Oct 14, 2015

Online Premiere: "Driving" by Nate Theis

This interview is part of our coverage of animated short films up for consideration for the 2015 Academy Awards.

Six years ago, I called Madison, Wisconsin-based director Nate Theis my "favorite animation director of the moment." The proof was a series of quirky and funny ad spots that Theis produced for the Wisconsin advertising agency Planet Propaganda.

Since that time, Theis has expanded his freelance career to include projects with prominent West Coast animation companies such as Cartoon Network and JibJab, and completed his first independent film, Driving, in the summer of 2014. The film, which has spent the past year touring film festivals and picking up multiple honors in the process, makes its online debut today.

The film is available at:

The basic scenario of "Driving," a daily car commute, is the foundation for a top-level cartoon funny, unabashed showcase, piling up visual gag after visual gag. Simple things, such as the movement of a man's nose or the loud music in the car, are opportunities for Theis, and he exploits every moment for comic effect. Some gags develop from scene to scene, and patience is required to retrieve them. Theis cites Jack Tati's "Playtime" as one of his favorite films, and it would not be inaccurate to describe the visual humor in "Driving" as Tati-like.

However, "Driving" draws from a variety of other influences, perhaps the most obvious being the "cartoon modern" aesthetic that was popular in mid-century animation. Theis understands better than most that Cartoon Modern is not just a graphic style, but rather an approach to animated filmmaking that is committed to finding stylized solutions. Driving is an achievement of design, from its elegant story structure, which places the drivers in a row and cuts between them in an orderly fashion as chaos arises within a scene, to its animation, which explores every possible form of character design. As each driver's frustration builds, the characters dissolve into more abstract states, and by the climax, most are reduced to stunning graphic symbols of unbridled rage.

Theis recently told me more about his film via e-mail:

Cartoon Brew: It seems unlikely that a Wisconsin resident would make a film about road rage: not that a specific incident inspired it. It wasn't inspired by a specific incident. I think there have been a lot of little incidents over the years. Wisconsin doesn't have the traffic of LA or New York, but the stress of driving can bring out the worst in people anywhere.

I loved cartoons and movies that made fun of human nature. As a child, I saw the Disney short film Motor Mania. In that cartoon, Goofy is a mild-mannered suburbanite until he gets behind the wheel. Once he gets behind the wheel, he basically becomes an insane psychopath. I found the cartoon to be a wonderful way to make fun of what the adults around him were doing. The cartoon stayed with me for years and since then I have started paying attention to our behavior in the car. I guess "Driving" is like "Motor Mania" for me.

Tell us about your process from planning to animation.

Nate Theis: All the animation was drawn digitally in Flash using a Cintiq, I put the elements together in After Effects and used Photoshop for the backgrounds and textures.

In my opinion, the film took too long to make. One of the problems with being a perfectionist and having no deadlines is that decisions take too long. The whole process took about nine months. Prior to "Driving," I hadn't made a short film in a while. Work kept getting in the way, so I finally saved up enough money for a few years so I could take a break and focus.

My process is pretty normal. I start the conception by just sitting down and doodling ideas. From there I make a rough storyboard and work on the style and design of the film. Then I create an animatic, which I use as a blueprint for the final animation.

I am a planner, so the animatic is the most important stage for me. I am a planner, so the animatic is the most important stage for me. During that stage, I also do a thorough sound design. The basic sound design that I did in the first animatic for "Driving" didn't change much in the final cut.

I like to draw detailed animatics, mainly to see how the story is constructed, but also to help push the exaggeration forward. When I first start posing and animating a character, I tend to be a little conservative. So when I create the final animation, even if it already feels extreme to me, I try to push the poses and designs further and exaggerate them more than when I first drew them.

Toward the end of the film, you begin to distort the character's appearance into an almost abstract state. How did you plan for such distortions - either during the animatic phase or later during the animation process -

Nate Theis: I had planned it during the storyboarding and animatic phase, but the more I worked on this film, the more abstract it became, for sure! I think the more we worked on it, the more abstract it became. I was very inspired by Tex Avery and the idea of cartoon takes. In his animations, the reactions of the characters get louder and louder as the film progresses, and that definitely influenced the distortion of the characters.

I used key drawings to animate the designs. But when I watch the film now, I wish I had animated it straight-ahead. I feel that the animation is too rigid for what is happening to the characters. Loosening up the animation could have given the characters more frenetic energy, and made them feel better.

It is interesting to hear that you did extensive sound design during the animation phase, as sound is an integral part of the film. Can you talk a little about that?

Nate Theis: The sound design was done early on in the animation matte. We had the idea of combining the sound of car horns and people screaming before we even thought about anything else for the film. So we knew that sound would play a big role.

The final mix was done by a great studio in Milwaukee called Tanner Monagle. They started with my original sound design and helped me flesh out the mix. I spent about a week in their studio. Tweaked some sounds, added a few here and there, and made sure they were well balanced. They were great to work with and brought a lot to the film.

Name a cartoonist, designer, or animator who you admire the most or who has inspired you the most: There are many. I'm not an animator, but I would mention Jacques Tati. Playtime" is probably my favorite film of his. I think his humor and use of sound is perfect for animation.

I haven't done much stop motion, but I love Jan Švankmajer's work. His editing and sound design are a great inspiration. I think it's obvious that I'm influenced by the cartoon modern style of the 50s and 60s. Especially animators like Fred Crippen, Ernest Pintoff, and Len Glasser. They all had terrific timing and interesting designs and moved the characters in interesting ways.

I already mentioned Tex Avery, but I should also add Jim Tyer, Harvey Kurtzman, and Saul Steinberg as great cartoonists who have inspired me. Of the newer artists, I really enjoyed the work of Olesya Shchukina. Her latest work, The Elephant and the Bicycle, is my favorite animated short of the past year. Other artists I love include Nicholas Menard, John Martz, Rex Hackelberg, Max Winston, Patrick Dwyon, John Krikfalusi, Christy Caracas, etc.