Fat Guys at the Movies &#187; 3D

Episode Schedule:

Part I: A preview of Beauty and the Beast 3D (8:50)

Part II: Previews of Contraband and Joyful Noise (10:40)

Part III: Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions and the Fat Guy Five: Five Movies That Need a 3D Treatment (33:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Moneyball, Boardwalk Empire: The Complete First Season, The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption, What’s Your Number? and There Be Dragons (6:35)

Next Week:

Haywire, Red Tails and Underworld: Awakening

Show Links:

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Episode 244 – The Most Awkward Happy Meal Toy

Kevin Carr — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:04:39 +0000

This Week: Preparing for the long Christmas weekend, Kevin invites fellow critic and live-tweeter Mel Valentin into the Magical Studio in the Sky for an early episode. Together, they look at the 586 new releases this holiday week, including The Adventures of Tintin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and War Horse. They also take a quick look at some of the award films in limited release before talking box office, examine the latest The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit trailers and answer some long-overdue listener feedback. After laying out a Fat Guy Five about English-language remakes, Kevin and Mel whip through the DVD Rundown and then sail away into the sunset.

[See post to listen to audio]

Episode Schedule:

Part I: A review of The Adventures of Tintin (8:50)

Part II: More on The Adventures of Tintin, a review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and a tease of War Horse (10:40)

Part III: More on War Horse and a full review of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions, New Trailers, Listener Questions and the Fat Guy Five: Five Great Animal Movies (1:04:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Margin Call, Midnight in Paris, Dolphin Tale, Straw Dogs, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, Colombiana, Futurama: Season 6 and One Tree Hill: Season 8 (6:35)

Next Week:

Best and worst of 2011

Show Links:

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Follow Mel on Twitter (@FyodorFish)

Episode 240 – Sex Ed From Someone Famous

Kevin Carr — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:57:33 +0000

This Week: Getting set for Thanksgiving week, Kevin decides to keep everything in the family this week… including the guests of the show. So he invites his sons Liam (age 10 years old) and Ben (age 8 years old) to give the kids’ perspective on all the family movies out this week. They chat about Arthur Christmas, Hugo and all things Muppets, both new and old. Then they send Ben to bed before tackling box office predictions and learning a little about puberty. Sanity returns at the end of the middle segment with the Fat Guy Five: Five Favorite Muppet Moments. Then it’s the DVD Round-Up, and they send you away with a message of Thanksgiving. (Not really… they forgot the Thanksgiving message, but it probably would have been food-related, anyway.)

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for The Muppets, Hugo and Arthur Christmas

Episode Schedule:

Part I: General chit-chat and a preview of Arthur Christmas (8:50)

Part II: Reviews of The Muppets and Hugo (10:40)

Part III: More about Hugo, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions, “Puberty and Stuff,” Listener Feedback and the Fat Guy Five: Five Favorite Muppet Moments (32:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Super 8, Conan the Barbarian, The Adventures of Tintin: Season One, Prep and Landing and Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (6:35)

Next Week:

Limited releases and winter preview

Show Links:

The Leprechaun Brothers Sing “O Danny Boy”:

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Episode 238 – King Kong vs. Dirk Diggler

Kevin Carr — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:00:05 +0000

This Week: Inspired by last week’s new movie A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Kevin invites Ike from the It’s Mike and Ike podcast into the Magical Studio in the Sky. They start off with no rehearsal, much to the chagrin of Brett Ratner. They take some pot shots at the new movies, including J. Edgar and Immortals, but nothing compares to Ike’s rage-fueled rant about Jack and Jill. Kevin and Ike continue into the highly offensive middle segment where they suggest how to make an Oscar ceremony worth watching. Then they lay down an impromptu Fat Guy Five about the best racist characters in cinema history. Finally, they wrap things up with the DVD Round-Up and send the listeners on their merry way.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for J. Edgar, Jack & Jill and Immortals

Episode Schedule:

Part I: General chit-chat and a preview of Immortals (8:50)

Part II: Review of J. Edgar and a tease of Jack and Jill (10:40)

Part III: Ike’s rage-filled rant about Jack and Jill, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions, Brett Ratner, The Oscars and the Fat Guy Five: Five Great Racist Movie Characters (43:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Doctor Who: Season 6 Part 2, The Change-Up, Blue Velvet Blu-ray, Frankenhooker, Atlas Shrugged: Part I and The Fisher King Blu-ray (6:35)

Next Week:

Happy Feet Two and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part I

Show Links:

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Follow Ike on Twitter (@ItsMikeandIke)

Episode 237 – Against a Pinball Machine

Kevin Carr — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:00:05 +0000

This Week: Kevin rings in the holiday season by inviting Dr. Cole Abaius into the Magical Studio in the Sky. They chat about the relative worth of Brett Ratner versus Errol Morris. Then they celebrate an early Christmas with Harold and Kumar. But that’s not before Dr. Abaius offends the Wyoming listening audience with references to The Accused and other sundry films. They also chat about haunted houses, wild box office guesses and entertaining Eddie Murphy movies. They also share some listener feedback before heading into the DVD Rundown and wrap up the show.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Tower Heist and A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

Episode Schedule:

Part I: General chit-chat and a tease of Tower Heist (8:50)

Part II: Reviews of Tower Heist and A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (10:40)

Part III: More on A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions, Listener Feedback and the Fat Guy Five: Five Good Eddie Murphy Movie (27:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Bunraku, Tabloid, Hot Coffee, Cars 2, Toy Story 3D Triple Feature, Water for Elephants, Crazy Stupid Love and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (6:35)

Next Week:

Immortals, Jack and Jill and J. Edgar

Show Links:

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Follow Kevin on Twitter (@kevincarr)
Follow Cole on Twitter (@ColeAbaius)

Download this DVD Rundown

Movie Review: ‘A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas’

Kevin Carr — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:39:51 +0000

Rated R
Opens: November 4, 2011
Studio: New Line Cinema
Starring: Neil Patrick Harris, Elias Koteas, Danny Trejo, Danneel Ackles and John Cho
Directed by: Todd Strauss-Schulson

Kevin says A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas kinda rocks!
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Download this Review
Read Kevin’s review of A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas here.

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Kevin Carr’s DVD Rundown for 11/01/11

Kevin Carr — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:37:37 +0000

Kevin’s picks on DVD this week: Cars 2, 3D Toy Story Triple Feature, Water for Elephants, Crazy Stupid Love and Sun Flower and the Secret Fan

Stinker of the week: Trespass

Kevin Carr’s DVD Rundown for 11/01/11
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Click to purchase the DVDs below…

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Visual Effects Art Director Aaron McBride Talks ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’

Kevin Carr — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:00:18 +0000

Aaron McBride, visual effects art director for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, answered some questions about the making-of the film, available on 3D Blu-ray, DVD and Blu-ray on October 18.

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Q: What exactly is a visual effects art director? (as distinct from an art director or a visual effects creator)?

Aaron McBride: A Visual Effects Art Director generates artwork to serve as a ‘look target’ or visual guide for the CG artists, modelers and viewpainters. Often times early in pre-production we will generate design concept art for characters, vehicles, environments or particular effects. Then, once a design has been approved by the Director we will do supporting artwork for the CG Artists, Technical Directors and Compositors of how a creature or vehicle will look in a shot or sequence of the final film once it is textured and lit.

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Q: Were there any specific achievements in the “look” and “style” that your team wanted to achieve above and beyond the first three films?

Aaron McBride: One of the challenges of designing a look for the mermaids was that, in the previous three Pirates of the Caribbean films, the supernatural creatures were, by design, monster-like and frightening. The Mermaids were these supernatural creatures that needed to be beautiful, seductive sirens which we hadn’t seen before in the previous Pirates films. They were not the rotting cursed skeletons or encrusted with the marine life like the creatures in the previous films had been…. but they needed to look like they belonged in that same world.

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Q: How do you think special effects should fit into a movie? Should they be impressive and attention-getting in their own right?

Aaron McBride: My favorite effects are the ones that service the story. Sometimes when there are so many amazing things to look at on-screen it can be like eye-candy overload and compete for your eye’s attention. It can make for a very busy frame of film. I like effects that make sense in the context of the story and really serve the narrative.

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Q: How are matte paintings used now? Are they actually painted or is it all done by computer?

Aaron McBride: Our matte paintings are all created digitally now, though by many of the same artists that used to work traditionally in oil on glass. Some ‘digimatte’ painting shots involve very elaborate camera moves so much that our teams create entire 3D environments.

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Q: How did you decide to go into film and specifically visual effects? Were there any particular films/people/events that inspired you?

Aaron McBride: I was a big fan of effects films growing up. Star Wars, Alien, Bladerunner. I was a big fan of Ridley Scott and how he used so much atmosphere in his films. All the same aesthetics that he used in filming the sets and the actors were the same as the effects shots. There were areas of the frame that would fall to just a rimlight silhouette. Nowadays with visual effects being digital there is sometimes a tendency in the work to over light and show off all the detail and we’re always conscious of that.

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Q: What kind of research did you do for the mermaids? Did you go into mermaid myths throughout history? Were there any particular images that influenced the look of these mermaids?

Aaron McBride: We looked at a lot of the traditional representations of mermaids in classic paintings and literature where they are often portrayed in a very romantic way. We also looked at some references of ballet dancers performing underwater. They would use these large pieces of translucent fabric in large sweeping gestural moves. It created this cool veiled look to the dancers, so we tried to find a way to incorporate this in our mermaids. We tried giving the mermaids drapery that could hang from them like strands or tendrils of translucent fish fin or jellyfish membrane or sheets of kelp. So while we stayed faithful to the classic folklore imagery of the mermaids, there were still elements that we added to give them a more graceful and dramatic appearance when they moved through the water.

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Q: I know a lot of design happens before filming, so how hands on where you on set?

Aaron McBride: We started by meeting with Rob Marshall the director to get a sense of what he liked and how he wanted the mermaids to look and behave on film. He showed us a lot of reference of qualities he liked. So we did an initial rough design pass, casting the net wide and exploring a lot of different possibilities. We experimented with finding a good balance between the mermaids being very beautiful while also being these ferocious creatures that had very vicious predatory qualities as well. Then we presented some concept paintings to Rob based on what he liked and he responded positively too. So we then proceeded in that direction and did more, tighter iterations to refine the final details.

