because he. is an american of russian origin his family emigrated from the soviet union to the united states when he was a kid of seven many people as good now he and his parents leave their own country to start a new life in the united states but only a few of them become rich and famous many people as you know the he tried to make animated movies cartoons but only a few of them become as popular as well i just wanted to say there's no way but good at it that the whole scheme is of russian arjun just as business he. was and he is one of the best known directors producers and animators in the american movie industry today. who is that i have to ask you

welcome to the show thank you thank you very much for being with us thank you well first of all first of all i would like to ask you a couple of personal question if either money or russian name and you actually are russian you're you're american of russian origin i was born in moscow there were more skills lived there until you were seven that's right listen i've read about you that your father that he was he was a dentist who worked for a high ranking government official i lived in that time and i know that he must have been very well to do he was a very successful dentist and pretty well to do. i mean since of money why did they decide to leave russia. i mean serve the interests simple question of. i think for for us there was you know from my parents we were very you know my dad was very successful we had a nice apartment and but i think it was for myself and my brother to have more of a freedom of life you know in the freedom of choice to what we wanted to be when we . did it because of the kids he didn't want his kids to go through the

same hell as he went through before becoming successful as i write you think he was right do you think you made the right you know i mean i don't think i would have done if i stayed here i don't know if you know my life when you're in this area. the opportunities were definitely different right listen before before going to the u.s. you stayed in italy for a couple years was that the plan because i know that people went abroad well i can find funny ways war or you just change your mind and no i think when you when you leave at that time there was a big immigration and so it was a kind of you go you leave and then you stayed a place until you're ready to come in until they let you in so we stayed in that elite for i think three or four months so it was just like a little like like a transfer like with a holding pattern yeah so do you you arrived in the united states completely different country when you were. by rushing to first grade some first

grade school. what was going to to to to to get integrated to mix together school i mean to find friends do you remember the because i thought when i was a kid my father took him and took me with him to linden and i went to the kindergarten then then to school i remember it very hard for me lately to it it was it was difficult i think it was a feel like everybody knew that i was the immigrant and i think it was very important for me to fit in but i know i look different i know you know i dressed differently i didn't know the right styles and it was the sixty's it was seventy's it was the seventy's here and so you know like everybody started wearing you know nice jeans and you know there's a lot of a lot of cultural things that my parents didn't understand like you know a lot of a lot of people sleep over other people's houses yeah you know and my dad said is your bed is your bed broken. you know and so he's going to see didn't understand because of the way they were raised also how when you know how you know he goes

wait so you can wear mask in a costume and go door to door and ask for candy you know and to him it was it was ridiculous so a lot of the cultural things i was still russian i couldn't do everything that was in there do you know what they're going to be raised to. listen. but. you said. it was the seventy's when when i went to school and learned that they started to call me russian spy because it was the sixty's i mean it was all serious it wasn't that bad the seventy's was it was it was still it was funny because the people still thought of russia as. they call you know. kind o. risky all that stuff that i'm not a spy so much no yeah and so it was still very fresh even though it was you know a decade later so you went to school and i know your parents wanted you to be a businessman about well yes i think they wanted me to be maybe a doctor. or a lawyer or something like that or why why did you why did you decide to disobey

parents not to go into another successful career from the point of view soviet mentality yet in the states should be a businessmen a lawyer or a dentist and you say went through why i don't know there's something something happened to me when you know my dad bought a television and then he brought it home and i turned on the t.v. and there was you know bugs bunny and tom and jerry popeye all these shows and something you know i just fell in love with it i don't know that we don't have any artists in our family there's no history of art and something something snapped in my head and there were lots and lots of cold wonderful cartoons in the soviet union the only one that i really watched was a little giddy you know and so i didn't know it was actually tom and jerry and i said oh yes that's right and so i never i was never exposed here really you know yeah and so. you know they're just i just kind of fall in love there's and i've talked to other animators i've always said like how do we how do we become enemies . in a such

