KOCHI: With a remarkable body of work, spanning over a career of 25 years, Fabienne Rawley is one of the most distinguished woman animation film editors in a male-dominated discipline. Fabienne began her tryst with Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2013. Over the years, she has worked on a number of projects but she is best known for her work on Zootopia for which bagged the American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Award. She also lent her voice to one of the characters in the film. Fabienne recently spoke at the first online Animation Masters Summit 2020 conducted recently by Technopark-based Toonz Media Group as its master speaker. TNIE caught up with the master editor who shared anecdotes from her career.
Tell us about your experience working with filmmaker Robert Zemeckis for Monster House.
It was wonderful working with him as he is someone who loves the entire process of making movies. Although it was the first movie of Gil Kenan, the director of the film, Robert Zemeckis had faith in his talent and supported him. This is what led the film to become a super hit. Since I never worked on a motion capture movie before, technical challenges were daunting. Monster House was the first time I worked with story boards and it made me realise how much more work is involved in making animation movies than live action movies.
How was your first editing experience?
When you are on your first editing assignment, you keeping thinking how to make the director happy. You edit the film according to the director’s criteria. However, the problem with that is you never know what is it exactly that they want. So, the lesson I learnt from my first editing assignment was to follow my instincts.
How is editing an animation film different from live-action?
In animation, the material constantly keeps changing and you are writing the movie along with the director and actors. As an animation editor, you are much more involved in the film and you have the liberty to take out or put more words. You tend to make the film a number of times.
Tell us about work on Zootopia. Also, was your casting planned?
It was so much fun to collaborate with some of the best talents in the animation industry. But, it was difficult to decide on things such as what camera angle can be used and how you can make a perfect edit since it was a 3D computer-animated film. I lent my voice to a namesake character called ‘Fabienne Growley’. It was not planned. But since I had to show the dialogues to the director the next day, I thought of recording them myself and everyone liked it.
How difficult is it to edit animation sequences with multiple characters?
It is much easier to work on a scene where only two people are talking but at the same time it is no fun. The exciting and challenging part is when there are lot of characters. Putting the dialogues and expressions to each character is what makes your effort fulfilling.
Was it tough to make your mark as a woman in a male dominated discipline?
When I started my career, I was probably the only one doing editing in animation. But, I got a lot of support from everyone. I hope that more woman come into animation. The shift has started.