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Q: Were the mermaids fully CGI motion capture or actresses with an effects added tail?

Aaron McBride: The mermaids were a combination of a lot of those techniques. We ranged from completely digital mermaids to the actresses which were digitally augmented. Sometimes, as in the case with Gemma Ward’s character when we see the mermaids face close-up as she comes in for the kill, it was her on set but then we added some digital elements to her appearance…shaper teeth, and a slight sense of shimmery fish scale qualities to her skin. Rob really wanted to retain as much of the actresses true beauty appearances in their faces as possible. They needed to be these creatures that had evolved to be the perfect seductive predator. The idea was that they could appear very beautiful but that their actions should be very vicious like ferocious animals.

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Q: What challenges does water, or being underwater, bring to art direction in scenes like these? Are there aspects that give you more freedom to experiment? Are there more restrictions because of the properties of water?

Aaron McBride: In working on all the Pirates of the Caribbean films there’s almost always a scene or shot underwater. When you compose or design something for an underwater sequence it’s always fun because there’s always more atmospherics underwater. You get a lot of depth fall-off when forms become dark silhouettes quickly and when they moved away from you. Also you get a lot of light shards and caustics. It’s naturally a very haunting and dense environment to play with. Designing something like the mermaids was fun because you could play with various dramatic ways to compose them.

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Q: When did the change from matte paintings to digital matte art happen?

Aaron McBride: For ILM it happened around the early-to-mid 90′s when Photoshop was becoming more of a standard tool in our visual effects work.

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Q: How often do you have to redo a sequence of effects, either because it doesn’t work as hoped or the director changes his mind or doesn’t like it?

Aaron McBride: Oftentimes a design or concept is revisited once principal photography starts and we start seeing the rushes or dailies and how the scenes play out as they are edited together. The filmmakers may decide to make changes or additions later on in post-production that work better in the context of the film. Fortunately, our pipeline is very flexible and accommodates changes that need to be made late in the process.

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Q: What initially brought you to ILM back in 1999? Was it a dream come true for you? Is it still as much fun 10 years+?

Aaron McBride: I’m a huge Star Wars fan and I grew up with all the movies that ILM worked on. So yes, it has definitely been a dream comes true.

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Q: Having contributed to all four films in the “Pirates” franchise, are there any characters or designs that really stand out for you?

Aaron McBride: The “cursed” pirate characters that served on Davy Jones crew were really fun and challenging to work on. I especially liked working on the hammerhead shark Pirate character, ‘Maccus’ from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Also the jellyfish Pirate, and Wyvern, the crusty Pirate embedded in the wall of the Flying Dutchman.

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Q: Can you tell us what makes a good storyboard for a film? Is it pre-visualizing a lot of detail? Pacing?

Aaron McBride: Storyboards are primarily a visual shorthand to communicate shot composition and how a design or effect will be featured in a shot. A good storyboard will provide enough visual information to serve as a blueprint for a shot.

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Q: Was the latest Pirates film filmed in 3-D or converted afterwards? What are the challenges in doing both/either from an FX point of view?

Aaron McBride: It was filmed in 3D using the ‘Red’ camera system. There are a lot of technical reasons why stereoscopic films are more challenging to work on. Many of the VFX tricks that you can get away with on a 2D film don’t work in 3D.

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Q: Did you work with Jerry Bruckheimer in your role as VFX Art Director on this or in any of the other Pirates films? If so what is he like to work with? How important is art direction to him?

Aaron McBride: Yes, we met with Rob Marshall and Jerry Bruckheimer early on and both were instrumental in defining the look of the mermaids.

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Q: Is it harder or easier to create whole imaginary beings and environments than real ones? Why?

Aaron McBride: It’s always more challenging to create whole imaginary characters or creatures and environments but at the same time it’s a lot of fun. Even with the craziest creatures we still have to find ways to ground them in reality so they look believable on screen.

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Q: Was it ever considered or storyboarded that the mermaids might be more ‘fish’ or ‘monstrous looking’ or were they always supposed to be beautiful at least on the surface?

Aaron McBride: We did a lot of concept art early on where the Mermaids were much more monstrous and creature looking and then trying to strike that balance between sea creature and the beautiful seductive siren. We played with adding more elements to them that would make them look more like predatory fish. Early concepts had serrated, razor-like piranha teeth….some had shark teeth and distended jaws like a shark. We explored giving them serrated dorsal ridges and very silvery skin like a swordfish. And those lifeless black eyes like a great white.

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Q: Can you give an example of a VFX trick that works in 2D but not in 3D?

Aaron McBride: Sure. For instance with an animated character like the mermaids, a pose may look great from one camera view but off in the other. All the details that we resolve for one eye perspective we then need to resolve for the other eye as well.

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Q: Do you think 3-D is here to stay this time? Will it become the norm or used mostly in animated and special effects-heavy films?

Aaron McBride: 3D is simply another tool in a filmmaker’s arsenal. It may not be right for telling every story but it can be fun when it enhances a scene.

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Q: What projects are you currently working on?

Aaron McBride: Currently I’m working on Disney/Marvel’s “The Avengers”.

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Q: Any final thoughts on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides?

Aaron McBride: I’ve really enjoyed working on all of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. It’s always a really great opportunity to play in that world and especially rewarding to see it on screen. Thank you all for your time!

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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is now available on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.

For more information on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides , visit the official Pirates of the Caribbean web site.

Visual Effects Supervisor Ben Snow Talks ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’

Kevin Carr — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:00:36 +0000

Ben Snow, visual effects supervisor for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, answered some questions about the making-of the film, available on 3D Blu-ray, DVD and Blu-ray on October 18.

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Q: When producing the mermaids-scenes, what where your inspirations for their movement and the general “look” of the mermaids?

Ron Snow: We wanted to avoid the classic ‘woman in a mono-fin’ that has been seen in past mermaid films so we studied a variety of marine mammals and fish for the motion of the mermaids. We also had synchronized swimmers and professional athletes that we filmed on set to help guide the animation. As for the look, we were trying to create something different than what you’ve seen before but keep it rooted in reality. We used reference of sea life, human skin, etc. and also bought some fish at the fish market and photographed the heck out of them. In the end, the mermaids had a scaly body with a membrane of sheer, almost jelly-fish like, tendrils.

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Q: How much influence did filming in 3D have on your workflow, and which problems / possibilities did you have with that?

Ron Snow: We were excited by the prospect of 3D. ILM’s 3D pipeline was fairly solid after our work on Disney’s Star Tours 3D and Avatar, and we did some initial work to make sure the 3D set-up for visual effects was rock solid. Creatively we played with the concept of adding more depth for the underwater scenes. We also made sure we were viewing our work in the largest theater at ILM because with 3D the size of the image is important when reviewing work – we always want to see it as an audience would.

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Q: When you are working on an animated character, what is most important to you?

Ron Snow: We want the character to be something unique and fantastic but also rooted enough in reality that it is believable. For the mermaids having the footage of marine animals and the swimmers and actors for reference in the filmed material helped make this possible.

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Q: If you compare your work on Pirates of the Caribbean to Iron Man, and before that to The Mummy (for example), what are the most notable differences in your workflow and in the tools you use?

Ron Snow: Pirates had more organic creatures rather than the metallic hard surfaces of Iron Man, so it had some of the challenges of The Mummy. However today’s tools have advanced a long way since I worked on that film. We were still experimenting with facial motion capture on that film and since then it has become a useful and reliable technique. Our abilities to capture the motions of performers on real sets or locations is far more advanced now than what we had for The Mummy. We were able to leverage improvements we had made to those techniques for Iron Man and other films and push them even further to get a seamless blend between the actresses’ bodies and the mermaid tails.

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Q: If you compare Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to the other parts of the franchise, where do you think are the main visual differences?

Ron Snow: We were conscious of fitting into the world of the Pirates films and to live up to the quality of the effects that had been established in previous entries. However, Rob Marshall brought his own visual sense to the series. He wanted to be sure that the most fantastical elements also were rooted in reality, and brought a grittiness to the film. He also emphasized the story and characters in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the visuals, though still high quality, are in more of a supporting role this time ’round – it’s more about the adventure and the story.

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Q: What’s the most fun part of your job?

Ron Snow: The best part of my job is coming up with what something is going to look and move like, and then how on earth we’re going to execute it. And the mermaids represented a tremendous opportunity in that way. I’ve been a fan of mermaids for years and particularly liked the fact these were predatory rather than the friendly mermaids. The biggest challenge was maintaining their beauty while making them scary. Working with Rob Marshall, Charlie Gibson and the team to come up with the look was a lot of fun, and the enthusiasm of Astrid Berges-Frisby, who came to ILM and let us photograph and scan her and have her do motion tests to help us make a better mermaid, was infectious. Working out how to best capture the performances on set and apply them to our CG mermaid was very cool because it involved using all our latest motion tracking tools and some new ones we invented as well.

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Q: What are your favorite films that you have worked on in your career?

Ron Snow: I loved working on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Even with the challenges of finding the right look for the mermaids. I also had a lot of fun on Galaxy Quest, which is a film I still enjoy watching. The Iron Man films were also a blast because we got to collaborate with Jon Favreau and Marvel in coming up with the filmic persona of a new hero and helped launch a franchise. And my work on Star Wars Episode 2 was both a great opportunity in terms of career and also gave me a lot of freedom to come up with new ways of doing effects because of the sheer amount of the work and the collaborative relationship George Lucas fostered.

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Q: Where did you get the ideas for the look of the mermaids from?

Ron Snow: The look of the mermaids followed a lengthy discussion process with Rob Marshall and a lot of concept art exploration. In talking to Rob he showed us some previous design work that had been done as well as some classic paintings of mermaids, underwater fashion photography and even a couple of mermaid pinups. He told Aaron McBride, our VFX art director, and myself what he liked and didn’t like about this material. One image he liked had a woman in a sheer fabric tail that you could still see the outline of her legs through. He also talked a lot about the beauty of Astrid Berges-Frisby and how some of the previous concepts had been too creature-like. At the same time we had been looking at different types of marine life, and trying to tie the mermaid into the marine life feel of previous Pirates characters we wanted to integrate, and also discussed how she might actually transform. So we came up with a slightly scaly body covered with a sheer membrane. The idea was that when she was wet the membrane was transparent and you could see flashes of scales, but as she dried it became more like human skin. It was a fun process to invent the science behind these characters.