a small part of of of the business and there's no answer it's just like something inside of you wants to do it you want to become an animated or you started because you started drawing i mean or you wanted to make cartoons i wanted to make or to feel sufficiently did you think of the books oh yeah yeah yeah all my textbooks were completely cold of movement. then. tell me about you first first or to stick experience what what was the first thing you did when you actually realized that you becoming what you are now. like what is. like my first my first experience in art or in animation or and when you were when you well first time i realized that i'm going to become a journalist is when i first made my we call did the the wall newspaper it was cool yeah when i made the first thing and we pinned it to the to the wall and there. so my name's the editor. and becoming

a journalist i think for this year something like that i think is a visit textbooks are for me when i was in when i was in school all there was like third grade i would be like i couldn't draw that well but i was very passionate about it and so i would do these very huge drawings of like a pirate ship and the and a battle with all the pirates and stuff but they're all stick figures you know but it's very intricate and then i started to sell them. over two cents you know for nothing and because kids would like them and i really enjoyed i enjoyed when other people looked at my art and they liked it you know i think maybe that was the beginning of it and you realize that they realized that people are really to pay for what you do so you can you can probably make some living you know it's really idea but it was you know i was growing up in chicago with in chicago there's no it's a very blue collar community you know the reason well there is doctors you know engineers and so there are the art of being an artist was almost taboo in a way you know was like. people looked at you differently so i never really told

anybody that i liked artisan movies and she commented it was no longer a place when kids are born again before they bought a textbook no no no no. ok. you in one of the interviews you said that you were very fond of comic books. and comic books are really very popular in the broad in america and england but they try to introduce them in russia after the iron curtain fell they tried to do this comic book they know they never really become popular so what's the difference can you say between the russian kids mentality of american enormously popular there and and partly why i don't know it's i mean it's interesting i think you know for me it was always. escape you know scape into a different world you know in comic books brought you that those kind of heroes. and all these things and also i love the art in the comics i'd love to copy from

them also so i don't know maybe there's a there's the way people look at upon heroes here are slightly different than the way you know different cultures do you know it's difficult also you know the superhero comics don't work in france that a lot of countries they don't necessarily work you know it's very difficult for some reason they work in japan but they were independently but they're very good at it and yes a nice animation and jumping devotees comics are very different could get well this is the interesting thing when we were getting ready to interview you we talked about animation we talk about japanese animation well can you i like to have your opinion what's different in japanese animation if you will the stylistics is a little bit of what else was the main difference between it is it is different but why i think the main difference in japanese animation is that it's a true art form and they can do whatever they want with it they can do kids' animation they do a lot of adults animation they do dramas they do comedies they do action movies all

in animation they even do the x. rated that he was rated i guess and so they think of it as an art where i think in america it's thought upon as a kid's business. you know and purely for children well well well i don't think it's no longer kids' business because of the movies well i haven't seen the latest james bond but the previous one i think it thirty percent was animation right right yeah i mean all movies are entered in the very much yes. ok now you said the only the only russian the only russian animation you were exposed to when you was a kid was new these are russian version of tom and jerry but what about the rest have you have you seen other later other russian models. more of the when i was younger i started to go to those from festivals and so i started to see some of the more artistic films and then and then i discovered. winnie the pooh's

yes and those were great those are very it was very interesting because i found something very similar to what i like to do in terms of the graphic nature and they were very appealing so i started to discover them later and in my career i guess you got to talking to some spotlights spotlighted will be back in a minute or so after we take a break so. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't i'm trying hard to be the big picture.

deadly rivals some decades. if you had fifteen thousand people killing each other in any other country there would be diplomats there would be a. self-imposed out costs from society i will cut myself chemical attack my brother understand my contacts in egypt. going to eventually attack the cause

of my anger and my frustration. that. well into the. suv the most violent gangs in us history. is just all model killing the chill with the colors matching the national flag. but this country uses violence when it reaches its and then it legitimizes the violence they all made in america on the sea.

