Episode #12 - Georgia native Director and Animator Mack Williams makes everyone laugh for hours with his stories and film choices as the appointed contributor. Mack is a graceful director and animator who makes working feel like play. His versatility in the commercial world as well as on creative content is always a notch above the rest. He works on a creative level with a fine knowledge for quality post-production on lower budgets. On top of that, Mack makes an incredible drinking partner.
Our screening took place in Bushwick at Fourwind Films’ headquarters where for the first film, Mack presented a short animated documentary that he directed Michael Jackson’s Return to Gary, IN (2013). It’s based off a true story told by Freddie Gibbs for the Pitchfork series FRAMES. Mack graces us with his knowledge of animation workflow as well as stories of creating various cartoons for Cartoon Network, Pitchfork, and Showtime.
For the feature, Mack presented “What About Bob?” (1991), directed by Frank Oz. Mack discusses Richard Dreyfuss’ role in the film and why he makes it great. During the film, we served fried chicken, corn on the cob, and mashed potatoes for everybody to enjoy.
For more info on Mack, check out the Facebook page for his company Pig Apple.
Additional music credits to Sun Nectar. Theme music by Salitros’ Riding Rainbow.
Credits:
Host - Justin Joseph Hall
Location & Production Company - Fourwind Films
Mack Williams Director/Animator & Simon
Transcript:
00;05;00;00 - 00;41;00;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Hi, my name is Justin Joseph Hall, owner of Fourwind Films. This is Feature & a short, which is a monthly screening hosted by Fourwind Films, where an appointed contributor presents their chosen motion picture and a short movie. There is only one condition for the screening selection. The presenter must have been directly involved with one picture, but not the other.
This week, our presenter is Mack Williams, a director and animator who is currently working on Our Cartoon President. Mack is the most gracious and easy person to work with who always finds a solution and makes your product better than you thought it could be.
00;41;00;00 - 00;44;00;00
Mack Williams:
Yeah. I, I'm, I’m Mack. Hey, I like your shoes.
00;44;00;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;46;00;00
Audience:
Actually, me too.
00;47;00;00 - 00;56;00;00
Mack Williams:
It was kind of a weird situation, as like, I went to school to study and studied animation and then I immediately got a job out of college being an animator and then I’ve done that ever since, so.
00;56;00;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;56;00;00 - 00;01;18;00
Mack Williams:
I'm very weird in that way. I started out, uh I worked for a show on Adult Swim called uh Sealab 2021 and then we worked on a show called Frisky Dingo for Adult Swim. And then I was on the creative team that developed Archer and then I directed the first season of Archer. Archer started in a house that was about twice as big as the apartment we're in right now.
00;01;18;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;01;19;00 - 00;01;25;00
Mack Williams:
And there was like six of us that made the pilot uh and then I moved to New York and became a freelancer.
00;01;26;00 - 00;01;30;00
Maggie Adelaye:
Since you're background in anima-animation or is it, it just like in production but you ended up in animation?
00;01;31;00 - 00;01;56;00
Mack Williams:
I've done a little bit of, like, live action production here and there. Um, but my background is almost totally like comedy, adult-oriented animation. And then when I moved to New York, I actually ended up doing like tons and tons of motion graphics and things like that, just because that's what the freelance market here is more like. Animation in New York is actually, there's a lot of preschool shows here and there's a few, like, comedy shows, uh, I saw in L.A. mostly and then Atlanta.
00;01;56;00
Audience:
Archer’s…
00;01;57;00 - 00;01;58;00
Mack Williams:
Archer's in Atlanta. Yep.
00;01;58;00 - 00;01;59;00
Audience:
Are you from, from Atlanta or are you?
00;01;59;00 - 00;02;01;00
Mack Williams:
Yeah, I'm from Georgia. I grew up about four hours south-
00;02;01;00
Audience:
I was born in Atlanta
00;02;02;00
Mack Williams:
of Atlanta.
00;02;02;00
Maggie Adeleye:
I’m from Still Mountain.
00;02;03;00 - 00;02;04;00
Mack Williams:
Oh, okay. All right. You should go sign my petition because it's got a lot of signatures, like 50,000 signatures. It's to add Outkast riding in a Cadillac next to the Confederate generals.
00;02;14;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;02;16;00
Mack Williams:
It's like, I just strive to bring balance to the force.
00;02;20;00 - 00;02;25;00
Mack Williams:
But, but yeah, no. Or, or destroy it; or destroy it. It's fine with me too also.
00;02;25;00
Maggie Adeleye:
Either way.