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Q: During the planning of the scenes, what were your major concerns for the final product?

Ron Snow: Our major concerns were to deliver the best mermaids we could – to try and create definitive filmic mermaids, and to live up to the quality of work that we’ve seen in previous Pirates of the Caribbean films.

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Q: Please describe how you used 3D in the effects process. Was it a mixture of conversion and shot-for-3D, and how did you resolve any 3D challenges?

Ron Snow: We made the decision to shoot in 3D early on, so the only conversion we really had was for underwater shots (which all heavily involved digital effects anyway). Something that helped simplify our lives a little bit in dealing with 3D was the decision to shoot with parallel cameras which made it possible to play with the 3D more during the editing process than has ever been possible on previous films. We had several 3D experts on our crew (ILM has been doing 3D projects dating back to Captain EO in the ’80s, and we had one of our senior crew members who’d been at ILM when they were doing that project) and there was a lot of expertise on the Disney/client side.

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Q: What kind of education did you get to get where you are today?

Ron Snow: I studied computing in college with a major in film (which was somewhat unusual back then and I had to get special permission). But after a couple of years of working in computing and doing film as a hobby, I actually started in the industry as a runner – delivering parcels and making cups of tea. So it was kind of the school of hard knocks. Luckily for me this was 1988 and The Abyss and Terminator 2 came out within a couple of years of each other and the industry exploded with a need for computer skilled filmmakers.

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Q: Normally, ILM works on single characters or effects, but with ”Rango” they did their first complete movie. Would you be tempted to work on such a movie?

Ron Snow: A lot of my friends at ILM had wanted to do an animated film for years, and I’m very happy they got a chance to do so and I am very impressed by the result. I’m more interested in the magic trick aspect of visual effects, in trying to get the audience caught up in the fantasy and wondering later on how we did it. While I prefer effects for live action, I do love animated films and I hope ILM gets to work on another one.

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Q: Do you involve the actors in your work and if so, how?

Ron Snow: Yes, we depend upon the collaboration of the actors in our work. One of the sequences we worked on had Jack Sparrow playing with a droplet of water and I had to draw dots on Johnny Depp’s fingers with a sharpie. He was very helpful and tolerant. Johnny and several of the other actors went through an elaborate photographic and scanning process so we could make digital versions of them if needed. For the mermaids, it was even more elaborate but they were great about it. We’d put them in these psychedelic bathing suits we had designed to make tracking them easier and blending the tails with their bodies, and painted dots all over their faces. Astrid Berges-Frisbey (the key mermaid) was a little concerned when we had to paint dots on her face for a key emotional scene (she was originally going to transform at the end of it) but I promised her they’d be painted out and no one would know. Thank goodness for our talented roto and paint crew who were able to paint out every single dot, and in 3D no less.

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Q: When you look at all the films you have made, has post production and Visual effects changed its role in film making in general? Has the perception of “those FX-guys” changed to a more creative part in the production, or does it slowly develop into something that is “sourced out and forgotten”?

Ron Snow: We’re still a creative part of production and in some ways have more respect afforded to us in recent years since the visual effects are such a big part of the process now. Of course our credits are still way down in the end of the film and I’m hoping that will change. It’s certainly never outsourced and forgotten because on a project like Pirates the visual effects are such a key part of the film.

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Q: In your opinion: when James Cameron and Peter Jackson can convince the industry to go up to 60 frames per second: will this benefit the experience of visual effects, or just make it that much harder for the post-production?

Ron Snow: It will certainly make it harder for post-production. The faster frame rate should make for something that feels more real to the audience but that could make it harder to fool them with our visual effects magic. I’m excited to see the results.

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Q: What initially got you interested in visual effects?

Ron Snow: My dad was a film fanatic and we went to the drive-in a lot when I was growing up. But I pin my initial interest in visual effects to finding a book called “Monsters from the Movies” in my high school library and then later in high school reading an American cinematographer article by Dennis Muren about his visual effects photography for The Empire Strikes Back. So I’d say it was a combination of that and an interest in stage magicians of the golden age.

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Q: If you have to decide on one single shot that represents the film’s visual effects work, which one would it be and why?

Ron Snow: I’m cheating with two shots. I love the shot where the Queen Anne’s Revenge comes chasing the mermaids belching fire. CG ship, CG fire, CG water and CG mermaids and then panning onto real pirates on a set with a digital extension. It was an exciting shot that used a lot of different techniques. My other favorite is panning down from Syrena to her tail just after Phillip immobilizes her with his sword. Astrid looks great in the shot. The lighting on the tail is lovely and the blend is seamless, so I think it’s a beautiful shot that showcases the mermaid tails nicely.

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Q: You have been nominated a few times for an Oscar. Do you feel any pressure to uphold or improve that level of “perfection” in future projects?

Ron Snow: Absolutely. We always try and top ourselves with each project.

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Q: Besides the mermaids, you also were involved in the shrinking ships in bottles. What could you explain to us about this?

Ron Snow: This was a fun sequence that was done by our Singapore ILM studio under my supervision. We shot some ships in bottle props on set and then replaced the ships in the closer shots with a full environment with the Black Pearl, stormy CG water, lightning and so on. In one shot we used a real monkey and in others it was a digital monkey.

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Q: Did Disney give you any guidelines as to how scary or dark you could go with the mermaids?

Ron Snow: Yes, they actually encouraged us to really explore the scary side. In the end, Rob Marshall decided to reign back a little on the more creaturesque aspects and go for something which preserved more of the beauty of the original actresses. And I think this was the right decision – they still seem plenty scary enough.

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Q: When putting the different scenes together – at what point did you switch between the actresses and the swimmer athletes, and how did you comp it together?

Ron Snow: The swimmers were used as a reference guide for our animators adding CG mermaids to shots. We used the actresses when we were closer to the mermaids and added scales, tendrils and tails.

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Q: You said that in 3D size is important – concerning that, what are your opinions towards mobile TV / Movies on handheld devices?

Ron Snow: I had a lot of fun playing with the small screens of 3D portable players but I’m not sure how a 3D film would play on them. I think it’s fun but I’d prefer Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides be seen in a theater or on a large 3D television screen and in Blu-ray 3D. That said, I did recently see the film on a plane in 2D and equally enjoyed the story and characters…so it works in any format.

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Q: Did a fluid medium (something the normal watcher of a movie doesn’t experience on a daily basis, compared to moving on land) give you a bigger range of possible actions, or do you think that when switching mediums you have to be more constricted to physical possibilities?

Ron Snow: We tried to keep things as physically real as possible but definitely exploited the underwater medium to play with depth and perspective with the mermaids – so it was quite freeing in that way.

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Q: Who are your mentors and do you confer with them frequently?

Ron Snow: For Pirates it was great to have John Knoll and Hal Hickel who worked on the previous films at ILM close by. John has been a mentor over the years – he was a supervisor on Star Trek: Generations, which was the first film I did at ILM. Dennis Muren has long been an inspiration and a mentor – he was a big collaborator on Star Wars, Episode II and is someone I can always bounce ideas off of or ask for an opinion.

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Q: Its one thing to use ILM’s tracking suits on dry land / on the deck of a ship in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” but quite another to use this kind of technology in a water-filled environment. Can you talk about how you and your team worked around / dealt with these production challenges on “On Stranger Tides”?

Ron Snow: We definitely had to up the ante. While we utilized our patented Imocap suits and technology, we also developed some new tracking approaches for getting a match to the surface (since we had to seamlessly blend skin to skin) and tools for trying to cancel out the refraction of the water.

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Q: How much input do directors have in your work? Are some more “hands on” while others give you more freedom to work?

Ron Snow: Some directors are more hands on than others but all have lots of input and the final say. I’ve been lucky that most directors I’ve worked with are very collaborative, inviting us to contribute ideas, using some and rejecting others. It’s all part of the creative process.

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Q: What makes a visual effect stunning and memorable?

Ron Snow: For me it’s when the effect is wonderful and fantastical and something that you haven’t seen before. When you either don’t realize it’s an effect or are scratching your head because you know it can’t be real but can’t work out how it was done.

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Q: Did you have any conversations with Astrid in regards to the CG component of her character? What she could expect to see in the finished film, etc?

Ron Snow: Astrid came to Industrial Light & Magic for scanning and photography her first day on the film and right from the get go, discussed her character and how we could make the mermaid work well. She was conscious of helping us do our job and even let us re-photograph her later on to help with one of the trickier shots once the filming was done and she happened to be visiting San Francisco and came to say hello. She was a terrific collaborator and making her character Syrena work was something she was passionate about.

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Q: What were the visual effects created by Industrial Light & Magic besides the amazing mermaids?

Ron Snow: We did the ships in bottles, the fountain of youth scenes, Blackbeard’s death, a bunch of digital matte paintings for the island and the mermaid cove. We also supervised work done at Scanline VFX in Germany on the sequences when Jack Sparrow had drops of water dancing on his fingers and the animated water as they enter the fountain.

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Q: What proved to be the biggest challenge in the making of the mermaid scenes?

Ron Snow: The biggest challenge was the creative one of how much to play them as creatures and how much as human. Ultimately, Rob Marshall decided to keep them as human as possible, and that was itself a huge challenge because of a phenomenon that they call “The Uncanny Valley” in robotics. The more human something artificial starts looking, the creepier it looks. So it was a lot of work to make the CG mermaids more and more human looking, changing their seaweed hair to human hair and their faces to matching the actresses more exactly.

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Q: What do you do when you want to create a certain effect in a film and you don’t have the technology to obtain that effect? Was there ever the case?

Ron Snow: A big part of the fun of my job is coming up with the technology to achieve a certain effect. Luckily I work with an amazing group of people here at ILM and I don’t think we would ever turn down a challenge.

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Q: Do you have any anecdotes that you can share about the Mermaid Lagoon shoot on the back lot of Universal Studios Hollywood?

