Kristine Belson - President of Sony Pictures Animation
In 2022 Sony Pictures Animation celebrated its 20th birthday, and Kristine Belson has been president for around 8 of those years, overseeing the industry-changing hit "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", and a growing number of film-maker led projects with varying styles and storytelling techniques.
Join me in this conversation with Kristine as we chat about her career, which started in live-action, and traces through the Jim Henson Company and DreamWorks Animation before she started at Sony.
We touch on "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and talk about how it impacted the industry, the development process, and ethos at Sony, including working with ImageWorks, Phil Lord, and Chris Miller, touching on the upcoming k-pop movie and the agent Elvis series. So I really hope you enjoy this and get as much from it as I did.
Please like, rate, and comment on your favorite podcasting platform and share the episode on social media if you enjoyed it.
If you have any comments or suggestions please get in touch.
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Host & Producer: Michael Wakelam
Executive Producer: Eric M. Miller
Music by: Rich Dickerson
Audio Engineering: Mike Rocha
The Creators Society is a professional society for all disciplines of the animation industry. Our mission is to bring the animation community together to build strong relationships, provide education, and form a better understanding of the different roles we all play in creating animated stories. We celebrate and promote the love of animation, and all the talented Creators who breathe life and imagination into their work.
Learn more about the Creators Society, and how to become a member at creatorssociety.plus
Episode Transcript
Kristine Belson: 0:14
I mean, that was the beginning of us saying like, 'No rules'. We used to joke about it. Like, okay, I guess there's some rules and you have to have some rules, but we're trying to have as few rules as possible.
Michael Wakelam: 0:26
Welcome back to theCreators Society Animation Podcast. I'm Michael Wakelam. If you're new to the show, then our format is pretty simple. I have the privilege of chatting with talented artists, creators, executives, directors and producers from across the industry and to talk about their careers and what they're up to now, gleaning as much wisdom as I possibly can, so that we can all learn from the best people in the business, which is really why the podcast exists. It's so interesting to me that most of the people I do talk to had no idea what career opportunities in animation were available when they were kids. Obviously, we're in a much different age now, a different era. But if you know or come across any students or young people who are interested in animation, then please pass these conversations along to them. So it's 2023. And we're kicking off the year with a really big episode speaking with Sony Pictures Animation President, Kristine Belson. The industry has really seen a lot of change in the last few years. And we can point to Sony's 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' as a major reason for that. I've no doubt that artists have always wanted to push the boundaries in what they're doing. But the success of Spider-Verse has given executives and the industry in general much more confidence in taking risks on different looks, and storytelling methods. So I had a lot of questions for Kristine, who was really generous with her time. In fact, I think I got down to the last minute of her time before she had to dash to another meeting. So very grateful there. As usual, we hit rewind to chat through Kristine's career path which traces through live action, the Jim Henson Company and DreamWorks before she started at Sony. In her eight years or so at Sony, Kristine has overseen a surge in creativity there. And we talk through as much as possible in this chat, including the Spider-Verse movies, the development process and ethos at Sony, including working with Imageworks, and Phil Lord and Chris Miller, touching on the upcoming Kpop movie and the 'Agent Elvis' series. So I really hope you enjoy this and get as much from it as I did. And if you do, and if you enjoy the podcast in general, please share it with the entire world via social media, or in person, even though sharing with the whole world in person would be a bit more of a challenge, so at least people in your world you think would enjoy it. We also have a new email subscription and who doesn't need another email subscription, but you asked for it. So you can hear about each new episode as it drops fresh in your inbox. If you'd like to subscribe, just click on the link in the show notes. Anyway, without further rambling from me, let's jump into that conversation with Kristine Belson. Kristine, welcome, thanks so much for joining me today.
Kristine Belson: 3:02
It is my pleasure to join you today. Thank you for having me.
Michael Wakelam: 3:06
And Happy New Year, I think we can still say that until the end of January, maybe.
Kristine Belson: 3:11
I'm still I'm still saying it. Happy New Year to you.
Michael Wakelam: 3:15
I'm really excited to chat through, not just your career, but to also talk about Sony animation, which celebrated 20 years in [20]'22. And there's a lot coming up with I imagine the entire industry extremely excited to see
'[Spider-man: 3:27
]Across the Spider-verse' this year.
Kristine Belson: 3:29
Oh yeah, we're excited for everybody to see it. We're also excited to be done making it because it's- they are the most challenging movies to make.
Michael Wakelam: 3:39
Yeah very intense.
Kristine Belson: 3:40
We're in that final push. So yeah, it's gonna be exciting to be done for all kinds of reasons.
Michael Wakelam: 3:48
And then you've got another one next year, perhaps, hopefully, next year, if you if you hit that date, but we can get into all that later. I want start by hitting rewind, and the rewind button on your career and, and talking through how you got started. And you know, we love talking about nonlinear career journeys and, you know, I guess for someone who had connections to entertainment, your mom, I believe was in the Hollywood foreign press.
Kristine Belson: 4:14
Yes! Not everyone pulls out that reference. Yep.
Michael Wakelam: 4:18
Yeah. And your dad, he was obviously a writer and but you didn't grow up wanting to be in entertainment. Did you?
