):
and stuff like that, in the proper hands, someone will
probably do something that is wonderful and everyone loves it.
I haven't seen that yet. Yeah.
You know, I've seen stuff that Iscratched my head and go, wow,
that's that's interesting. That could even be done.
But you know, it, it's still gotto be someone who's a good
(35:09):
entertainer and a good storyteller.
And when I had students, so I taught a storyboard class, I
remember telling them your technology, you know, your
Cintiq, your Wacom, your Photoshop, all that stuff is the
Death Star. I said the Force is your ability
(35:30):
to draw and tell stories. That's the Force.
And that doesn't go away. And and now this is younger,
young kids who grew up with StarWars.
So they all got what I was saying, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
With all of that going on in theworld right now, what kind of
foundational advice would you offer aspiring animators now
(35:52):
coming into this space? But you know, because back in
the day when you were doing it, the old guys were telling you
there isn't any business, there's no business here
anymore. Is there still a business for
the world of animation? And what do you think?
And what would you tell aspiringanimators about what they would
be stepping into right now? I think, you know, and I've been
(36:12):
through for what we've been talking about is all the highs
of my career. Yeah, I've been through ups and
downs, slow times, scratching myhead, going where am I going to
get my next gig? You know, I've done that.
That's always going to happen, ups and downs.
But I do think there will be an animation future, a big one.
And, but I would advise studentsto kind of just what I said, I
(36:39):
embrace learn technology, try tolearn it, but don't forget study
storytelling, study drawing. And those are things that are
foundations. And if you have them both, if
you have both those things, you're in a better position to,
to get where you want to go, youknow, and, and we're talking
(37:03):
about like finding jobs and stuff.
But I want to also point out to those who are getting in the
business because maybe they're visionaries.
Maybe these are the people who picture, I think I have in me to
create a family like The Simpsons or somebody has to do
it. George Lucas had to have an idea
(37:27):
to do what he did. He had to learn filmmaking to
get where he went. But try to keep that alive while
you're working. If you're working for someone
else, try not to lose your vision and try to do something
for yourself while you're at it.And you may have to deal with
(37:48):
responsibilities, we all do. But try to find a little time
and keep nurturing pet projects and hobbies.
With decades of animation experience you know, and truly
leading at the forefront of a lot of waves of animation, what
would you say you've done to remain unapologetically creative
(38:10):
in your career? Oh wow, First of all, maybe I
should apologize. I don't know.
But I've, I've enjoyed my careerand I, it gives me great
pleasure to talk to people who tell me how much they've gotten
seeing what I've done. And I still enjoy creating.
(38:34):
And another really important thing about how we did all, I'll
use Simpsons, but all entertainment is based on
reaction. And The Simpsons knew how to do
that really well. Disney knew how to do that well
is, you know, whatever you create, look how people react to
it and, and work with the peopleyou're with your, your group and
(38:57):
find your community and see how it works.
But I don't have any apologies about doing that so.
What do you hope audiences take away from from your work,
whether it be The Simpsons and we didn't even get a chance to
get into your your other films or your your sketches.
Well, even from Simpsons, I hopethey enjoy them.
(39:20):
I hope there's some optimism in,in my work in humor.
I, I think humor helps a lot in,in the world.
And to be able to laugh is a, isa gift.
And I think, I think it would help a lot of our world if we
(39:42):
could find humor in ourselves and stories.
And I think that would be, you know, something I'm proud of and
I, I think would, would help us.Would ever blow your mind that,
you know, following on Sunday, Monday morning that news
stations and papers would take a, a tear sheet, so to speak,
(40:06):
from The Simpsons and say last night on The Simpsons they
talked about this? Controversial topic, whether it
be women's rights, I mean, the show covered a lot of different
things. And then it would be a part of
the new cycle. Did you ever think that the show
would have such an immediate impact?
I none of us envision what has happened from that show.
In those early scrappy days we were thinking, gosh, if I can
(40:29):
get a job for a year, that's a long term job.
So the fact that has continued to keep going and it went around
the world and that wherever I go, people tell me I loved what
you did and thank you and stuff like that.
No, none of us envisioned that and we're beyond thrilled.
(40:50):
Also another thing I learned about Simpsons long term people,
we're all shameless fans of our own work.
So and the show, we love the characters and we've all been
very proud to be part of that. Dare I ask the question, Did you
have a favorite character on TheSimpsons?
