Episode 5: Colin Jack

Who were we before we became who we are?

This next episode is very special for me because I sit down to chat with someone who I’ve known most my life. Colin and I were in the same 1st grade class many years ago back in Vancouver B.C. where we grew up. We’ve known each other 35 out of the 41 years we’ve been alive. To have grown up with someone so closely and shared all of our youthful blunders and hilarious high points is rare.

I was taken aback in this discussion because I’ve known Colin so long and seen him through many life milestones, yet in some ways, didn’t really know him at all.

I could see all the most obvious things about his success, yet didn’t have the insight or appreciation for what got him there.

It demonstrated to me how we often take for granted what is familiar, when there is so much nuance and depth to be found in what we think we know. Sometimes it’s not so important to learn new things, as much as it’s important to learn something new about what we already know.

This conversation comes with a lot of love. I couldn’t be prouder of my dear friend for the level of achievement he’s reached in his field. But what I think I’m happier and more fulfilled knowing is where he came from, how hard he silently worked, and the courage and tenacity he had to embody to get where he is today.

Please enjoy this endearing episode:

Full Transcript:

Emily Kwok:
Hey there, this is The Master and the Apprentice with Emily Kwok, where we explore the path from apprenticeship to mastery. Today, I am super excited to introduce my guest, who's actually been a long time friend, maybe my oldest friend, because I've known him since I was six years old. And I won't reveal how old we are now, but my friend, Colin Jack and I have been through a lot together. And we've also gone our own paths. And I'm very pleased to introduce someone who is not only a wonderful presence in my life, but is also an incredibly accomplished artist.

Emily Kwok:
He is, today, head of story at Dreamworks, but he has previously been a story artist for productions such as The Croods 2, Boss Baby 2, Puss in Boots 2, Captain Underpants, Hotel Transylvania, and The Book of Life. He's also previously been the illustrator of a number of different children's books. Most notably, the Galaxy Jack series, If You Happen to Have a Dinosaur, and Toads on Toast, which I recommend, and it's quite tasty if you follow the recipe inside the book. He also happens to be an incredibly funny guy. So, welcome Colin.

Colin Jack:
Sometimes. Well thank you very much. I mean, now I just have to be funny.

Emily Kwok:
I'm sure that won't be very hard.

Colin Jack:
You weren't going to give the number, because I was all prepared. I did the math in my head, how long we've known each other.

Emily Kwok:
Did you?

Colin Jack:
I did. And then I think I was like, I got it wrong. I think it was 32 years. Roughly, right?

Emily Kwok:
Well Colin, how old are we now?

Colin Jack:
40 plus.

Emily Kwok:
We're 40.

Colin Jack:
Are we doing vaguery? Yeah, [inaudible 00:02:21]. Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
Minus six.

Colin Jack:
All right. 34 years. I was being generous. Wasn't giving specific numbers. I was just like, it's been a while.

Emily Kwok:
It's been a while. [crosstalk 00:02:38] We've known each other longer than most people have known each other or have been alive. That's kind of impressive.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. And here we are.

Emily Kwok:
And here we are, talking about what you've done with yourself in that time.

Colin Jack:
Not a lot. Just drawing. But, some stuff.

Emily Kwok:
Some stuff, some stuff. So actually, let's dig in there with that stuff. Because what I will bring up is, so at six years old, we were in grade one together. I'm not sure that I necessarily had the interest or awareness to ask you at six years old, what you wanted to do with the rest of your life. But I will say that when we met again in high school, we took many an art class together. We sat at the table outside of the art rooms and we fantasized about what we were going to do. And as long as I can remember, maybe more so than any friend that we had, except for maybe Thomas Schneider, you always seemed to know what you wanted to do. And so even in those early art classes where you were doodling, you knew that you wanted to be an animator one day.

Emily Kwok:
And I won't say the name of the studio that you dreamt about working for, but I will say that you were very specific about where you wanted to go in your life, and we were just high school students then. So I'm curious to know what made you so certain at that young an age, because we're talking like 12, 13 years old, all the way up through high school and into college. What made you so certain at that age that this is what you wanted to do with your life? And how did you know that this was the path? How did you stay on the path? What motivated you?

Colin Jack:
Well first, thank you for having me. In answer to, just sort of to go back, in grade one I wanted to actually, animation was my backup. I wanted to actually be an archeologist like Indiana Jones. But then I found out you didn't get to fly around the world and punch Nazis in the face. So once I figured that out, yeah, I was like, all right, I guess I want to make cartoons.

Colin Jack:
So, I think it was a combination of things and it was one, and Emily can attest to this, that I wasn't very good at much else. I know it sounds terrible, but I watched a lot of TV when I was growing up. As a lot of our us in our generation did, where the TV to the babysitter sometimes. And I really liked cartoons. And then I think the Simpsons came on and that was around when I was nine or 10, this is back in the day. And I started drawing Bart Simpson. That was, I think, one of the first things I drew as a cartoon. And then I realized I could draw Bart pretty well for a nine year old. And I started drawing my own characters. And my parents who are very sarcastic, acerbic people said, that's really good. And that sort of positive feedback, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm good at something?

Colin Jack:
And I just kept going. It sounds sad, but I was just like, oh, okay. So I'm okay at this. So I kept going. And then I started thinking of my own stories and I grew up reading a lot of old, fairy tales. So I started implementing that and then I just sort of kept going and then getting into high school. And it was weird to me that people didn't know what they wanted to do. I remember there being, on occasion, there'd be a news piece about how cartoons were made. And there was an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures that very much in detail described the process of animation and that you didn't have to be an animator, per se. There were other are specialty jobs in that whole industry.

Colin Jack:
And once I found that out, I was like, oh, okay, well, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. I don't know about anybody else, but this is what I want to do. And I drew everything from when, I don't know if this elementary school or middle school, if you're in America, and then all the way through high school, I was just like, I'm going to make cartoons. And I'm going to be involved with places that make cartoons. So that was it for me, I guess. It was just something about also, even in high school, it was the positive sort of encouragement I got from people around me saying, oh, you're pretty good at this. You should do more of that. Or maybe you should keep going. And then I went to college and that was just a wake up call of like, oh, shit, I'm not as good as I thought it was. I'm going to have to work even harder.

Emily Kwok:
Well, let's actually, that's a really good segue to talk about college because we both went to art school. Right? But we kind of approached it differently and had slightly different paths. So you, much like I, went into a foundational arts program before you specialized in animation. When you're in a phase where you don't know what you don't know, and you just know that you like being creative, what did that foundational arts program teach you, if anything? Was it of value to you? Or did you feel like this was kind of fluff and in the way of what you really wanted to do?

Colin Jack:
Well, it was a holding pattern because there was an animation program in Vancouver that I wanted to go to, but it only accepted 25 students a year. And usually the applications were about 250. So you had to submit a portfolio, do a drawing test-

Emily Kwok:
What's the math there, Colin? What's the math there, 25 out of-

Colin Jack:
10%. I'm going to say 10%. Am I right? 10%, right? We'll find out. I'm not going to pull up my calculator now. But, yeah, it was competitive and I didn't get in the first time. And that was actually, as we keep going, we'll hear about multiple roadblocks. And so rather than get a job or anything like that, I sort of said, well, I'll take fine arts and just sort of hold here until I retake the test and try to get back into this animation program at Capilano. So went to Langara College of Fine Arts or Langara College fine arts school program, and yeah, it was, the way I looked at it when I was going through, it was like, this is kind of fluff. And I don't need to know how I'm feeling when I'm painting this apple. I don't really want to do expressionistic sculptures. I don't need to know how to silk screen. All that stuff up actually became super valuable as I got older, just knowing, just having a foundational arts program in my back pocket.

Colin Jack:
And as I got further on in my career and was able to talk about color and volume and stuff like that, stuff they don't necessarily teach you in animation, and know about artists that you don't necessarily know about animation, that is all very helpful. But as a punk 19, 20 year old, you just don't fucking care. You just want to do the thing. You just want to do the thing that you want to do. And when you don't do it, you're just kind of, you're indignant about it. But I did that for a year and a half and I was working at a place called Zellers, Emily knows that I was working at Zellers.

Emily Kwok:
I was just thinking, Zellers. Why do I know this? Because I drove you to and from work sometimes.

Colin Jack:
Exactly. But I would work at Zellers, and then I would go to art school and I think this came to a point where they were accepting new applicants for this program. I wasn't doing anything great in art school, except kind of falling asleep in art history classes and being late on assignments. So I dropped out of Langara, and I just took the semester and I really worked on my animation portfolio to get into this program. And took a night school course at Capilano just to get even more experience.

Colin Jack:
And then I did all that and I applied and I got in, but it was just sort of like, and this has happened a lot where you just kind of have to let go of your safety net and do the thing that you want to do and stop worrying about, oh, what if I don't quite get it? It was like, well, then you don't quite get it, but maybe next time. So, yeah. And that was it. And I got into the course and I spent two years being kind of a middle to low animation student at Capilano.

Emily Kwok:
The very underwhelming education of Colin Jack.