Kristine Belson: 4:25
No quite the opposite. I think partially for that sort of familiar reason of wanting to be different from your parents. And so I was quite determined to be on a different path than when I was in high school or actually, that's not true. When I was in high school I had no ambition we'll- we don't have to linger there. But you know, in college, I thought I was going to be pre med at one point but, but to go but to go back to the beginning. Yeah, my mom was in the Hollywood foreign press, by way of being Swedish, she moved to the States when she was 18. And met my dad who was already on his path to being a comedy writer at that time, I think he was getting- what was it- he used to tell me he'd get like a nickel per word he was writing for like Donald or Daffy Duck, comic books, I think at the time. But you know, I grew up mostly with my mom. And she was quite a sort of rebel and hippie in the 60s and 70s, when, which is when I was growing up. I was born in 64. And we travelled all over the place, and I was lucky to be exposed to a lot of stuff. I also became, as a result of moving every single year for 10 years, I became painfully shy. And I dealt with that by being a really hard, hardcore bookworm I just devoured books, I had my nose in a book the whole time, it was hard to see my face because I would cover it with a book. And I would read these books over and over and over, I mean, 'Lord of the Rings' and '[The] Chronicles of Narnia', among others were just read so many times, you know, I'd finish it, and then just pick it up and start it again, the books literally fell apart in my hands, I had to keep buying new copies. And I, well, I didn't recognise that at the time, what was happening was, I was developing a real love of, and maybe even an obsession with sort of storytelling. But it didn't occur to me to sort of translate that into a career in entertainment. I was again, determined to be very different from my parents. But after I graduated college, I did try different things. By the way, the pre med thing didn't work out, because I finally got to the place where I couldn't handle the chemistry. So that was done. But when I graduated college, and was living in New York, right, you know, I thought I was interested in things that were adjacent to what my parents were involved with, but you know, theatre, you know, publishing and so I tried those various things and production, like actual onset physical production for live action films, and didn't really, they just didn't get- light my fire, any of those things. And so I sort of eventually thought, well, let me try being a story analyst, at Creative Artists Agency, while I sort of figure it out. And a story analyst just means you read all kinds of books and scripts, and you write up- and you write up descriptions of them. And the second I started doing that, I was like, holy cow, I really do love this media. I really do love, love, love to talk story. My way in was always talking story. And so I started on my live action career, but I didn't, you know, and I was lucky, very lucky to have a wonderful mentor in a woman named Amy Pascal, who ran Columbia Pictures for many years, and now is a very successful producer. She's had quite the illustrious and legendary career. And she's also just the coolest, bravest woman I know. And I was happily working in live action for Amy and I had kids. And I started to get interested in animation then, because we started watching Miyazaki movies, and I always go out of my way, because I'm a bit embarrassed by it, so I want to be honest about it. Like there's so many people in animation of course, who, who grew up devouring everything, while I was devouring books, I never watched Looney Tunes. We didn't even have a TV for a really long time. I didn't get to go to the movies very often. So I didn't have a background in animation. I was quite ignorant actually about animation, and then watch to '[My Neighbor] Totoro', and Mike, you know, my, my heart melted and my brain exploded. And I should say [rectified pronounciation] Totoro. And, you know, it was just, it was just magic watching that and other Miyazaki movies with my little daughter and my even littler son, and I was so blown away by them. It was just again, transporting and then, you know, well, I should rewind a little bit, because right around then I had started working for The [Jim] Henson Company. A big, big shout out to The [Jim] Henson Company who hired me when I was like, extremely pregnant- I was like, good for you. Not everybody does that- and with my first kid, and I had both my kids while working at Henson, and that was a great company. I mean, it was fantastic working there, working with Lisa Henson and you know, it was my entry into family entertainment. I'd never really had this focus on content for parents and kids to watch together.
Michael Wakelam: 10:03
I was talking to Bonnie Arnold and she said that's when she first met you when you we're at Henson and you're pitching or talking about doing something together. I think she was maybe at Disney at the time.
Kristine Belson: 10:16
I was just remembering that project. It was a wild project, actually. Yeah, we were talking about but sorry, go ahead.
Michael Wakelam: 10:24
Yeah, but you did. I mean, it's always interesting so that you did 'Muppets in Space' at The Henson and, you know, when you do research for these things, you find these films that you never knew existed like, you know, 'Good Boy!', the- I just love that logline, 'An intergalactic dog pilot visits Earth to verify the rumours that dogs have failed to take over the planet.'
Kristine Belson: 10:46
By the way, that was the directorial debut of John Hoffman now enjoying quite a bit of success with 'Only Murders in the Building'. And John is a fantastic fellow. And still a good friend. Yeah. And I remember meeting Bonnie back then. And that was in that moment where I was like, "What is this thing? Animation? It seems so interesting." And we were starting to get interested in animation at The [Jim] Henson Company. Certainly, you know, they were always pushing the boundaries in terms of, you know, technology and puppeteering and they were working on this puppeteered animation system that was quite interesting. But also just out in the world, it was not only- my mind was being expanded by the Miyazaki movies, this was sort of like in the early days of Pixar, and there was that stretch from like 'Toy Story' to 'The Incredibles' you just literally couldn't believe how good these movies were. I was like it was such an exciting time and I was like, well how do I work on movies that are as good as that those things are just like gems who've been polished to perfection. And then you know, I was at the Henson Company getting more and more interested in animation and and got a phone call from a woman named Christina Steinberg who is the producer of the 'Spider-Verse' movie. She's one of the producers of the 'Spider-Verse' movie. And she had been brought over to DreamWorks Animation by Jeffrey Katzenberg. And Jeffrey, in contradiction to the way they did it at Disney, he believed that animated movies really benefited from creative producers. That's not how they did it at Disney but it's how he built the movies. When he formed DreamWorks Animation, he hired a bunch of execs and producers that he knew from his Disney days; Christina Steinberg, Alex Schwartz, Melissa Cobb, Mireille Soria. So Christina Steinberg was over at DreamWorks making 'Bee Movie', which, by the way, at the time, we thought was gonna be the biggest thing ever, like everybody thought that like we really did. And, and she called me up and said, you know, they're looking for someone to run development. Are you interested? And I said, no, but I'm definitely getting more and more interested in animation. And yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to talk. So she introduced me to Bill Damaschke, a another wonderful mentor of mine, ran DreamWorks Animation for many years. And then I went through the most rigorous interview process where I started at being like, 'I don't know if I want the job, I'm interested enough to talk.' By the end, I was like, 'I really want the job, are you guys gonna give me the job? Like, how many interviews do I have to take to get the job? But I did. And I did get it. And I went, and I got my education in animation from Bill Damaschke, who was a wonderful teacher, and let me shadow him until I finally understood what was sort of going on. And I ran development at DreamWorks for several years. And then eventually, I got to transition into producing movies for them, which is what I really wanted. And my first producing gig was 'The Croods'.