00;02;26;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;02;27;00 - 00;02;41;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
Mack brought a short film he did a while back for Pitchfork in a series called FRAMES where they interviewed a few artists. The particular picture that he brought was an interview of Freddie Gibbs, and it's entitled “Michael Jackson's Return to Gary, Indiana.”
00;02;41;00 - 00;03;45;00
Mack Williams:
I did a series of uh shorts for Pitchfork, the music website, and uh all of them are, uh, mostly storytelling shorts where a musical artist comes on and tells a brief, very funny story about something that happened to them. And this is just like an animated version of this, and this one is uh the rapper Freddie Gibbs. He's talking about um, he's from Gary, Indiana, which is the hometown of The Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson grew up there. Uh, and so this is a story about a time that Michael Jackson came back to Gary, Indiana, to visit. And this was a huge, huge event in the community.
The storytelling animated thing, like, that's like a real go-to quick content idea that you can see on, like, tons of websites and so Pitchfork was getting into that. And so when I'm directing shorts like this, I usually have my hand in little bit of all of it, but then I, you know, I try to hire freelancers who are better than me at their given task so that it improves the total product. They always provided me the audio uh
00;03;45;00
Audience:
Okay.
00;03;46;00 - 00;04;59;00
Mack Williams:
first, like there was never a written version. I would just edit it further without telling them usually, I don't, because I would, like, cut it unnoticeably tighter, like, to them, but I was, like, saving me 20 seconds of animation or something. And they just like doing with hip-hop artists better, because they felt like hip-hop artists told better stories and based on the ones they did, I think that's unquestionably true.
Like I did one with Danny Brown that’s really, really funny. And I did one with the GZA, which was more about like the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx. So that one was really interesting. Actually if you go on YouTube, my username is macklikeatruck, and I have a playlist with all of them but I sent Justin a few of them to pick which one he liked best because they all are kind of special to me.
These are like my very favorite things I've worked on, I think, because I got to do them, not by myself, but like I was coming into my own as a director where I wasn't really supervised by anyone because, um, the guy who produced all these is a guy named R.J. Bentler, who actually isn't with Pitchfork any longer but he was sort of their Head of Video, and he's one of my very favorite people I've ever been fortunate enough to work with. But anyway, they paid for me to go to Sundance and, like, show my short that I made. It was sponsored by Dell, so I had to make it on a Dell computer
00;04;59;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;05;00;00 - 00;05;10;00
Mack Williams:
and I'm a hardcore Apple guy. Then, I got to show my short that I made and, like, give a brief presentation about how cool it was I made it on a Dell computer.
00;05;11;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;05;12;00 - 00;05;15;00
Mack Williams:
Um, and then I got to keep the computer. And I gave it, I gave, it to my sister. And so I had a really, really great run with Pitchfork. I don't know if, when I'll get to do those again.
00;05;23;00 - 00;05;26;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
What do you actually, like, when you go into it, do you get the audio for everything?
00;05;26;00 - 00;05;34;00
Mack Williams:
After I listen to it, I would think about what I, what I wanted to do and then when I have a conversation with R.J., the producer, and talk about, like, what he kind of was already thinking about
00;05;34;00
Audience:
Oh, okay.
00;05;34;00 - 00;06;26;00
Mack Williams:
because he had really great ideas also. And so, a lot of times he would kind of steer my direction. But one of the things especially, I did a run of like 3 or 4, and if you look at them visually they're all very different. They look very different. That was intentional because I felt like this was an opportunity for me to really come into my own as a director, and I wanted them to all look different and to be animated in a different way or different style so that I could like- well, two things, one so I could show what I could do, but also so I could play around and see what I like to do.
I think I sent you one that was Danny Brown, and that one's just like a straight-up parody of Hanna-Barbera cartoons with like, where the characters are all cats and dogs and stuff, and uh it was it, it was like a parody of Top Cat which was a very terrible Hanna-Barbera cartoon that was like a third-rate Snagglepuss-type character. I’m kind of throwing Top Cat shade, but that’s fine.
00;06;27;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;06;27;00 - 00;07;00;00
Mack Williams:
Um, and then I did one where, with Waka Flocka Flame that was a parody of, like, the old Peanuts animated specials. Um and then like, you saw the Melvins one which was, you know, just black and white, more like. It was, the idea of it was like, it’s written, it was like doodles on your school paper in high school was sort of like my aesthetic idea for that one. And they all, and like the Freddie Gibbs one, it looks different than all those ones I just mentioned. Um and that was, that was intentional and that was very much R.J., he was very, very supportive of, like, me doing things a little different.
00;07;00;00 - 00;07;04;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
We watched “Michael Jackson’s Return to Gary, Indiana,” and then we had a quick discussion.