Who's your favorite character? Probably I most like Homer.
(41:12):
You know, scatterbrained, maybe lazy times.
Another thing I found about Homer that I can see in myself.
He will do tremendous amounts ofwork as long as it goes into
some misguided adventure. Mark's career is a reminder that
(41:37):
creativity is built, one drawing, one story, and one risk
at a time for making silent films as a teenager to helping
shape one of the most influential shows in television
history. His journey reflects the power
of storytelling, humor, and staying true to your creative
instincts. And maybe the biggest lesson of
(41:58):
all of this, Technology will always evolve.
Great ideas, great characters, and the ability to make people
feel something will always matter.
Thanks for listening to Unapologetically Creative.
Be sure to follow the show and stay tuned for more insightful
conversations in the episodes ahead.
(42:20):
To learn more about the Vermont College of Fine Arts, visit
vcfa.edu.
Just like a live action directorwould work with an actor, I have
to work with an animator. And sometimes we'll block out a
scene an we might even get U andwalk around and say, well I want
Homer to slouch into his sofa like this and I might even act
it out and someone's going to draw that.
(00:26):
Welcome to Unapologetically Created, a podcast from the
Vermont College of Fine Arts, where we celebrate bold
artistry, transformative creativity, and the audacious
voices shaping the future of thearts.
I'm your host, Andrew Ram Sammy,and in this series we dive into
honest, inspiring conversations with artists who are pushing
(00:50):
boundaries and redefining what it means to create work that
resonates and endures today. We are incredibly privileged to
speak with a true animation legend.
Mark Kirkland is one of the mostprolific directors in animation
history, having worked on The Simpsons doing 84 episodes since
(01:12):
the early 1990s. More than anyone else, he's a
Cal Arts alumnus, a three time Emmy Award winner, and today
we're going to dive into his creative journey from student
films right here at Cal Arts to beloved episodes of The Simpsons
and explore how he continues to do it by pushing his craft in
(01:32):
new directions. So with that, let's get started.
Mark, welcome to an apologetically creative.
Thank you, Andrew. It's a pleasure to be here.
I can't believe I'm sitting nextto someone who mark.
I have to admit, as a child I was not allowed to watch The
Simpsons. Sorry about that.
So if my parents were alive, which they are not, I would
(01:54):
immediately call my mom afterwards and say mom, I have
met the person and one of the rare few people who has directed
the most episodes of The Simpsons, to which you never
allowed me to watch. What do you say to my mom now
who's dead? Well, my apologies for doing
that. It is funny.
(02:16):
Earlier on, I would meet people a lot and tell them.
They would ask me what I did fora living.
And I would tell them I'm a director for The Simpsons.
And they would say, I hate that show.
And I would say, which episodes have you seen?
And then they would say, well, Ihaven't seen any.
Yeah, so. And now, you know, we were a
(02:39):
considered edgy, Yeah, you know,but now look who owns The
Simpsons today, Disney. And they're very, very popular
and they're considered mainstream.
Yeah. So I'm pleased and proud of what
the show has done. Well, before we get kind of deep
into The Simpsons, let's talk about your early career.
(03:00):
You started making films at the age of 13 alongside your father
who was a famous photographer, Douglas Kirkland, and then you
studied animation here at at CalArts.
How did those early kind of hands on experiences shape your
your career and inform your career?
Well, completely, you know, so Igrew up with my dad and he was a
(03:21):
image maker in in the family. And my earliest memories of
finding art at all was preschool.
Dad and I would sit on the floorin our apartment at that time
and we would draw pictures and tell each other stories about
our pictures. And he liked my stories and I
(03:43):
think that affected me and it helped my esteem.
And he recognized or he saw something in there.
And then he would show me how hewas doing things and he would
explain to me why he was drawinghis way.
So even though I, I think I was independently watching
television and interested in animation and special effects
(04:04):
and things like that were the most fun things to watch.
And so I started thinking, how can I get to do that?
And I was exposed enough with mydad to see how films are made.
And you know that your shoot andthen you go to edit the film,
physically edit film. And so at the age of 13, my dad
(04:29):
bought me something I begged for, which was a Super 8 camera.
So I used that camera to start making films.
I was still drawing and doing illustration and I was making
silent movies because back then my camera was a Super 8 silent
(04:49):
movie camera. It wasn't sound right.
And it made me start paying attention.
