(bright upbeat music) ♪ ♪ Yeah, the simple things in life ♪ - My guest is Cal State University-San Bernardino Biology Professor, Dr. Stuart Sumida.

Welcome, and thank you for joining us.

- Thank you for having me back.

- So the last time we chatted, it was to talk about your advisement and consulting on Pixar's "Soul," which went on to win the Oscar for best animated film.

This year, you're involved in another movie with "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish," which is also up for an Oscar for best animated film.

Now, before we talk about some of your animated characters and all that you've consulted on, I wanna go back a little bit and talk about your backstory growing up in San Fernando and your time at UCLA that would eventually lead you into this film industry.

- So, that's a great question, and I'm glad you asked that because it's one of those stories where I like to tell my own students: 'one of the most important things you have to remember is 'to never put on blinders, to always think that there are possibilities.'

Or, 'never limit yourself.'

I was a pre-med major in college.

My father just assumed that I was gonna take over his practice when I finished medical school.

And, while I was at UCLA, I found that I really liked the basic sciences.

I liked anatomy.

I liked biology.

I liked comparative animal anatomy.

I had a wonderful, wonderful mentor there named Peter Vaughn.

Peter has since passed away, and we miss him very much.

But at the same time, while I was there, beginning to have this budding interest in anatomy and paleontology and fossils, I also had the good fortune to meet a fellow who's now been a lifelong friend, a fellow named Charles Solomon.

And, Charles and I sort of hung out together there.

He was in the animation and art department, and I was in biology, and we loved hanging out together because we needed a break from our respective, you know, immersions in each of our fields.

And so, he and I would talk about the intersection of what we like.

So, he loved rabbits, and I would tell him about the biology of rabbits.

So, I loved cartoons, and he would tell me about cartoons.

And, we each graduated.

He became a very, very well-known writer and critic.

He's written for everything from "Rolling Stone" to the "LA Times."

And, I went off to the University of Chicago for a while.

But, we stayed in contact.

We still stayed in contact.

And, one day while I was in Chicago, he said, "You know, all that stuff we used to talk about, "and all the people we used to hang out with?

"Well, some of them have jobs now at Disney, "and they're sort of at a loss for certain of the characters that they have to work on".

Because, everybody does life drawing.

Everybody studies certain basic things.

But then, when you're thrown a curve ball for an animal you've never had to deal with before, what do you do?

And, he actually said to them, "Well, why don't you talk to a biologist?"

And, they literally said to Charles, "Well, do you know any?"

He goes, "Actually, yes I do!"

(Lillian laughs) And so-- and I'll never forget.

He called me up.

We used to just email back and forth, but he actually called me up, and it was actually snowing outside in Chicago.

I'm looking out the window in my little office at the University of Chicago, and he says, "What would you think about coming to Southern California to give a talk to the folks at Disney?"

And, I'm like, "Sold!"

(Stuart and Lillian laugh) And, I wound up going back there to talk to them about horses and wolves, which to me as a scientist, a biologist, was just about a plant eater versus a meat eater, an herbivore versus a carnivore.

And, it went well.

And, that turned out to be the wolves and the horse in the film "Beauty and the Beast."

- [Lillian] Philippe!

- Philippe, the horse, and the wolves who are without name.

But, they were animated by a fellow named Dave Burgess.

And, Philippe was animated by a fellow named Russ Edmonds.

They really liked what he had to say, and both of them went on to the next big film, which is full of animals, which was called "Lion King."

- Oh, and I wanna talk about "Lion King" in a little bit.

- All the animals.

And so, I got to go and help them with that.

And, that was just about the time that I was hired for the job that I now have at Cal State-San Bernardino.

And so, the timing was great.

I lived at the studio for a while, while I was looking for an apartment (chuckles) in Southern California, here in the Inland Empire.

And, that was the genesis of the work we did on "Lion King."

- Well, I wanna talk about "Lion King," one of my favorite movies.

I love Disney movies in general, but, you know, I definitely have a few favorites.

"Beauty and the Beast" and "Lion King" are up there.

You know, as we talk about- - Well, great!

