Suit up and hear from the graphic artist from ‘Incredibles 2’

Without a doubt, one of this year’s most anticipated films is Pixar’s much overdue “Incredibles 2.” Whether you have nostalgic memories of seeing the original in theaters back in 2004 or just saw it for the first time last week to see what all the buzz is about, there’s no doubt that the sequel will have quite a bit to live up to.

We recently got the chance to talk with one of the upcoming sequel’s lead graphic artist and SCAD graduate Josh Holtsclaw regarding the film and how he entered into the industry.

The Connector: What does your position entail for working on feature films?

Holtsclaw: So I work in the art department where there are maybe 12 to 15 artists and my role on “Incredibles 2” was graphic art director. There are a group of graphic artists at Pixar and what we do is basically what a graphic designer does in the real world, but we do it for the film. So if there are graphics on the wall or on props, sometimes its the pattern on a carpet, a poster in a kid’s bedroom, or it’s a map that a character picks up, we do all that stuff. We also do all the costume and character graphics, and “Incredibles 2” was a lot of the hero logos on the costumes. We also do all of the motion graphics so if there are screens in the movie, we do all the animation and graphics on the screen.

The Connector: How closely do you work with the animation department?

Holtsclaw: So we have a thing called dailies where all the leads of the movie go into a screening room and we look at the latest batch of sequences we’re working on. So in those meetings we could have some people in the art department, some people from animation, from every department to see that latest bunch of shots and we’ll all talk about them. Even on project-to-project and hour-to-hour we’re doing other tasks. So for example, let’s say Elastagirl is touching a screen and the screen needs to interact with her so that takes coordination from us, the art department and the animator working on Elastagirl, we need to know where she’s going to touch and what’s going to happen.

The Connector: How do you think your time at SCAD prepared you for this position?

Holtsclaw: On my role now on an animated film, especially going from film-to-film where different ones have different styles with different directors and production designers and so you don’t want to be locked into one specific style. A good artist in an art department at an animation studio should be able to do various styles and that’s one thing that I picked up while learning at SCAD. When I left I feel like I didn’t leave with just one tool in my toolbox and I think a lot of those different tools can apply to my job now, which can really come in handy.

The Connector: Bouncing off of your SCAD experience, a lot of SCAD students, especially new ones, have the dream of working at somewhere like Disney and Pixar right after graduation, which we know is usually not the case right away. How did you end up in this role and how do you feel that students can keep their expectations realistic while still aiming high?

Holtsclaw: I didn’t start off at Pixar, I started off by working at a few other places. Right out of school, I did find an internship working with the Disney design group and that was a really good entrance for me because when you’re leaving school to enter into a full-time job, there are a lot of expectations put on you that you may not be ready for. And it’s not always skill-based, it’s a lot of how to work at a company for long hours and what that actually means like working with other people who have done this for 30 years. So I think an internship is something I always recommend.

Companies nowadays are always more willing to bring in an intern who needs a little bit of development, so the door is more open to students for internships. And that’s a way to really prove yourself and see what it takes because a lot of students don’t know what it means to do the job. Another thing is just to get more experience before you get out there, say yes to most opportunities that come your way, whether you’re going to get paid for it or not. Just saying yes to projects that will help develop you in a way and will prove itself out over the years one way or another.

The Connector: You’ve had the opportunity to work on some of the most well-known animated feature films of recent years from “Kubo and the Two Strings” to “Cars 3.” But “Incredibles 2” has garnered some considerable hype. What was it like working on this project?

Holtsclaw: I saw the first “Incredibles” in Savannah back in school and I remember going with a couple of friends to see it. By the first few shots alone, it was blowing my mind. So I hold that first film in very high regard. So joining the sequel, I was very excited to work with some of the people who worked on the first film especially Brad Bird and production designer Ralph Eggleston. But then the follow up to that is that there’s a lot of pressure to make something as good as at least to better than the first one. So there are those two sides of how it was really exciting to work on this, but also to make something to live up to those expectations.

The Connector: What is the most challenging part of this career path? The most rewarding?

Holtsclaw: I would say in terms of challenges, I think people know it’s hard to make an animated film but they’re really very complex. The day-in and day-out of working on them, there’s 100 challenges everyday that have to be figured out. So it’s not an easy thing to do to make these films but the flip side of that coin is that because it does take so much work and there are so many different departments at work to make what you see on screen happen, it’s really rewarding. Especially getting to this stage when the film is done, it’s about to come out, there’s some buzz around it and people get so excited — that’s what makes all those days and late nights worth it. It’s this really cool art form where you get to work on it really hard and collaboratively with a lot of smart, talented people and then get to enjoy the audiences’ reactions to it, which is something that not every art form has, that active audience participation.

Be sure to catch “Incredibles 2” being released in theaters on Friday, June 15.