Even at 1314, I'm paying attention to Charlie Chaplin,
I'm paying attention to Buster Keaton and silent film makers
and I start making my own films and in silent films.
(05:11):
And along the way, you know, when it was starting to become
time for me to think about wheredo I go to school?
A friend of an actual Co studentfriend of mine had gone to Cal
Arts in the art department. And I, she, I saw her and I
said, how do you like Cal Arts? And she said, oh, they have a
(05:33):
really good department animation.
And it started to occur to me with animation it I can do
filmmaking. And it started to dawn on me
that my interest in drawing and illustration and filmmaking was
I could merge those two things. And then there's this school
(05:55):
Calarts, who offers a program. And I thought, wow, that's
great. And then, you know, hearing the
Walt Disney Company had and WaltDisney personally had a hand in
shaping this school, I said, oh gosh, where, you know, where can
I go better? And when I got to Cal Arts, what
surprised me was it just sort ofexploded my mind all these
(06:20):
different styles. My first year particularly was
eye opening year for me to say, wow, there's a lot, a lot of
ways you can go with with animation.
It's a very creative field. It was frankly starting to
explode and special in the worldof special effects and graphics
(06:41):
television. It was starting to go into
people's homes. And I remember early television,
their title cards were practically painted cards.
Yeah, pretty stiff. And then after 2001, they
started emulating like special effects.
(07:02):
And you'd see like these high end special effects on
television, which by the way, I ended up working for one of The
Pioneers who was doing that, a guy named Harry Marks.
And he basically worked for ABC and he was an art director and
he started funding and getting special effects companies to
(07:27):
upgrade their, you know, the look of their network.
And, and so everybody in the across the country was starting
to be exposed to a higher level of animation.
And, you know, I was lucky to work with at Hanna Barbera and
(07:48):
meet Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera. They were old school completely,
but they had, you know, they were, these are the guys who did
the Flintstones and I did some Flintstone reboots and Scooby
Doo's. I, I worked with the guy who
designed scooby-doo. And my first day on the job at
Hanna Barbera, I'm with Iwo Takamoto, who designed
(08:10):
scooby-doo. He said to me, we're not in the
art business, we're in the entertainment business.
He just wanted to clarify that like the decisions we're making
and we used a very much an entertainment dialogue on the
job. And as a layout, as a young
layout artist, you know, settingup shots for the film and
(08:35):
drawing key poses, it is kind oflike you're directing on paper a
show. And we would talk to directors
and people and my I became a supervisor pretty early, but we
would talk in terms of master shot over shoulder.
So we were using cinema language, but we were drawing,
(08:55):
right? Yeah, right.
Yeah. So in 1978, you won a Student
Academy Award for a film that you did here at Cal Arts I.
Think it was earlier 70. 676 sorry, 76 I'm I'm looking at it
wrong here. Yes.
So in 76 that must have had a huge impact on you.
On me in the school, yeah. It was the third year that Cal
(09:18):
Arts no, that the Motion PictureAcademy gave out an award to
students. And the story on that goes a
fellow student, my friend Richard Jeffries, still great
friends after all these years. We were both in Jules's
department and he had seen a letter down in our film cage
(09:41):
where you get the equipment. And it was a come on letter from
Bert Sugarman Productions sayingif any film.
And I'm sure they sent them to all the film schools.
Sure, if anybody can make a, a film to music, you know, you
might get a chance to have it aired.
And the big prize was they wouldgive us $500 if they aired it.
(10:03):
That was that was their that wasthe money they talked about.
And so Richard showed this to meand said, would would you like
to do a film with me? And I said, yeah.
So he had he had brought up Fame, which was a David Bowie
song, which we knew. And I liked the idea.
And we both, we did it in six weeks, but we both did parts of
(10:28):
it. We both concepted it.
For his part, he was a good graphic designer and he did a
lot of graphics and titling. And I had been exposed to Andy
Warhol and I thought that sort of Andy Warhol's cheeky view of
fame in his silk screens with icons, you know, the iconized
(10:53):
photographs. An I did something with just
drawings doing that using magic marker fluids, but I painted
those. I did the drawings and Richard
and I went into a camera. We got the camera and went in
and shot all the scenes. And I remember staying up all
(11:14):
night and shooting the bulk of it and it was pre edited with on
exposure sheets. And we shot that and took it
down to Bert Sugarman Productions.
And they guy, I remember a guy come on in kids putting it up on
(11:34):
a 16mm projector and he watched it and he said wait a minute.