Ron Snow: We had a great time working on the mermaid lagoon, surrounded by the lovely mermaid actresses and swimmers. My colleagues who got to apply our motion tracking bands to the mermaid costumes told me I’d given them the greatest job of their careers. The mermaids all knew their names and would call out friendly greetings as they were working around the set, arousing the envy of the rest of the crew. It was also a blast working at Falls Lake in the middle of Universal Studios and being part of the studio tour as we were setting up for the evenings work.

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Q: What advice would you give to someone who dreams about wanting to get a job in the visual effects industry?

Ron Snow: Don’t give up! I was a dreamer for many years. I started in the industry at the bottom as a runner and then worked my way up. Try and get the skills you think would help but most importantly, grab a video camera and make movies with your friends, at school, etc. You really have to love this job because of the hours and the stress but it is immensely rewarding.

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Q: After working in the ‘Iron Man’ franchise, with cold technological armors, you had to deal with mermaids in ‘Pirates’. How it was the experience? Where did you find the main challenges in a first approach?

Ron Snow: It was great to work on an organic creature again after all the metal of Iron Man and Terminator. But like Iron Man, we had to use the best of our existing on-set tracking tools and invent a few new ones to match the bodies to the performers but in this case it was the surface of their skin. We also had to create skin, hair and everything else that goes into an organic creature, which is a different set of challenges to a metal suit.

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Q: You used a hybrid approach for the mermaids, with CG and real action performance. Was it particularly complicated to find the right balance? How did you create these mermaids?

Ron Snow: It was complicated, and a big creative question we struggled with. Ultimately Rob Marshall decided to go with more human mermaids and we used the actresses when we had them, got a couple of the mermaids back to film them for a couple of shots that had been more creaturesque, and put all our skills with creating digital doubles to use. We used every trick in the book – match-animation, facial motion capture, digital skin and a lot of compositing techniques with splashes and fog to make it all hang together.

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Q: Ben, any final thoughts that you’d like to share on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides?

Ron Snow: I’ve really enjoyed the questions in this roundtable session, so thank you all. I loved the chance to create our version of the mermaids for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. There were definitely some big challenges but I’m happy with the results and am very glad that audiences around the world have embraced the film, and the mermaids. Although I’d warn people to be careful about embracing mermaids as the movie shows.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is now available on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.

For more information on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides , visit the official Pirates of the Caribbean web site.

Directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff Talk ‘The Lion King’

Kevin Carr — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:47:53 +0000

Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, directors of The Lion King, answered some questions about the making-of the film, available on 3D Blu-ray, DVD and Blu-ray on October 4.

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Q: What is your opinion about Broadway Musical The Lion King directed by Julie Taymor?

Rob Minkoff: When I first heard that a musical was being contemplated for The Lion King I was concerned it would attempt to be too literal. Beauty & The Beast had already made the leap to the stage and it was very much a replica of the animated movie. I didn’t think that kind of approach would work for The Lion King. When Julie Taymor was brought on board to re-imagine the musical for the stage it was put into the right hands. Her approach to re-conceptualize the show, utilizing her brilliant sense of stagecraft brought out its theatricality and made it a unique experience. When I saw the show for the first time I was delighted and gratified that our movie would live on, on-stage. And it hasn’t disappointed having been running since 1997.

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Q: When you were doing The Lion King, could you ever imagine that it would have become such a classic Disney film?

Rob Minkoff: When we started working on The Lion King we were fourth in a succession of modern Disney animated classics. First it was Little Mermaid, then Beauty & The Beast, and finally Aladdin. They were all tough acts to follow. We only hoped we would be compared favorably and not disappoint the Disney fans that had been growing with each new hit. It wasn’t until we finished ‘Circle of Life’ and put it into theaters as a trailer that we knew we had something special. But we were never overly confident. So we continued to work hard to deliver a good movie.

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Q: Do you think 3D adds something to The Lion King or is it only ‘fashionable’ right now?

Roger Allers: Sure. I think it adds a more visceral experience to the film. It’s been fun to see how “3-Dimensionally” we’d been thinking when we originally made it in 2D.

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Q: When you’re working on a movie, what is most important to you?

Rob Minkoff: Story is the most important thing! But beyond that, the creative process and the excitement of working with top notch artistic collaborators makes working as a director a very satisfying endeavor.

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Q: Do you think 3D adds something to The Lion King or is only fashionable now?

Rob Minkoff: I must confess that I am a fan of 3D when it’s done properly. Avatar was amazing on screen. There have been a number of films released in 3D which haven’t really delivered on its potential. But I think The Lion King 3D does. It adds a dimension to the world of our characters that makes the experience of the film more immersive. And it doesn’t take anything away from the 2D version either. So The Lion King 3D was a worthwhile endeavor in my opinion.

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Q: Do you have Lion King” items lying around your home?

Roger Allers: To my wife’s dismay, I have a life-sized Simba plush. And in my office I have some framed cells and a couple of character maquettes, which are sculptural reference models. I also have the original theatrical poster signed by the cast and crew and that’s my favorite item.

Rob Minkoff: I do, but most of them are currently in storage. I sold my house a while back and am in the process of building a new one. I’m really looking forward to creating the perfect place to house them all.

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Q: How involved were you in the actual 3D transfer of “The Lion King?”

Rob Minkoff: Don Hahn, Roger and I came in to meet with Robert Neuman and his team to launch them on the conversion. We watched the picture in 2D and conveyed our thoughts on things we’d like to see (and not see) in our 3D version. And then we met regularly to check the work in progress.

Roger Allers: Rob Minkoff, myself and Don Hahn watched the 2D version to determine which scenes could be pushed in 3D to enhance the storytelling and emotional content. Throughout the process, we then reviewed each scene to offer input to Robert Neuman, the 3D stereographer and his crew. I also oversaw the color correction of the final version.

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Q: What about “The Lion King” do you feel makes it a classic?

Rob Minkoff: I think it’s a combination of classic coming of age story with an incredible musical score by Elton John, one of pop music’s most prolific and successful composers. Plus, the overall design of the production and look of the characters make The Lion King feel like a traditional Disney Classic.

Roger Allers: It’s the balance of humor and drama and the resonance of its themes. The issues of life and death, and loss. The responsibilities of leadership and finding one’s place in life

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Q: Which is your favorite 3D-scene?

Rob Minkoff: I think for me, the’ Circle of Life’ works amazing well. And is a great way to open the experience of watching the film. It always had a power and impact but now really jumps off the screen.

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Q: What’s your favorite movie?

Rob Minkoff: There are so many films I love it’s hard to pick just one. But The Wizard of Oz is one that will always mean a great deal to me.

Roger Allers: Disney’s Peter Pan fired up my imagination as a child and inspired me to become an animator. Still love that film.

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Q: When you`re working on a movie, what is most important to you?

Roger Allers: What’s most important to me is having an environment of mutually respectful, creative energy with my co-creators/artists.

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Q: How surprised were you when you saw the US box office figures for The Lion King 3D opening weekend?

Rob Minkoff: I couldn’t believe it! I originally heard they were estimating something in the range of 12 million. When it topped 30 million I was shocked and amazed but also very pleased. It’s nice that audiences still love the movie!

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Q: It’s a great pleasure for me, as a journalist and as a fan, to have the chance to congratulate you two for the excellent job in ‘The Lion King’, one of the greatest Disney’s movies ever. What do you think about this wonderful experience?

Rob Minkoff: It’s been very gratifying not only to have made this film, but that audiences have gotten so much enjoyment from it.

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Q: What do you think is the future of animation?

Rob Minkoff: When I got started back in the early 80′s it seemed that animation was on its way out. But today there are more animated features, TV shows, commercials, and animated content of all kinds being produced. So I’m very bullish on animation. I think, eventually, more films will be made with more diverse content to reach audiences of all ages, and that animation finally achieves a level of respect that equals any other kind of filmmaking.

Roger Allers: I think the field will continue to open up in terms of technique and subject matter. The line between animated and live action has already become so blurred, the entire distinction may disappear.

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Q: Rob, do you have any plans to return to animation?

Rob Minkoff: I am actually working on a new animated movie right now. It’s based on the classic characters Mr. Peabody & Sherman who originally appeared on the Rocky & Bullwinkle show. We have Robert Downey Jr. on board playing the genius dog who adopts a red-headed human boy.

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Q: If you did ”The Lion King” now instead of 17 years ago, what would you change?

Roger Allers: The schedule. More non-working lunches!

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Q: Rob, what’s your favorite character? Why?

Rob Minkoff: I always find myself drawing either Young Simba or Timon. Simba’s innocence and enthusiasm are infectious and Timon, to me, is then funniest.

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Q: How closely did you work with the voice cast, and how essential are the right voices to an animated film’s success?

Rob Minkoff: As directors we work very closely with the actors to create their performance. Typically there will only be one actor recording at a time. This can make it challenging for the actors who are working in a vacuum. Sometimes we have some reading lines with them. Other times I will read with the actor which I find is an excellent way of getting the performance you’re after.

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Q: Hans Zimmer was more used to scoring live action movies. How did you get along with him in that regard?

Rob Minkoff: Hans really brought the movie to life via the music. It was his ability to combine authentic African flavor that really made the film come to life musically. Mark Mancina was working for Hans at the time and also contributed greatly to the feeling of the movie. He also was musical director and composer for the stage production. As for his experience as a live-action composer, I think there is very little difference in how a composer works on animation and live-action. Although typically an animated score is more closely married to the images. It was a terrific collaboration.

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Q: Many people have noticed similarities to Hamlet in the story of The Lion King. Was that something you were conscious of when making the movie?

Rob Minkoff: Because The Lion King was considered an original story there was always the need to anchor it with something familiar. When we first pitched the revised outline of the movie to Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Peter Schneider and Tom Schumacher, someone in the room announced that Hamlet was similar in its themes and relationships. Everyone responded favorably to the idea that we were doing something Shakespearean and so we continued to look for ways to model our film on that all time classic.

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Q: What makes a really good children’s movie, and can you name some new movies that live up to that?

Rob Minkoff: The key is to make something that works for both children and adults. I love the films Pixar has made like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles.