- Some of the characters you've had the pleasure to help bring to life working with animators, share your knowledge of the animal anatomy and how your work with the animator lets the movie-- Let's talk about the movie "Puss in Boots" in general, "The Last Wish."

Which character did you help bring to life on the big screen?

- "Puss in Boots" was a really fun, fun little project.

Now, we did "Puss in Boots."

We started working on that a number of years ago.

In 2019, Dreamworks Animation actually offered to fund a sabbatical for me.

Lots of academics.

Every five or six years, get to go off and take a little bit of time to recharge their batteries.

Now, we can't give them a ton of time because we have a job to do.

We have our teaching to do.

But, Dreamworks was actually very, very thoughtful.

A lady there named Angela Lepito helped to fund a little bit of extra time.

So, instead of having one term off, which at Cal State-San Bernardino at the time was a 10-week quarter, they got me six months!

- [Lillian] Wow.

- So, I spent six months living at the studio for at least three days a week.

And, that's when we started working on a variety of films, including "Bad Guys," "Puss in Boots," the television show "Camp Cretaceous" because they were doing that, as well.

It's a "Jurassic Park" spin-off.

- [Lillian] Okay.

- One of the things that happened with "Puss in Boots" is that the film characters are already well established.

And, everybody loves Puss because everybody loves Antonio Banderas!

- Ha!

Puss in Boots laughs in the face of death, bounty hunter.

- He's just so fun!

And so, they asked, "well, "'would you be willing to talk to the "Puss in Boots" crew?

I'm like, "Well, what do you need from me?

You've been working with Puss for years."

And, they said, "Well, here's the thing."

And, I don't-- I think the film's been out long enough that they we're not spoiling anything.

In "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish," he uses up eight of his nine lives.

And so, he has to protect himself.

He has to hide away with a crazy cat lady.

Well?

When you're hiding away with a crazy cat lady, you have to be a cat, (Lillian chuckles) not Puss in Boots.

So, he had to take his boots off.

- Mm.

- That was a big moment in the film, and they never animated Puss without his boots.

So, we actually spent time talking about, instead of a cat walking around like a human being with a sword in his hand and a hat on his head, walking around on all-fours.

- [Lillian] Like a cat!

- [Stuart] With real cat feet.

- [Lillian] Yeah!

- As opposed to cat's feet in boots.

And so, it was... And, it wasn't anything they didn't understand, but we actually got a little bit of nitty-gritty in the details to make it all look, to make it all look just right.

And, it was really, really fun.

We had a bit of a delay across the pandemic, but the film finally got finished, and it's been doing really well.

- Well?

You can't go wrong with Antonio, right?

- (chuckles) No, absolutely not!

[background clanking sounds] - Okay.

So another recent film that you've worked on is Disney's "Strange World."

And, on this project you joined forces with your wife Elizabeth Rega, who is also a professor of anatomy or anthropology.

Tell me about this project.

- Elizabeth is a professor of anatomy at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona.

And, she's not only an anatomy professor and instructor, but she's also their vice president and in charge of outreach to the community in Pomona and the Inland Empire in general.

She runs something called a Health Career Ladder for both Native Americans and local kids.

She's really, really active.

But she, like me, is interested in anatomy.

And, it's really funny because our kids know that both of us are nerds!

(Lillian laughs) And, they said...

They look at us like typical kids looking at their parents.

And, our answer to them is like, "look, we had to marry each other 'cause no one else would've had either of us 'cause we're so nerdy!"

Well, she actually has worked in the film industry quite a bit herself.

I do mostly animals and occasionally people.

She does mostly people and primates and occasionally animals.

Well, "Strange World" was a new strange thing.

No pun intended!

(Lillian laughs) The director there, Don Hall, really didn't want us to just come and say, "Here's how something moves."

Because, it was a strange new world.

What we really did was all sorts of crazy brainstorming.

And so, because she's at a medical school, she literally teaches from the cellular level on up.

So, we were talking to them about everything from the immune system cells to the blood vessels, to lungs and kidneys, and hearts, and so on and so forth.

