Now in its third year, the Creative Exchange Fund, curated by The Medium in Springdale, supports local artists by providing financial support and a space to take creative risks. KUAF is partnering with The Medium to profile some of this year's 37 multidisciplinary artists included in the Exchange Fund. We'll hear about their art, their process and what it means to be creative in Northwest Arkansas right now.
David Condolora is one of those recipients, and he'll tell you the point of watching a richly animated movie like "Toy Story" or "The Lion King" isn't to think about all the work required to make that film. The point is to be entertained. But for one evening, David Condolora will allow us to think about the labor behind those animated movies. Condolora lives in Rogers, and he's an animation editor and screenwriter. His screenplay is the basis for the in-progress animated film "The Fox in the Walled Garden." It's the in-progress part that he'll focus on at The Medium Thursday night, Aug. 27, as part of the Creative Exchange Fund's Spectra Series. That night is centered around a short animatic of the project.
Condolora: An animatic is a. It's a storyboard version of a movie, so it plays like a movie. It plays in real time. It has music, sound effects, dialogue. But instead of seeing fluid animation, you're seeing storyboard drawings that go by at like, I don't know, five, three or five frames per second, whereas animation is 24 frames per second. So it's a lot lower fidelity, but it gives you the feeling of watching a movie.
I just showed it to somebody recently from the Democrat-Gazette, and he said after about a minute, he forgot he was watching storyboards because it just you get sucked into the movie just like a normal movie. So it's how we test a movie. Animation is so expensive. The actual process of animating that you have to test it and make sure you're not going to waste any animation first. So we tested it this phase, and then once it's perfect or as close as we can get, then we animate.
Kellams: This may come off as insulting. I don't mean it to be. But when my friends and I were bored in study hall way back when, we would create these little images on pages and then flip the pages. Yeah, a flip book, right? Something like that.
Condolora: That's probably one stage more animated than the animatic.
Kellams: Yeah. All right. The idea here on the 27th, those of us at The Medium will be able to see kind of what it takes to create an animated movie.
Condolora: Yes, yes. Step by step. So we'll screen the movie, the animatic of the film, but also in the adjacent art gallery, you'll see everything from the initial notebook ideas where I'm just thinking out loud to the script pages, to the character concept designs. The storyboards are over 700 storyboards were drawn for the animatic and then even the editing process. I have a big image of the timeline, so you can see all the different audio clips and video clips that went into it. And a lot of the labels that go with each piece are explaining the process as it goes and kind of showing you everything that it takes.
Because an animated movie, it takes between four and five years for every animated movie you see in theaters. And two years, half of that time is in this animatic phase, because we're reworking the movie over and over and over to make it as emotional and as meaningful and as exciting as possible before we ever animate. Because the idea is if it's exciting in the storyboard version, when it's animated in color and lit and it looks beautiful, it's going to be five times as exciting. And so if it works in storyboard, it'll really work when it's animated. And that's how you get "Toy Story 5," which did a billion dollars this summer at the box office.
Kellams: That's right. You are an editor. You have history in editing animated films.
Condolora: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My big break in the industry was working on Disney's "Tangled," which was a while ago now. But yeah, it was a wonderful time to be there. So I was in the editing team on "Tangled" and then "Wreck-It Ralph," and then I went up to Pixar and was there for a couple of movies and a TV special. And then most recently I was one of the editors on Netflix's "In Your Dreams," which came out this past Thanksgiving, and that was four and a half years. Editing from Rogers, Arkansas.
Condolora: I was remote, so.
Kellams: Wow.
Condolora: Yeah.
Kellams: This, though, is your screenplay.
Condolora: Yeah.
Kellams: What? Well, first, let me ask about the screenplay.
Condolora: Sure.
Kellams: What's the story?
Condolora: Oh, boy. This is always a hard question for me to answer because I'm too close to it. But let me try. So the movie's called "The Fox in the Walled Garden." It's about a boy who's a teenage boy kind of coming of age story. He's living in this futuristic city that is inside a dome. And in this future, humanity has cut itself off from nature because animals all have a deadly disease. And so it's like a defense mechanism. We have to keep the insect and animal world at bay. So we're kind of cut off.
But he's this anomaly kid who dreams of going outside the dome. What's out there? I want to be out there. And by chance, he comes into contact with this fox who is inside the city, hiding in the rubble of a demolished building. And Adam, who's our main character, is bitten by that fox. And now he has that disease. But there's rumors that there's a cure at this group of people who have rejected all this modernity and are outside of the dome. And so now he has to go out to those people and try to get the cure to save his life. And as you might guess, everything is not what it seems. And he learns some things along the way. But that's the kind of the crux of the story.