welcome back to spotlight i'm out here in oregon just a reminder that my guest today is going to have to kosky a well known animated director american of russian origin. we started talking about about the influence you and as a film director is now the major. me he said you were not really influenced by by the will compression directors but the people in the trade who really who you like you can call your idols i mean your teachers somebody who influenced you i mean is really the old directors you know i think it's the takes a very bob clampett you know hand over bare. jones those are the ones that really you know really influenced me besides some of the teachers that i've had through the years you know i think that's you know when i look back to get

inspiration from i look back at those cartoons is it true that when you were one hundred barrel you you worked in the truck parked outside the studio yes it's very true yeah we had to because the studio was you know i was twenty four when i started their story young kids and they didn't let us inside the studio they had a trailer you know outside we had like six six desks inside and we started working inside and it was it was incredible you know incredibly amazing to be young and to work there because after hours after everyone home we would go in the building and we'd sneak down in the basement and there they had all the costumes yogi bear and scooby doo and we put on the costumes and run around in the basement where the costumes and also i found all the archives and so i could see all the original artwork from all those t.v. shows and all the great art so it's really. and place to be at the time he mentions could the scooby doo custom but it wasn't scooby doo a cartoon from the body was but they had you know from theme parks the costumes the

wind walking around. you used to work with george lucas one of the episode of star wars that the close there with the clones yet called for him why did why don't you work with him later he did like your work. you did still stick oysters there with yeah i think i did you know i did two seasons of course and. he was i was actually going to go over there and be work in the kind of start the animation studio for him and. i really wanted to go into feature school i've been doing television for about you know seventeen years at the time and i wanted to move on and. and so i was we almost we got the contract all worked out and then i had lunch with him and george said that he really didn't want to do features he wants just as he thinks television is where it's at and he wants the t.v. and then for me it wasn't the right fit and also i just realized if i kept doing that it's all i could be doing for the next twenty years the star of the old you'll

become brother craftsman the veteran an artist who is there you just become you don't you know it was very fortunate in my career that i got to do a lot of my own original ideas and so to then just to star wars for the next ten twenty years didn't seem right i have too many ideas i have you know i have a lot of things i want to express stories i want to tell the stick with lucas it would have been a better bet i mean the business like no yes it would have been just if you want to do what i wanted to do so we had to do so so so you just about to tell me what most of the people tell me like people will build up to staying well let me in they say you just have to do what you love what you like to do it sooner or later you'll become successful then sometimes it's also not yeah i mean you have to you know you have to believe in what you're doing and you have to be passionate about it and then if you're lucky you'll make some money to night out of ten it will end up up and. coming back to look and say give me some money and. some things yes i mean it's you know i never got into this business for the money i definitely wanted to

do it because i love it and so i just was fortunate when you signed your contract we were so many what was that a real change in your career was that a big milestone i mean i mean are you going to do so some more sure animated series like you did in the i mean i'm definitely you know we'll see how things go i mean i just you know of this my first feature film and so hopefully will be successful and and that will open more doors for me and you know i mean a nice place to find a nice home with sony and so we're going to a few more films and we'll see like i i think for me i love television also and it's whatever best suits the stories that i want to tell creatively. i don't know if that's correct correct but i have heard them have written russia gets some intend to be a disney i mean the wonderful. i mean like. the things you're drawing since i didn't draw it will know maybe write the music and i didn't write to me over this and then people said oh well well maybe if you come up

with a story said no i didn't come up with the story so will you do said nothing to this letter i mean is walt is that true he does i mean he had a lot of artists and a lot of people that really helped him but what was amazing about him and he was an innovator you know he never you know when he created mickey mouse it was hugely successful but did he draw it he did you know the original was a very regional draw the first original the very first one but he just looked pretty clumsy i mean the first well it did look clumsy may look clumsy now but back then it was it was like it was you know groundbreaking and i think what was amazing about him is that he didn't just keep going doing mickey mouse's then he did a musical cartoon then he did a color cartoon and then he did a feature and that's one of the most amazing things that i admired him so much is because he never just did the same thing he kept pushing himself to do the next that the reason why i want why i ask. this name is that highly valued used to jewels and absolutely yes but it's all i look at the pictures it's all it's all

computer animated good it's all computer animated but i do you know i work in the design and i work on storyboards i drew pretty much almost every so you still do a lot of drawing every day and then you give it to the computer guys in the animated this is the kind of yeah i mean it's a little complicated there but you know yes pretty much can you explain it to me i was raised and won't disney movies i mean bambi and stuff and also we need to pull in the way that now when they see those three d. computer generated i mean they're great they really three d. but those those two d. well disney animals they were more light. than the would have been the ice age or whatever why what why would they lively unit and then the new ones who look real but the but they're less life and i think because people forget about the character you know you could look at a drawing of a person and that drawing looks more like the person you know and i think right now