And he went out of the room and he brought two other guys in
with them and they all watched it And they looked at us said
this is on, this is going to go on.
And they said, and they wrote usa check for $800.
(11:54):
Oh wow. Instead of the $500.
And we, we were excited and it was going to be on Bert
Sherman's show, the Midnight Special, which was very popular
TV show. I think we had ratings of 8
million people, which was phenomenal.
I mean, for me to tell my parents we have a thing on
(12:16):
television and we had our names right.
The very last credit said Made at Cal Arts.
We added that that was a standard thing we that Cal Art
students did was to add the Madeat Cal Arts and that aired.
And I later heard David Bowie liked it and he, I later heard
he used it in his concerts. This is before MTV.
(12:39):
Yeah, 1976. And so we went into the, we
entered it into the Student Academy Awards.
And I remember Jules Engel, who was part of the Academy, kind of
coming downstairs and said saying to us, it's looking
really good, guys. And we were like, OK, well,
(13:01):
let's just see what happens. And then we found out you're
nominated, which meant, OK, we've got to go.
Right. You got the invitation.
Yeah, Yeah. My biggest problem is I didn't
own a suit and I was working in the bookstore at Kell Arts for a
guy named Bert Walker, who's in his late 50s.
So he loans me a suit, an I had to keep my jacket shut because
(13:27):
under it I had cinched U the pants.
They were too big. They were too big.
Yeah. O the school.
This was the first student Academy Award that Calarts had
won. Winning the awards heled bring
in other students. It helped the school.
It helped. The calling card.
Right. I mean, the president, yeah, the
president of the school at the time was Bob Fitzpatrick.
(13:49):
And he, he was sending us letters of congratulations.
And the Student Academy Award became we're doing something
right. And it it it unleashed it, You
know, some contributions came inand school's still here.
So I was lucky to come to the 50th anniversary of the school
(14:14):
last year and I saw Bob that I saw Bob Fitzpatrick and I
reminded him. I said we did.
I was one of those that did famethat won the Student Academy
Award. He goes, you're damn right you
did. So.
So he remembered it and it was, it was exciting times.
(14:38):
Now that you've, you've graduated, you, you've gone on
to, you know, to do so many things.
And then I'm sure when you started on The Simpsons, you had
no idea how big that show would become.
Or did you know how how big thatshow would become and how your
animation training led to being able to to do that show?
I was very excited to. It was a show I wanted to get
(15:03):
involved with. How did you get involved?
I had been doing all kinds of animation, going from job to
job, but I had started to directlonger forms of animation, going
from commercials and special effects to working with.
I worked with a producer named Bob Rogers, who has still and
(15:24):
he's still working. He's brilliant.
He he was an offshoot from Disney and Wed and he did
corporate films. The other kind of filmmaking
that really interested me was communications animation, and I
like the work that Saul Bass haddone for titles.
By the way, as a Cal Art student, we met Saul Bass up
(15:46):
here, Jules Englewood have Saul Bass come up and talk to us.
So we would hear about him doingthese great movie titles like
Man with the Golden Arm and and Judgement in Nuremberg and films
like that right where he did thetitles.
But that that end of itself is its own specialization.
Very, very, very special. And so I was doing that kind of
(16:06):
work led me to working with Bob and that led me to working on
World's Fair films and directinglonger pieces.
And we did one for Disney and I helped him.
I helped him secure that with know how and getting the right
people in there. But we did a very big project
(16:27):
with for Disney on how they did animation for The MGM studio
tour in Florida. And I helped pull in director
Jerry Reese, who had been a a schoolmate of mine classmate
under in Ken O'Connor's class. But that film starred Robin
Williams and it and Walter Cronkite.
(16:48):
An interesting pairing, but it told the story of how Disney did
animation. Then I did a world's fair film
for Osaka, Japan. These are one year projects and
when these finished up I was looking for something and it was
during that time that Simpsons premiered and I saw it on
television and I looked at it and I loved the humor.
(17:11):
It made me laugh. A lot of animation really didn't
make me laugh very much, but those made me laugh and I
thought, Gee, this looks like a kind of a Saturday morning
animation layout job that I knowhow to do.
And it looks like it's got a little bit special effects,
which I also know how to do. So I ended up doing some
(17:33):
projects at the company that wasdoing the animation.