Kellams: So some thoughts. One. It sounds horrible to be separated from animals, whether it's your dog or deer or whatever.
Condolora: I know no dog would be the worst thing ever.
Kellams: Okay, so that's one thought. Second thought. Did you think what could be the most complicated thing to turn into an animated movie? Because it sounds rich and textured.
Condolora: Yeah.
Kellams: And now I get why it takes five years for a movie to come to fruition.
Condolora: Yeah.
Kellams: And, well, okay, what I'm trying to ask, I guess, is when you're creating the screenplay, do you allow yourself to go, ooh, that'll be tough to animate or do you just flow?
Condolora: I just flow. I'm more likely to do the former. Like think about the difficulty if I'm writing a live action script because if you want to do a train blowing up in live action, that's going to be expensive if you're going to do that in animation. Well, especially this. This is supposed to be hand-drawn film. It'll be 2D. So you just draw a train blowing up like it's not like you're simulating a train. So in some ways animation is freeing in that way that you can do things that, like training a fox would be really difficult. But I put a fox in at the center of my movie because it's animated. He's a great, that's a great opportunity. An animator would love that opportunity to make a fox act and emote and become a character.
Kellams: So the Creative Exchange Fund, yes, has helped you begin this process.
Condolora: Immensely, yeah. I owe a lot to The Medium and their Creative Exchange Fund, the film won a grant from their Spectra Series. That's what it's called. And so I got that late last spring. And I was already in this process. I'd already written the script. I'd hired one artist with a little bit of funds that I had to do some basic art, but getting that grant just gave me rocket fuel and I was able to hire more artists.
I worked with a local casting agent and hired Northwest Arkansas actors to do the voices, recorded them right across the street at the Fayetteville Public Library and their great recording facility. And yeah, it's what made it possible to do it at this quality level, because when I had envisioned it, it was going to be I was going to be the main character. My wife was going to be the best friend. I was going to hire one artist to draw the storyboards. And then I was going to edit it myself. And that was it. But because of The Medium, I was able to really do it much more professionally and like the way I saw it done when I was out in California.
Kellams: So on the 27th of The Medium, we'll get an idea of what it takes.
Condolora: Yes. So doors are at 6:30 and you'll have some time to look at the gallery before going in. And we're going to start in the auditorium at 7. I'll give a brief talk about like my experience working in the animation industry, where the movie came from, how it's made. I'm going to show a different animatic. So you get familiar with what animatics look like. Something from a different project I edited. And then we'll watch the film and I'm thinking, I'm going to treat it like a test screening.
And this is something that most movies go through in Hollywood is like, you see this all the time at the AMC in downtown Burbank in LA. There will be people outside handing out flyers. Hey, you want to see a movie? It's got this person in it and it's a thriller and you don't know anything else. And they gave you this flyer, and then you can go in the theater and watch it. And then they give you cards and say, well, what did you think about this part? Who is your favorite character? Where did it drag all that and get that feedback and try to make the movie better.
One of the things about animated films is that we're always iterating, and you're going to see this in the gallery. I talk about it, you see it in the artwork. We're always one upping ourselves and one upping the person who came before us to try to make it better and better and better. And so a test screening like that, if I'm planning to give everyone cards, same idea and give me feedback, what did you like? What did you not like? What was confusing so that we can make the film even better to try to get the funding or pitch it to a studio and get it made. So then we'll watch the film and do a Q&A as well.
Kellams: How do you keep the patience going? I mean, if look, I have a daily show and this interview gets turned around a couple of days and then I'm on to something else. And I like that sort of pace. Yeah, if I had to wait five years or six years or nine years for something to come together, I don't know if I would stick with it.
Condolora: Yeah, well, you'll see at the gallery the first version of this story I wrote in 2012. So it's been 14 years that I've been living with this. What became this story? And I think it's something about seeing it improve every time. So I can spend a week editing and re-editing a scene. And yeah, you might get tired watching the same scene over and over, but it's not the same scene over and over for me because I see it changing and getting better every time I watch it. There's something magical about that, especially once you start getting the final animation shots in it. I always say it feels like Christmas morning when you get those shots in, because suddenly you go from this crude drawing to this beautiful, lit emotional shot. And those are great moments. And that's what makes it worth it.