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
Maybe that's what we should title this. The extraordinary... So was there ever a period during that time, because you've expressed that it wasn't necessarily the smoothest ride even going from high school to college to learn the things that you wanted to learn.

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
And I'm very much someone who when sort of, I call it when the universe starts throwing obstacles in front of me and what I want to do, sometimes I take that as a signal that I might be doing the wrong thing. So during this time in your life, was it difficult for you to stay the course? Did you ever doubt yourself? Did you ever think that maybe you were doing the wrong thing and you should be doing something else?

Colin Jack:
No. Okay. But that sounds really smart. What you think. I blindly said that I was like, I am doing this. And I'm like, well I'm 20, so it's too late to start anything new now. But I mean, the truth is, and the older I get I'm like, this is what I was meant to do. I just think that it... But the truth of the matter was that even though I liked drawing and I liked animation, it didn't come naturally to me. And it was something I had to really work at. Drawing appealingly and being able to communicate with drawings is something that I genuinely had to work at. And I kept working at it long after college. But it was, people are naturally gifted with these skills and I, to be totally frank, I wasn't. I just wasn't. But it wasn't going to stop me, for some reason. I just was like, I'm going to just keep going because I'm not doing too badly. And I had a very specific goal in mind of what I wanted to do.

Colin Jack:
So yeah. I don't know if I was smart enough to take those signs and take those measures because I was like, well, I'll just try again. I failed again, I'll just try again. I'll just keep going. And because now I'm 21 and I'm just too far gone. It's too late to change careers at this point.

Emily Kwok:
You're so old. There's nowhere else for you to go.

Colin Jack:
Exactly.

Emily Kwok:
Oh my gosh. It's funny for me to hear you say that you didn't think that you were talented or that it didn't come easily to you because I think on the other side of things, many people thought that, oh, Colin's really gifted in illustration. This is something that he should definitely pursue. What was it that made you feel that you, per se, weren't that gifted? I mean, that's not to say that being gifted is everything, it's just questioning what gave you that sense that you weren't that talented or that you didn't necessarily have the chops on your own to do it?

Colin Jack:
Yeah, honestly, it was being in a, especially in college and college was the people around me were all very talented. And I worked with, four or five of my college friends were exceptional, just out of the gate exceptional. And you never questioned their ability to finish their assignments on time, or knock it out of the park, and also get the heaps of praise that I so desperately craved, especially early on in my career from your peers. The peers were always like, oh my gosh, Kenny's amazing, Jocelyn's amazing, Tony's amazing, Sarah's amazing. All these people were just heaping, and I didn't get that. So I was just like, oh, maybe I'm not as good as these guys. And you know, and the truth was, not really. That wasn't to say that wasn't going to be good someday, but in college it was a sort of like, it was definitely, I joked about it, but it was true. I was middle to low in terms of the talent scale with these very talented people.

Emily Kwok:
Interesting. But you kept on with that steady belief that you should keep trying.

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
And so after, it's funny, because when I was listening to you list off the names of people that you went to school with, I distinctly remember you talking about those people when we were that age. And actually one of our mutual contacts at that time, Tony, left the art school that I was at, which I guess Emily Carr is considered to be much more of a fine arts institution, as opposed to the specialized program that you were in. And yeah, he was an incredibly talented guy for sure.

Colin Jack:
And still is.

Emily Kwok:
Yeah.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. It wasn't debilitating, by any means, it was just sort of a benchmark of, I want to be like them. I want to be as respected as them. So it was just sort of something to strive for. Again, this is a two year program. So now I'm 23. It's like, it's too late to change careers at this point. So I got to keep going.

Emily Kwok:
Oh man, I love it. And I love that you're a father now. I can't wait.

Colin Jack:
Oh, well that's... My wife, Michelle, has just been, Gabriel's 14 now, my oldest, and I'm like, so have you thought about what you want to do with the rest of your life? Michelle's like, oh my God, leave them alone. Not everybody is as fortune as you.

Emily Kwok:
Oh my goodness. So if I remember correctly after you finished college and I'm going to give some background context too, hopefully this won't make you blush too much, but Colin growing up through high school and in college, I would say that you were not necessarily the most outgoing, you weren't necessarily outgoing on a social level to just go experiment and try things on your own. And you stayed pretty close to things that you were familiar with, right? Whether that be your group of friends or your family or the places that you frequented. I mean our regular routine from the age of 16 to, I don't know, the time that I left Vancouver, was pick you up from, Zellers, go to the movies, go to the Bread Garden, get coffee at like two in the morning, then drive you back home and repeat.

Colin Jack:
Yes. A great routine.

Emily Kwok:
It was a good routine. We gave some businesses a lot of money and we saw some movies many, many times together. But, you finished college. And if I recall correctly, there came a moment where you moved, right? You took opportunities in different parts of the country. Toronto, I believe you were in, was it PEI or Halifax-

Colin Jack:
Prince Edward Island.

Emily Kwok:
Prince Edward Island. Yeah. So, you were such a homely boy. And I think that all of us were kind of like, Colin can't move away. Who's going to look after him?

Colin Jack:
That's a question I ask for myself now. So actually in between that time, I graduated 2002. And at that point, 9/11 happened and Canada, and the animation industry in Canada is vendor studio, are vendor studios. So which means we don't generate any business for ourselves. We rely on American entertainment companies to give us content to produce. So there was a period in which no studio was hiring anybody. So I worked at, at Zellers, the dreaded Zellers, for almost, I'm going to say a solid year before I was able to land a gig. And in that time, and you mentioned routine, the routine was go to Zellers from seven to three and stock boxes and try not to get fired because, and Emily knows this, I was a terrible employee.

Emily Kwok:
Let's just paint a picture of what Zellers is, guys. What is Zellers, Colin? Or what was Zellers?

Colin Jack:
I mean, the American equivalent to a... Target's just fancy. I want to say a Walmart or like a [crosstalk 00:21:32]

Emily Kwok:
Sorry, the Canadian equivalent. [crosstalk 00:21:36] The Canadian equivalent to, I would actually say, maybe, I don't know if they're even still in business, like Kmart. Did you go to Kmart?

Colin Jack:
Yes. Yeah, like a Kmart.

Emily Kwok:
Yeah, because Walmart is a little bit too, sorry, not, yeah, Walmart is way too big. Kmart was about the size. And Target is fancy. You're not even saying it the right way, Colin.

Colin Jack:
It's very chichi.

Emily Kwok:
Yeah. It's chichi amongst those types of big box stores. So Zellers, impression wise, I would also say a lot of people would not have considered it the cool place to shop. Right?

Colin Jack:
Not at all.

Emily Kwok:
But for Colin, I mean, you worked there for a long time.

Colin Jack:
I worked there a long time. Like a solid year after college. And I mean the most humbling thing about it was having people that I graduated with come and get like... You laugh, but it was just like, oh, what are you doing now? Oh, I got a gig at Atomic. And you're like, Awesome.

Emily Kwok:
Colin. We have to make a movie about this one.

Colin Jack:
I'm so happy for you. And looking back on it was, but the truth is, I just wasn't ready. And I needed that time to actually process what I learned in college and make a portfolio that could actually get me a gig. So it was like, yeah, the routine was seven to three work, and then go home, sometimes Emily would drop me off after he watched a movie, and I would go and work on my portfolio. And that was the routine.

Colin Jack:
And then I think I must have sent out, two or three different kinds of portfolios in terms of content in that year, just trying to land that first gig. And I did. I landed that gig and it was the first time I've actually been employed in animation and got paid. But the work was never steady. And I think in one of those gigs, I wasn't fitting the bill. So you have enough experiences as the firee, sometimes, where it's just, you're not actually a good fit, we're going to have to ask you to move on. And being the entitled 20 something year old, that I was, so like a two weeks notice kind of thing, or? No, no. If you could pack up your stuff and leave by the end of the day. That would be great.

Emily Kwok:
I'm just imagining, because I've known you for so long. I can just imagine the face, the facial expression.

Colin Jack:
I'm just like, wait, what? I don't understand. But all that was incredibly humbling, but then the reason why I was just like, maybe I should look for work elsewhere is because it's big country and there's animation across most of Canada. And I just thought maybe this is too big of a pond for me. Also, my dad had a very frank conversation of, hey, it was never a aspiration of mine to live with another man. So you're going to have to find a job like now. So with all that, I applied to a job in Prince Edward Island and yeah, I got it. And I moved out. And you called me the day I was supposed to fly out. Right? Do you remember that?

Emily Kwok:
Please refresh my memory. I don't remember. I just remember being worried for you. And I remember amongst our friends, we were like, who's going to go save Colin? What's going to happen to him? He can't be out there by himself.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. Because, I mean, I'll talk about even what I packed to go live on a east coast, in the east coast province in the dead of winter. But yeah, you called and you were just, I think you were busy and I was busy, or maybe we got into a fight, I don't know. It was a years ago, but you called and you're like, hey, so you're moving to Prince Edward Island. Yeah. Okay. Well, I was like, please keep in to... Yeah, you were genuinely like, oh my God, are you coming back? What's next? Because I think you were going to New York. You're in town or you were flying back to New York at that point.