And, again, without trying to give too many spoiler alerts, the strange world is the inside of a giant creature.

And so, this giant creature had to have a way to breathe.

It had to have a way to defend itself, and so on.

And so, of course, these ideas were things that the artists ran with.

And, we got to give them all sorts of crazy ideas.

And, we would literally sit with them in what they called the "war "room and just come up with all sorts of crazy ideas.

You know?

Tons of the ideas just fell to the floor, but some of them were adopted.

So, for example, everything has to breathe.

And so, when you look inside the area, you see the-- what look like trees actually expanding and contracting.

- Yeah.

- Those are actually analogs to the ends of our lungs called alveoli.

And then, now one of the things that Beth does, among other things as a scientist, is she does a lot of work on animals that are found in caves, fossil animals found in caves.

And so, when we thought about how this thing should breathe, well, it's gonna breathe not like us, in and out of a mouth.

And, it's gonna be like you're in caves.

And, that was the way in for the characters.

The characters came in through what looked like a big cave.

But, you know what?

That's how insects breathe.

They breathe through little tubes in their bodies.

And, oh, by the way!

She's worked in caves.

So, we had-- we were constantly-- it was a stream of consciousness kind of behavior.

And, Don Hall and his crew were like, "this is great.

"We have no idea what we're gonna do with it, but this is great!"

And, that started before the pandemic as well.

- So now, I haven't seen the movie, but I have seen trailers.

And so, I didn't know the story behind it.

But, now that you've described all that, it makes sense with all the different-- I can see the visual of different things moving this way or things moving this way as the body would function inside.

So, I get it now.

Well, I think it's awesome that you got to work with your wife on that project.

- It was really fun!

- Yeah.

I wanna move along.

I wanna ask you about your first "real" credit with the "Lion King."

What's the backstory?

And, why was this your first real credit?

- Well, the work on "Beauty and the Beast" was fun, but it was just a day or two.

And so, you know, I thought it was a one-off at the time.

I got to work with some lovely, lovely people and I still have some drawings that they did for me on my walls.

But then, they asked me if we would come back for a film that was all animals.

And, I think-- and I must have given at least a dozen different presentations on all the different kinds of animals from the wildebeests that were computer-generated to the lions that were hand-drawn, and on and on and on.

And, we did some more of what we did in "Beauty the Beast" where we talked about carnivores versus herbivores and things like that.

And then, I actually wound up doing the exact same series of presentations at their Florida studio because at the time they had a studio in Florida, as well.

So, I spent an enormous amount of time on that.

And, again- to return back to the person who got me involved in this- Charles Solomon said to me, "Well, you should get a film credit."

And, it never even occurred to me!

And, I said, "Really?"

And, he said, "Yeah, you should talk to the producer.

"His name is Don Hahn.

Don is a lovely man and you should talk to him."

And, Don Hahn is a lovely, lovely human being.

And so, I very sort of timidly left a phone message for him one day 'cause Charles gave me his number.

And, he wrote-- he called back and says, "Well, of course!

Why wouldn't we?"

And, in fact, in the original version of the film, I am the last, last, very last name in the credits and it says Animal Anatomy Consultant.

And, you know, I've had credits since then.

And, you got-- you have to watch for your name They're buried in there somewhere, right?

But, when you're the last, last name it's easy for everyone to see it.

So, of course, my family was thrilled!

- Yeah.

So, I have to tell you about that.

I have a son with autism and when we go to the movies we have to watch the credits all the way through!

- Oh, that's great!

(laughs) - To the very end.

And, I must say since I met you a few years ago, I've looked in the credits.

Any project you're in, to see if I can see your name, 'cause I'm just so proud to know you and to have you be part of the Inland Empire and your involvement with animation and movies and just this industry in general.

So, I am reading those credits!

(chuckles) - Well, that's great 'cause I can tell you that you and your son that are like the artists themselves, they stay till the very, very end.

And, especially you-- every once in a while you hear, you know, a little bit of a cheer here, a little bit of clapping there when they see their friends and- - Yeah, of course.

- And, I do the same thing.

- Credits.

