More than 30 years ago, John Hoffman was attending Henry Wise Wood High School in Calgary and decided to take an animation class at Quickdraw Animation Society.
He had no idea that in 2024 he’d been living near the headquarters of Pixar Animation Studios and working “in” the headquarters of Riley, the teenager in Inside Out 2.
The movie centres around the teen who is suddenly overcome by a chaotic cast of new emotions led by Anxiety.
Pixar’s summer season blockbuster sequel has crossed a major box office milestone, topping $1.5 billion to become the biggest animated movie of all time.
“It’s pretty crazy,” said Hoffman, who was a storyboard artist on the film Cars 3.
“It’s really satisfying to see all this hard work and years of work that we put into it is really connecting with audiences. I’ve never experienced a response like this before so it’s pretty amazing and kind of mind-boggling. It’s a cool opportunity to talk about what’s going on inside of all of us, but in the form of very fun, colourful and exciting characters.”
Hoffman’s career has gone from animator to story supervisor, now leading a team of animators and working with the director and screenwriters to develop the plot and characters.
He said this is the hardest movie he’s ever worked on, noting the stories are complicated and the team needed to tackle Anxiety in an entertaining, accurate and responsible way.
“Even though Anxiety is the antagonist of the movie she’s not against Riley. All of the emotions in Riley’s head are there to help Riley. The only problem is Anxiety tends to go about helping Riley in the wrong way and pushes it too far,” Hoffman said.
He said it wasn’t until they cast Maya Hawke as Anxiety that the team found the last piece of the puzzle.
“What she brought to her performance was empathy. She didn’t change the dialogue, it was the way she vocalized the performance. She brought so much empathy to this character,” Hoffman said.
The former Calgarian credits hard work and determination for his success.
“A lot of my fellow students were getting hired at studios during the summer and I wasn’t able to get a job so I kind of locked myself in my room and worked on my skills and practiced animating and things finally started to click in my final year,” Hoffman said.
The artistic director of Quickdraw Animation Society says it’s not surprising to see people who join the non-profit artist club launch successful careers.
“What Quickdraw does is support people to make their art and we truly believe in everyone’s art that comes through here, whether it’s the smallest animation that they just want to show their family or something they are really passionate about, want to show it to the world,” said Ryan von Hagen, artistic director.
“It’s pretty amazing with just a little bit of resources and a little bit of equipment and support how that can grow and flourish a person’s career.”
Quickdraw Animation Society is a member-driven charity that has industry-standard animation equipment and studio space. The non-profit does screenings and hosts an animation festival that showcases films from around the world and ones that are made locally.
Instructors there teach animation to adults and youth from beginner to professional.