West Chicago native helps animated 'Moana' set sail
If you appreciate how realistic the animated water looks in Walt Disney's new musical "Moana," you can thank former West Chicago kid Sean Palmer.
A little bit, anyway.
The West Chicago Community High School graduate has been part of a Disney group working on "Moana" for a couple of years. Palmer's title is "associate technical supervisor," and his job involved coordinating different teams charged with animating natural phenomena such as water, fire and smoke for the film's Polynesian setting.
Hitting theaters Tuesday night, "Moana" follows the adventures of a strong-willed Polynesian teen who sets out to break a curse against her people.
"We knew water was going to become an enormous challenge on this film, just because of the complexity and number of shots, the level of interaction and the detail that we needed," Palmer said.
"We had all kinds of water, like shoreline water, open ocean, then characters interacting with the water," he said. "The water is also a character in the movie. It has a personified appearance. All of that was relatively new to us, especially on this scale."
What Palmer does as an associate technical supervisor gets a little dicey to explain.
"One of the tech supervisors, Hank Driscoll, referred to us as 'floor managers,'" Palmer said. "We're out there directly working with the crew and the artists, trying to troubleshoot things and offer advice."
Palmer wears many hats. "Sometimes you're like a fireman. Say something's stuck in the system and you can't get the images to render, so you dive in and see what you can do."
Sometimes, the animators don't have the right computer "tools" to accomplish an effect. So, Palmer writes the computer code to solve the problems.
Palmer also headed up endless meetings with the filmmaking teams to plan and anticipate problems with the animation process.
"I want to think I was instrumental in facilitating the resolution of those conversations," he said with pride.
Palmer, 33, graduated from West Chicago Community High School in 2001. He headed to the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia where he earned his BFA in computer graphics.
His demo reel of animated graphics landed him a job in the New York-based company Blue Sky Studios, creators of the "Ice Age" comedies.
Palmer began his career working on "Ice Age: Meltdown."
In 2014, he applied to Disney. Two Skype interviews later, he joined Mickey Mouse as a fellow employee.
Palmer credits a high school teacher, David Exner, for reinforcing his desire to do something creative with his career.
"He was way supportive," Palmer remembered. "He actually got what I was wanting to do and encouraged me to go for it, even though it was off the beaten path."
He also gives credit to Cantera Theatre in Warrenville, where he worked as an usher, box office cashier and concession stand operator, a multi-tasking position that offered unexpected fringe benefits.
"Every night I would get to meet a group of people who had no problem telling you exactly what they were thinking," Palmer said.
"That was an interesting way to get exposed to the social delicacies of interacting with other people."
- Dann Gire
• Know any suburbanites in showbiz who'd make good stories? Contact Jamie Sotonoff and Dann Gire at jsotonoff@dailyherald.com and dgire@dailyherald.com.