Posted on: Thursday, October 10, 2002

Computer animation bug bites far from Tinseltown

By Justin Pope
Associated Press

Diana Walczak and Jeff Kleiser of the computer animation and special effects studio Kleiser-Walczak Construction Co. of North Adams, Mass., are acclaimed for their work polishing special effects in other people's films. AP Photo/ Kleiser-Walczak

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — It was in this Berkshire mountain mill town, 3,000 miles from Hollywood, that martial artist Jet Li fought a replica of himself.

Here, too, an actress who couldn't surf managed to ride a giant wave.

Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak moved to North Adams from California a decade ago and built one of the top computer animation and special effects studios in the movie business.

Their work in "X-Men" helped morph the mutant character Mystique from body to body, revealing her "natural" blue and scaly look during the transformation. And Animation Week Magazine named the couple one of 15 visionaries in the visual effects field.

Now the couple wants to do more than polish other people's movies. They want to make their own.

It's an idea that they laughed off when they first moved here, figuring the fresh air was worth the trade-off. But with recent changes in the industry and technology, they think it's within reach.

"We're at a point in the history of computer graphics when suddenly all computer-generated features can be produced at a reasonable price, and there's been a series of successes in that area," Kleiser said in a recent interview. "Why shouldn't we produce a computer-generated feature?"

Their firm, Kleiser-Walczak Construction Co., is one of a growing number of smaller, special effects shops who believe they can dream up, write, direct and execute their own movies.

Touching up ads and movie scenes, like Kleiser-Walczak's work with Li and later with the surfer in "Blue Crush," is one thing, but making a full-length feature film is quite another. It requires hiring hundreds of additional workers and lining up financing partners, not to mention mastering the arts of writing and directing.

Still, technology is driving down costs and making it easier to assemble a movie in different places. Perhaps just as importantly, the studios — tired of budget-busting live-action flops — are getting the computer animation bug.

"Shrek" and "Monsters, Inc." are among recent hits that have made the industry forget one major flop, "Final Fantasy." Another success was Paramount's "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius," made for just $25 million by Dallas-based DNA Productions, which used off-the-shelf software.

"Jimmy Neutron really set everybody on their ear with the fact that you can take $25 million and make a very good looking CG (computer graphics) picture," said Heather Kenyon, editor in chief of Animation World Network, an industry Web site. "There's a number of companies now that are trying to go down that path."

Some are in Hollywood, such as Vanguard Films, which recently partnered with Disney and has promised to deliver four films for under $40 million each.

But others, like DNA, are not. Blue Sky of Harrison, N.Y., made "Ice Age" for Fox last year. George Lucas's San Francisco-based Industrial Light and Magic — though considerably larger, with 1,200 employees — set up a digital features division two years ago. A project to make a Frankenstein film fell through, but it hopes to announce its first project soon, spokeswoman Ellen Pasternack said.

Sparx, a French outfit, is also pushing into the business.

All are trying to follow in the footsteps of Pixar ("Toy Story" and "Monster's, Inc.") and PDI ("Shrek" and "Antz"), relatively small shops who hit the big time after teaming up with Disney and Dreamworks, respectively.

Blue Sky particularly inspired Kleiser-Walczak. Their success "should convince anyone's who's skeptical" that a top-notch digital feature can be made in a small, East Coast town, Walczak said.

Kleiser-Walczak has begun with a few short projects, including a children's film, a feature for Radio City Music Hall's Christmas special, and two projects for amusement park rides — all of them in crisp, three-dimensional animation. Now, Kleiser-Walczak is developing concepts for films and shopping them with potential partners.

Kleiser concedes his company might be a little further along if it worked exclusively out of Hollywood, where the company maintains an office. But T-1 lines are shrinking the entertainment world.

The couple moved to North Adams from Hollywood for a project, planning to stay at most a year.

"When we got here (we) saw the quality of life in the Berkshires, the beautiful countryside," Kleiser said. "And the fact that we had kids, a young family, we decided we really didn't want our kids to grow up in Hollywood."

Attracting talent from California or New York, where a parking space can cost more than a house in western Massachusetts, hasn't been a problem.

"I personally have always wanted to have the kind of job you normally have to live in a city to do, but be able to live in the country," said Jeremy Ross, who recently joined the company after a career spent mostly in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The computer animation industry thrives on the free flow of ideas, but these days ideas can be passed around as easily over the Internet as over an espresso on Hollywood Boulevard.

"The sense of virtual community doesn't make you feel isolated," Ross said.