- And, even films I'm not involved with, I can't-- I have to watch all the way to the end down!

(Stuart laughs) - You know?

It's deserving, right?

You get a credit in there for a reason.

Okay.

So now, I wanna ask you for my young colleagues here at KVCR who are gamers.

You've consulted for video games as well, and even gave a keynote speech.

You were in Norway, but you gave the keynote for the conference there, which I watched the entire thing.

But, tell me what's the difference or the similarities when you're working on a video game project as opposed to a film animation project?

- Well, one of the things that's happened with video games, as I'm sure you and your colleagues know is the video game industry has just exploded in recent years.

It's enormous.

And so, what happens now is that video games aren't just, you know, finding your way through a maze or going shoot 'em up, bang-bang at something.

Now video games have a story and most good video games have a backstory that involves you in the game play.

And, a lot of that story is animated just like a film.

And so, these artists have some of the same interests and some of the same goals in many ways that the people who make films do.

And, of course, when you have game play, those characters have to move in a way that the gamers enjoy.

Right?

One of the things that's really great about this is that the characters that we've had have also diversified.

It used to be just a bunch of men with guns.

Now, we have women.

We have creatures and so on.

And so, now when we work with animation studios, I like to say the five most commonly animated characters are people, cats, dogs, horses and mice.

Video games?

It's people-?

People, creatures, creatures, people.

And, occasionally some animals!

- Okay!

- They have lots of creatures, but all the creatures are built out of animals that we know for the most part.

And so, we wind up giving them a lot of the same kind of information.

The-- but sometimes, it's very project specific.

I would say that probably one of the most exciting projects I got to work on was a series of games called the Horizon Games.

Horizon Zero Dawn was the first one.

And, they called me and they said, "Look, we have all these creatures that are sort of robotic dinosaurs."

And, I'm like, "how exciting is that?"

(he laughs) You know?

And so, and that was done by Gorilla Games.

They're associated with Sony and PlayStation.

And, we got to do that in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.

- [Lillian] Cool.

- And, it was super, super fun.

- Yeah.

I'm not a gamer.

I don't know games, but I asked that question just because my colleagues.

So many-- I work with so many young colleagues and they are gamers.

So, they'll probably know everything you said but, and agree, and nod their heads!

(Stuart laughs) So, I look forward to hearing what they have to say.

Now, this consulting thing that you do on the-- it's kind of your side hustle because your day job-- - It is!

- Is a biology professor at Cal State University, San Bernardino.

I wanna share that you are a recipient of the Cal State University San Bernardino's Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching.

So, congratulations on that.

But, tell me-- - [Stuart] Thank you.

- about the faculty ambush and your feelings or emotions when given this award!

(Stuart laughs) - So, what happens when someone wins an award that's a campus-wide award at Cal State-San Bernardino is that the president-- this was established-- a previous president, by President Al Karnig, and has taken up with great vim and vigor by our current president, Tomás Morales.

And, what they do is they figure out a day that you're teaching and the president, the provost and other previous winners essentially "crash the party" while you're teaching, and barge in and do this announcement in front of your own students!

- [Lillian] That's nice.

- And, this happens to me on Thursday, the 23rd.

And, I was teaching one of my favorite classes where I got to teach about the evolution of animals, a paleontology class.

Mostly I teach human anatomy and physiology 'cause that's what a lot of paleontologists do.

But, suddenly out of the rain and snow and sleet-- because I don't know if your listeners know.

That was a very, very messy day in terms of weather.

This group of drenched (chuckles) wet, cold people came barging into my room with flowers and balloons and cameras, and so on.

And, I was caught completely off guard!

(Stuart laughs) I've actually been on committees that helped determine winners in the past.

And, I've been in on some of the ambushes, but I'd never been ambushed myself!

So, I was completely surprised by it.

And, it was a lovely, lovely moment actually.

- Yeah, I bet.

Especially in front of your students, and I'm sure your students were excited for you, if you bring as much enthusiasm to the subjects that you teach.

Now, I would've never-- when I was in college, those weren't my subjects.

I was in the communication side.