Michael Wakelam: 14:10
Yeah, I want to I want to rewind a little bit there because you kind of had that path in live action as well, didn't you? You were the studio exec, then went to producing?
Kristine Belson: 14:22
Yeah, I've toggled a bit between. Both in live action and animation. I've sort of toggled a little bit between the two. And it is something I really recommend because it's very educational and useful to have worked on both sides and to understand from a studio's perspective, what they're looking for in a producer and from a producer's point of view to understand what the studio needs, you know, and how to give it to them while hanging on to a clear vision for a movie. So yes, I've been on both sides in live action and animation. And I again, I found it to be super, super informative.
Michael Wakelam: 15:03
Yeah. And then you were, you obviously, I know you were working on 'The Croods' with Chris Sanders, and they were having issues on dragons [How to train Your Dragon]. And then Bonnie had gone over to dragons. And there was a pause, if I'm correct, on 'The Croods', and you went over and helped on dragons for a while as well.
Kristine Belson: 15:26
Well, yeah, and the way- to get specific- we were gearing up on 'The Croods', we were making the movie. And we had just come back from our research trip. And our research trip was to go to Zion because we were trying to get like, what did prehistory feel like? And also the colour pallete and textures of Zion, we knew were going to be very inspirational to the look of the film. So we went with a whole team. And we had just spent five days like doing these 10 hour hikes through these incredible canyons where it was only us and you could almost pretend like we had travelled back in time. It was very rigorous. I was very happy to have survived it and not embarrassed myself. And it was literally our first day back, and I remember, I was walking down the hall with Chris Sanders thinking to myself, "How do I get so lucky? I can't believe how amazing this is. And we're getting started on 'Croods'." And he picks up the phone and it's Jeffrey [Katzenberg]. And Jeffrey says, "I need you to save the dragon movie. I need you to save the dragon movie." Because they'd had a screening, maybe they'd had a series I can't remember, of screenings and they weren't happy with where it was at. They knew there was a great big movie in there. But the movie that they had felt sort of small. So Chris agreed to go. At which point we didn't put 'Croods' all the way on pause, we slowed it way down and left our writer and director Kirk DeMicco, Chris and Kirk were writers. So luckily, we had Kirk there who stayed behind and kept pushing 'The Croods' forward, but we had to slow it down. I went with Chris as did our head of story, Alessandro Carloni, and our editor, Darren Holmes, we all travelled over to Dragon with Chris. And then it was crazy, because we were on a very intense schedule. And we were told that we had to save a lot of what was there. And yet, totally transform it. So you can probably figure out what happened. We didn't save a lot of what was there. We changed so- we changed almost everything.
Michael Wakelam: 17:41
Yeah, I mean, I've heard about the rewrite. And I've heard a little bit about that story. And and that's, you know, anytime you have to redo there's only so much you can save, isn't it?
Kristine Belson: 17:50
Yeah, yeah. And Chris brought Dean [DeBlois] in, which was great. And he had this new career as a screenwriter on live action. He was like, kind of having fun on (unintellible) he was on and not planning to come back to animation. So he was like, well, I'll just come like every week, it was like, could you just stay one more week and then like that turned into you know, it's been this thing that's defined, you know, the last 15 years or whatever it is of his career. Thank God, he stayed. He's, he's quite a talent, and the partnership with him and Chris Sanders is like, a beautiful thing to behold. I also- it should be, should be stated here I worship Chris Sanders. I think he is one of the greatest artists. I love everything he makes.
Michael Wakelam: 18:39
Yeah, he's, yeah, he's a talent.
Kristine Belson: 18:41
He is. So yeah. So we wound up finishing them the first dragon and then I had nothing to do with that franchise after the first one. And then we went back to '[The] Croods', Chris and I and Ollie and Darren, and picked that back up. It was a really wonderful and exciting time being on both of those movies.
Michael Wakelam: 19:02
Yeah. And I think at that point, it was, you know, I think dragons was a slight departure from what DreamWorks had done before and 'The Croods' is I think even further in, you know, some of the way that the character designs were pushed and you know, the skin you know, surfacing and all of that was it was a really interesting departure for DreamWorks.
Kristine Belson: 19:25
Yeah, we were always- it's actually one of the things I love so much about now being at Sony and being partnered with Imageworks because they start over every movie, but at DreamWorks of the pipeline was a little bit more locked in and so on both dragons and croods, we just had to break things we were like, 'This is how you do it? We need to break that now. We're gonna break that break rig. We're going to break that process. Because we-'
Michael Wakelam: 19:52
So you got started with breaking things.