Kellams: When I think of a movie like "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," nearly two hours. Every scene has seemingly a million things going on.
Condolora: Yeah.
Kellams: How many hands did Sony? How many fingerprints are on that?
Condolora: Oh, 400 to 600.
Kellams: Wow.
Condolora: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Pixar, when I was there, we had 1,200 people at the studio. Now it's spread across multiple films.
Kellams: Sure, sure, sure.
Condolora: Yeah. Every movie. You had over 100 animators alone. That's not counting the rest of the crew. So, yeah, 300, 400 or 500 is not uncommon at all.
Kellams: Yeah. All right. What's the difference for you between editing somebody else's work, but still really invested in making it as wonderful as it can be. But then it's your story and seeing the art come back.
Condolora: It's I didn't want to edit my own work, to be honest. I had an editor I was going to work with and he ended up, he had a baby and then got too busy at work, two big things. And so I was like, fine, I'll do it myself. It's fine. And partially because the problem with editing your own work is you're too close to it and you don't know what's what. You don't know what's confusing for other people. You don't know what is just your own taste that 90% of the people aren't going to like or won't understand. And so it's dangerous, I'll say. But the flip side is that I was able to invest more energy and more time than I would want to ask someone else to invest because I would never want to drive someone as hard as I'll drive myself. So there's two sides to that coin.
Kellams: Got it, got it. What led to the inspiration for the story?
Condolora: That's a good question. And on the walls of the gallery, I even say I don't remember where the idea came from, but I think I've got inklings. And I think it part of it had something to do with living in California for a while and being in both the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, these huge metropolises and the feeling of being surrounded by this, like these urban environments and skyscrapers and all of that and like thinking about where things are going and how we're more removed than probably we've ever been societally, ever been from the natural world. And then what does that do to a person? Like encountering a small animal might feel like magic, it might feel wondrous, but it also might feel really alien, because it's not a daily occurrence anymore.
Those are some of the seeds, I think. And when I lived out there every Saturday, we'd be driving out three hour round trip to go hike in Marin County, which is like one of the most beautiful places in the world because we wanted to just be out there in the natural world, it's like that was the escape. And so I think there were some seeds there. And now that I'm here in Northwest Arkansas, it's like, well, I've got a trail system like out my door, right. Which is wonderful. But yeah, that's, I think where it came from.
Kellams: So this probably is a question that doesn't have a direct answer yet. What's next?
Condolora: That's a great question. And I think that's partly why I wanted to do this screening, is to try to raise awareness of the thing and see what people latch on to. Because what's next is trying to pitch it to try to make the movie. So I've taken it kind of as far as I can with the budget and time and skills I personally have. And so if we want to actually make the movie and potentially make it here in Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas, which I think would be phenomenal, and there is enough, there is some of the talent already here. I've identified some people that you don't know who's around in a place like this. But I've started pitching it to some studios. I actually pitched a studio this morning. But I'm also just trying to see like, who might be interested in partnering on something like this, helping fund the next stage of the process and see where we can take it.
Kellams: Is it free on the.
Condolora: Yes, yes, it is completely free. Tell your friends, please come. Like I said, 6:30 doors at The Medium in downtown Springdale. Seven o'clock is our start time.
Kellams: All right. The next time I'm in the theater and I'm watching a Pixar movie, and I don't think about all you editors and animators. I'm just watching and I'm lost in the story. That's the goal you don't want me to think about.
Condolora: Oh, we don't. And that's there's an editing event in LA every year called Invisible Art, Visible Artists. And if we're doing our job right, you're not thinking about us or about our art. Our art is invisible. Yeah. I don't want you thinking about it. I just want you to enjoy the movie.
Kellams: Is your wife okay not being the best friend?
Condolora: And she's more than okay. I don't know if I could have twisted her arm to do it.
Kellams: Thanks for coming in.
Condolora: Thank you.
David Condolora will show and discuss the animatic of his animated work in progress, "The Fox in the Walled Garden," Thursday night, Aug. 27, at The Medium in downtown Springdale. It's part of the Creative Exchange Fund's Spectra Series. Our conversation took place in the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio last week. The Creative Exchange series is produced by KUAF Public Radio in partnership with The Medium. Support for this project comes from the Tyson Family Foundation. The Medium and the Creative Exchange Fund are projects of the Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange, or CACHE. For more about the project and more about the 2025-2026 recipients, you can visit themedium.art/cxf.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