Emily Kwok:
Yeah, I was probably move... I mean, that age I was moving back and forth a lot.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. I think you were just like, I'm not that far away-

Emily Kwok:
Or maybe I was moving to Tokyo. I could have been moving to Tokyo. That could have been it, too.

Colin Jack:
I feel like you went to Tokyo around when Gabriel was about to show up.

Emily Kwok:
Okay.

Colin Jack:
I think that was what happened. But no, it was just like, I think you were in New York and you're like, I'm not that far away. I was like, okay. And I got myself across the country and wore a wool pea coat and sneakers. And I walked out into a foot of snow, and I'm like, oh, it's very different from Vancouver. Yeah. And I worked, I worked on the east coast for almost a year.

Emily Kwok:
So when you were out there, what's interesting, Colin is that, we've known each other a long time and we've had snippets of time, long snippets of time where we've been together, periods of time where we've been apart, and almost flashback sequences of what you were doing at this time and what was going on at that time. But I think that this is the first time that we've ever sat down and sort of connected all the dots. Right?

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
And it's really interesting now for me to hear what your thought process was at the time and how challenging this was for you.

Emily Kwok:
Process was at the time and how challenging this was for you. Because I think a lot of people at this point would've just given up, feeling like, "Oh, I'm not making the cut." Or, "This isn't really what I want it to be." Or, "I don't feel like I'm as good as everyone else." And what's really incredible, is the commitment and tenacity you had to just keep going back and keep putting yourself out there. And so when you made a break for PEI... So I have a saying where I say, "Don't let your environment define you." And when I moved from Vancouver to New York, this was very much true for me, where when you are not amongst people who know you and you're not within systems that you've grown up around...

Emily Kwok:
If you get tossed out into the middle of the ocean or you go to a place where nobody's ever met you before, you kind of have the opportunity to... I don't want to say reinvent yourself, but you have the liberty to be whoever you want to be, and you're not carrying the judgment or the shroud of this person or what people expect you to be like. You're not carrying that with you because people don't know you from a hole in the wall. So when you went to PEI, did any of this dynamic shift for you where you had struggled a lot to make your imprint in this world? What did that signify for you, and was it scary?

Colin Jack:
Yeah. It's funny because we've been talking and I'm like, "This is such a sad story." But I promised the people that are listening, "It gets better, trust me." But yeah... Well, moving out on my own from all my friends, and like you said, I'm a creature of habit, was scary for a minute. And then I sort of enjoyed the fact that I was just reliant on myself and people who have grown up with me would say like, "You kind of just..." I kind of just need people to help me out. But like, it was just the first time where I was kind of on my own and having to just do basic things like grocery shopping, going to the coin laundry mat, like really just basic human stuff.

Colin Jack:
But at the same time, trying to balance a job. And the job wasn't glamorous or like an... I think it was, I'm going to say Barbie for Latin America. Like, it was just a very... It was just building in animation. And in 2D animation, they build these huge libraries of eyes, mouths, and hands. And that was my job. I was just building hands and legs and building costumes in the computer for Barbie and her friends.

Emily Kwok:
Wow, that sounds amazing.

Colin Jack:
That's what nine year old Colin set out to do, I tell you that. That's what... But I met some really great friends out there that I'm still in contact with. And I've seen some of them since I've been down in LA, they come by with their families or just come down for events or animation events. And it's like no time has passed. So I think the time there, though it was just this little adventure that I had for a year, was really just super helpful. And in terms of really focusing and honing in, that didn't really happen until I'm going to say, the year after I came back to Vancouver, where I was just kind of set that... Like, a fire was lit in me, I was like, "I'm going to do this because this is what I was meant to do."

Colin Jack:
But then I would say like a year and a half later, I was like, "I'm going to do this because this is what I'm meant to do, and no one's going to stop me. And now, people are counting on me. So I have to do it right." And that was... Yeah, I met Michelle and then Emily knows this because I think you were one of the first people I called. My girlfriend of three months after I moved back from PEI told me that I was going to be a dad in nine months. Do you remember that?

Emily Kwok:
Colin, do I remember that? To just give a bit more context, if we haven't gotten there already, I hope the listeners can envision the fact that you were maybe like the littlest duckling of our peer group. And like you were just saying, a lot of the basic skills that a young adult would have, in some ways it was where most people would gravitate towards doing these things on their own, it almost felt like you kept getting booted out the front door. You were forced to grow. And everything was like a matter of force. And like, "Here, Colin. This isn't a choice, but it's time for you to figure this crap out." And so, Colin didn't drive. He didn't have a license, so Colin took the bus or he relied on people like me to drive him around. And Colin-

Colin Jack:
And thank you for that, by the way.

Emily Kwok:
Yeah. Right. Like, how many car rides did we have? And Colin had a bank account, but you had to help him deposit... Like, all these really basic things.

Colin Jack:
So true though. "How do I even do this?"

Emily Kwok:
But it was... When you called and said that you were going to be a father, I know amongst our group of friends, that all of us, I think had imagined that we would all one day be parents. But I think everyone thought that you would be the last one to get married and the last one to have children, for sure. And so when you called and you were the first one to do everything, I think everybody just was like, "Holy shit." Because we were worried once again, "Can Colin handle this?" But what's funny, is that you did handle everything. Like, you always rose to the occasion. Even though, sadly at the time, maybe our confidence was not always with you. We were just like, "Oh my God, Colin's really doing this."

Colin Jack:
Well, I think everyone was just like, "If history has taught us anything..." And this is kind of where I think the story kind of gets... For me... And I'm not encouraging people like, "Look, if you really want to shot in the arm, get that girl pregnant." And I have to say, I've gone to a few universities that I've talked about my career path and I have to always preface like, "Look, this doesn't work for everybody." And I'm not going to say it was the... Ideally, this shouldn't happen to anybody. But what happened, was the reality of like, "I'm not responsible just for myself, I'm responsible for not one, but two people." And there was a minute there, and that was probably the first minute in my life where I'm like, "Oh my God, do I give up animation?"

Colin Jack:
Because as much as I was... And probably painted the picture here, of a guy who's basically treading water in an industry that he loves and he's a fan of, but wasn't actually doing anything. Was just sort of doing okay, but not great. And it became obvious that like, "No, I should keep going." I think I actually called... I talked to you and I also talked to, do you remember Jasmine Fitzpatrick? Do you remember her?

Emily Kwok:
Of course I remember her.

Colin Jack:
And I called her [crosstalk 00:36:14] Yeah. I called her and I'm like, "I think I should just give this up." And she's like, "If you give this up, I'm going to come over there and kick your ass. Because this is all you talk about." And you know this, like this is all I've ever talked about, is doing this job. And this is where I'm just like, "Okay, I need to make a little bit more money. What's the job that can do that?" And the job was storyboarding.

Colin Jack:
And for those of you who don't know, storyboarding is basically what you do after you get a script for an animated movie or a television show, beause I was still working in Canadian TV at the time, and you are responsible for illustrating the script and visualizing what the final cartoon is going to look like. So I took a test for it and I got a job on a show called Ed, Edd n Eddy, which led to another job at a place called [Studio B 00:37:14]. And I worked on the George of the Jungle cartoon series back in the mid 2000s, about that time. Right, Em? Like, 2008 ish, about that time?

Emily Kwok:
Yeah. Yeah.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. And that was all good. And I should have probably laid this in, but what I really wanted to do, was be a character designer. Because character designers only get to draw really cool drawings, and then everybody has to make them. But I was always being put in the story department and I didn't want to... It's a lot of drawing and it's a lot of work, and your stuff gets rejected or your ideas get pulled apart. And story's a very messy process.

Colin Jack:
But it definitely... Like, having this sort of ticking clock on, "I'm going to be a father soon. And I'm going to have to move out of this little apartment on Drake Street." And we moved out to Coquitlam, which is 45 minutes out of Vancouver. And so I had to take the train into work every day. And all the while, sort of again kind of treading water. And then it wasn't until I'm going to say, Gabriel, my son showed up and I started being reminded of what I got into this business and why I wanted do this in the first place. And it was only because we started getting kids books as gifts, or I had to start watching... Or the library of old Disney movies that I got.

Colin Jack:
And that really reminded me of like, "You know you wanted to make movies, right? Like, do you remember that?" And I guess that stuck, because I got into my head of like, "That's what I've been wanting to do. I should just try to do that." So I started developing myself as an individual artist, rather than just a cog in the animation machine and doing a nine to five job. I would put Gabe to sleep and Michelle would go to sleep, my wife, and then I would make art for myself, which I never did before. I would just do what was necessary, what was required. As passionate as I was, it clearly wasn't working on this relationship with my art.