Kristine Belson: 19:53
We did start. It's true. We definitely started breaking things there. By the way, I just remembered something about dragon that I had forgotten I'm sure I forget it on purpose because it was actually awful. The first weekend of Dragons it really underperformed. I was embarrassed to go to work because, you know, you felt really bad for everybody at DreamWorks because, you know, we all sort of were experiencing success and failure together. We used to have a joke there about the food in the cafeteria, because they very kindly gave us all free food that, you know, after a hit, the food would be really good. And then after a flop, like the food in the cafeteria would slide in quality, but more importantly, you know, like, everybody wanted the studio to be successful for a bunch of reasons, including our bonuses. But at the goddammit that first week after we were just devastated. We were like, "We thought we made such a great movie we don't understand." And then of course, it started to pick up and show that it really had legs. And of course, it became a huge hit. But god that first week was just, we were just so so sad. And so sorry. Anyway, um, but then yeah, but then we- and then 'The Croods' also obviously, was a hit and warranted a sequel. And I was working on that, as well as an original movie from the wonderful Jill Culton, which we called Everest at the time, but turned into 'Abominable'. So I was working on both those Croods 2 [The Croods: A New Age] and 'Abominable', and then I was approached by my mentor from my live action career, Amy Pascal. She was at the time, the head of the Sony Motion Picture Group. So not just Columbia, but all the labels. And she asked if I wanted to come run Sony Animation, which was just an incredible offer. So I said yes, so that means that in February of 2015, I took over running Sony's animation division, which was pretty exciting. And I know, you're always supposed to take all credit for everything, but it did make my life quite a bit (unintelligible). Well I don't think it's easier but it certainly made success more achievable. The fact that they were in production on Hotel Transylvania 2. And in early prep on Spider-verse, the first Spider-Verse with Chris and Phil already, and Miles Morales already identified as the hero. And so those were great things to have, you know, coming into that studio.
Michael Wakelam: 22:38
Yeah. So let's talk about you know, I guess that transition, because I'm sure and I know, after talking with Bonnie that they didn't want you to leave at DreamWorks, but a great opportunity. And, obviously, before you arrived at Sony, they had, you know, a strong, there was a foundation, you know, they started with 'Open Season', which was a really fun beginning and 'Surf's Up', which is still one of the most underrated features I think.
Kristine Belson: 23:03
It's such a great movie.
Michael Wakelam: 23:05
It's a great film. It was nominated for an Oscar I think, if I'm remebering...
Kristine Belson: 23:09
It was which was great. The creative society was paying attention yeah.
Michael Wakelam: 23:13
And then 'Cloudy [with a Chance of Meatballs], which was, you know, Phil and Chris, and then Hotel Transylvania. So there was this, you know, this foundation, but it wasn't, I guess it didn't seem like there was a clear vision of what was, you know, to come in the future. So, I guess that gave you a pretty good confidence that there was something that you could build there.
Kristine Belson: 23:35
Yeah, what was odd about it, and to be perfectly honest, I never fully understood sort of why this happened is, they were off to- they were kind of off to the races in a pretty strong way. And you know, right around the time they were making the cloud sequel, we're like, okay, this is an animation studio that's like ready to lift off. But for again, reasons I don't fully understand myself. It- they started to make fewer films and it became kind of moribund and the promising start felt like it was getting squandered a bit. So my directive was to revitalise the studio, and again, thank God there was Hotel Transylvania and Spider-verse already cooking, but, but my directive was to do much more. And, you know, now of course, we're in this cycle of work, things are very IP driven, but at the time, it was like just original movies, original movies, and they we were like, great. And, and we I'm sure we'll talk about series in a minute, but my, you know, creative partners in crime, Mike Moon, among others, who's a great, great animation executive who's just started his own label over at with Chris Meledandri as an offshoot of illumination, and he was like, my best creative partner at the time, and we decided we also want to do series and, you know, do more adult stuff. And like, we don't want to be stuck in this family box. I mean, that was the beginning of us saying like, no rules, we used to joke about it. We'd like- okay, I guess there's some rules. I mean, you have to have some rules, but we're trying to have as few rules as possible. In terms of what we were going to make the rule was, was there someone exciting with an exciting story to tell? And if so, let's do it. You know, we tried one sort of foray into faith- a faith movie, we made a movie called 'The Star'. And, and that formula didn't really work. It was fun to make. I still have funds for that movie. But I think that was an example of trying to approach filmmaking as a formula versus filmmakers coming to us with something they were so passionate about. And that's really been, whatever the format is, that's really been what has largely driven the studio.
Michael Wakelam: 26:10
But I mean, okay, so I want to, I guess it's my experience, in this industry, the egos are pretty much under control. So I don't think I risk inflating yours with this next discussion. But if you think about some of the most pivotal moments in animation history, you can think back to, you know, the advent of popular animation with the Fleischer brothers and Walt Disney and then, and Warner Brothers and the animated feature with Snow White, you know, that was that- a whole beginning, the genesis. And then there wasn't really much innovation for decades, really, until CG with Pixar and DreamWorks, and I kind of put them side by side, because PDI was right there alongside Pixar. And then I guess another inflection point, I'd say would be, you know, the budgets kept on getting bigger and bigger until Chris Meledandri showed everyone how to make a billion dollar movie with, you know, less than 80 million. And then the next major point, and I don't think anyone would argue this was 'Spider-verse' and the ripple effect that that's had through the entire industry. From your- I mean, you mentioned before about it being in the works when you arrived at Sony, but I'm sure all the look and style and everything hadn't evolved yet. And it was a really risky venture. I'm sure at the time, you we're probably thinking that.
Kristine Belson: 27:35
I was.
Michael Wakelam: 27:35
From your perspective, do you see that you've- that Sony has been part of this major point in animation history? Or is there just not been enough distance yet?