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Q: Which is your favorite 3D-scene?

Roger Allers: I’d have to say in the ‘Circle of Life’ sequence where Zazu is flying up to join Mufasa on the promontory of Pride Rock. Great sense of flying and space!

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Q: How does it feel to be an integral part of the Disney Renaissance?

Roger Allers: When I was a kid, I always dreamed of going to work for Walt Disney and make animated features. In high school when Walt died I was crushed and thought I had missed my chance. I am thrilled and proud to be a part of the “Second Wave”!

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Q: What is your favorite Disney movie?

Roger Allers: As a child it was always Peter Pan, but Little Mermaid and Beauty & the Beast hold very special places in my heart. (well, The Lion King goes without saying!)

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Q: The movie has a unique ‘Shakespearean look’. Are you a fan of Shakespeare works?

Rob Minkoff: Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist in history. His works have stood the test of time like no other. But it takes time to learn to appreciate Shakespeare and I was fortunate enough to grow up in Palo Alto, California, in a time and place where arts education was supported.

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Q: Were you surprised that hand-drawn animation worked in 3D?

Rob Minkoff: I had seen some attempts at traditional animation rendered in 3D and saw great possibilities in it. But I think Robert Neuman and his team went beyond my expectations and delivered a really compelling presentation.

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Q: Can you please talk about the contributions of Elton John, Tim Rice, and Hans Zimmer?

Roger Allers: Elton and Tim’s songs help tell the story with humor and heart, while Hans’ brilliant score and arrangements (along with Lebo M’s choral work) gave it its scale, drama, and placed it in Africa. Mark Mancina’s arrangements of “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” and “Hakuna Matata” gave the film its moments of playfulness.

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Q: You went from animation to live action/ animation with Stuart Little 2 and live action with Haunted Mansion. What are the differences between directing animation and directing live action? and in directing animators (actors with a pencil) and live actors?

Rob Minkoff: Hugh Laurie once asked me if I wanted to erase his eyebrows and sketch in something else. There is a mistaken notion that directing animators is easier than live actors. It isn’t. Animators are just as difficult. Especially the really good ones.

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Q: Share with us some memories of working with James Earl Jones?

Roger Allers: Ha ha! The very first time we had James in to record, before doing his first lines he proceeded to clear his throat. The strength and resonance of his “harrrunfs” practically blew us off our chairs in the recording booth! That man IS a lion!

Rob Minkoff: James Earl Jones has one of the most incredible voices in the history of film. Perhaps Orson Welles is his only real rival in that regard. Getting to work with him, especially being such a big fan of Star Wars, was an amazing experience. Watching him warming up his voice before a session was remarkable. He would run through a bunch of vocal exercises and sometimes sounded like a real lion with a rumbling growl.

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Q: What do you prefer, classic 2D or computer animation?

Rob Minkoff: I think computer animation has vastly improved over the years and has achieved a similar quality to traditionally hand drawn animation. That said, nothing can replace the look and feel of human drawings. So I think there is room in the world for both, each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses.

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Q: How has “The Lion King” changed your lives?

Roger Allers: Wow. It has connected me to the world in an intimate way that I could never imagine. And as I have continued to work on all the international iterations of the stage musical it still takes me around the world.

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Q: How surprised are you that you’re still doing interviews about The Lion King after all these years?

Rob Minkoff: It’s odd because so much time has passed and yet it feels like only a short while ago that we made the film.

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Q: Can you share with us some memories of working with Jeremy Irons?

Roger Allers: Jeremy is a gentleman and a brilliant actor. He always gave us extra interpretations of lines which were fantastic.

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Q: What has been improved in the transfer to 3D and for Blu-ray?

Roger Allers: Besides the obvious addition of new depth and dimension, this print has the best clarity and color of anything previously released.

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Q: Do family movies always need to have happy endings?

Rob Minkoff: The Lion King is unusual in that the film really focuses on the death of Mufasa and how Simba has to come to terms with that. So in a sense the film has very tragic elements. But ultimately there is reassurance in the final moments when we see that Simba and Nala have their own little lion cub. So yes, happy endings are important even though they may contain tragic elements. One of the most satisfying endings to a film is saying goodbye. It’s true of The Wizard of Oz, ET, Gone With The Wind, and many many more.

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Q: What was the idea that brought to life “The Lion King” in 1994?

Roger Allers: We wanted to do an animal picture based in a more natural setting. A story that dealt with the issue of taking on the responsibility of adulthood.

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Q: How does it feel to be an integral part of the Disney Renaissance?

Rob Minkoff: As a young boy I was an ardent Disney fan. Some would say Disney Geek. So for me, getting the chance to work at the studio and help revitalize animation is more than a dream come true.

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Q: How do you feel the animated movie industry has changed since “The Lion King” first came out?

Roger Allers: I see more movies of different styles coming from many more studios now. It’s exciting. Bring ‘em on!

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Q: Can you please talk about the contributions of Elton John, Tim Rice, and Hans Zimmer?

Rob Minkoff: It was Tim who suggested Elton for the job. Me, Don and Roger wanted Hans based on his work in The Power of One whose score also featured Lebo M. Their collaboration on the score and musical elements really brought the story to life and gave it its enduring power.

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Q: What do you think of ”The Lion King” after 17 years?

Roger Allers: I still love this movie. I’ve been involved with the stage show all these intervening years, so for me it’s never gone away! But I’m so pleased with the audience’s positive response to this new release after all these years.

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Q: Was there any concern that the movie might be too scary or adult for children?

Rob Minkoff: We found ourselves constantly re-balancing the film to make sure there were enough comic elements to lighten the mood after the tragedy of Mufasa’s death. Timon and Pumbaa really came along at the right time to give the film a lift and make it a more satisfying whole.

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Q: What was the idea that brought to life “The Lion King” in 1994?

Rob Minkoff: Originally it was thought of as a Bambi in Africa. More true life adventure than mythical epic. But when Roger and I finally got together on it we imbued it with the more spiritual elements that are a hallmark of the film.

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Q: What’s the key things in doing a ‘larger than life’ movie like ‘The Lion King’?

Roger Allers: Story-wise, it’s important to stay rooted in the main character’s experience and emotions; not to let the sweep of story plots take you away from experiencing what happens through the character’s point of view.

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Q: Being two directors on this movie, how did you split the work between you and Rob Minkoff?

Roger Allers: I took all the best parts and gave Rob the rest – (kidding!) We split up the film by sequences being particularly careful that we each had scenes that really spoke to each of us. We worked side by side on story, music and editing, while such things as animation, backgrounds, etc. we gave each other separate domains according to the sequence.

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Q: Can you talk a bit about how you went about recruiting animators to come work on “The Lion King” ? I’ve always heard that — because “Pocahontas” was supposed to be this prestige project – most of the Studio’s A-list animators gravitated to that production. Which then supposedly made it kind of tough to initially recruit animators to come work on “The Lion King.” Which at that time was still having some pretty significant story problems. Is that story true?

Rob Minkoff: The Lion King was originally called ‘King of the Jungle’ and was not well regarded around the studio. So when Jeffery Katzenberg announced that the studio would be split in two to make two films simultaneously, many of the top animators wanted to work on Pocahontas instead of The Lion King. Jeffrey had deemed Pocahontas the “home run” and The Lion King the ‘risk.” That gave a lot of newer animators a chance to step up to leadership roles.

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Q: Do you feel like the changes are for the better in the animated film industry?

Roger Allers: The increase in diversity is really welcome, but I hope that traditional hand-drawn animation keeps being produced. It’s an art form that’s dear to my heart and one that I don’t think has still been fully explored.

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Q: The movie seems to have been influenced by past Disney movies like Bambi and other sources like Hamlet. Was that a deliberate choice to help you find the tone and direction you wanted to take the film?

Roger Allers: Definitely I’d say that Bambi was an inspiration. The similarity to Hamlet was noticed only after we had come up with the story structure and had been working on it for a while.

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Q: Can you talk about how you guys struggled to get a handle of Rafiki? Robert Guillaume tells these great stories about he kept being called back in to re-record scenes that he’d already recorded dialogue for because you kept changing your approach / your take on the character. Evidently you folks finally brought him back in and said ” We finally figured out who Rafiki is. He’s insane.” Is there any truth to that story?

Rob Minkoff: I remember the big breakthrough came when I asked Robert to laugh. His laugh was so amazing and really brought out the character of Rafiki as a crazy shaman witch-doctor. We kept asking him to laugh before every line!

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Q: What was the most unexpected way that “The Lion King” made its way into your life outside the animation industry?

Rob Minkoff: Hakuna Matata has become a phrase recognized around the world. And every time we get kidded on TV, including the recent Emmy Awards, it’s very gratifying. It’s nice to have a little shelf space in the pop culture universe.

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Q: The Lion King became one of the most successful animated movies ever. How come you only directed one new movie since then?

Roger Allers: You know, this can be a tough business. I have developed several movies since then which for one reason or another never made to full fruition. Want to finance a film?

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Q: I think that Scar is the best villain of all Disney’s movies. What do you think about Jeremy Irons voice performance?

Roger Allers: I think I’d put Jeremy’s performance up on the top of all-time best vocal performances.

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Q: Now it seems inevitable The Lion King would become a classic, but how much of a risk did it seems when you were making it?

Roger Allers: The Lion King was the step-child project when we started at the studio. Developing it was a hard but satisfying journey. You can never know in advance how something will turn out, and even if you like it whether it will be a success.

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Q: What’s more difficult, directing live action movies (such as Forbidden Kingdom) or animated ones?

Rob Minkoff: The Forbidden Kingdom was an incredible challenge because we made the film entirely in China. And Jackie Chan and Jet Li are the two biggest marital arts stars in the world. They were very competitive, but had a great report off camera.

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Q: The movie has a unique ‘Shakespearean look’. Are you a fan of Shakespeare works?

Roger Allers: I am indeed a fan, but the Hamlet parallels were discovered well after we had constructed the story. But I’d be happy if we had even unconsciously channeled the old Bard!

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Q: What was the process you went through to determine which story elements would most benefit from the stereoscopic 3D enhancement?