Colin Jack:
It was just sort of something that was just hanging out there waiting to get paid attention to. And then I think an opportunity came up in Toronto and Michelle and I thought about it and we were like, "Let's just go out to Toronto." And then going to Toronto was also another huge shot in the arm in terms of, "Wow. Like, look at all these other animation artists doing cool stuff." And that really inspired me to keep producing even more work, to the point of posting it on BlogSpot, which kids, is what is now kind of Instagram.

Colin Jack:
But from posting that and doing that, I got an email from a literary agency that was like, "Have you ever thought about illustrating kids' books? And the answer is, "Have I? Of course I have, I'd love to." So I started doing that on the side, all the while, wanting to get into movies, get into movies, get into movies. But like most things in Canada, it's not available. Sometimes, you get a small stint on movies, but you never really get a long gig on it because it's all vendor based. It's all extra work that's coming up from the states. Yeah. And this is like the most ridiculous thing I did, I reached out through LinkedIn. We all have LinkedIn still, right? No. Anyways-

Emily Kwok:
Well, I think LinkedIn is like a thing now.

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
I went on there the other day because I was trying to post a job and I was like, "Whoa. LinkedIn is like..." People have vacated Facebook and LinkedIn is the new hip thing to do.

Colin Jack:
Okay. Well, back before it was cool, I found an art director of Finding Nemo and I cold emailed him and said, "I'd really would like to work in features. And here's a link to my blog and any feedback you can give me, I'd appreciate." And the fellow reached out and said, "Hey, can I call you?" So I got on the phone with this art director and we spoke for about an hour, and he coldly said, "I know you want to get into the character design art aspect of animation, but I'm going to be honest with you, you're a story man. Everything you do or draw kind of has an element of fun and comedy and story to it. Have you ever thought about being a story artist or a storyboard artist?" And I'm like, "That's what I am now."

Colin Jack:
He's like, "No, no, no. What if you took everything that you love about film and storyboard a sequence like that? Do that and see where it gets you." So I took like a weekend or a week and a half and... Yeah, about a week and a half, and I storyboarded a sequence that was purely me, like purely stuff that I like and the comedy that I like, the kind of characters that I like. And I sent it back to him and then he forwarded it to Sony. And that got me a job on Hotel Transylvania.

Emily Kwok:
Damn. Can we just stop for a second there?

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
You got some big balls in those pants. That's a lot, Colin.

Colin Jack:
You know that story?

Emily Kwok:
No, you never told me this story. You're just like, "Oh, I'm going... I'm working on this new movie."

Colin Jack:
Right. Because I never... I don't think I ever told you that I worked on Hotel Transylvania. You're like-

Emily Kwok:
Well, but this is the... Yeah, because when we were talking pre-show, I'm like, "What have you worked on?" Dude, my kids love that movie and you're like, "Oh, I wish I knew that I could've been a cooler uncle Colin." Well, I just want to appreciate what you did there because considering the uphill battle it was for you to get to a place where you even felt worthy of doing anything, you then somehow got the impetus and took a shot in the dark and reached out.

Emily Kwok:
Like, you just took a chance full on knowing that there was like a 99% chance that this person would never look at your email and be like, "This is garbage. I'm not interested." And this individual took the time to respond to you. That's phenomenal. Like, I'm not sure if everyone can truly appreciate how meaningful that could be for someone such as yourself. And it seems like it was a pivotal moment in your career because... Well, what made you do it? Because I feel like some of what you've just described in terms of what led up to your... What was going on in your life at that time, it's very clear to me that you had, since you were a child, a very strong, intrinsic motivation to be an animator, an artist, right?

Colin Jack:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Emily Kwok:
So this was something that was self-directed, that no one else really had anything to do with. Like, you had some early signals that you were "good", but you kept going at it. But then, at some point, it sounds a like with the responsibility and the introduction of a child, that there was sort of an external signal that you needed to and you wanted to do more. Maybe the sense of responsibility, right? And I think that's always important to recognize because some people lead their entire lives for other people but in your case, you led most of your life for you and this dream you had until you went, "Oh, crap. Now I have people that depend on me, what am I going to do?" So at that point, where did you get the guts to email this person out of the blue?

Colin Jack:
I think it was just sort of, I'm going to say a level of... I don't even know where this saying came from. Whereas like, "No one asks the pretty girls to dance," if that makes sense. Like, no one asks the pretty people to dance. Let's say that, where it's just like, it's not-

Emily Kwok:
Except for Colin Jack.

Colin Jack:
Except for Colin Jackm but you know what I mean? It's just sort of like the worst... We've been talking for a while, but I think what I've laid, is a track of rejection almost of nos or... And it's like at that point, I think you harden a little bit of like, "Well, the worst they can say is no or nothing at all." Or, "You may need to rethink this or work on that." If they get back to you and they're giving you feedback of what you can do better or how can you get down here or work at a level that you want to work at, that's helpful.

Colin Jack:
If they don't get back to you at all, so what? Like then, they just don't get back to you. But what happened was exceptional. Like, legit got back to me and we talked about it. And having someone sort of give you a nudge in a different direction that you've been kind of... Like honestly, I've been kind of going, "I'm not a story person. I'm not." But when I look back at just my life and then our life together, and we would watch movies constantly. Like, why wouldn't I be involved in storytelling is beyond me.

Emily Kwok:
That's all we did. That's all we did every day of the week. We wasted a lot... maybe it's not fair to say we wasted, we went to a lot of movies.

Colin Jack:
We went to a lot of movies.

Emily Kwok:
A lot of movies.

Colin Jack:
So in the end, it was just the nudge I needed. And then knowing that... Because in TV animation, there's a lot of rules, a lot of rules that you have to follow. And all the movies that I would watch, would have... I remember seeing The Matrix and theaters with you and watching Star Wars movies with you and like, watching all these big bombastic movies with larger than life characters and not being able to do that because I was committed to this small screen venue. But having somebody go, "Just go off and be you as an artist," was I think... Or, "Just take the gloves off." And that was kind of... Yeah, I would say a defining moment for me because that led to Hotel T, which I worked on for four months and I got to go down and get a little taste of Los Angeles and work on the Sony lot.

Colin Jack:
And then I came back up and I worked on Book of Life, which led to multiple interviews at different animation houses. And that led to this really great moment of... All the while, I was illustrating kids' books at the same time and I was getting pretty busy at that point. But Michelle and I were celebrating our five year and anniversary, and I planned a trip to Paris for us. And I promised, I promised, "No work, just us." And like the first night we're there, I get a phone call from Dreamworks saying, "We saw your portfolio. When can you start?" And I was like, "How about now?" No, I mean like, "How about in a month? In a month?" And so from there, yeah, we moved to San Francisco and worked in the San Francisco office.

Emily Kwok:
Can we also share the story that before you started working at Dreamworks, remember I had a wedding reception and you had to be there?

Colin Jack:
The week of, the week of. It was such a great way to start a new job at a new studio. I'll tell the story only like up until I met up with you, which, "Yeah, I'm getting married." And I was like, "Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm in America, I'll fly over." And I called up my department supervisor at the time and I was like, "I'm going to go to the East Coast and see my friend get married. So I'm going to need a couple of days off."

Colin Jack:
And there was just this pause on the phone, "You're going to the east coast like, now?" "Yeah. Is that okay? Like the movie isn't really starting at production. There seems to be a little bit of time." And there's another long pause, "Are you sure?" I was like, "Yeah, I'm sure. Is that okay?" "Okay..." And no one's telling me anything. And Tracy was her name, was just like, "Well, good luck. Let us know how it goes." So I get on the plane and I'm not even thinking about it, and I think I get off a JFK. And then I look at the TV monitor and this fucking hurricane is coming towards the East Coast. And I was kind of like, [crosstalk 00:51:35]?

Emily Kwok:
In true Colin fashion. Only Colin would do this.

Colin Jack:
I was like, "Oh." And our friends, John and Lisa were there and like, "It's not going to make landfall right away. It'll be fine. It'll be fine." I think we were there for like two more days after the wedding, or was it one day? I can't remember.

Emily Kwok:
Well, yeah. So let's see, hurricane Sandy was coming and it was approaching very quickly on the day that we had my wedding reception, and I think it hit the following day. And it was funny because my wedding photographer said that he had come up earlier in the day to just scout... Oh, the day before at a scout out locations. And he saw the birds all flying in the opposite direction and he was like, "Something's going on." It was amazing because I had, what? 74 people at the reception. And it was such a beautiful time, because we were all together and it was a number of people that meant a lot to me, you of which being one of them. But poor Colin, his face slowly started to turning green because once the flights started getting canceled... And I also had family that flew in from Canada, that then rented a van to drive back to Canada because they couldn't fly anymore.

Emily Kwok:
And then Colin, you could say was maybe the most anxious I've ever seen him. Because he was like, "I'm supposed to start job at Dreamworks and I'm trapped on the East Coast." And I don't think I've ever... I haven't been able to appreciate how much the moment meant to you because I didn't know how hard you had scrapped to get that job. Like, I knew it was a big deal, we all knew it was a big deal. But hearing all of this backstory makes me go, "Wow, no wonder you were panicking."