Kristine Belson: 27:46
No, I do have the perspective to understand. I think we did, as we were making it, not in the beginning, but once- it came together late, like it was so ambitious, that it was hard to fully understand what we had until pretty late in the process, but once we could really see it, right? Holy shit, this is this is a game changer. And you know, it gives so so much credit to to Chris and Phil as well as Alberto Mielgo who another great talent, that man is so gifted, who was our production designer first and got us started. And then he handed off to Justin Thompson, who's been a hugely influential force at our studio. He did 'Cloudy'. He did the first, the production design for the first 'Spider-verse' he's now directing on the second film, those people and a whole host of other partners at both Sony Animation, but also Imageworks gets so much credit for it. My role was to keep my boss like calm and say like, it's gonna be- I think it's gonna be okay, like, I know, this is really scary, but I think it's gonna work. But I do think that we all understood when it came out, and then when people reacted to it, it was obviously very gratifying both the public and the critical reaction. That's the kind of thing you dream about in our industry. I think the only thing that, I don't know if it surprised me, but I keep thinking that we're going to feel more change faster. I think in the years following the first film, I was like where are all the movies that are radically departing? Now I feel like we're starting to see more. I'm a big fan of, of 'Turning Red' and '[The] Bad Guys]. I think they both had tremendous style and were pushing something new, you know, so I hope we- I just want more, more please.
Michael Wakelam: 30:00
Yeah, me too. I mean, I even the new 'Puss in
Boots[: 30:02
The Last Wish]' was a departure.
Michael Wakelam: 30:05
And you know, and I've seen a, you know, last
Kristine Belson: 30:05
Absolutely. year at Annecy, I saw five seconds of the new '[Teenage Yeah. It's a little interesting to me to note that of the four
Mutant] Ninja Turtles[: 30:11
Mutant Mayhem]' that's going to come out this year. And, and that was a real departure. And, you know, you can see that it's having this effect throughout the industry where previously we were pushing for more and more realism, realism, realism. And now it's like, if you think about artists, artists grow up drawing in their sketchbooks, and their, you know, math books and all kinds of different styles. They're taught different styles throughout school, and then to push them into CG and say, this is what it has to be, was not really, you know, what they want to do, and to have this licence now to go, wow, we can actually, we can do anything, and the public might actually like that. I think that's the real success. movies, we've mentioned that were sort of pushing the envelope, you know, 'Puss in Boots[:The Last Wish]', had Bob Persichetti, who was the first, who was the director of the first Spider-verse. He was on that movie for quite some time. And I know, before handing off to Joel Crawford, very gifted director, who by the way, Joel directed the sequel to The Croods. Joel is a great talent as well. Yeah I spoke to Joel a couple of weeks ago.
Kristine Belson: 31:26
Oh, did you? Was he joined by Januel?
Michael Wakelam: 31:31
Yeah. I spoke to them both. Yeah.
Kristine Belson: 31:32
They're the best. And their partnership is the best Januel used to be working (unintelligible). Anyway, it's great to work. They're hugely talented. But it's interesting to me that Bob was on that movie for a while. And I think he brought some of that look that you're referring to. And then Ninja Turtles, of course, is directed by Jeff Rowe who was Michael Rianda's partner on '[The] Mitchells [vs the Machines]'. So you know, it's like, you make the movie and then you go out, you know, into the world and start, you know, sowing the seeds elsewhere. So yeah.
Michael Wakelam: 32:05
Yeah, it definitely has that effect. Everyone, you know, if there's something new, everyone's going to pull bits of that and into their own spheres.
Kristine Belson: 32:15
I'm so excited for Ninja Turtles. Yeah.
Michael Wakelam: 32:18
Yeah, me too. I mean, I'm not, you know, not a big- I didn't grow up a big fan of Ninja Turtles. But I've seen that test. I'm very excited.
Kristine Belson: 32:24
Yeah, I also didn't grow up as a big fan. I just think it looks like it's gonna be really cool. And Jeff Rowe is a really, I know I keep saying everyone's gifted, but we're talking about the most gifted people right now. Jeff Rowe is another really big talent.
Michael Wakelam: 32:38
Yep. I mean, I've heard you talk about taking risks being good for being good business. And, you know, I agree with that. Has the success of Spider-Verse giving you more licence or appetite for risk moving forward?
Kristine Belson: 32:53
I think so. I mean, or, you know, if I'm being honest, I think appetite would have been pretty big regardless. I mean, Spider-verse obviously has the power of tremendous IP behind it. So you could make the argument that, well, you got to be more bold there, because you had the protection of the mask. And, and of the just tremendous power of that IP. And again, just being able to do the Miles Morales story, it just gives you so many advantages, but we definitely don't feel that way. I mean, we love taking IP and trying to do something fresh with it. We're trying to do that right now the Ghostbusters space that I'm really, really excited about, but also to do truly original movies. No, I think, um, I think the desire to be truly original, and the belief that it is good business and that audiences do not want the same thing, I think that is so clear. You see it time and time again. You know, everyone always says, "Oh, well can't it be more like that?" I'm like, well, but that was bold. Like when that started, you know like we talked about, Chris, and Despicable Me putting aside the fact that he schooled us all in budgets, you know, that movie was really different. Despicable Me was a really different feeling kind of film. And now everyone's like, "Oh, give me an illumination comedy." I'm like, well, right, but remember, when we were all like, what's that weird movie with that weird title? Um, you know, it has to start somewhere. So yes, maybe it gave us a little bit of competence, but I think we would have been aiming for it regardless, honestly.