Roger Allers: We screened the movie without sound, watching for the scenes of greatest potential, and called them out to someone who was furiously taking notes!

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Q: How did you share director’s duties with Roger Allers?

Rob Minkoff: After working on the story together, we divided up the sequences so that each one had either Roger or me leading the way. For example: Roger did “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” and I did “Circle of Life.”

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Q: Were you ever tempted to do “a George Lucas” and improve parts of The Lion King, before the new release?

Roger Allers: No, I think we knew to leave well enough alone. Did some color correcting though on a few scenes that I was never happy with.

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Q: Can you talk a bit about how you went about recruiting animators to come work on “The Lion King”? I’ve always heard that — because “Pocahontas” was supposed to be this prestige project — most of the Studio’s A-list animators gravitated to that production. Supposedly made it kind of tough to initially recruit animators to come work on “The Lion King,” which at that time was still having some pretty significant story problems. Is that story true?

Roger Allers: True, indeed. But this was a chance to give some really deserving young animators their chance to lead a character. Tony Bancroft (Pumbaa), Mike Surrey (Timon), James Baxter (Rafiki) are all brilliant guys – we lucked out!

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Q: The Morning Report is no more part of the Lion King feature. Why?

Roger Allers: It was only included for the IMAX & first DVD release as a fun bonus feature. The song Morning Report was originally written for the stage musical. We wanted this current version to be true to the original release.

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Q: The themes treated in Lion King are among the deepest in animation: responsibility, the father/son relationship, power, death… How did you approach the challenges of treating these topics?

Roger Allers: Sensitively but with great gusto!

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Q: There’s a plan for Elton John’s biopic. Would you consider directing it, maybe?

Roger Allers: Sure, an animated version of his life story? I’m on it!

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Q: Rob, any final thoughts on The Lion King?

Rob Minkoff: After 17 years it’s been an amazing journey on The Lion King. One that I hope continues on, like the Circle of Life. Thanks for joining us in this virtual round table. Looking forward to the next time we all meet virtually or otherwise!

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Q: Roger, any final thoughts on The Lion King?

Roger Allers: I’m so happy that audiences are able to experience The Lion King in a theatre on a big screen with other viewers. It’s the communal experience, you know? Let’s gather at Pride Rock, join the circle, and tell our tales.

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The Lion King is now available on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.

For more information on The Lion King , visit the official Lion King web site.

Producer Don Hahn Talks ‘The Lion King’

Kevin Carr — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:36:31 +0000

Don Hahn, producer for The Lion King, answered some questions about the making-of the film, available on 3D Blu-ray, DVD and Blu-ray on October 4.

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Q: What’s the main difference between a classical animation movie (The Lion King) and something like Frankenweenie?

Don Hahn: All animation techniques are about bringing inanimate objects to life to tell a story. The main difference between The Lion King and Frankenweenie is that The Lion King is a hand drawn movie, 24 drawings per second. A stop motion puppet film like Frankenweenie is done with articulated puppets that are moved by an animator 24 times a second. They are both great techniques!

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Q: What scene in The Lion King is really blew you away once it was in 3D?

Don Hahn: That would have to be Circle of Life. It was like all of Africa came alive on the screen right in front of us!

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Q: What’s the most emotional side in working again on the project of The Lion King?

Don Hahn: I had a woman come up to me after a screening and she had just lost her husband. The film really helped her deal with the issues of loss and explain those issues to her children. Believe me, you never think that a film will have that type of effect, but it is very humbling and emotional when it does.

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Q: You’ve been involved in the 3D conversion of both “The Lion King” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” How did converting 2D animation compare to converting stop-motion animation?

Don Hahn: Nightmare was a nightmare to do in 3D. There was no separation on the characters and the stereographers had to literally build a complete 3D version of the puppets and sets, then “project” the original film onto that geometry. The Lion King had its challenges but the original film was stored in separate levels which gave us a great advantage to start the 3D process.

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Q: Which is your favorite character in The Lion King 3D? How it is changed from the 2D version?

Don Hahn: I love Pumbaa! And he’s even bigger and rounder in 3D!

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Q: The Lion King 3D is topping the US box office. Can you give us 3 good reasons for our readers to come back to the theatres?

Don Hahn: Story, Story, Story! Nobody goes to the theater just to see a technique. The Lion King is a great story and that’s why it’s come back with such a roar!

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Q: The Lion King has a huge, magical philosophy of life. Which side of it do you prefer? And why?

Don Hahn: There is an underlying theme to The Lion King about that day when you are no longer a child and you have to step up and accept the responsibility of adulthood. It’s actually an age old coming of age story not unlike so many Disney films that are all about growing up.

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Q: Can you tell us something about your next project, Frankenweenie?

Don Hahn: It’s an amazing film, directed by Tim Burton, and done completely in stop motion with puppets much like Tim’s Nightmare Before Christmas. Tim is one of the most iconic directors and artists of our time and Frankenweenie will be a treat when it comes out in October of next year!

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Q: Why did you pick The Lion King for the 3D version? Which other Disney movie would you like to see in 3D too and why?

Don Hahn: Converting a hand drawn film into a 3D experience was a risk so we wanted to start with two films that we knew had audience appeal. The Lion King was at the top of the list. Beauty and the Beast next. The Lion King 3D experiment has exceeded our wildest dreams. 3D isn’t right for every film but wouldn’t it be great to see Peter Pan fly over London in 3D… (no plans for it, just my personal favorite).

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Q: If not the entire movie itself, what sequence or portion of the movie are you most proud of?

Don Hahn: The Circle of Life is a real personal favorite. When we finished the sequence and Hans Zimmer scored the music, we watched it and were all amazed (even though it was our movie). Suddenly this little film about a lion cub became a much bigger epic.

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Q: Development and editing aside, how many times do think you’ve seen the movie?

Don Hahn: Probably a thousand times. And I see something different every time.

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Q: In your opinion which 3D movie was the best in the animation, until now? And why?

Don Hahn: I have two favorites: Toy Story 3 and Avatar. Toy Story 3 was just a brilliant movie all around and the 3D was exquisite. Many people don’t think of Avatar as animation but Jim Cameron did an amazing job building a world and bringing his characters to life in 3D. He’s a real pioneer in every sense of the word.

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Q: Since you probably know it best, how do you think The Lion King has aged?

Don Hahn: The happy thing about animation is that it ages very well. The actors don’t get older, and the story is universal and about some pretty timeless themes. When we did the film we deliberately left ‘man’ out of the story so it is a story that could have happened today or a thousand years ago. That’s the magic of animation.

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Q: Like other Disney masterpieces The Lion King enjoys nearly infinite longevity. How do you feel the follow up films contribute to its legacy?

Don Hahn: We’ve made over 50 animated films at the studio and in some way they are all connected. There wouldn’t be a Lion King if it hadn’t been for the great success and skill that the team brought to Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, and Aladdin. The films that followed The Lion King reflect a dynamic growth in the ambition of the animators to tackle different stories and embrace different techniques. Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, Lilo and Stitch, Mulan…proud of them all as much as I’m proud of Tangled (Rapunzel).

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Q: How has The Lion King changed your life?

Don Hahn: The Lion King is a once in a lifetime experience for a filmmaker. We were able to do something together as a team that moved the audience and eventually contributed to popular culture. Of course I’m proud, but it’s not my film alone, it really cemented in my mind the power of great artistry, and collaboration.

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Q: Talk about your trip to Africa to do research for the movie. What was the single greatest thing you saw there?

Don Hahn: I was finishing Beauty and the Beast so I didn’t make the trip. But Roger Allers, Chris Sanders, Lisa Keene and the team that went were blown away by the scope and scale of Africa. They came back with a load of images and a feeling for the land and color of the land that made it into the movie in many ways. There is an epic feeling to the landscape in Africa, that made the directors want to use it almost like another character in the film. The trip was a turning point in our thoughts about the look, sounds, and music of the film.

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Q: What has The Lion King gained by being put in 3D?

Don Hahn: Everything and nothing. The film is well suited for 3D because of the style of direction. Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers, the directors, crafted the film with longer shots and a sense of Africa as an unspoken character in the film. 3D brings this to life even more and lets the audience step into the film in a unique way. When I say that nothing is gained, I’m referring to the story. We worked hard to make the 3D reflect and support the story and not detract from it. There’s a paradox to all this, which is the paradox of animation itself; you work for four years and spend millions of hours on a film with the goal of making the audience forget that they are looking at drawings. That’s the magic of it all.

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Q: What made you want to tell this story? And once it became a hit, did you ever imagine it being this well received?

Don Hahn: It started out by wanting to do a story about growing up. We called it “Bambi in Africa,” a term that came from our development executive Charlie Fink. We looked at a lot of coming of age stories, especially bible stories like Moses or Joseph where a character is born into royalty and then is exiled and has to return to claim their kingdom. Those are ancient stories…stories of underdogs that we as an audience love to see when we go to the theater. Did I imagine that it would be this successful? Not in my wildest dreams. It’s an incredible and humbling reaction even now, seventeen years later.

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Q: Can you imagine The Lion King with another sound track?

Don Hahn: No, I really can’t. Elton John, Hans Zimmer and African singer Lebo M. are the perfect match for this story.

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Q: What is your favorite memory of making The Lion King?

Don Hahn: So many: there was the day we brought live adult lions into the studio to study and draw, and the day we first saw Chris Sanders amazing storyboards for the Mufasa’s Ghost sequence. But probably the most memorable moment was when we went to Hans Zimmer’s studio in Santa Monica and heard his arrangement of Circle of Life for the first time. It changed our perception of what the movie could be.

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Q: Did your experiences making The Lion King affect how you approached your later films for Disneynature?

Don Hahn: Disneynature films are similar in that you are trying to tell stories with animals, but the comparison stops there. In nature films, the animals tell you the story and you follow them around for three years hoping that something dramatic happens. In animation, you start with a pencil and create it all from scratch. Love them both, just two very different path ways to arriving at a story.

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Q: What was your biggest challenge bringing The Lion King to the screen?

Don Hahn: Most people don’t know this but the Northridge, CA earthquake struck us just six months before the film came out and the studio had to be shut down. For a few weeks we were driving drawings to animator’s homes around southern California and making the film in garages and on kitchen tables. The crew was amazing. They were dealing with the stress of a major earthquake while finishing the film.