Colin Jack:
Yeah. It's just that looking back on it, it's just a hilarious story that I can tell. But at the moment, I was just like, "This is not a good impression to this company." And now having spent almost, I'm going to say this is like year nine. Knowing I've done other things where I'm like... Even between like sequences or deliverables where I would walk out and you see young artists sort of like, "Where are you going?" Like, "Well, I don't have any work for the next two hours so I'm going to go watch a movie." You can do that?" "Well, I can. I don't know about you guys, but I most certainly can." But at that time, I was new and I just didn't know what the culture of the place was and how understanding they were going to be, if any. And in the end, they were totally fine with it. Because you were in a hurricane. Now, to go flying willingly into one was inadvisable, but you have a legitimate excuse.

Emily Kwok:
It was great. It was great. And it's always [crosstalk 00:54:46] a great story. It was a good wedding, it was a good time. It was a really good time. Wow. So getting to this point in your career, do you feel at this point when you started Dreamworks that you've started to hit your stride?

Colin Jack:
Again, it's maybe habitual. If we listen to this podcast and like, "Gosh, he's got a problem." But I think what I did, was I got to Dreamworks and I did not decorate my cubicle because I thought, "Well, they're going to figure this out so sooner or later, that I don't belong here." So that first year was just to prove that I belonged at this place, and I was a value to this place and I could contribute to this place. And it takes a minute at any large animation studio, to get a reputation and get people to know you. And I think after... It just took, I'm going to say, six...

Colin Jack:
It just took, I'm going to say a solid six months to really hit my stride at the company and know what I was good at and what I could be counting on and since then it's been this steady uphill walk, all the while not losing sight of the fact that I was very lucky to be there and I worked very hard to get there. So anytime that... and all artists do this, where they're going, "Oh, it's so much work," and like, "Wait, no. I'm drawing cartoons for a living. I'm working on these great films for a living." So it's okay that every now and again, I have to pull a late night or it's okay that every now and again, your sequence doesn't make it into the final film.

Colin Jack:
I worked on this one sequence on Boss Baby 1 that I worked on for two years almost and I got the call saying it's been cut and learning how to take those hits in stride and knowing it's never personal, those all were great. Those first couple years at DreamWorks were just great learning experiences for me. But yeah, I would-

Emily Kwok:
Do you think... Would you say that the... Gosh, even leading up to these points where entire scenes are being cut at DreamWorks, to some degree, I almost feel like your entire history leading up to that point prepared you so well for the rejection, because it was nothing new to some degree, right?

Colin Jack:
No, it was nothing new. I was just like, "Okay," and I've said to young artists, when they lose a sequence, I'm like, "Well, do you have to give the money back?" "No." "Well, then it's fine, and then you good news is that you get to try again," and that's been kind of it, it's a sort of like... and that's actually kind of a theme even at my house where, especially when my kids were younger and crazy, and sometimes we would just have rough days at the house and we would all acknowledge, "This was a rough day, but we'll try again tomorrow, right, to have a good one?"

Colin Jack:
I think that's kind of been it, it's like those rejections and those moments in time where you take a hit or you get knocked down or you're humbled to some degree and then I guess the question is, what are you going to do? And for me, I didn't of know any better. It was like, "Well, I'm supposed to do this. So I'm just going to try again tomorrow." So that's been it I think for a very long time, it was this sort of I've had project or I've had books that have fallen through and I've had sequences that have been cut from movies and all that stuff. And all the time, you just sort of, "Well, that sucked, but I get to go and do this tomorrow. It's not over yet," kind of thing.

Emily Kwok:
Yeah. I think so many of us are conditioned to result. Like I call it resulting where, what you're talking about, the process, some of the nuance, some of the moments that build up to the great ones that we often bypass or overlook how informative and helpful they are, because we're much more concerned with whether or not we execute or we finish or we get to the end of the line. And I would imagine in an industry such as yours, where production is a thing, like a movie doesn't happen if you don't have the parts, that it could be very easy for someone to get fixated on making sure that the whole movie gets done, but not actually stopping to consider whether or not the content actually makes sense or if it makes it a better or worse movie.

Emily Kwok:
And if there's anything that I know that you and I have been very critical of is when we would watch movies, you'd just be, "Oh my God, that was total crap," or "This was a really brilliant film," and sometimes the films were really small. I fondly remember we used to go to those every year, they would have that big animation festival and we used to go watch-

Colin Jack:
Oh, Spike and Mike's.

Emily Kwok:
Yeah, Spike and Mike's and we would go watch all the animation features and how fun that was. You've always had an appreciation for the nuance in humor. I feel it's a whole other episode to talk about what Colin thinks is funny, but you've always had an appreciation for humor and actually maybe in another life, if you were not ahead of story, I could see you making a lot of money being the best Mr. Bean impersonator ever because we all know how, how much you did that.

Colin Jack:
Yes.

Emily Kwok:
But yeah, you've gotten to a point in your career where I think a lot of people would just be like, "Oh, this is it," but what's really wonderful is that you've learned, whether it was by force or not, you've really learned to have to do away with the big shiny objects and be like, "Look, it takes a lot of work and sometimes it goes to completion and other times it doesn't, but it doesn't mean that what I did wasn't worthwhile or that it wasn't of value."

Colin Jack:
No, and I think that this is it, I think that a lot of us, I'm going to say artists in general, are like, "This is it. I've hit it. This is what..." and I think to survive, especially in my business is... I think there'll come a point in my career where I'm like, "You know what? This is it, I'm going to go teach now," because I do actually mentoring and teaching a lot. but for right now the this is it, it's almost a daily thing of like, "All right, this is it for today, and tomorrow I'll come back and keep working."

Colin Jack:
I think the danger has always been, especially when people know real rockstar success, especially in my business, is to go, "Well, now I can coast," and I think in the in hour that we've talked about, coasting is never good. I think, especially for me, I like to keep busy and moving and much to the chagrin of executives at DreamWorks where they're like, "You can stop if you want," and I'm like, "Nah, I can't though because I like it too much."

Emily Kwok:
I love that. Most people don't get to of say that about their work. Most people want to take a break all the time because they're like, "I hate this. It's killing my soul," but I think for you, it's probably the opposite.

Emily Kwok:
What's on your horizon now? In thinking about where you began, where you've managed to make your way up to, what do you have your sights set on now? What is another mountain to climb, if you have such a goal or are you really excited to be in the role that you're in and that's where you'd like to do some more meaningful work?

Colin Jack:
I love the role that I'm in currently. You're going to make me say it aren't you, Em? I definitely want to tell my own stories and have a venue for that. So sometimes I like to even write funny comics about the instances of my family during quarantine or incidents that have happened with my crazy ass dog. I like telling stories too, more than I ever thought that I was... more than I ever thought that I was like, "Wow, that I would really to tell more stories from me," and whether that's fictional or autobiographical, it's something that I've been slowly striving towards, but also being mindful of the fact that I also like helping... Now that I've been at DreamWorks for almost 10 years, it's helping my friends tell their stories. So I think it's just a slow, keep going kind of thing of one day I would like the venue to tell my own stories. Is that.

Emily Kwok:
Very cool.

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
What? What were you going to say about it? Is that okay?

Colin Jack:
No, no, no. Yeah, I've got to go.

Emily Kwok:
You think I'm trying to bait you. I'm just keeping the conversation flowing.

Colin Jack:
All right. Thank you.

Emily Kwok:
Okay. A few more questions.

Colin Jack:
Sure.

Emily Kwok:
We've gone pretty deep into how difficult your path has been in some ways or that it wasn't maybe what some people think it to be because I think it's really easy for people to look at where you're at now and say, "Oh, well, Colin is some sort of a big shot," the same way that people will say, "Oh, you're a world champion. I'll never be like you," and I'm like, "Guys, you don't know how it started."

Colin Jack:
No.

Emily Kwok:
None of this was none of this happened overnight and none of this was easy.

Colin Jack:
No.

Emily Kwok:
What would you say was the most challenging or difficult obstacle that you overcame to get to where you are now?

Colin Jack:
Consistency. Being consistent with what I want to do and finishing things. I think finishing things as well was this sort of like... what I mean by consistency is and you've seen me work over the years. It's kind of like, "Oh, I'm working a lot today." "Oh, I'm taking a break." "Oh, I'm working a lot today." and that I did that a lot, especially earlier on in my career of not really knuckling down and doing the work every day.

Colin Jack:
Another really great piece of advice that came from the director of 1992's Tarzan, because he was having lunch at the campus one day and he's just like, "You really need to figure out your process. Figure out how you can make yourself productive every day," and that really, I don't know, struck a chord of like, "You're right," because I think it's like there are times where I'm reading a script and I'm like, "I don't know how to draw this," or there's times where, "What can I do in that meantime where I'm not drawing, but I'm also contributing to the movie?" So for me it was just like how do I find a way to be consistently generating content for my job? So that was one and then just finding a process for myself.

Emily Kwok:
It's interesting you went there because my next question was going to be, do you have a creative process?

Colin Jack:
I do.

Emily Kwok:
Are you willing to share some of your magic secret sauce?