there's this trend of making things look realistic but the more real we get them every hair less realistically there's. also something about drawings drawings are very appealing and to look at a drawing it's looking like a work of art you know like if you're at a museum and you see a drawing there's something so magical about it because it came from somebody's hand and there's a lot of artistry of the computer animation but it's different there's something very organic and something very visceral that you fall in love with with a hand drawn that it's like to live like unplugged music i mean like trying to music i mean computer generated always it's even more you know it's even more audie it's more audible it's more it's more rock most of the iraqi time draw an animation sound for i mean it's a doesn't pay pay pay back anyway so expensive well you know it's means it's over for now but i think it can with the right film they can easily make a comeback it just has to do we have to do something that's very different that will stand out really. he'll new yeah i don't believe that it's that at all but but can a draw on a draw and quarter to match can be made three to three days yes of course do you

think that all christians have to be three don't know why but they so better didn't well i mean just right now you know people are you know paying more to go see a three d. movie but certainly they want i think people go see movies for the stories you know and i think if you create original stories great characters i think that's what the interest is you getting me started because you know because i haven't seen a single a single worthwhile story for quite a long time it was a problem and i think stories it's way this is where hollywood is saving money to save it on the story. i mean everywhere they work very hard stories but there's nothing you know there's not a it's not a formula you know making a good story is kind of has to be personal where are all the people who care who can come up with the stories and i think there are there around it's just it's hard because it's a business you know so whenever art and business make sometimes. things don't work out. what are your favorite favorite movies.

animated movies one of the last couple of years less figures yeah. i don't know i mean that i mean the movies you know because it's my industry i'm very critical you know so i don't like i'm not very happy with a lot of animation that's being done you know i feel like we could be pushing things a lot more telling more unique stories you know. live action films. you know hundred bridesmaid's i thought was a very funny movie and you know a few years ago there was there will be blood it's a very you know darker film and i like very artistic i like that what about slumdog millionaire well my impression was it going to screen was so popular just because it was different yeah i mean it's a very good film is it was a good i mean i mean. well maybe it's look good for years back. as you don't see so many so many indian movies in russia people see indian movies all the time indian

movies are very popular really in russia so people i didn't think that this really new world was very much different from other indian movies so i think this is the reason it was just india i mean it was different but i don't know i mean i've seen some bollywood films that definitely felt a little different to me that you know i think was a very good story was it was it was definitely more original than the other movies that year i've been i've been to bollywood and then my my biggest expression they took me to a show how to become a millionaire who wants to be a millionaire that is going to india and you know all the question won't believe it the question who invented the first time in the pressure cooker. john john burns tom tom waits. or i've been there done that the. right answer every time is it. what it was the country was the first to introduce. india india and that's. ok now. my last question to you for

a you've introduced your film in russia i hope i hope it is successful and i hope you will you will have to come again to new films but. what's your impression what do you think how important is the russian market for american filmmakers say i think it's getting more important every day and i think it's a growing community i think the russian people are starting to see more and more movies and i think. it's now days america's not enough i think you have to be internationally accepted you know and in russia you know a huge market you know the opinion matters it's one of the big obviously big you know important countries and so you know you know for me obviously it's personal because the big you know big homecoming you know it's i'm still very russian inside and so on. you know it means a lot to me but i think it is i think the market grows every year and you know and business wise it's very important do you feel yourself at home. strangely i do this

it's must be funny for you because it's very different from the soviet union you left but it's very different from american cities you know what it's like it's feels very you know it feels like new york a little bit like london a little bit you know it's. definitely it's not the way remembered it you know but it's feels very warm it's a beautiful city and you know. it is it's very much more modern or did he come back thank you thank you very much for being with us and just a reminder that my guest today was a famous american filmmaker and i'm a true american. and that's it for all of us now spotlight will be back with more for us than comments i was going on and outside russia until then stay on r.t. and take care of discipline. do

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