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Q: Do you have any plans to produce another Disney animated film?

Don Hahn: I have animation in my blood and if the right story comes along, yes I would love to do another film. For the last several years I’ve been working with Tim Burton on a stop motion animated film Frankenweenie. It’s an amazing technique and Tim is a brilliant director and visual artist. Couldn’t hope for more.

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Q: Do you ever find yourself humming or singing one of the songs? What’s your favorite song?

Don Hahn: I do. All the time. I love Circle of Life but I usually find Hakuna Matata creeping its way into my brain. The only way to get it out is to sing a chorus of “It’s a Small World.”

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Q: Number one two weeks in a row for a movie 17 years old. How does that make you feel?

Don Hahn: Insanely great, humbled, happy for the artists, musicians and actors that made it all happen and happy to have been there to see it all.

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Q: You’ve been at Disney as long as anyone there. How has the studio and animation changed in your time there?

Don Hahn: I started at Disney 35 years ago and yes it’s changed a lot. The one thing that I’ve seen the most is that Disney is at its best when we take creative risk and push to move the art form forward. You see it in the 1980′s when Howard Ashman and Alan Menken came in and contributed songs to Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty. You see it again when Pixar did the original Toy Story. It was an experimental film that the studio wasn’t sure it would work but the risk paid off. I’ve been in so many discussions over the time I’ve been here about what makes “Disney.” The one constant is change. Walt himself couldn’t wait to dive into the next thing, be it technology, television, theme parks, urban planning. Disney is about change and innovation. That’s why I’ve stayed here my whole career and still love the place.

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Q: How did you originally become a part of The Lion King?

Don Hahn: I was just finishing up on Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King was going through some big changes. The original director was leaving the film and the producer Tom Schumacher was moving to an executive position developing future films. I came on board in February of 1992 shortly after the team returned from Africa and just as Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers were made the directors. We sat in my office for two days with an amazing small and mighty team of story artists that included Chris Sanders, Brenda Champman and Beauty directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale and over those two days wrote the complete outline for the film. There had been some amazing writers on the story, but those two days were an amazing time when the film came together in a big way.

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Q: How early on did Hans Zimmer and Elton John/Tim Rice become involved in the film and can you tell us about working with them?

Don Hahn: Tim came on first. He was finishing lyrics for Aladdin after the death of Howard Ashman. His pick for a song writing partner was Elton. Elton is a musical genius when it comes to melody but we always knew that we’d need a musician to score his songs and pull them into the African musical space. Chris Montan, our music executive suggested Hans and it was one of the most important decisions on the film. Tim was a dramatist and was able to put up with the endless story changes that we went through. Elton delivered melodies that in my opinion are timeless. Hans was the lightning bolt that pulled it together. Hans brought in Lebo M. the amazing African singer who brings the opening song to life. His score won an Oscar that year as did Elton and Tim’s song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.”

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Q: At what point in the production did it hit you that “The Lion King” was becoming something special?

Don Hahn: I think when we heard Hans Zimmer’s arrangement of “Circle of Life” with the final animation, but knew we had something different for sure and possibly something the audience would like too. We took a risk and sent “Circle of Life” out to theaters as a trailer for the film six months before the film came out and it was a huge hit. Back at the studio we were still struggling with the story but at least we knew we had a great opening and if we could elevate the rest of the film to that level, we’d have something.

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Q: Were you asked at all to help develop The Lion King musical? Have you seen it on Broadway? If so what did you think?

Don Hahn: Aside from giving some notes in the early rehearsals, no. Theater is a different animal and when Tom Schumacher came up with the idea of using Julie Taymor to direct the show, the rest was history. I have seen the musical many times, and it is a magical thing.

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Q: Is there anything you wish you could change about how The Lion King came out? Something that was cut out of the movie you wish had been left in?

Don Hahn: There is really nothing we would have done differently. Yes there were songs written that were cut out and sequences like a scene of Pumbaa and Timon playing “bug football” that never made it to the screen, but these were all good choices. The film works as is and really doesn’t need anything else.

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Q: What does it mean for a producer of a movie win an Oscar, is perhaps a goal?

Don Hahn: It’s the World Series and Super Bowl of the movie business so of course getting an Oscar nomination much less winning is a huge honor. Having said that, it’s a rare thing and you have to be satisfied with the creative accomplishment itself. We don’t make films to win awards, we make them to entertain. When an audience responds – that’s the biggest reward!

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Q: “Waking Sleeping Beauty” was a very honest and inspiring film. You did a remarkable job getting candid contributions from all the major players of that era. Did you get any resistance early on about telling your story “warts and all”?

Don Hahn: Thank you!! I think the “warts and all” approach was the only way to go. It created a level playing field. Once the artists and execs saw that I was really trying to get at the truth, they were all cooperative and in the end supportive. I’m a lucky man.

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Q: Did you ever think 3D technology would be used on the film?

Don Hahn: No. When we made The Lion King in 1994, 3D was still a pretty clunky technology. Now the technique has caught up with us and gives us an amazing tool kit to transform the film into a new experience.

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Q: Which character reminds you most of yourself?

Don Hahn: Pumbaa. You figure it out.

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Q: The film has been #1 at the box office for two weeks now. How exciting is it to see a re-release beat all of the competition?

Don Hahn: Beyond exciting. It’s so humbling to sit in the back of a theater and watch a new generation of kids enjoy the film.

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Q: You’ve produced and directed all manner of films: animation, live-action and documentaries. You’re written a number of books. Is there any other artistic endeavor you’d like to try or devote more time to?

Don Hahn: People like Walt Disney and Jim Henson were my role models growing up. They were into a million things, all based around entertaining the audience. So who knows, maybe we’ll see DonHahnland coming soon.

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Q: First of all, how did you get involved in animation?

Don Hahn: I was a music major in college…played cello and percussion, and if it weren’t for a temp summer job at Disney, I’d probably be playing timpani in the back of an orchestra somewhere. When I got to Disney I had the chance to work with some of the greats of animation: Woolie Reitherman, Don Bluth, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston. I got totally seduced by the animation process and what you could do with it.

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Q: Had you been a fan of Disney animation previously?

Don Hahn: A fan of Disney yes, but I really didn’t get into animation until after I came to the studio at 20 years old.

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Q: Besides the projects you have worked on, what is your favorite classic Disney animated film?

Don Hahn: Peter Pan! Flying kids in pajamas fight pirates? How great is that!?

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Q: Every actor brought something great to their roles and I think The Lion King was cast to perfection. But were there any actors you had in mind for the main characters who you were unable to sign on?

Don Hahn: For a short time we considered that great African actor Sean Connery to play Mufasa, but after James Earl Jones came available we abandoned that idea.

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Q: How has “The Lion King” come up in your life in really strange or unexpected ways?

Don Hahn: I was in Beijing a few years ago doing a lecture at an art school there and everyone was bringing me their Lion King DVDs to sign. About half way thru signing them I realized that The Lion King hadn’t been released on DVD yet in China and they were all bootleg copies.

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Q: As someone who has produced some of Disney’s all-time biggest animated hits, what is the secret of your success?

Don Hahn: People. I find the best possible people that I can find, then I hire them and do exactly what they tell me to do. It’s like baseball…a team sport where the team is more important than the individual.

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Q: Were there any scenes that you specifically wanted to see in 3-D for this movie, and did they turn out the way you hoped they would?

Don Hahn: The wildebeest stampede…couldn’t wait to see it in 3D and it didn’t disappoint!!

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Q: Can you talk about the next hand-drawn film from Disney, or the general future of hand-drawn animation at the studio?

Don Hahn: Too early to talk about anything specific except to say that there are amazing artists at Disney and Pixar who have lots in store for the audience be it with a pencil, a puppet or a pixel.

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Q: In recent years, you’ve become a documentarian. Is this something you’d like to further pursue?

Don Hahn: I love the immediacy of the documentary medium. It takes four or five years to make an animated film. Good documentaries take time – we’ve been shooting Chimpanzee, the next Disneynature film for three years now. But the ability to shoot and edit a story together quickly is a different experience. I think I was probably inspired by Walt Disney who turned to nature documentaries later in his career.

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Q: Is the success of The Lion King 3D a vindication of traditional animation techniques in the digital age? What do you see as the future of hand-drawn animation?

Don Hahn: I think it’s a vindication of good storytelling. The audience doesn’t go to the theater to see a technique. They go to be told a story and The Lion King delivers that story. Techniques come into and go out of fashion but the truth is a good story is what is lasting be it told with pencils, puppets or pixels.

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Q: Don, any final thoughts on The Lion King 3D in its theatrical and soon after Blu-ray release?

Don Hahn: First of all a big hug to the cast and crew of The Lion King. You have no idea how many hands and hearts have touched this film all with respect for the story and the audience. Hats off to them. Seeing the film on the big screen and watching the audience reaction is about the biggest treat a filmmaker could hope for. We’ve all worked equally as hard on the Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D release in the hopes that audiences can enjoy the film at home for years to come.

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The Lion King is now available on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.

For more information on The Lion King , visit the official Lion King web site.