Colin Jack:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, I love talking about this because it's... So usually what happens and this is like... it's ahead of story, it's a little bit of a different... you're managing, so it's a little bit different, but as a story artist, how I found out or my process has been over the years this where you get an email that's saying like, "The director's going to launch you at this and this time. Here are the script pages." And I used to go in and just have the director tell me what to do and then I'd go back and try to interpret that.

Colin Jack:
And then the older or more confident I got with my job, when I got those script pages, I would go, "Okay, so this is where in the movie?" and watching as many movies as we did there's seven different stories out there when it comes to storytelling and like, "Oh, this is the part in the movie where the character is losing all hope. So this is kind of like this movie in Superman or this movie in Star Wars," or "This is kind of like Amelie." I would start just thinking about moments in film that I can extrapolate for the sequence, so when I go in and talk to the director, it doesn't become him delegating, it becomes a conversation of tone in character and how we can elevate the material in the script.

Colin Jack:
Then from there I walk away and sometimes and everybody has their own way, but some people go off and take a long walk or whatever, but I just sit down at my desk and I get to work right away, so it's still fresh in my mind and I'll thumbnail and thumbnails are little basically footnote drawings that you make of what you want to commit to the screen and then I'll call it a day.

Colin Jack:
So if I'm done at three, I'm done at three. If I'm done at four, I'm done at four. If I'm done at one, amazing, I have four hours that I can kill, maybe going and watching a movie at the theater or having a long lunch, but that's my day one. Then day two is coming in and taking those little thumbnails and scanning them and blowing them up to the size of my screen because I draw on a screen or a Cintiq and drawing out every shot in that sequence, and that's a really long day. That's a 10 hour day of working the shots, figuring out the blocking of the characters. Almost like you're directing theater, you're drawing the stages and you're just drawing what this character is going to do in this seeing or characters sometimes, and then I'll go home again.

Colin Jack:
The next day I'll put in a nuanced movement of the characters and that will be my sequence and that usually puts me around day four or five... around day four. Day five is when I'm going to show the director again, and on day four at about 3:30 AM in the morning, I'll get a moment of like, "Oh, shit, it'd be so dope if I put this moment in," and then I'll get up and I'll drive to the studio at 3:30 in the morning and reboard part of my sequence for my 10 o'clock deadline and then present it. And if the sequence is torn apart, it's invariably the last minute thing that I put in. That's my process, and it's been my process for about six years.

Emily Kwok:
Wow. Do you ever worry that it's enough? How do you have conviction that this process is the right process for you?

Colin Jack:
I think it's taken me a long time to get comfortable of that I do everything I can and I listen to that little voice in the back of my head that goes, "It'd be so cool if you did this," And the voice that always won was like, "You don't have time for that. You got to keep going," but now I just listen to that voice. It goes, "It'd be so cool if you did that," because that is the eight year old me, who's like, "It'd be so cool if you put lasers on the scene," and I'm just going to listen to that guy because he knows what he is talking about.

Emily Kwok:
I love that. Really, that's awesome that you listen to that little guy. When you look back on your career so far, what would you say is your proudest achievement or thing that you've enjoy producing or working on the most?

Colin Jack:
There been a couple and if I could recommend anybody doing this one thing is enjoying the process, is enjoying those moments a little bit more than thinking about what's next, which I'm guilty of. I think there was a moment where one of the books, I illustrated that if you happen to have a dinosaur book, had a launch party in Vancouver and you weren't... Were you there? I don't think you were. You were in the New York [crosstalk 01:13:08]

Emily Kwok:
I was not there. I remember when you were doing this and I was sad I couldn't be there.

Colin Jack:
Yeah, but a lot of friends from high school showed up. A lot of our mutual friends showed up, my grade seven elementary school teacher showed up and it was this nice moment of I got to talk about how I illustrated this book and that book in particular was important to me only because it was a drawing that I did on my blog, inspired the writer to write the story, that I got to illustrate and the two main kids in that story are my sons. So it was just this weird... I don't want to say weird. It was just this nice, sort of almost full circle moment and I got to go to my old elementary school and talk to the kids there, which I was so nervous about like, "I hope these guys think I'm cool."

Colin Jack:
Then I got to go talk to a room full of my peers and talk at my university and all the while going, "I hope these guys think I'm cool." That was a really proud moment for me and I didn't know that it was until I looked back and I was like, "That was a good day." Then more recently, I'm going to say it was as much as we would've preferred to watch Trolls World Tour on the big screen, the fact that they... I just thought it was super cool that we dropped it online for every because everyone kind of needed it at that moment.

Colin Jack:
Then even more recently was Croods 2 because my son Gabriel was the voice of young Guy at the top of the movie and thinking about it was just like, "Without that kid, I don't think I would be here."

Emily Kwok:
Wow.

Colin Jack:
Just thinking about... you know what I mean? It was just sort of like... and he did it completely by accident. It was only because... you know the story? Do we have time for this story? I don't, or-

Emily Kwok:
Which one?

Colin Jack:
About my Nana passing away and when it happened and-

Emily Kwok:
Tell me. I have as much time as I need. This is my podcast calling.

Colin Jack:
So, my nana passed away and you met her. She meant a lot to me and Michelle and the kids were up in Canada, I was back in LA by myself. And when you move to a new country, you have friends, but in my case, a lot of my friends were work friends. So I wasn't going to hang out at the house by myself when I just got in the news that my nana passed away. So I went to work and I was working on Croods 2, and my director, my head of story at the time came in and they're like, "We got this really juicy scene for you," and I'm like, "Oh great, something to take my mind off of this." Guy's parents are dying in front of them and I was kind of like-

Speaker 2:
Oh man.

Colin Jack:
... "Oh, okay."-

Speaker 2:
It was going there.

Colin Jack:
It was going there. So I boarded it and I was trying to pitch it and I couldn't get through the dialogue of young Guy. So I called in Gabriel and I was just like, "Can you just say these lines for me, so when I pitch it, I don't cry in front of my director and half the story team." And he did, but his voice, it's still relatively the same voice, but like this little cute sweet voice and the directors kind of fell in love with it. They tried to recast it, but they couldn't. So Gabriel end up being the voice of young Guy in the movie.

Colin Jack:
And then watching it and watching the final piece of animation and just going... again, another kind of full circle moment of like, "This kids showed up unexpectedly and changed how I was going to do things and now he's in a movie on a sequence that I storyboarded at a major animation studio." And it was just a crazy moment where I was just like, "How did we end up here?? I mean I'm glad, but I'm like, "How did we end up here?"

Emily Kwok:
Well, sitting with that, how did we end up here, what do you think of yourself now? Colin? It's so many years ago back in high school as children sort of being the littlest duckling that everyone felt that they had to help and take care of. And we all laugh with you. I'm sure that there were points in our lives where we were laughing at you, but now we're all laughing with you, but when you reflect on where you are now, and what's happened in your life, do you think of yourself differently? Where are you at?

Colin Jack:
It's a loaded question. I definitely have moments of falling into that, "Well, somebody help me," but

Emily Kwok:
You still call me sometimes.

Colin Jack:
Exactly, I still do, "What am I going to do about this?" that's usually the phone call, that's the tenure of the phone call.

Emily Kwok:
Yes, nine times out of 10 it's usually that.

Colin Jack:
To call you just to check in, really, I was like, "What am I going to do about this?" But-

Emily Kwok:
Always a crisis.

Colin Jack:
Always a crisis, but it's less of a crisis. I'm happy. It's kind of like this weird, I don't want to say I'm content because I don't think I'll ever be a hundred percent content, but I'm confident that I can make it work. I think that's the realization that I've been coming to more and more is like, "I can do that. I can make that work," and rather than, "What am I going to do about this?" and I do, I'll call my friends, especially when it comes to my job and especially when it comes to my family.

Colin Jack:
There are times of stuff where luckily I didn't talk about her a lot in this podcast, but my wife is definitely been there through all of it and it's the knowledge of a very tumultuous start and a lot of tumult all the way through, but with all that, we're just like, "Oh, okay, so I guess half of California's on fire. We'll be fine though. We'll make it work." You know what I mean? It's nice to have that assurance that even if tomorrow the film industry decides to go streaming or there's a restructure at work or anything like that, it's going to be okay, which I don't think I've experienced really ever in my life of like, "It's going to be all right." So-

Emily Kwok:
Or how about this one? Colin's got it under control?

Colin Jack:
Yeah, "I got it." Yeah, which to some people that have known us for as well as we've known each other, there's like, "What? Really? Him?"

Emily Kwok:
Are you drunk?

Colin Jack:
Yeah. Is that OK?

Emily Kwok:
Oh man, it's good. It's good. We have a history.

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
So I guess just to wrap things up so that we don't take over your life, what did Emily learn about Colin today? Shoot, what a story of resilience, commitment, an undying passion or joy that you found doing something. And it's a really wonderful story to add into this series and this mix, because I think that your story is one that a lot of people may give up on, right? They could easily be on the same path or have felt very similar emotions and maybe experienced many similar signals in pursuing whatever it is that they wanted to pursue.