So, those wouldn't have been classes that I would've been taking.

But, I'm sure your students love your enthusiasm that you bring.

- Well, you know, that's a really important point.

That's a really important point.

'Cause one of the problems we have with science is a lot of people doubt it or don't understand it because a lot of scientists aren't good storytellers.

- Ah!

Now, I like storytelling.

- Yes.

That's really important.

And so, it's my considered opinion that we should be working more with people who are good storytellers so that people understand what we're doing.

- You've done so many projects over the years, and you've worked in so many categories, whether it's film, videos.

You've written books.

You've written articles.

But in all that you've done, and, of course, you're in the classroom, is there a favorite story or a favorite memory that you might have?

- Wow, that's a great question.

The kinds of things that make the greatest difference are when you see that light bulb go on with a kid.

Right?

I've been teaching at Cal State since the early 1990s.

I'm givin' my age away here!

Before that I was at UCLA.

Before that I did-- I have done, and I continue to do martial arts since I was eight years old.

And, my first instructor ever in the martial arts, is a man I loved to death and was a great mentor to me.

My first judo and karate instructor taught me some really important things.

And, he said, "It's not you that's important, it's what you do."

And, when you work with kids, you will feel so much better than you could imagine.

The only thing that may make you feel as good as that is your own child.

And, I never forgot that.

And, I remember doing some work with him, with kids at Ronald McDonald House, for example.

And then, I remember the first time I walked into a classroom thinking, "Wow, I get that!

I get that feeling."

So, it's not so much a single moment, but the sort of the confirmation of what someone had projected for me in my life that really meant a lot to me.

The first time a student asked me the kind of question I would've asked of him.

- Oh!

Yeah.

- And, that meant the world to me.

When one of the most important people in the world to you is suddenly a colleague as opposed to only a mentor, that is an enormously gratifying feeling.

And, since then, that's what I've always sort of aimed for?

It doesn't always work but it's one of those kinds of things that is worth aiming for, whether you're in the classroom, whether you're talking to artists in the studio, whether you're working with students on the mat doing martial arts or whether you're in the field looking for a fossil, which is like a treasure hunt, which is pretty great!

(Stuart laughs) - So, let me ask you about that.

Let me ask you that.

As an anthropologist, do you still go on digs?

- Oh, yeah.

So, the answer is absolutely yes.

In fact, I was-- just this past spring, I was elected vice president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and I'll become the president in two years.

Because...among other things, the field is important to me.

And, one of the ways we give back to the field is not just looking at the fossils, but finding the fossils for the public, for posterity.

And so, that we can continue to communicate the information that we want.

I mean, dinosaurs are great.

People love looking at them in the museum.

Someone's gotta find them.

Now, I don't study dinosaurs specifically, but I have a number of colleagues who do, and I've worked with some of them in the field.

Some of the folks at Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, for example.

And, I've worked in what we call the Four Corners Area, you know?

New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Arizona.

Which is beautiful country, beautiful country.

And, interestingly enough, the animals I study, which are a bit older than dinosaurs, are also found in central Europe.

- Hm.

- Because back then, the continents were all stuck together and the animals were in-- all over the place.

So, I've gotten to find fossils, put them in museums.

- Wow.

- Many of which are on exhibit for the public.

And so, the answer to your question is yes, we do still go out into the field.

I've got lovely colleagues with whom I work.

I'm currently working with a gentleman at USC.

I'm very proud of him.

His name is Adam Huttenlocker.

Adam was a master student at Cal State-San Bernardino, wound up getting his PhD later.

And now, he's a faculty member at USC.

And now, we do field work together.

- That's nice.

- So, I get to sort of see it come around and go around.

- Now-?

- And, we actually work in some of the same places my PhD advisor worked before he met me.

- So, that's the circle of life, for sure.

- It is, indeed!

You are spot on!

(Lillian laughs) You're spot on.

- Alright.

Now I wanna ask, with both you and your wife having a love of science and you have your two boys, do you think they're gonna follow in your footsteps or do you think that they think it's just cool that Dad knows anything about the gaming world?