Michael Wakelam: 34:39
And arguably, you know, that appetite for risk is more pivotal now given I guess, launching a franchise original IP hasn't consistently proven to be possible without theatrical and you need to make big bold statements and, and you don't have streaming I mean, you have streaming partnerships, but you know, you're making films for the for the big screen, so you need to make statements.
Kristine Belson: 35:02
I can't tell you how happy we are and how happy we have consistently been to not be in the streaming business. The relationship we have to streamers is just how we like it. And they're great relationships and partnerships, as you say, but Tom Rothman my boss is pretty savvy guy. And, you know, as everybody was sitting around looking at the streaming thing going, oh god, like, we wish we were in that business, he would say you'll see, no we don't. It's a very challenging business. Let's focus let's do- let's be a smaller studio that is focused on theatrical, this will serve us better, and it really truly has.
Michael Wakelam: 35:43
Yeah. And then you're not driven by Wall Street, you can just keep going.
Kristine Belson: 35:48
Nope, yeah.
Michael Wakelam: 35:50
So from Spider-verse, you then had '[The] Mitchells vs the Machines' and 'Vivo', both of which I really loved. And I've spoken to a few artists from those films and on the podcast. But they really back up this idea you've got there of no particular house style, which is something I think you're quite proud of. But even before you arrived the films were quite different. I guess now you've really pushed that. Diversified the look right out. There's been- I think you've touched on this earlier, but there's been kind of a I guess you're a development studio, because you partner with Imageworks to do all of the production. Does that help you? Do you think that really helps to create this independent approach to style?
Kristine Belson: 36:37
I think knowing that we have Imageworks is very reassuring, because it lets us know, oh, we can- whatever it is, we're going to achieve it. With this, you know, our partners that image works. But the- but where the difference in stock comes from it really comes from the filmmakers. And, you know, I was quoted somewhere recently, and I was like, "Oh god, I hope my colleagues don't like, you know, my peers, the people I adore who run animation studios across town, don't think I'm a jerk for saying it." But I said, you know, we all are going to talk about being filmmaker driven. Every studio had talks about that, they talk about it in live action and animation, but I'm going to suggest that we might mean it a little bit more. And it was maybe a kind of jerky thing to say. But I feel so strongly that we- that the studio is here to serve the artists and their vision, not the other way around, like executive arrogance, and executives deciding how stories should be told or how movies should look is just anathema to me. But why? We're executives, we're not storytellers, we've never made movies, what gives us the- not just the right but the knowledge to make those decisions? The trick of being a good executive or producer is to figure out- is to recognise a great vision, and then figure out how to best support it. And that doesn't mean you don't give feedback. That doesn't mean there aren't notes, but you eventually, whatever the debate and the discussion is you see to the filmmaker and that greater vision. So you know, once we sort of had been established as a visually bold studio, and you're right to point out, the studio always was visually bold, and I didn't make that up, I just leaned into it. And Spider-verse made that easier. Sensing that freedom, people would come to us with their stories and say, I think it could look like this or that and use reference, you know, reference is such a great tool and, and put forth things that we haven't seen before. Our Kpop movie. That's a great- that one's pushing for a new and different style. It's such a cool looking movie, driven by some really talented filmmakers and our production designer who I don't know if I'm allowed to say her name or not. Garth, am I allowed to say her name?
Garth Burkhard: 39:10
Yes.
Kristine Belson: 39:11
Helen Chen. Is- oh that's a good one. That's a really good one. But anyway, that's just a very long winded way of saying it all comes from the filmmakers.
Michael Wakelam: 39:22
Yeah. And that really leads into what I wanted to talk about next, but you've really covered most of it. I mean, because I remember, as do most people in the industry reading 'Creativity, Inc.', you know, and hearing all about the brain trust at Pixar and I've spoken to a bunch of people at DreamWorks and they didn't call it a brain trust at DreamWorks but it was very similar in that everyone, all the executives and filmmakers are all inputing and you know, feeding back into every project. But a brain trust is only as good as the brains in the room. And, you know, so I'm- I was curious about that development process, but you really lean on those filmmakers and those bold visions.
Kristine Belson: 39:59
I think so I mean, look, we have a great assemblage of filmmakers as well, at varying levels of experience. And you know, the younger ones, their opinions are as interesting to us as the more experienced people because, you know, they often represent a younger generation, which is really interesting and relevant. So we have, we will bring either individuals or sometimes we'll do the whole group thing of like bringing everybody in to help us figure out a creative problem or help us plus something, we don't do it nearly to the degree that they do in the in the Disney system. And Pixar system, that is like a built in part of the process in the way that ours is not. We know that they have bigger budgets than us, they, which means really time. I mean, that's really what the money buys is more time. And so we have to move- we have to be more nimble. So we don't have that same level of collaboration. And I think it's partially born out of necessity, but I- but we're not unhappy about it, for the reason that you said, we're not we're not trying to, you know, smooth out too much the filmmaker's, you know, individual vision, and sometimes, you know, that Pixar process and Disney process, you felt it for years, like the movies were perfect, but there was a sameness to them that not- maybe not everyone, I might be overstating that a bit, but a sameness that Pixar has now completely moved away from and they're pushing very hard.
Michael Wakelam: 41:43
They did have a house style you know previously.
Kristine Belson: 41:46
Yeah. And it's not just a look, it's a- it's a storytelling-
Michael Wakelam: 41:51
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, I guess going back to the, the brains in the room. I mean, because it doesn't matter what house style or what kind of style you've got, if you don't have the right story. And you know, I guess this is- this comes from Bonnie Arnold, she said that your superpower is script development.
Kristine Belson: 42:07
Oh that's very kind of her to say.