Emily Kwok:
I think whether or not it was perseverance or whether it was stubbornness, there was something about your approach to, "This is what I want to do," that is really kind of incredible and beautiful, right? Because there are so many times in your career where you could have just walked away and said, "I'll just become a manager at Zellers or I'll do something that's easy. I'll do something where I'm not rejected so much," but you just kept walking back into the face of rejection over and over and over again, to the point where I think even in your success, you have maybe a muscle to flex there that very few can, because maybe for other people who might have had it easier or have had a different path, they might not have had to stop and reflect on as many of these moments and ask themselves, "Is this worth doing? Should I keep going?" Right?

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
Do you believe that you've achieved a level of competence or mastery? Is it something that you can achieve?

Colin Jack:
I absolutely believe that there are... It's funny because I've more recently come to the realization like, "Oh crap, I'm the old man in this business or older person in this business," and I've mentored, I'm going to say four or five artists now...

Colin Jack:
I'm going to say four or five artists now, all of which are phenomenal artists, but also just wonderful people. And it's been super gratifying. And I've given talks at my old university and I've... All that stuff. And I have to keep reminding myself that there are five minutes before I talk to these people, or even now when I'm managing a crew, it's just like you have to come... I take a minute of like, you know what you're talking about. And you know all aspects of it. You know what it is to fail, you know what it is to succeed, and you know how to respond to people who are doing both sometimes.

Colin Jack:
Sometimes, you have mentees that take a nose dive, but you know how to get them back up. And sometimes, you have mentees that just explode and do amazing and you know how to keep them humble. So they don't go, "I've done it. This is it." And you don't ever want people to think that, especially in my line of work. That just puts a shelf life on you, and it stops passion, I think, when you're like... It's almost complacency. And so, yeah, I don't want to say, "Yeah, I am a master," but when it comes to the-

Emily Kwok:
It's okay to say it. I mean, it's okay to say it because it's an interesting inflection point because I think there's the appreciation for... And that's what I'm trying to break down or deconstruct and share with people in this series is that you had a long career being a student. You had a long career being rejected and being told that your instincts and what you had to offer wasn't right or wasn't good enough. Try again. Right?

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
But the evidence now shows that Colin knows what he's talking about and he happens to be a pretty funny guy. And wait, he can draw as well. And I think that's okay to recognize that you've learned over the years to refine your craft to the point where it can be generally appreciated with less rejection. Right?

Colin Jack:
Yeah. Exactly.

Emily Kwok:
You know how to put something together enough that it speaks to people, and that didn't come easily. There was a lot of work involved. And so the real intent behind this polarity or this process of being an apprentice to a master is at what point when we decide that we want to study something or devote our lives to something, at what point do we actually transition from being someone that doesn't know and needs to practice, needs to copy, needs to learn, at what point do we transition or transcend that role and become someone that actually knows and that other people want to learn from?

Emily Kwok:
So if you think that there is some mastery to the process, mastery to the way that you think about things, I think that's completely okay and I actually invite you to have that opinion if that's what you think, because some people will be very bashful about saying, "Oh, I could never be a master at anything," but we can't ignore the fact that people who are best-in-class have done something that everybody else could not or would not be willing to do. And you've obviously done a lot of things that people probably would not have wanted to do themselves because it was too hard.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. I just had a flash of talking in the white Pontiac till all hours. Do you remember that?

Emily Kwok:
So we should explain what that means.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. We should. Because every now and again, we would have these moments of like, "What are we even doing with life?" And it would always be at the drop-off, right before-

Emily Kwok:
Always.

Colin Jack:
Always.

Emily Kwok:
Odd hours of the night. Odd hours of the night. So my father had bought a Pontiac Sunfire, which was a fucking terrible car, but he bought that so that I wouldn't trash whatever other car that they had, and Colin would regularly need drop-offs or pick-ups to different places. And we lived in a suburb of Vancouver. So the bus after 9:00 PM didn't run regularly or it was an hour between buses. And so I lived 15... not even fifth minutes. I probably live five minutes from Zellers, right, Colin?

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
And I would frequently go pick him up and drive him home. But first we would go to the movies and then we'd go to the Bread Garden and then I would drive him home. So we would be sitting in his parking lot at, I don't know, 2:00 in the morning, and then he would not get out of the car. And we would just sit there and pontificate about life as 16-year-olds.

Colin Jack:
My God.

Emily Kwok:
Not much has changed. The only difference is we're now pontificating on a podcast as 40-year-olds.

Colin Jack:
Exactly.

Emily Kwok:
So we haven't changed that much, huh?

Colin Jack:
No, we haven't. But I think without putting a title of mastery on it, I feel confident to give people knowledge about the craft that I do. And I think that was something that I was never fully... And also, I want to say confident about doing that, also confident in the fact that they're going to exceed me as well and be okay with that too, which I remember when I first started mentoring, I was just like, "Well, what if this guy is better than me in the end?" But now it's just you sit back and go, "I did good by himself." And it's more of a source of pride than anything else. So to that respect, I think that's almost the last thing you have to have is the source of pride when you are training somebody up and giving somebody helpful hints, if that makes any sense.

Emily Kwok:
Of course, it does. Actually, one of the other episodes that I recorded with a student of mine, an older student of mine, [Dominika Oblinete 01:31:06], she started training with me when she was, oh, I don't know, 12 or 13 years old, I think. And then she went off to become a far more accomplished athlete than I ever was. But we have a whole episode devoted to this process of what happens as a teacher when... Do you try to control the student? Do you try to control their success? Or do you give them as much as you can knowing and embracing the fact that they're probably going to surpass you or they're going to be better than you? And the literal apprentice and master relationship, how does that translate?

Emily Kwok:
I think it's interesting because you're in a creative field. I, you could say, have a creative mind about these things. I think for sure, jujitsu could be interpreted as being creative. But I think you probably recognize that when you are able to acknowledge, accept, even articulate or identify your uniqueness, your creative process, what makes your vision different from another storyboard artist, that there is no competition because there's no other Colin Jack in the world. There's no other person that's been informed with his humor in all of these different ways in the ways that you've experienced it.

Emily Kwok:
And so by not trying to conform to what every else has done, to some degree, as much as you can pass on your knowledge and help others become better at their craft, they may sign bigger movie deals. They may be able to share their stories. But there will never be another Colin Jack or there will never be another so-and-so. And I think that's the beautiful thing about pursuing mastery as opposed to fitting in is when you do become a "master" of some sort, or someone who's very well-versed in their field, you probably have a perspective and a vision that cannot easily be replicated. And that is your true gift to your students or to the world.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. That's really pretty, what you just-

Emily Kwok:
It's really pretty. Years of pontificating with you, Colin, have allowed me to develop these pretty ways of speaking. So I guess to close, I would like to ask you, do you have any advice for someone out there who's maybe a 16 or a 17-year-old Colin? Who's not really sure if they're on the right track and keeps struggling? What would you say to your younger self knowing where you are now?

Colin Jack:
Talking to 16-year-old Colin, I mean, get a license, number one. But that's a tough question. But I would say if I was talking to 16-year-old me, I would say watching movies is a really good idea, but also, going out and trying new things and exploring and socializing and doing all the things that if I could do it over again, if I had to do over, I would have taken a little more risk in not the routine, and going on adventures, and trying new things, because I think that adds to you as an artist, is those experiences. And I would say that just rejection is fine. Rejection is okay. What you do after you get rejected is what really matters. So you can crumple and fold and brood and do all that stuff. All that stuff, absolutely, do it. But then get up and try again. Try again tomorrow. But that was what I would say to him. It's like, it's going to be okay, and tomorrow, you can absolutely try again. And yeah.

Emily Kwok:
I think that's good advice. Brooding is a word I'm sad that we are introducing it towards the end of our podcast because I feel brooding is Colin Jack.

Colin Jack:
Oh my God, I was a heavy brooder. I just... furrowed brow. I'm so old now that my hairdress-

Emily Kwok:
You have the lines?

Colin Jack:
Yeah, that. And my hairdresser always does a little trim on my brows just to get... And I thought they do a pretty good job, but no, there's always a couple of them.

Emily Kwok:
Well, when Colin gets a heavy brood on, I can't help but always... You're a big fan of Dr. Seuss, right, the drawings?

Colin Jack:
Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
And I can't help but always remember the Grinch. And Colin, you've got a good Grinch face. I mean, it's good.

Colin Jack:
I have a great French face, and I would say I did a drawing... I usually do a Grinch drawing every holiday. But I made a little joke of 50% fan art, 50% self portrait. I say that at the caption. And the comments that came back were like, "Oh, you have no idea. That is exactly what you do." I'm like, "Oh my God. Really?" And it was just from everyone from every corner of my life of people that I've grown up with, and then people that I'm working with now, and like, "Yeah, that's what you do. You grimace." I'm working on it.

Emily Kwok:
Art is life. Life is art.

Colin Jack:
Exactly.