This is just a short intro room.I directed a commercial, 22
commercials. 1 was a Levi's commercial with Wes Archer and
he turned to me and said The Simpsons had done season 113
episodes by the time they aired.The after they aired the first
(17:58):
one, they knew they had a hit, right?
It kept growing and growing. It became epic in it became like
a giant hit, a blockbuster. And they weren't even finished
showing the original 13 episodes.
They had five directors. Two quit or went on to other
(18:20):
things, leaving them with three.The next Fox order came in at
22. Then they added two more.
It went up to 24 episodes. They needed a they needed
directors fast. So Wes Archer and I are working
together and he was one of the original directors.
He said. Why don't you join us on The
(18:42):
Simpsons? And can you help explain when
someone says I I could certainlyunderstand seeing directing a
film. What does it mean to direct an
animation, especially a television show?
An animated television show? Great question, and it's the
question I get asked the most and have for years.
So think of this. If you know a film production at
(19:02):
all, you know there's live action director, he directs a
crew. What's on that crew?
Cameraman sound person actors, art directors, makeup, costume
they work with casting directorsto find the people that thing.
Now think of animation all thosedifferent parts of storytelling.
(19:26):
We live action animation for television both start with a
script and the first person who gets that script after after
it's written, it's, it's the director.
They want the director to be like the architect of how do we
design and make this into a film?
And so the director works with artists.
(19:52):
They're all artists. The animators, by the way, think
of themselves as actors with pencils.
So those are your actors, but you have designers who design
the locations. You have character designers who
design the look of characters. So the director has to work with
them, just like a live action director would work with an
(20:13):
actor. I have to work with an animator.
And sometimes we'll block out a scene, an we might even get up
and walk around and say, well, Homer's going to slouch into
his. I want Homer to slouch into his
sofa like this. And I might even act it out and
someone's going to draw that. So I work with a team, all the a
(20:35):
set team, everyone has a specialjob.
In the end, it's all filmed and we storyboard.
That's maybe a a difference. Live action still does
storyboarding, especially special effects, movies,
animations, completely storyboarded.
Whereas live action, you'll go out and shoot, maybe, I don't
know, 5 to 1/6 to 1:10 to 1:00 and then trim it down in the
(20:58):
editing room. There's a very little waste in
animation because we build it the other way.
We have to build it one drawing at a time.
In the end, a show like The Simpsons has 20 to 30,000
drawings in it for an episode, and it's all got to be managed.
And if anyone drawing doesn't work, it hurts the story and
(21:20):
it's got to be fixed, and it's on that director to get it
fixed. So you're directing a team, you
all all have to know the script and everyone has to be a pretty
good artist to do this. And and they specialize.
Yeah. So, but but that's, that's what
the director does. He works with a team.
And I had, I typically had a team of 12 people every day I
(21:43):
was working with. And then there were different
departments like designers that would drop in and in the end
too, we would get this all back on film.
It's been assisted, it's been colored, and I would work with
the colorist by the way, but it would all come back on film.
We'd sit down on a flatbed and trim it and cut it together to
(22:03):
the original soundtrack. Another thing I want to point
out with animation, dialogue driven show like The Simpsons or
Family Guy, the acting voices come first.
They take the script, they act out, they cut together a rough
cut so we can hear how is Homer talking or Bart.
And then we try to feel the proper emotion in our drawings.
(22:30):
But we use body language a lot, which actors understand.
And that's what animators understand.
Yeah. But we think in terms of camera
angles, like wide shots, close-ups, cutaways.
We think like film directors, weare film directors.
So that's it. It's just we're working in a
graphic world, a drawing world. So, as I mentioned earlier,
(22:52):
you've directed 84 episodes of The Simpsons, including landmark
episodes like Last Exit to Springfield and Lisa the
Vegetarian. How do you balance staying true
to each episode's tone while keeping your own kind of
directional identity? Great question.
Well, I always approached it. I studied while at Calart's Film
(23:16):
History and I did see films by great film makers like Kurosawa
and John Ford. And then later while I was here,
Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Those things came up.
But I admired Orson Welles classic films.
I I studied their styles and I found the ones that I like the
(23:38):
most were the most direct, like and always clear.
I always tried to make the storyclear.
I always tried to honor the script and bring something more
to the table. And I was always looking for the
improvisational things that we could do, like even if it's the
(23:59):
way Homer's walking or little humor, little bits and gags.
Now I I that said, I always tried to fit in the house style.
