'Lion King' director Rob Minkoff answers questions about animated Disney classic at festival

LAS CRUCES - "The Lion King" was screened for Las Cruces International Film Festival attendees in several theaters Friday evening, and one of the film's directors took time after to speak about his experience bringing the story to life and answer audience questions about animation.

The animated Disney classic, which tells the story of cocky, immature lion cub Simba growing up to become the wise, rightful ruler of the savannah he was destined to be, was directed by Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers. Following its release in the summer of 1994, it became the highest-grossing film that year globally and won multiple awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy or Musical Motion Picture and the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Minkoff was honored at the film festival this year with the Outstanding Achievement in Directing award.

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After one of the screenings, Minkoff was asked about the difference between directing live-action and animated films. Minkoff has directed both. He said when making live-action films, everyone — actors, crew and the director — are all in the same place. The director gets to shoot everything right in front of them with everyone at the same time.

"An animation director does not get that luxury," Minkoff said. "The animation director has to put everything together in pieces, one little piece at a time. And so when you're working with an artist, you have to explain to them what they're doing and get them to do it in a way that you know is going to fit with what the other artists did."

One challenge for an animation director, for instance, is voice actors don't record their dialogue together or even on the same day. They're often recorded one at a time. So a director must guide their actors into giving performances as if they're playing off the other voices in the scene.

"Once you are in the editing room, if it doesn't work, you're kind of screwed," Minkoff said. "You got to make sure that it all feels like they're in the same scene."

Minkoff said he's "bullish" about the future of animation.

"When I got started many years ago, it felt like we were at the end of an era and there wouldn't be any more animation because audiences didn't seem to care about it," the "Lion King" director said.

He said it seemed like audiences thought animation was just for kids, but animators held the view that it was for everyone. Upon meeting legendary Looney Tunes animator Chuck Jones while attending CalArts, Minkoff said he was vindicated. He remembered Jones saying animators weren't creating for kids, but rather they were trying to make themselves laugh first.

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Clearly their viewpoint won, Minkoff said, as Disney animated film releases continued to draw bigger audiences, and now animated films are more prolific than ever.

Minkoff also spoke about how "The Lion King" and another Disney animated film, "Pocahontas," were both in production simultaneously. "Pocahontas" was predicted by executives as an easy "home run," while "Lion King" was expected to be more experimental than profitable.

"So many of the experienced top artists decided to work on Pocahontas," Minkoff said. "And so that left a lot of room for artists that had never been given a chance before. So a lot of people got their break on (Lion King) because of it."

One of the "Lion King" screenings Friday evening was dedicated to families experiencing homelessness or near-homelessness. Jardin de los Niños, a local organization serving that population, bused 135 children and their parents to the theater to see the show.

Michelle Saenz-Adames, the chief executive officer of Jardin, said Film Festival Executive Director Ross Marks, a former Jardin board member, invited client families as well as Jardin staff and their families to the showing.

Saenz-Adames said for many of the children served by Jardin, they don't have the chance to go to the movies often and many had never seen "The Lion King."

"It's an opportunity for our children and our families to be inspired," Saenz-Adames said. "For some of our kids, it may be the one thing that inspires them to eventually go into film."

Michael McDevitt is a city and county government reporter for the Sun-News. He can be reached at 575-202-3205, mmcdevitt@lcsun-news.com or @MikeMcDTweets on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: 'Lion King' director Rob Minkoff participates in Q&A at film festival