00;07;05;00 - 00;07;17;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Like, your animation is, is, it's not natural world movements. It's, it's a little cartoony and I always like, like, sort of has a joke and just the, just the movements that they have. What makes you steer away a little bit from realism?
00;07;18;00
Mack Williams:
Oh.
00;07;18;00 - 00;07;20;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
And what makes you go more towards it?
00;07;20;00 - 00;07;28;00
Mack Williams:
I have a very good answer for why I avoid doing more animation like what you're talking about and it’s, and it’s talent. It's that I would be really shitty at it.
00;07;28;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;07;29;00 - 00;09;02;00
Mack Williams:
Um I mean, I, my, my, everything you guys saw that I did is, is all done in uh After Effects and there's some traditional, like, 2D frame-by-frame animation in there but very little. For the most part, I do what's called limited animation, which means that um I'm trying to do things on a low budget quick turnaround quickly and get the most I can out of like the fewest number of drawings that I have to make. Um, and that's sort of what I started my career doing because Sealab was totally in After Effects, Frisky Dingos totally in After Effects.
Archer now is, like, four different types of software that they put all together but when we started, it was just After Effects. Um, on Our Cartoon President now that I'm working on directing, we actually have quite a lot of traditional 2D-animated uh stuff, but it's mostly um, uh hand gestures and more brief actions. The reason we are able to use more hand-drawn animation is we have tons and tons of super amazing, talented animators that work with us. 14 now.
If you're talking about like, like Rick and Morty or something like that where they ship the animation overseas to Canada or to Korea or something like that, like, I mean it's, I don't know, dozens and dozens of, of traditional hand-drawn animators. But uh for, for me, in the shows that
I've worked on which are limited to have 14, that's like amazing. You know, 12, you're drawing 12 frames a second or 24 in some cases. Um, our shows, we uh, do at 12. All the Looney Tunes and stuff that you watched as a kid, like those are all 12 frames a second.
00;09;03;00
Audience:
Oh really?
00;09;03;00 - 00;09;07;00
Mack Williams:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of people do stuff on like, uh, threes or fours. Like we call
00;09;08;00
Audience:
Oh, okay.
00;09;08;00 - 00;09;13;00
Mack Williams:
it on, like, like we say on two, “on twos” means like every 2 frames of 24,
00;09;14;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;09;14;00 - 00;09;48;00
Mack Williams:
there is some motion. Depending on what you're doing, you do stuff on threes, do stuff on fours, and also that's like if you were doing like a really low budget independent short that you wanted to do it, uh, you know, 8 frames a second or whatever, it's still look really fucking cool if you did it well. It doesn't, animation is very very forgiving in that way. It's absolutely a stylistic choice. Um, the first season of Cartoon President, a lot of it is on 24 frames because we're using this new software that didn't really play well with 12 frames. Um, but now we've, we've kind of got it figured out and all the character stuff is 12 frames.
00;09;48;00 - 00;09;53;00
Maggie Adeleye:
As far as I know that the, the, the Cartoon President they started on, uh, (unintelligible) show.
00;09;53;00
Mack Williams:
Yup.
00;09;54;00
Maggie Adeleye:
But the night one.
00;09;55;00 - 00;10;37;00
Mack Williams:
This new piece of software, Adobe Character Animator came out and they got the idea somehow, hey, let's do an interview with an actual cartoon character because the whole idea behind uh Character Animator is to do, you could do like live streaming animation. You build the puppets and then you sit in from a we- a webcam and animate the puppet that way, and you can make it do certain things, you preset animations. And so they started doing that uh on The Late Show and Colbert was interviewing Cartoon Trump. And then at some point someone uh said, well what if we made this into its own show? And uh Tim was like, no, that's impossible, we can't do that. Uh (laughs) and they were like, too late, we just sold it to Showtime.
00;10;37;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;10;39;00 - 00;11;29;00
Mack Williams:
And, uh, so then I was brought in with, uh, by Tim with another director, Steve Connor, uh, our director, Karyl Goretzki, and a whole bunch of other people to figure out how to make a half-hour animated show in 11 weeks with this brand new piece of software no one's ever used before. And we were like, you guys have Slack? Like, you guys like Slack? So we had like, yeah so we’re, we’re, we’re, I'm like in a Slack channel literally chatting with, like, the people who invented Adobe After Effects who also invented this software and telling them, like, what's wrong with their software and what features we need. We would run into issues with the software where we're trying to do something and it just won't do it. And like, we can tell them about these things and they'll be like, okay, well hold on, we just wrote a script that does all of that for you with a push of a button.
