Don Hahn

... you tend to categorize animation as a genre as opposed to a technique.

I think animation at its heart, all good animation, is allegory for us as human beings.

The best thing about Le Roi Lion (1994) is that together we made something that not one of us could have made on our own and that is a very magical thing. Show less «

[on the standing ovation that an unfinished La Belle et la Bête (1991) received at the Sundance Film Festival] I felt like a cross between the pope and 'Eva Peron'. It was incredible. Show less «

I remember when we were almost finished with Le Roi Lion (1994) and we brought Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas down to watch it. These were two guys who taught all of us and they liked it but they had that, you know, air of "I have a few notes". Show less «

My sense of operating and working with a team of people is, you know, let's team up, let's talk about it, let's react and kinda coach and cheer-lead and psychotherapy everybody into the right room. Then it would inevitably blow up and people would run screaming with their hair on fire from the room and I think that balance of comfort and teamwork and mutual support along with terror and infighting and screaming is what makes great art. Not just in an animation studio but historically, whether you're an architect building buildings or whether you're a painter painting a ceiling. All those things go into making great art. Show less «

[When asked what Walt Disney would think of La belle au bois dormant éveillée (2009)] He wouldn't like that it goes into so much detail about things behind the scenes because he wanted the audience's perception about the studio to be this kind of fantasy. At it's heart though it's a story about people and Walt would have loved that. Show less «