Jennifer Yuh Nelson Quotes

Sometimes, you just have to go in there and bowl people over with your sheer force of will.

One of the things we love about Po [Kung Fu Panda] is that he's vulnerable. He's someone that we can all identify with because he has those insecurities. He's an outsider feeling guy.

Tigress is my alternate personality, especially with children. I love animation because you get to do things you don't normally get to.

I think the best thing I have is the introvert's ability to listen when you're working on something as complicated as this and you have to really be aware of everyone's specialized skills.

A lot of the time in animation is spent getting the story right - that's something you can't rush.

I'm a very soft-spoken person. I don't throw furniture. I don't throw tantrums.

Po's [Kung Fu Panda] unending enthusiasm is something we wish we could have. We can't help but root for him because of his geek energy.

You have to make sure that people are still motivated and happy and creatively challenged so that it can all be stitched together. The voice acting starts after a lot of the storyboards are done.

When people feel safe, they can come up with ideas. It's important to listen to the actor who is there on the stage and living it.

We want to be proud of our work and make sure it's worth the talent of the animators, who spent four years of their love, sweat and tears on it.

We always try to make the very best movie when we're working on and we can only think one at a time. We want to make this a perfect jewel, and then we'll see what happens after that.

I think it's really nice to have an authenticity, it's a huge source for us to be able to lean on people who have that knowledge.

As I said, i'm very quiet, i don't go around saying "I'm awesome!" but when I brought in my portfolio into DreamWorks and showed them what I could do, my art style is a lot wilder than I am.

The story in that particular spot was an ancient history story, and we wanted to give it a historical feeling, which was why we used a historical calligraphy scroll come to life.

We go for our own reality. I remember some of our guys saying it is way harder to make stylized art directed explosions of jade rather than a regular explosion of shrapnel.

It's like being the general of an army [directing a film]. You send people out to die.

I'm not aggressive by nature and it was tough for me to make the transition to directing.

When you make a movie, it's just so personal and then you put it out in front of people and it becomes something else.

Lots of people support me and I forget. But sometimes things happen and I remember, and they say I encourage them, it makes me feel very happy.

Talking to actors is the same as talking to any other artists; it's getting into the moment for them, and making sure they can lose themselves in the performance!

I've been drawing my whole life. My mom says my sister and I were drawing by age 1. Animation seems a real, natural extension of drawing as a way of telling a story visually.

If you only do what you can do, you'll never be more than you are now.I never thought i'd be where I am now, but the fact that I am is pretty cool.