CHRIS BUCK has been a major creative force in the world of animation for over two decades.
He most recently worked on Walt Disney Pictures' 2004 feature Home on the Range, where he was a supervising animator. Before that, Buck made his feature directing debut with Disney's blockbuster animated feature, Tarzan.
Buck's other credits at Disney include the 1995 animated feature Pocahontas, where he oversaw the animation of the three central characters:  Percy, Grandmother Willow and Wiggins.  Buck also helped design characters for the 1989 animated blockbuster The Little Mermaid, performed experimental animation for The Rescuers Down Under and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and was an animator on The Fox and the Hound.
His other accomplishments include a stint at Hyperion Pictures, where Buck helped develop several films and served as a directing animator on the feature Bebe's Kids.  He also joined creative forces with director Tim Burton to help storyboard Disney's live-action featurette Frankenweenie.  Buck later worked with Burton again as directing animator on the Brad Bird-directed "Family Dog" episode of Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" and as director of the subsequent primetime animated series.
Additionally, Buck's career spans a number of animated commercials (including some with the Keebler elves) for such Los Angeles-based production entities as Film Fair, Kurtz & Friends, and Duck Soup.
A native of Wichita, Kansas, Buck studied character animation for two years at CalArts, where he also taught character animation classes from 1988-1993.

With Surf's Up, directors Ash Brannon (co-director of Toy Story 2) and Chris Buck (director of Tarzan) quickly realized the genius in the idea: relying on the conventions and style of reality television and documentary filmmaking, Surf's Up would have an immediacy and relevance that set it apart from the pack.  Using that technique, the directors brought into focus the characters, story, and art direction - the heart of the film.

Daniel Dercksen spoke to Chris Buck.

You made your directing debut with Tarzan, now you're directing surfing penguins?
Well, actually in Tarzan we did tree surfing there so it's a natural progression into surfing penguins I guess, but this time we are actually out in the water, so it's fun.

How do you feel working as part of a team co-writing and co-directing Surf's Up?
I think it's great. I love bouncing ideas off the other director. We get a lot of notes from a lot of different areas and sometimes you can lose track of what the movie really is about. It's always nice to have another director there to sort of keep you online sometimes when you think 'well maybe we should try this or that', but we're always there for each other to make the best movie we can.

What attracted you to animated films initially?
As a kid I was always an animation nut. I loved drawings and I loved cartoons. The very first animated feature I saw was Pinocchio. I saw it on re-release back in the early 60s and I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the art form and the characters.

What excites you about the world of animation?
It is still growing with computers, with what they can do. The look of these movies can be so varied now, all the way from 2-D, which hopefully we will be doing more of those films, to the very real, dimensional world of the computer, and I am excited by that, but there are still many areas to explore when it comes to that.

I was fascinated by the documentary style of Surf's Up?
The initial idea from the beginning was to do a documentary, at least when I came on to it; it had gone through some development before I had even been approached to direct. When I came on the documentary was certain an angle they wanted to try. That excited me; I said that it was something a little bit different. I love documentaries and I love a lot of the reality TV. I like how you get to see what the characters are thinking and doing, as opposed to just a regular animated movie where you don't get to in from these interviews. What we tried to do with the animation when the interviews were happening was that the characters are saying one thing, but their eyes are saying something else. They are not exactly telling you the truth always to the camera because they are hiding something  -  a lot of times that is what's happening in documentaries.  I thought that was fascinating, I thought especially for animation to tackle that was a fun thing. 

Who is your favourite character in Surf's Up?
I think my favourite character is Chicken Joe. It wasn't necessarily just because he is funny which I love; I think he is a very funny character.  I love Joe's attitude towards life for competition. Joe became sort of the whole, really the mantra of the movie, and that was you know that it's not about winning, really it's about enjoying life, it's about enjoying the moment. Having fun where you are and really enjoying every moment of the day. That's I think that Joe is a funny guy, but really love what he is all about.

Why do you think animation films have become so popular?
I think animation takes people to a different world. It's an escape. It's a fantasy. We have a happy ending. Films today are not always that optimistic and hopeful. Animation films make people feel a little bit better.

Are you experienced in surfing?
We actually got out and learned how to surf but still learning. I'm not out there as much as I would like to be. We did some training for the movie. We really learnt more how to wipe out than surf.

How would you rate your surfing skills?
(laughs) I'm probably more like Arnold, the little penguin that keeps wiping out.

What do you hope audiences will get from watching Surf's Up?
There are a couple of things. One is that people take away what it's like to be out on the water, the whole surfing vibe, the whole thing about being one with the ocean, and one with the earth. And then also what Chicken Joe embodies and what our main character Cody learns, in that it is not about the winning, that life is not all about winning, it's the journey along the way and to start enjoying the moment.

Surf's Up also deals with identity and belonging to a family?
Yes, there is that too. Cody finally gets the family that he's always wanted, with Big Z, the surfing community and Lani and Joe.

What is your most memorable moment during the making of Surf's Up?
There are so many. One of them would be working with the voice actors, Shia LaBeouf and Jeff Bridges, when we had them in together with Zooey Deschanel, I think the magic moment of the three of them working together and trying to get a really spontaneous feeling for the acting to the scene, so it felt like in the movie that it was happening right in front of you.  That was some of the most wonderful things for me, having done many animated movies; it was not quite like this. I also got to work with my 10-year-old son (the voice of Arnold), so that was really fun. We did a lot of improvisation with him.

Do you think your son is a young animator in the making?
(laughs) He might be. All three of my boys probably want to get into videogames more than actually making animated films; game designers is probably what they want to do.

Do you have any advice for aspirant animators and animation filmmakers?
Stick to your passion, stick to your love of filmmaking and animation. Sometimes the road can be kind of bumby in a career or even just getting into the industry. But if you follow that love and you really want to tell a story, you really want to create some memorable characters, I think that will pull you through. Keep going.

Any final comments that you would like to share about Surf's Up?
We had a tough time when we came out. It was the, what we called the 'penguin fatigue'; there were a couple of other penguin movies before us. We were all being done about the same time, not really aware of who was doing what. Anyway, I hope people give us a shot. We're not just another penguin movie, there's a really fun message and a lot of great characters. It will most certainly take people on a ride, particularly those who have never gone into the water will enjoy the surfing vicariously. 

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Copyright © 2007 Daniel Dercksen/ The Writing Studio