- That is so funny that you ask that because, you know, our boys have been out with us in the field in tents, you know?

With us in the field as we go on our digs, and so on.

My older son is now right here in the Inland Empire.

He's at college at UC-Riverside.

- Oh.

- He is, and interestingly enough, he's a pre-med major.

I dropped the pre-med major!

- [Lillian] I know!

(laughs) - To my father's, you know, distress.

And now, my son is actually thinking of going to medical school, and he's doing very well so far.

(chuckles) And, his name is Darwin!

What a surprise for two biologists, right?

But, interestingly enough, the name Darwin is a very popular name in Hawaii.

Welsh and English names are very popular in Hawaii.

And, my family's-- on my dad's side from Hawaii.

My younger son is a computer nerd.

So, he is very scientifically oriented as well, but in a different way than us.

And, it's interesting because he's actually has facility with some of the tools that my artist colleagues use and he works with them better than I do.

So, they are scientifically sort of savvy, but they're probably gonna follow a slightly different track in science.

They do seem to appreciate it.

I think their friends think we're cooler than they do because they're just sort of jaded!

(Stuart laughs) - Yeah!

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

They've been-- "oh, it's just Mom and Dad doing what they do."

- Oh, that's right.

They'd rather stay in a hotel than a tent!

(laughs) - Yeah, yeah.

I'm with 'em, though.

I'm with 'em!

And, they're probably-- your father, I don't know if he's still with you, will probably be pleased if your son continues all the way through med school, I'm sure.

- He will.

It's-- my father is still with us.

He is 90 years old.

- Wow.

- And, he is still kickin'.

He's active as can be.

He's a retired pediatrician.

He lives in Apple Valley.

- Oh!

- And so, he's-- he used to live out in the north of the San Fernando Valley.

And then, now he's much more local to us, closer to us and his grandchildren.

And so-- and my mom is alive as well.

She's in her mid-80s.

- Wow - So, they're-- and they're both very, very proud of their grandchildren.

- And their son, I'm sure.

So, let me-- before I let you go, let me ask about what new projects are on the horizon?

What are you involved with?

What's coming up?

- Well, the things that are exciting me currently are the fact that I do get to serve the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

And, going forward, we're looking to expand our umbrella to make sure that we are very, very sensitive to a variety of groups that have been disenfranchised in the sciences in the past.

This is not new, but we think that we can be leaders in this regard.

I'm also keen to see what the film industry and the paleontologists can do together.

I mean, everyone loves dinosaurs!

(Lillian chuckles) Everybody loves cartoons.

We should be working together.

Right?

And, there are projects that are happening.

Some of my colleagues are working on projects that involve media.

And so, I think that that's exciting fruit for future work.

There are a number of films that are also in progress.

We just finished up work on the HBO-BBC series, "His Dark Materials."

I got to work with the artist on that to help build the creatures for Season Three.

And, that is out now.

And, there are a couple other projects in the works.

Dreamworks has some more projects in the works.

They're gonna have a lot of animals in them.

I'm not allowed to tell you what they are yet.

- I figured it's that!

'Cause you knew I was gonna ask!

- You'll get to revisit some fun, fun characters.

So, there are still projects in the pipeline.

And so, we're-- and sometime this spring- we're not exactly sure- we're probably gonna have a screening of Strange Worlds in Pomona with Director Don Hall, for Elizabeth's Health Career Ladder group.

And so, we're gonna bring Strange Worlds right back here into the Inland Empire.

- Okay.

Stuart, I wouldn't mind an invitation.

I'm just sayin'!

- We will make sure that you are there!

(she laughs) - Alright.

- It will be at the Fox Theater in Pomona.

- Very good.

Stuart, thank you so much for your time.

It's been fun chatting with you.

I love talking about the movies and kind of the backstory.

So, I really appreciate your time.

- Thank you for having me and thank you for pointing out the importance of our campus in all of this as well.

We are very, very proud that Cal State-San Bernardino considers this part of its umbrella of influence.

- [Lillian] This program was originally produced for 91.9 KVCR Radio.

♪ ♪ Yeah, the simple things in life ♪