I never wanted it to be a Mark Kirkland.
I wanted it to be a Simpsons. And you know, and I was
directing at 1.3 and 4 episodes a year and I, I just tried to
(24:26):
make my, my, my work good and funny.
I wanted it to be high quality. So that was my, that was what I
was aiming for clarity. That's the other thing was do
jokes land? Do they read?
And I thought if I can do that, that's at, that's a lot right
there. How would you handle episodes
that would either have callbacksto or homages to other things,
(24:48):
you know, like Jaws or, you know, we're bringing in a cameo
or like, how do you handle thosetypes of kind of special
episodes codes? Well, on Simpsons, that was
every episode. And the first thing you do is
you get that film that you're looking at.
And we had a an ability even back in the early 1990 of
(25:10):
printing out. We, we could pop in Avhs watch
like a scene from Gone with the Wind, let's say.
And I did a scene in 1990 or 91 where Seymour Skinner's standing
in front of the school and it's a sunset and it's silhouette.
And he's saying, you know, Springfield Elementary, I will
(25:31):
get you back again. And it's a reference to Scarlett
O'Hara from right. So I staged it.
First of all, I printed it out and I handed it to my layout
artist. And they said, let's, let's get
a tree like this. Let's him put the school back
here and let's position him so we we match the blocking the
film. They say we probably emulated
(25:53):
the most or ripped off the most was Citizen Kane.
And we did that with thinking ofMr. Burns Castle and I Castle,
his mansion being like William Randolph, her I mean Citizen
Kane, Charles Foster teens. So we would reference these big
vacuous places in this little tiny man living in there.
(26:13):
So, but we would watch any film they were often in in the
script. What I remember doing scenes
like from Godfather 2IN last exit to Springfield and I
storyboarded those and I I oftenwould storyboard those little
special scenes. I did one for last exit of
(26:34):
Springfield. I storyboarded the yellow
submarine bed. I storyboarded Homer the dawn
like he's walking down the street instead of picking up
like Robert De Niro in GodfatherPart 2 picks up like a Peach and
or a tomato and takes it. And Homer picks up a doughnut
and eats it. So I but I, I storyboarded those
(26:56):
little Sig segments out. But yeah, study and try to match
it. And Sam Simon hired me on The
Simpsons. He was one of the show runners
at the time and I remember talking to him and him saying if
we're using classic movie references, he said even if
(27:19):
people don't know the reference,it's still classic staging, it
still works. And I said absolutely correct.
So, but that's, you know, we studied the source and we're
satire and we would mimic the real film, so.
So much of The Simpsons has become part of of pop culture.
(27:42):
And I remember back, you know, being a child, the dole, you
know, like all of that. And now it's social media
content, it's memes, it's Homer,you know, disappearing into the
shrubs and all of that. When you see it that way now,
kind of how it's become so part of the culture and the fabric
and on social media, what do youthink it says about about
(28:02):
animation and specifically The Simpsons that is so pervasive
across the cultural landscape? Wow.
Big question. I it's, it's amazing to me that
it has the staying power we've had, but it's the brilliance of
(28:23):
the characters. It's the brilliance of the, the
original idea. It was a good idea to begin with
and then the management of the company was always to bring in
good people and and keep it good.
And that start with the writing.You know, you've got a brilliant
(28:43):
team of writers from James L Brooks, Sam Simon, and then
bringing in these guys who, you know, Harvard grads and, and
used to work for. Some of our writers work for
Harvard Lampoon, but also David Letterman, Saturday Night Live,
(29:04):
Conan O'Brien, Conan O'Brien. Well, Conan O'Brien was one of
the writers. I knew him, you know.
What was it like working with him?
He's a he's a great guy. He's funny as hell and honest.
He's he, you know, I, I've got anice picture in my archives of
me sitting next to him at, at one of our animatics.
(29:28):
But he he would also pick up a guitar and sing and.
Would you get work done with himaround because he seems like the
kind of guy that could just go. Off I would meet him, you know,
animation tended to be done. We're our own world.
I was with animators. Where I would see him is when we
would come in with an animatic. An animatic is a pencil version
(29:50):
of the. Like a down and dirty.
A down and dirty, but it's a chance to see it with the voices
and staging and then rewrites would happen in that stage
before it went to color. And I would meet like Conan at
those screenings where we're going to watch it, but I would
watch him interact with the writers.