00;11;29;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;11;29;00 - 00;11;42;00
Mack Williams:
Okay, now, okay, there's a bug that does this. Okay, well, give us two days. All right, now the bug is fixed and it doesn't do that anymore. Adobe wants to be associated with hit shows. It's a mutually beneficial relationship for sure.
00;11;43;00 - 00;11;48;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
I guess the other question is like, what do you see as a trope that gets annoying when you see other people do? Because you say that, um.
00;11;48;00 - 00;12;09;00
Mack Williams:
I don't know that there's anything in particular that annoys me. I will say that um, let's say you're animating a series like I'm on now, like Our Cartoon President. Well, the Cartoon President lives in the White House and he works in the Oval Office, and we get to reuse those backgrounds every episode and we reuse all the gestures and the facial expressions
00;12;09;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;12;10;00 - 00;12;26;00
Mack Williams:
he does every episode. When you're doing a series of these storytelling things, every single bit of it is brand new and used only once every time you do this. And so guess what? It costs more per episode
00;12;26;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;12;27;00 - 00;12;32;00
Mack Williams:
than like a ten episode animated series about the same characters would cost per episode.
00;12;33;00 - 00;12;43;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
But you also do the, the video editing afterwards, right? Like, like you do the animations and I assume that they're, they have handles on them and then you edit it a little bit?
00;12;43;00 - 00;13;06;00
Mack Williams:
In animation, it's very expensive. If you want to add two-second handles to every single shot, that can add up to a lot of work and time. So you really do your editing in the animatic stage. So you have a storyboard, you cut that storyboard to the audio. In an ideal world, although I've rarely ever worked on a project where it worked out this way, that's where you lock, lock your edit. Um, lock.
00;13;06;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;13;07;00 - 00;13;15;00
Mack Williams:
Um, I'm making quote fingers for the podcast audience. Certainly there are sometimes more edits made, but usually, like, it's what it is by that point.
00;13;16;00 - 00;13;30;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
Mack’s second film that he brought was his favorite film which is What About Bob?, one of the most iconic performances by Bill Murray in his entire career. It is really goofy and they used to play it on television all the time.
00;13;31;00 - 00;13;38;00
Mack Williams:
This is 100%, this is legit not a joke, my very favorite movie. And it's because I've watched it a numerous times on TBS.
00;13;39;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;13;39;00 - 00;13;47;00
Mack Williams:
as a kid, seriously. Like, me and my friend Joey in um middle school in, like, high school. Like, I don't even know how many times I've watched this movie.
00;13;48;00 - 00;14;17;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
Coincidentally, the two films that Mack brought featured the same food which was fried chicken. So while we were showing What About Bob?, we brought out fried chicken, corn on the cob, and mashed potatoes for everybody to enjoy. This was the first time that there was no alcohol served in either of the films shown on Feature & a short, but we had libations around anyway. After the viewing, there was a small discussion on Bill Murray versus Richard Dreyfuss.
00;14;17;00 - 00;14;23;00
Mack Williams:
It's one of the few Bill Murray movies where Bill Murray is not the most funny person in the movie, in my opinion.
00;14;23;00 - 00;14;24;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
You don't think so?
00;14;24;00 - 00;14;27;00
Mack Williams:
Richard Dreyfuss, this was Richard Dreyfuss’ finest performance.
00;14;28;00 - 00;14;30;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
I, uh, just say, tell us what I tell you the other day.
00;14;31;00 - 00;14;32;00
Thomas Kelsey:
Scene was terrible.
00;14;33;00 - 00;14;36;00
Mack Williams:
No, I love it. It's so, he's so over-the-top.
00;14;36;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;14;37;00 - 00;14;44;00
Mack Williams:
Everything about Richard Dreyfuss in this movie is so ridiculously over-the-top and outrageous and I love it.
00;14;44;00 - 00;14;50;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
After, the discussion got pretty lively and called it night.
00;14;50;00
Mack Williams:
Showtime rules.
00;14;51;00
Mack Williams (robotic voice):
but HBO sucks.
00;14;52;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;14;54;00
Mack Williams (robotic voice):
Showtime rules, but HBO sucks.
00;14;56;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;14;59;00
Mack Williams (robotic voice):
Showtime forever.
00;15;00;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;15;01;00
Mack Williams (robotic voice):
Um, that was…
00;15;04;00 - 00;15;33;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
Thank you for listening to Feature & a short. We have a great guest for you again next month. If you have any comments and want to write us or figure out how to come to a live taping of this show, just hit us up on social media and that is @fourwindfilms. That is f-o-u-r-w-i-n-d-f-i-l-m-s. We'll speak to you again shortly. Peace.
