WARNING: this is a vanity page, in large part so I don't forget what I did while at DreamWorks...you probably won't find it very interesting unless you are curious about what faces I rigged in a movie you watched.

Dug Stanat
PDI/DreamWorks
Rigging History

I am proud to have worked as a character technical director (digital puppet maker) at PDI/Dreamworks from January, 2002 until October, 2013. Not only was I given the opportunity to help create art that millions would see, but I was blessed to be working with so many skilled and wonderful riggers, animators, modelers, and artists.

During my twelve years at Dreamworks I worked on nine movies, with tours of duty ranging from six months to almost three years. I specialized in rigging faces, and enjoyed working with the animators to be sure that they could get the speech, emotion, and range of movement required for each character. On occasion I was fortunate as a rigger to do some design work, most notably sculpting the four penguin variations for Madagascar.

Below is a chronological list of movies and characters I worked on. It is not a complete list of tasks. For example, on Rise of the Guardians I was responsible for every face in the movie and as such worked on every face in at least a technical capacity, and likewise with all human faces on How To Train Your Dragon. But unless otherwise noted I'm only listing the faces for which I was the primary rigger. Also note that my face work did not include any hair work, except ocassionally providing hooks for facial hair movement. The primary exception with hair is Gobber, whose mustache was driven in large part by the facial rig.

Note that between sequels, characters were often completely re-rigged due to changing technology. For example, while I did not have anything to do with Donkey on Shrek 2, I completely re-rigged Donkey for Shrek the Third. On the other hand, between Madagascar 1 and 2, many of the rigs were re-used (after a painful architecture port that fortunately I was not a part of).

Shrek 2

(10 months: 4/02 - 2/03)
Roll: general rigger and complete newbie.

• womanA: motion system

• womanA: body and body variations

• womanA: face and face variations

• boy: face variations

• Simon Cowell face variation for DVD (done 5/04)

Madagascar

(12 months: 3/03 - 3/04)
Roll: Richard Walsh's sidekick until he left the show, at which point I became the acting face lead (no leads were credited on this film). It was an honor to be part of the effort of modifying the Shrek face rig to work with a broader animation style.

• Marty face: Marty and Alex (who Dick was working on), were the two simultaneous prototype faces where we were working to solve all the problems that broad animation presents to a rig. The biggest accomplishment of this push was the completely new lid system with lid sculpting and matching, along with enforced lid offsets from the eyeball. The core of this lid system was still in use when I left in 2013. Animators Rex Grignon and Denis Couchon provided the guidance that we needed to create rigs that could meet their requirements. I learned so much from them.

• Melman face

• Mort face

• penguin faces: Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private. After rigging the original penguin face, I pulled these four variations with no art direction beyond a few adjectives for each character. All four penguins are variations, with Rico being closest to the default face. I also created the body variations, although I did not rig the bodies. These four face designs are probably my longest-lived contribution to Dreamworks, as they are still going strong a decade later in movies and television (although the actual rigs haven't been used since Madagascar 2). I was told that a great effort was made to redesign the penguins for Penguins of Madagascar, but in the end they could not find better designs. The TV designs have slight alterations from my originals.

• police horse face: This was the last face I rigged for Madagascar, and is a testament to the problem of a system that changes with every movie. When I rigged this face, I knew the system so well that it was completed in two weeks, at least four times faster than a typical face at that time. Granted that it was not a great job, but it still illustrates that when the system changes with every movie, the riggers loose the speed advantage of familiarity.

Shrek the Third

(19 months: 4/04 - 11/05)
Roll: face rigger

• Donkey face

• Shrek details (Primarily rigged by Dick Walsh. After Dick left the show I did nose wrinkles, various face work (refinement per animators, mouth, brow and jaw work), belly and breath, hand deformations)

• womanA body variations

• womanA face and variations

• princess faces (variations of womanA)

• witch faces (variations of womanA)

• Mabel (variation of womanA)

• manA face and face variations

• Hook and Rumpelstiltskin (manA face variations)

• dwarf face variations

• manA body variations

• ogre baby faces

• Dragon face

• bunny (tertiary character) motion and deformation

Bee Movie

(6 months: 1/06 - 7/06)
Roll: face rigger

• generic pollen jockA face

• hero pollen jock faces: Splitz, Buzz, Jackson

• Monty face

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

(6 months: 10/06 - 3/07)
Roll: face rigger

• zebraA face (cut from film)

• giraffeA face

• In addition, the face rigs I did for Madagascar were reused (after some poor soul painfully ported them to the new pipeline architecture):

  • Marty

  • Melman

  • Mort

  • the penguins

How To Train Your Dragon

(23 months: 5/07 - 3/09)
Roll: human face lead* ("lead" titles were not used in credits on this film)

• Hiccup face: The prototype face that was guided by Animators Simon Otto and Gabe Hordos. This was a fantasic experience learning from new animators. greatly broadening my knowledge of what good animation can be.

• Stoick face: I briefly worked on the beard as well but it was soon determined that it was not a good use of my time.

• Gobber face: This work included a very comprehensive system for controlling his mustache.

• Tuffnut face: and in large part Ruffnut face as Matt Steele’s Ruffnut was almost a direct port from Tuffnut.

• Fishlegs face

• Spitelout face: a variation of Snotlout, which was rigged by Matt Steele.

* Mariette Marinus was the dragon face lead and won a VES award for Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture for rigging Toothless, sharing the award with body rigger Brent Watkins and animators Gabe Hordos and Cassidy Curtis.

Shrek Forever After (UNCREDITED)

Roll: I didn't work on this show, but some of the work I did on Shrek3 was used in Shrek4.

• Donkey face

• womanA face and variations

• witch faces (variations of womanA): a bunch of the witch variations that I did for Shrek3 were not used in Shrek3 because they were deemed too scary or strange…I was happy that many of my less friendly designs were used on Shrek4.

• ogre baby faces

• Dragon face

Rise of the Guardians

(31 months: 6/09 - 12/11)
Roll: face lead (credited). Worked under the guidance of animator Gabe Hordos, who I already had a great relationship with from HTTYD. The Frost face was rigged by Arthur Gregory, the show lead. This was unusual, but I have to admire Arthur for wanting to get his hands dirty. He did a good job but I had lots of work to do to clean him up.

• Pitch face

• Bunny face: I think they changed the bunny face 2 times, each time a new director was choosen. I rigged the first and final incarnations.

• Mini Bunny face

• Sandman face

• North face: I did not rig the beard (I think it was rushed, as I did not think it performed well).

How to Train
Your Dragon 2

(7 months: 6/12 - 1/13 (included training in next generation technology))
Roll: face rigger and once again a complete newbie

• Cloudjumper face: Learning the new techonology, this took me far too long. That being said, Kevin Johnson told me years later that there were zero notes on my rig, so my time was not poorly spent.

Puss In Boots 2

(5 months: 2/13 - 10/13 (3 month break 2/13 - 5/13))
Roll: acting face lead until I left Dreamworks. This movie was scrapped until being resurrected years after I left. I feel lucky that only one movie I worked on suffered this fate.

• Puss face

• Pedro face

Goodbye, PDI…I hope you still have your Klickies!

Above my workstation I kept a large Playmobil diorama, with lots of customized toys.

During my last week at PDI, I gave away many of the little “klicky” figures to my dear co-workers…well I didn’t quite give them away…there was a price. They had to take a selfie with me:

  Thanks for reading.

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