Michael Wakelam: 42:07
So that's, that's got to come from, you know, yeah, the bold vision of the filmmaker, but you've got to have that taste, I guess, that vision to hire that person to begin with.
Kristine Belson: 42:25
Yeah, you know, what's funny is people don't talk very much about taste in our industry. And I don't know why. I- and taste I don't think you can learn, like the story telling, the script, you know, development skills, those I've learned over the years. Taste is inherent, I believe. And people have different tastes. And it's subjective. So I'm not even sure I can say good taste or bad taste. But, you know, yeah, people have different tastes. I'd like to think that, you know, my taste has helped us.
Michael Wakelam: 43:01
Yeah, well, I mean, I had Aron Warner on the podcast, as well, and he said that you're the best exe that he had ever worked with. And obviously, the artists love you as well. So you've, you've walked both sides of the line. And now you're able to be in this position to understand. It's just, I guess, a director who's come up through, you know, the artistic side and knows how to draw and paint or even sculpt or animate, you know, they can feed back to those artists much better than you know, someone who's just come purely from the writing side.
Kristine Belson: 43:36
Yeah, absolutely. I didn't realise that- I knew this would be fun, but I didn't know I get to hear so many nice compliments from colleagues funneled through you. I just have to say Aron Warner is- he is an incredible producer, god. And talking about knowing story. Right back at you. He is a master of storytelling.
Michael Wakelam: 44:01
Again, he had that kind of nonlinear beginning coming through as a financial producer through the production of live action films.
Kristine Belson: 44:09
That is so funny to me that- we'd have meetings with him and Tom Rothman and would know each other from the old live action days at Fox, that always made me laugh.
Michael Wakelam: 44:18
So two of the big creatives that you deal with regularly are Phil Lord and Chris Miller. And you know, I wanted to just touch on them because they're obviously a major force in the Spider-verse world. Also produced '[The] Mitchells [vs the Machines]' and you know areback for the, the
'[Spider-Man: 44:35
] Across the Spider-Verse'. They have a tonne of creative energy and they just seem like they're always having a blast making these things. Can you talk about working with them
Kristine Belson: 44:44
Absolutely. I would say it is incredibly a little? exciting working with them. And I mean that in every sense of the word. It's- they are unbelievably inspirational. You know, you always think, well, I'm- at this age, I'm not going to learn more now. I've learned- I've learned things from Genndy [Tartakovsky] too, another great filmmaker, who was already at Sony when I got there. But I sure have learned some stuff from Chris and Phil. And the thing that is so remarkable about them is they are relentless in the quest for excellence. And it gets- going back to the word exciting, like one version of exciting is yeah, it's like exciting, like being on the world's scariest roller coaster. Like, you know, I gave them some award, and in the- I don't remember was a year or two ago- and in the speech, I said, you know, you guys have taught me that if I'm not like, scared every day, by the decisions I'm making that I am doing something wrong. Because you should be making bold decisions, you should be actually terrified, with great regularity, or else you are squandering the opportunity that this job has given you. So I think they just taught me and so many people to just push, push, you're never done. There's always better. There's always something bolder. Who says we can't do this? You know, every time I say to them, and I know what's going to happen, "Guys, we can't do this because blah, blah, blah." They always got the best rebuttal. And at the end, I'm like, you're right. They win every argument, by the way, because they are smarter.
Michael Wakelam: 46:27
Yeah, I mean, I remember seeing a Twitter thread that Mike Rianda posted of the top 10 things that he'd learned from them.
Kristine Belson: 46:36
Oh yes.
Michael Wakelam: 46:37
Did you see that?
Kristine Belson: 46:38
Oh, yeah, I don't remember it. But I completely. I don't remember the specifics, but I completely remember when he posted it.
Michael Wakelam: 46:43
Yeah. And you know, it's fascinating because you know, the attention to detail in plussing, the movie just, you know, just minuscule bits at a time, you know, it just is so fun to see that attention to detail. But, you know, it also includes things like, 'oh, don't worry about budgets focus on making the best movie possible.' And-
Kristine Belson: 47:05
-I loved that when I could hear that they were telling Mike not to worry about the budget.
Michael Wakelam: 47:10
I mean, how does that play out in real life, though?
Kristine Belson: 47:16
Oh, god, I mean, how it plays out in real life is they will keep pushing on the box, you know, and it is my job sometimes, and it's not my favourite part of my job, to remind them that there is a box. And there are financial realities. And it is a business. I mean, we're not, it's not, you know, it's called the movie business for a reason. And we have to be, you know, we have to be fiscally responsible. Because Tom Rothman has a quote, I'm gonna get it wrong, but he always talks about, like, you know, if you- if you're fiscally, the more fiscally responsible you are, the more you can be sort of creatively, wild and bold. And I think that's a true statement. So, you know, I think that's probably the place where we've had the most back and forth on the creative fronts, we tend to sync up pretty easily. And then when we're talking about the realities of budgets and stuff, that's probably where we've had to dance the most, you know, but it all worked out. It all works out.
Michael Wakelam: 48:23
It works out in the end. Yep. So we're due to
see '[Spider-Man: 48:25
] Across the Spider-verse' in just a few months, and the trailer dropped a month ago. How excited are you for this one? Did it did it feel less risky?