And he he, he was hilarious and he had the writers laughing.
(30:14):
And these are, these writers arebrilliant.
And he had brilliant writers laughing.
They, they all could do that. They were on that, on that
level. So.
Would it be safe to say that without The Simpsons, we
wouldn't have so much of the animation that had had come
thereafter? Things like South Park, things
like Beavis and Butthead. At one point in my career, I
(30:34):
even auditioned for a voice on Daria.
Didn't get it, But we won't talkabout that.
But I mean just the the landscape of television
animation and the amount of animation that that started to
come out as a result of The Simpsons, Do you think that that
we would have as much animation?I don't think we would.
Yeah, I think now there's the Disney route.
Where? Where and I was friends in
(30:54):
class. You know I was in the same class
as here. But specifically TVI.
Mean yeah, I'm talking first thefeature people who went to
Disney, they were one school andthey opened it up with Little
Mermaid and and that exploded the feature world.
But Simpsons opened up the television world.
There hadn't been a popular animated primetime series,
(31:20):
really one that went more than one season.
There hadn't been one since The Flintstones, which is now you're
looking at the 60s. And even Matt Groening, when he
was trying to push the idea of ashow, he was hoping to get a
very small budget. And he was saying if I get a
budget like Rocky and Bullwinkle, I'll be happy.
(31:42):
And what we're going to do with it is make funny ideas, good
voices. We're not going to, it's not
going to be fancy animation, butit's going to be funny
animation. And that's what Matt was hoping
for. And truly, if you look at early
Simpsons, that's what they were,right?
They they, you know, the sound is much simpler.
It's a simpler, but it made you laugh.
(32:03):
And the show has grown and grownand grown and it has a very rich
look. But out of that show, once
Simpsons was a hit, all the networks were scrambling to have
animation in those early, heady days to.
I remember reading in the paper that Steven Spielberg loved on
(32:23):
Sunday night when we were on Sundays, he loved to get a box
of popcorn and sit in front of his TV and watch The Simpsons.
And I thought, that's pretty cool.
Yeah. You know.
So. And the timeline for producing
animation for TV is very different than the timeline for
producing for a feature film, I'm assuming.
Well, those yeah, it's not an 18day shoot, right?
(32:46):
It's a takes about nine months from script to being on air
ready. And the way we did that many
shows was we had multiple directors and we had four or
five different teams that would rotate to director to director
and you know, so The One Show would go into production and a
(33:08):
week later another show would gointo production.
So we there have been Simpsons in production since the TV show
started. Somewhere in the world.
Continuously. Yeah, yeah.
And trains keep. Rolling, yeah.
When you think about now where things have gone to in terms of
animation and now everything that's happening in AI.
(33:29):
So I mean, you went from literally, I mean, and then
there was the Pixar effect, right, of all digital animation.
Yeah. Talk about those kind of waves
of how technology has impacted the space.
It became a new golden age of animation, the technology,
because when I started on Simpsons and for 15 years we
worked on paper flipping, the technology was the same as what
(33:58):
they did for Steamboat Willie. You know, flipping paper,
shooting it on a camera, editinga piece of film.
And then we went digital. And we still have to draw
organically. We still have to understand
comedy. We still have to do all that.
But we're now working with a computer.
And we went through some maddingtimes, certainly like most
(34:22):
people do with computers. We also saw like, Pixar films
come out, and that blew. That always blew our minds.
But, you know, the technology keeps getting amazing and better
and better and better, but not necessarily the ideas, you know,
and, and what we had was good ideas and that and as far as AI
(34:45):
and stuff like that, in the proper hands, someone will
probably do something that is wonderful and everyone loves it.
I haven't seen that yet. Yeah.
You know, I've seen stuff that Iscratched my head and go, wow,
that's that's interesting. That could even be done.
But you know, it, it's still gotto be someone who's a good
(35:09):
entertainer and a good storyteller.
And when I had students, so I taught a storyboard class, I
remember telling them your technology, you know, your
Cintiq, your Wacom, your Photoshop, all that stuff is the
Death Star. I said the Force is your ability
(35:30):
to draw and tell stories. That's the Force.
And that doesn't go away. And and now this is younger,
young kids who grew up with StarWars.
So they all got what I was saying, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
With all of that going on in theworld right now, what kind of
foundational advice would you offer aspiring animators now
(35:52):
coming into this space? But you know, because back in
the day when you were doing it, the old guys were telling you
there isn't any business, there's no business here
anymore. Is there still a business for
the world of animation? And what do you think?
