With over 30 years in the business of animated series, Invincible producer Catherine Winder knows the industry inside and out. Her work built the teams that brought Star Wars into animation, produced the mega-successes of Ice Age and The Angry Birds Movie, and she even worked behind the scenes on everything from MTV's Aeon Flux to the Barbie movies.
In a CBR exclusive interview, Winder delved into her insights in the industry, the atmosphere of the radically diverse projects and the importance of a cohesive artistic vision in bringing stories like Invincible to life.
CBR: Your career spans across media that appeals to a broad range of demographics, involving everything from Barbie and The Angry Birds Movie to Aeon Flux and Todd McFarlane's Spawn. Does the target audience change your approach to a project, and if so what's the difference in atmosphere like behind the scenes?
WINDER: Sure, when I launched the project, I carefully choose and cast a team specific to the genre and audience that we’re going after for the property. So, since that’s the case, each project and team is unique, but what consistent is the team I assemble has a passion for the material, the content. Whatever it is we’re producing. So, behind the scenes, there’s always a passion filled with incredible filmmakers.
Additionally, something I do is take a global approach to casting the artist. So you’ll also find that there’s a real global team in place. Again, all passionate about the content. For example, if it’s a comedy like Angry Birds, it’s a group of people that have strength and love for global event films. In the instance of Clone Wars, we actually traveled the world. We had talent from the US, Canada, Asia, all bringing in their points of view.
CBR: That’s amazing. And what are those different teams like? I imagine it affects the atmosphere quite differently to have collected who are passionate about Barbie versus people who are passionate about Spawn.
Yeah, in most cases, they are passionate. They are fans of the material. The Barbie team, they collect. They love the toys. Not everyone, but that is something we circle ourselves with. People understand innately the content and the canon.
A property like Angry Birds, we managed to pull a team together of filmmakers who not only played games but understood how to tell a global narrative story for a global event audience. Again, the environment is different because you may have for say, Spawn, an action adventure dramatic team, and for Angry Birds, comedy focused people. But in all cases, it’s a family. It’s a passionate group of people working towards dedicating themselves towards creating the best content possible and making the audience happy.
CBR: How did your early work as a production manager for Disney Animation in Tokyo shape your professional development? Were there big lessons you learned in those days, and was the work culture in Tokyo markedly different from that in North America?
There is an incredible opportunity as a foreigner, a female, and working in an office in Tokyo to help bridge the Americans and the Japanese to figure out how to work together and produce content for a global audience again. The learnings were significant, and they really did shape everything I’ve done. As I said, my role was to create a bridge between both studios, each who had very different cultures and work styles.
In Japan, for example, it’s not comfortable to be direct, but rather you need to approach your questions, your way of communicating, [in] a little more indirect manner. Where, in the United States, you need to be direct. It’s encouraged and expected. So, you can imagine trying to sell creative challenges and come up with solutions and work together, being direct versus indirect, can be very confusing.
CBR: Bringing any massive franchise into the world of cinematic animation for the first time would be difficult enough, but Star Wars in particular has a fan culture that can be notoriously difficult to please. Did you feel a lot of that pressure in producing Star Wars: The Clone Wars to "get it right?"
Absolutely. Let’s face it, there’s no bigger property to take into the world of animation. So, the responsibility was huge, especially when someone like George Lucas tells you your mandate is to produce something no one has ever seen before, a global, unique, compelling visual style. Now, while it’s daunting on one hand, it’s pretty darn exciting on the other. To have such a chance, an opportunity, to put a team together -- which, by the way, is my favorite thing to do -- and take it into this new world and work towards really making the fans happy, but also adding more fans.
At that time, Revenge of the Sith was being released, and there were no plans to make other films. It’s not like it is today. So, it was really important that we could reach out to younger generations and bring them into the Star Wars universe. So, the most important thing when you have this responsibility, particularly with Star Wars, is finding that right team of people. The idea was really to create a diverse group from Star Wars experts to incredible artists, and not stop at North America. We reached out all around the world.
CBR: Delegating wisely seems so incredibly important to what you do. Would you say there are key characteristics you look for in the talents you manage that let you know they're capable of handling the task at hand?
One of the most important characteristics I look for is somebody who’s not afraid to ask questions, and to challenge what we’re doing. And in the case of, say, a producer, production staff don’t know how to solve a problem, not afraid of to say, “I don’t know,” raise their hand. The fact that someone can put their ego on the shelf and not be afraid of looking bad and be able to, instead, openly say, “I need your help,” for the greater good. That’s incredible, and that tells me a lot about somebody.
That’s really, really important. Often people try to hide things and pretend they know. They can be passionate, but if they don’t actually know how to solve something, can’t speak up, ultimately, you’re not going to be able to get it completed.
Invincible stars Steven Yeun, J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, Seth Rogen, Gillian Jacobs, Andrew Rannells, Zazie Beetz, Mark Hamill, Walton Goggins, Jason Mantzoukas, Mae Whitman, Chris Diamantopoulos, Melise, Kevin Michael Richardson, Khary Payton, Grey Griffin and Max Burkholder. The series is produced by Skybound, and executive produced by Robert Kirkman, Simon Racioppa, David Alpert and Catherine Winder. New episodes premiere Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.
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