Kristine Belson: 48:35
Well, it feels less risky, because one of the hard things with the first one was, as much love as we got, there were still a lot of people, especially when you think not just domestically but the global audience who kind of didn't quite understand what it was. Now, people for the most part, know what it is and they understand that it's not a traditional family film that it's really much more of a PG 13, even if, technically, the rating is PG, PG 13 vibe truly is for everyone for people who wouldn't normally go see an animated movie. So I think the- not just the fondness but honestly just the familiarity with it. I think it's going to be helpful this time around. But of course, you know, the filmmakers Chris and Phil and the whole team, our three directors, were determined to not do the same thing again. So there's there's a lot in this movie that wasn't in the first movie. And dare I say, I'm knocking on wood, I think it's- I think it's better than the first movie, and that is- that is saying something because that first movie is damn near perfect.
Michael Wakelam: 49:49
Yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, I was at the Annecy sneak peak last year. And you know, I was kind of of the opinion of wow, the first one was amazing and how can I really push it that much further? You know. There's only so much you can do. But just to see how far the styles, and I have to say styles plural, have been pushed, because you know, but really, it all still just comes back to story. And this one looks like it has a tonne of emotional depth as well.
Kristine Belson: 50:17
Thank you for saying that because I was gonna say, you know, the easiest thing to talk about is the different looks, and now we go to the different worlds and you're- I think when Phil got on stage at cinema con he talked about 200 hundred Spidermen. It's big. Yes, but the real reason I'm saying I think it might be even better is the emotional storytelling and I was so thrilled, as were we all, with our- the trailer we dropped because it's built, as you know, around this super heartfelt speech or talk that you know, Miles' mom Rio is having with him, and I can barely talk about it without crying. Those those words she's saying to him. It's comes from such an emotional place and there's a really, you know, we get to get into the Miles/Gwen relationship in a way that there just wasn't time to do in the first movie, and I find Miles and his parents, and Miles and Gwen, those stories, those character stories, those relationship stories are what makes this sequel actually be great.
Michael Wakelam: 51:24
Yeah, yeah. And I think I just want to talk about, I guess, the making of it. There was a little surprise, I guess, on the first one that there were three directors. But then you look at the film, and you're like, well, of course there had to be three directors.
Kristine Belson: 51:37
Oh my god, I wish we had like 14.
Michael Wakelam: 51:38
Yeah. But I mean, I guess finding three directors that work really well together is, you know, is not the easiest thing to do. But was it a given that you'd have three directors again, the first time? Because I guess, is it a slightly different role with Lord and Miller writing and being hands on producers?
Kristine Belson: 51:56
It is I mean, those guys are genuinely they are way more hands on than producers standardly are. Not just in terms of oversight, but actually getting in there and helping make things. They are massive, collaborative efforts. And so we assumed that Chris and Phil would, you know, have a similar role, and that we would need to build a similarly strong team around them. We didn't have a number in mind, we didn't the first time, either. We were like, oh my god, this person can do this. You know, Justin [K. Thompson] was a no brainer. He's been part of so many of the best things that have happened at Sony. And he's clearly a storyteller. I mean, from when I first met him, like my first week at the studio, it's like, oh, he's not just a brilliant visual artist, he is a true storyteller. Joaquim [Dos Santos], you know, another really brilliant storyteller, and just taking the action and the physicality and when you see you know, Miguel O'Hara in the movie, I give Joaquim a lot of credit for that. Like, you know, we knew we needed that. And then the opportunity to work with Kemp Powers presented itself and we're like, oh my god, really? We could work with Kemp? Like, wouldn't the movie be better if Kemp was working on it? And maybe the only way in which we think about numbers is that at that point we were like, okay three is enough. You know when you also have Chris and Phil and all these other talented creative leads, so- but it was never really by design or predetermined it was just, oh this person, we must have this person, oh my god we've got to have that person. Bill always says, "There's room in the boat. We got room in the boat, we can get another person."
Michael Wakelam: 53:49
And well, so you've got- we've run out of time here. But you've got so much I guess coming up with the Elvis series as well. You've got 'Young Love' based on the 'Hair Love' short, that series coming up. Really a lot to look forward to coming out of Sony.
Kristine Belson: 54:09
We do. I feel it feels odd at this moment, of course to talk about Elvis, we we're going to actually drop something this week and we're going to hold and I think we're all still reeling a little bit from the news about Lisa Marie. You know Priscilla brought us 'Agent Elvis' and has been a real, real great partner. And so we're really- our hearts are hurting for her right now. But we will get back into the promotion of the show and soon- and we are very excited for people to see it. It's also quite stylish. You know, we were trying to push a lot of things with that show. And it's our first R rated series so we're you know, and we're making our first R rated movie right now with Genndy [Tartakovsky] directing this, which he's wanted to make for some time.
Michael Wakelam: 55:01
Sounds hilarious.
Kristine Belson: 55:02
Yeah, it's really you know, it's something we wanted to be doing the minute I got to the studio and now finally, it's come to fruition, R rated series, R rated movie and we hope to make many more of those.
Michael Wakelam: 55:18
Well, I know that I, along with the rest of the animation community can't wait to see 'Spider-Verse' come June and everything else that is coming along. So Kristine, thanks so much for your time today.
Kristine Belson: 55:28
Thank you this time went really, really quickly. It was such a pleasure to talk to you and, and you've very cool podcast. So thanks from all of us.
Michael Wakelam: 55:42
Thanks so much for joining me today. Please tune in over the coming weeks for conversations with Julie Kane-Ritsch, head of animation at Gotham group, Jean Thorin from Animation Magazine and our Kidscreen episode, which we're recording in Miami over the course of the conference. If you'd like to get in touch or to shoot us any feedback, then please email podcast@thecreatorssociety.org. You can find me on the socials as Mike Wakelam. As mentioned in the top please subscribe, like or share the podcast if you're enjoying it. Thanks to Rich Dickerson for the music Mike Rocha for the mix and our exec producer Eric Miller. Thanks again. See you next time.