And what would you tell aspiringanimators about what they would
be stepping into right now? I think, you know, and I've been
(36:12):
through for what we've been talking about is all the highs
of my career. Yeah, I've been through ups and
downs, slow times, scratching myhead, going where am I going to
get my next gig? You know, I've done that.
That's always going to happen, ups and downs.
But I do think there will be an animation future, a big one.
And, but I would advise studentsto kind of just what I said, I
(36:39):
embrace learn technology, try tolearn it, but don't forget study
storytelling, study drawing. And those are things that are
foundations. And if you have them both, if
you have both those things, you're in a better position to,
to get where you want to go, youknow, and, and we're talking
(37:03):
about like finding jobs and stuff.
But I want to also point out to those who are getting in the
business because maybe they're visionaries.
Maybe these are the people who picture, I think I have in me to
create a family like The Simpsons or somebody has to do
it. George Lucas had to have an idea
(37:27):
to do what he did. He had to learn filmmaking to
get where he went. But try to keep that alive while
you're working. If you're working for someone
else, try not to lose your vision and try to do something
for yourself while you're at it.And you may have to deal with
(37:48):
responsibilities, we all do. But try to find a little time
and keep nurturing pet projects and hobbies.
With decades of animation experience you know, and truly
leading at the forefront of a lot of waves of animation, what
would you say you've done to remain unapologetically creative
(38:10):
in your career? Oh wow, First of all, maybe I
should apologize. I don't know.
But I've, I've enjoyed my careerand I, it gives me great
pleasure to talk to people who tell me how much they've gotten
seeing what I've done. And I still enjoy creating.
(38:34):
And another really important thing about how we did all, I'll
use Simpsons, but all entertainment is based on
reaction. And The Simpsons knew how to do
that really well. Disney knew how to do that well
is, you know, whatever you create, look how people react to
it and, and work with the peopleyou're with your, your group and
(38:57):
find your community and see how it works.
But I don't have any apologies about doing that so.
What do you hope audiences take away from from your work,
whether it be The Simpsons and we didn't even get a chance to
get into your your other films or your your sketches.
Well, even from Simpsons, I hopethey enjoy them.
(39:20):
I hope there's some optimism in,in my work in humor.
I, I think humor helps a lot in,in the world.
And to be able to laugh is a, isa gift.
And I think, I think it would help a lot of our world if we
(39:42):
could find humor in ourselves and stories.
And I think that would be, you know, something I'm proud of and
I, I think would, would help us.Would ever blow your mind that,
you know, following on Sunday, Monday morning that news
stations and papers would take a, a tear sheet, so to speak,
(40:06):
from The Simpsons and say last night on The Simpsons they
talked about this? Controversial topic, whether it
be women's rights, I mean, the show covered a lot of different
things. And then it would be a part of
the new cycle. Did you ever think that the show
would have such an immediate impact?
I none of us envision what has happened from that show.
In those early scrappy days we were thinking, gosh, if I can
(40:29):
get a job for a year, that's a long term job.
So the fact that has continued to keep going and it went around
the world and that wherever I go, people tell me I loved what
you did and thank you and stuff like that.
No, none of us envisioned that and we're beyond thrilled.
(40:50):
Also another thing I learned about Simpsons long term people,
we're all shameless fans of our own work.
So and the show, we love the characters and we've all been
very proud to be part of that. Dare I ask the question, Did you
have a favorite character on TheSimpsons?
Who's your favorite character? Probably I most like Homer.
(41:12):
You know, scatterbrained, maybe lazy times.
Another thing I found about Homer that I can see in myself.
He will do tremendous amounts ofwork as long as it goes into
some misguided adventure. Mark's career is a reminder that
(41:37):
creativity is built, one drawing, one story, and one risk
at a time for making silent films as a teenager to helping
shape one of the most influential shows in television
history. His journey reflects the power
of storytelling, humor, and staying true to your creative
instincts. And maybe the biggest lesson of
(41:58):
all of this, Technology will always evolve.
Great ideas, great characters, and the ability to make people
feel something will always matter.
Thanks for listening to Unapologetically Creative.
Be sure to follow the show and stay tuned for more insightful
conversations in the episodes ahead.
(42:20):
To learn more about the Vermont College of Fine Arts, visit
vcfa.edu.
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