Emily Kwok:
So just to wrap up, if people are interested in seeing your work or following what it is that you do, where can people reach out to you? Where are you present in this social world of ours so that people can fan everything about you?

Colin Jack:
Blogspot? No.

Emily Kwok:
Can we also just appreciate... I should have mentioned this very early on that even... Okay. So we have Blogspot, but let's also acknowledge animation became a thing while we grew up. I mean, it wasn't part of the norm or part of popular culture to the degree that it is now. At the time, it was just Pixar, I think, that came out with those revolutionary new movies with the different graphics. I remember how much I loved A Bug's Life, but-

Colin Jack:
You were crazy about Bug's Life. I remember that.

Emily Kwok:
Oh, I loved... what was... Heimlich the caterpillar?

Colin Jack:
Yeah, exactly.

Emily Kwok:
But were at the forefront of an entire industry being built.

Colin Jack:
Well, I watched it, but I think it was... When we grew up, we were kids in the '90s. So there was the Disney movies of the '90s were all we really had to go watch in the theaters. And then there was... The first CG movie was Toy Story. And then it was Pixar. Then it was, I think it Bug's Life shortly after that. And then it was Shrek somewhere in between that. I remember seeing Shrek with you at least twice, in the theater.

Colin Jack:
And this is a funny story. It was just, I remember, when I was going to animation college and was living in my grandparents' house... I'm going to share a really funny... I've told a story a million times about... But I'm going to get back to it later about when we watched The Ring, Em. I want to talk about this one story with my grandfather. So I'm working on some animation assignment and I just have this, big billowing voice that my grandfather had. And he was only five foot four Indian man, but he would scream like, "Colin, get down here. And I assumed that I was in trouble because he was very neat and tidy and I wasn't." And he's on the couch in the basement. "The Shrek, you watch this?" And he's watching Shrek, and he like, "This is a damn good movie. Really good. You should work at a place like this or something."

Colin Jack:
Of course, I rolled my eyes heavily and it's just like, "Yeah, okay. Yeah. One day I'll work on a Dreamworks movie. Thanks." Went back to doing whatever I was doing upstairs. But yeah. But now, here it is. Now it just happened. But yeah, that movie came out and it was just... And that for me, Shrek was important only because we went and saw it at nighttime. We saw a 9:00 show of Shrek, which wasn't normal because it was afternoon shows were for the kids. You'd watch Beauty and the Beast in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday or you would watch even... I'm going to say Toy Story and Bug's Life. You would watch it on a matinee. But there were just adults watching Shrek and laughing, audibly laughing at this thing. It was a revelation of... If you watch the first Shrek, it's so subversive and dark in some of its humor, which I loved.

Colin Jack:
But yeah, we were all watching that happen while I was going to school or... And we're going to high school, then going to college, and you knew that you wanted to be a part of it. We just didn't know how to get there. Now, you know there are so many resources online and stuff like that that you can easily find how to get there. Just apply.

Emily Kwok:
Yeah. It's crazy to look backwards, man. Crazy to look backwards and think about where we were and where we've gotten to and not ever having a hope in hell or a sense way back then that we would ever end up to where we are now. And sometimes I question whether our teachers... Because I've asked this plenty of times to different teachers that we've had, Ms. [Borbonay 01:41:59] and Ms. [Kwokswon 01:42:00] and Ms. Charleston, all these teachers that I still talk to, I'm like, "Was it just me or was our year different?" And they're like, "No, no, no. At teacher is lucky once in a teaching career to have a group as exceptional as yours. Everyone knew that this year, this grad class was going to go on to do amazing things." And I mean, they can say that being middle-aged, looking at where we are and maybe seeing our potential. But when we're forward-facing, there's no way for us to know what the hell we're going to make of ourselves.

Colin Jack:
No idea. I forget. Was this question about my social media [inaudible 01:42:38]? Was I supposed to say something about that?

Emily Kwok:
You were supposed to say something deep and meaningful about Blogspot. Yeah, no.

Colin Jack:
Oh, yeah. [crosstalk 01:42:44]-

Emily Kwok:
The question was if people want to follow you or they want to just check out your work, what avenues do you have for people to tap into all things Colin Jack?

Colin Jack:
Yeah. I mean, the best is Instagram at Colin Jack stories is the best way. And then I guess if you have the fancy to go on Amazon and just look up my name, you could find some of the books I've illustrated on there. Buy one too. That'd be great. And then that's about it. I mean-

Emily Kwok:
This is the shameless plug section of the podcast.

Colin Jack:
Okay. Well, yeah. Those two avenues are the best ways. I mean Instagram.

Emily Kwok:
Well, can we also say how proud you are of Croods 2? You love that movie.

Colin Jack:
I'm super proud of that movie.

Emily Kwok:
Are there any other scenes or movies that you're super proud of that people should go watch either by themselves or with their kids?

Colin Jack:
Well, I mean always take the kids, but Boss Baby was a lot of fun. Croods was a lot of fun. And the Trolls Holiday special, and yeah, I think that... And Book of Life is a really fun time too. But Croods 2 for me has just a lot of little moments in it that I was a part of, and not just the opening, but a lot of the punch monkey antics that happen in the lower part of the movie, and Guy and Eep's tumultuous relationship, definitely. There was definitely a moment that was inspired by me and Michelle in the middle of the film. So yeah.

Colin Jack:
Actually, there was a middle part of that movie that was just every woman that I've grown up with that... I'll talk about this scene. There's a moment where Guy loses his patience with Eep and goes and takes the elevator. And he says something hurtful to Eep. And in the original cut, Eep sits there [inaudible 01:44:58] and takes it. And I remember [Chamy 01:45:00] in the story room was like, "Look, I don't know who you've been spending... My wife would not let that fly. But also, I grew up with all these women who would... There was no way that you would be walking out of that without getting an earful." So in that scene, instead of Eep getting all sad, she ends up just putting her fist through the tree and climbing the tree, bare-knuckle climbing, and gets up and confronts Guy almost immediately and beats... Oh, I think he doesn't... And faces him right as soon as he gets out of the elevator. So I'm really proud of that as well.

Emily Kwok:
Well, yes. Colin grew up with a lot of strong women in his life. A lot. And he survived.

Colin Jack:
Yes. I made it.

Emily Kwok:
He survived. Yeah. You've made it. You've you've definitely made it. So Colin, thank you so much for spending so much time talking to me about this career. It's been really-

Colin Jack:
No worries.

Emily Kwok:
... cool to get a bird's-eye view on your journey and your path because as I said, I think I was there subjectively experiencing snippets with you, but I was on the outside while you were on the inside. And so to hear what was going on in your brain, maybe some of what was not going on in your brain.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. [crosstalk 01:46:19].

Emily Kwok:
And where that's led you in life is it's very impressive. And you're somebody that I'm incredibly proud of because you stuck to your guns, man, even when people doubted you. And some of those people included us. There were moments in our lives where we were all like, "Can Colin really do this?" And you really did. So I think that that's worth noting-

Colin Jack:
Thank you.

Emily Kwok:
... that you're doing all right and we don't need to take care of you anymore.

Colin Jack:
Thank you. I do want to share this one story about Emily dropping me off at my grandparents' house, if I can, because you told-

Emily Kwok:
Please.

Colin Jack:
... an embarrassing story about me. So it's been clear in this thing that Emily and I watch a lot of movies. But I remember watching the original Ring, the Japanese version of The Ring with Emily and her friend, John. Do you remember this? So ridiculous. So we watched this movie and it is terrifying. We're all like, "All right, let's all go home now." And Emily's dropping me off, as usual, to a well-lit street where my grandparents live in West... Is it West Vancouver? It was Central Vancouver, right, Em?

Emily Kwok:
Yeah. Central Vancouver. Central Vancouver.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. And get out of the car. "All right. Goodnight." And the block goes dark. There's a power outage. And what does my friend do? She bolts it and she's gone. Do you remember that?

Emily Kwok:
I do.

Colin Jack:
I'll never fucking forget.

Emily Kwok:
I totally laughed. I was like, "Fuck this shit." Do you know I returned the movie the same... This is when we watched movies on VHS.

Colin Jack:
On VHS. Yeah.

Emily Kwok:
I returned that shit right away.

Colin Jack:
Yeah, for sure.

Emily Kwok:
It's like, I don't want this crazy stuff in my house. Oh man. Tears of laughter with that one. So many memories. Holy smokes. Sometimes, I just think about like, "Oh man, if we could just back to... If we'd all be back in Vancouver for a weekend or a week and remember what that was all like." I'm very grateful to have friends yourself and John and Lisa and Thomas and Jamie and all those people that we grew up with because there's so much to go back to. There's such a great history there. And also, people that have grown with you, which is rare.

Colin Jack:
Yeah. [inaudible 01:49:08].

Emily Kwok:
Yeah. So thank you, Colin.

Colin Jack:
Of course.

Emily Kwok:
I appreciate you. And I hope that people have enjoyed this episode as much as I have. And with that, I say peace out. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time.

Colin Jack:
Bye.