Kevin Carr’s DVD Rundown for 10/04/11

Kevin Carr — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:33:12 +0000

Kevin’s picks on DVD this week: The Lion King: Diamond Edition, Disneynature’s African Cats, The League: Season 2, Scream 4, Planet Earth: Special Edition and Fast Five

Stinker of the week: Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom

Kevin Carr’s DVD Rundown for 10/04/11
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Episode 230 – Straw Puppies

Kevin Carr — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 22:00:55 +0000

This Week: Kevin invites fellow Film School Rejects writer Rob Hunter into the Magical Studio in the Sky to talk about movies they have and have not seen. After throwing some hate at Sarah Jessica Parker and questioning if anyone will see The Lion King in 3D, they contemplate what an update of Straw Dogs would be like before gushing over Drive. Then, they talk box office and answer some listener feedback before laying down some of their favorite driving movies. Then it’s the DVD Rundown and back to their respective corners.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Drive and Straw Dogs

Episode Schedule:

Part I: Previews of I Don’t Know How She Does It and The Lion King 3D (8:50)

Part II: Preview of Straw Dogs and a tease of Drive (10:40)

Part III: More on Drive, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions, Listener Feedback and the Fat Guy Five: Five Great Driving Movies (48:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: X-Men: First Class, Thor, Meek’s Cutoff, Sunny: Season 6, The Big Bang Theory: Season 4, Count of Monte Cristo Blu-ray, O Brother Where Art Thou Blu-ray, Halloween II, Glee: Season 2, the Frighteners Blu-ray, The Tempest Blu-ray, Community: Season 2, Modern Family: Season 2, Pieces and We Are the Night (6:35)

Next Week:

Abduction, Killer Elite, Dolphin Tale and Moneyball

Show Links:

Email the Fat Guys
Follow Kevin on Twitter (@kevincarr)
Follow Rob on Twitter (@FakeRobHunter)

Movie Review: ‘Shark Night 3D’

Kevin Carr — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:57:33 +0000

Rated PG-13
Opens: September 2, 2011
Studio: Rogue
Starring: Sara Paxton, Dustin Milligan, Chris Carmack, Joel David Moore and Katharine McPhee
Directed by: David R. Ellis

Kevin says Shark Night 3D SUCKS!
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Episode 226 – Singing Purple Monkeys in 3D

Kevin Carr — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:56 +0000

This Week: Kevin gets ready to take on the onslaught of 3D movies this weekend with the help of Emily from Gleekcast, who is fresh off of seeing the Glee: The 3D Concert Movie. (See… someone paid to see it this past week.) They ramble through a variety of topics, including gambling in Vegas, British accents and the great 80s conflict of Star Wars versus The SuperFriends. They also manage to talk about all the new movies this week, lay down a Fat Guy Five about great vampire hunters and suggest some awesome (and not-so-awesome) DVDs and Blu-rays.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Fright Night, Conan the O’Barbarian, Spy Kids 4 and One Day

Episode Schedule:

Part I: Previews of Conan the O’Barbarian and Spy Kids 4D: All the Time in the World (8:50)

Part II: Reviews of One Day and Fright Night (10:40)

Part III: More on Fright Night, a post-review of Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions and the Fat Guy Five: Five Favorite Vampire Hunters (49:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: The Muppets Take Manhattan, John Carpenter’s The Ward, Cobra, Assassins, Demolition Man, The Big Lebowski Blu-ray, Dexter: Season 5, Jane Eyre, Priest and The Conspirator (6:35)

Next Week:

No screenings, but plenty of chatter about Colombiana, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Our Idiot Brother

Show Links:

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Follow Emily Twitter (@deadlydolls)

Video: Kevin Reviews Movies on FOX 28 – May 27, 2011

Kevin Carr — Fri, 27 May 2011 21:32:14 +0000

On May 27, Fat Guy Kevin Carr rolled into the FOX 28 studios in Columbus, Ohio for a weekly movie review segment. This week, he talked about Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Hangover: Part II.

Check out Kevin’s TV appearance here:

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Episode 216 – No Glitz on the Bangkok

Kevin Carr — Thu, 26 May 2011 22:05:45 +0000

This Week: Kevin invites Ike from the It’s Mike and Ike podcast to the Magical Studio in the Sky to talk about all the number two that is coming to theaters this week. They take a sharp critical blade to The Hangover: Part II while Kevin shows his classic love for animation with a review of Kung Fu Panda 2. Later in the show, both Kevin and Ike show their disturbing knowledge about pornography and the Psycho movies before responding to some listener voice mails. Then, they knock out a Fat Guy Five about great number twos before laying down some DVD recommendations. Happy Memorial Day, folks!

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for The Hangover: Part II and Kung Fu Panda 2

Episode Schedule:

Part I: Intros and a tease of Kung Fu Panda 2 (8:50)

Part II: More on Kung Fu Panda 2 films, then a review of The Hangover: Part II (10:40)

Part III: More about The Hangover: Part II, 3D Pornos, Psycho, Listener Voice Mails, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions and the Fat Guy Five: Five Number Twos That Are Better Than the Original (49:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: I Am Number Four, Gnomeo and Juliet and Platoon on Blu-ray (6:35)

Next Week:

A look at X-Men: First Class

Show Links:

Email the Fat Guys
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Follow Ike on Twitter (@ItsMikeandIke)

Animator Steve Preeg Talks ‘Tron Legacy’

Kevin Carr — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:16:54 +0000

Steve Preeg, head of animation for Tron Legacy, answered some questions about the making-of the film, available on 3D Blu-ray, DVD and Blu-ray on April 5.

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Q: What was the hardest part of the animation in Tron: Legacy?

Steve Preeg: For sure the hardest part was Clu, bringing a human being to the screen has long been considered impossible in CGI, as humans are very used to looking at other humans faces. Avoiding what is known as the uncanny valley is what we all face in this industry in regards to this type of work.

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Q: What was it like working with a first-time director like Joe Kosinski contrasted with working with a veteran like David Fincher?

Steve Preeg: They are both great filmmakers. With David you expect him to give great direction and explain exactly what he wants, and he does. As a first time director, I was amazed at how similar Joe was to David. Joe is very clear on what he wants; he had everything in his head of what he wanted. This was a really tough movie to direct for even a seasoned film veteran and Joe took it in stride more than I think anyone thought possible, plus he had a baby right in the middle of production. He is an amazing guy; I would love to work with him again.

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Q: Will there be a sequel and if there is will you be involved in it?

Steve Preeg: I haven’t heard for sure one way or another if there will be a sequel, but it would be a great opportunity to work on it if they do make one.

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Q: Was the process similar in Tron: Legacy working on de-aging Jeff Bridges as Clu 2 to the aging effects applied to Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button?

Steve Preeg: There was a lot of similarities as far as the work at Digital Domain itself, the main difference was on the acquisition of the data. With Button we captured Brad Pitt months after principal photography, but Jeff Bridges wanted to be captured on set in the moment which required us to come up with some new hardware as well as software to deal with the difference in the data we were receiving here at Digital Domain.

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Q: Will you be involved with the animated series “Tron: Uprising” at all?

Steve Preeg: At this time I haven’t heard anything about being involved.

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Q: What was the biggest challenge in making Tron: Legacy?

Steve Preeg: For me personally it was just trying to live up to the legacy of the original Tron. That film started the industry in which I work and is kind of considered holy ground by many of my peers, there was a lot of pressure to not screw it up

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Q: What in particular are you the most proud of in terms of pushing the envelope of effects?

Steve Preeg: I think we are all proud to have made a film that paid appropriate homage to the original film. It was a daunting task and for the most part our work was well received, which was a great relief for us.

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Q: Having worked on the third “Pirates” film, were you a part of the 4th film in the series at all?

Steve Preeg: No, the third film in the series is the only one I was involved with.

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Q: Aside from the biggies of IMAX and 3D, what else was different about working on Tron: Legacy than other projects, At World’s End, for example?

Steve Preeg: One of the big differences for us was that it was shot in 3D. This presented a whole new set of challenges and workflows to work with footage from two cameras. We had to be far more accurate and aware of how everything we did would affect the depth of the scene.

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Q: What would you do different now when you look back at the movie?

Steve Preeg: After every film we examine what we did right and wrong and make a list of what could be done better. There is always room for improvement on technique and execution. I think for myself, there are a number of advancements on how we approach human faces that will change our process, had we known then what we know now, we probably would have tried to implement some of that on Clu. I think we will be learning new things about how to create humans for a very long time to come.

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Q: Have fans of the original ‘Tron’ been supportive of the visual effects that you included in ‘Tron: Legacy?’

Steve Preeg: From the responses I have gotten, it seems that fans of the original were quite happy with our work.

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Q: Considering the intricately detailed effects work you put together, what’s your take on people watching movies on small mobile devices like iPhones? Do you feel like your work gets lost in that kind of portable compression compared to what people could experience in a theater?

Steve Preeg: There is no question that this film was meant to be seen on an IMAX screen. Joe designed a lot of the film specifically to be seen that way. I strongly feel that people watching this on a mobile device are missing a huge part of the thrill that is Tron: Legacy.

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Q: What’s your favorite aspect of the work you do?

Steve Preeg: With this industry being both an artistic and technical field, we get to work with a wide variety of people from all over the world. I think for me it is interacting with all of those people, directors, software engineers, animators, etc.

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Q: What was your favorite sequence in Tron: Legacy, as a fan and as an animator?

Steve Preeg: I personally really enjoyed the light bike sequence. It has a bit of the original Tron in it but got to be updated for a whole new generation of audience members. It was a real thrill to work on that sequence.

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Q: Do you think that digital actors could replace human actors? What about recreating digital personalities for a movie, like Elvis, Humphrey Bogart or Marilyn Monroe?

Steve Preeg: That’s a tough question. In general we rely heavily on the performance of the actor to give us a character. We aren’t really out to replace human actors since they are the ones that breathe life into our digital characters. As for bringing someone back from the dead, you can never really get a dead persons take on a role, all you can try to do is mimic what you think they might have done. It may be believable to an audience, but in the end it is not really that persons performance, it’s just a copy.

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Q: How did you move from mechanical engineering to Hollywood special effects?

Steve Preeg: I was using some of the available visualization software used in film to visualize some engineering work when a friend needed some help on a film and knew that I knew the software. After working on a couple projects, I realized it was a lot more fun working on films than as an engineer, at least for me.

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Q: How much pressure did you feel in not only making a sequel to Tron but also in creating the world of Tron now?

Steve Preeg: This is the most pressure I have felt on any film I have worked on. Trying to live up to Tron, the grandfather of the industry I work in, was always in the back of our minds and often in the front of our minds, too.

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Q: Can you differentiate between your responsibilities as Head of Animation and, for example, VFX Supervisor, as far as it pertains to Tron Legacy?

Steve Preeg: As head of animation, I was responsible for the movement of everything. From Clu to lightbikes, if it moved that was my responsibility. The VFX is responsible for the look of the film and making sure it matches the director’s vision. So the VFX is dealing with a lot of lighting, modeling, textures, etc. That said, Eric (the VFX) and I collaborate on just about everything. We have a great working relationship and I have no problem hearing his comments on animation just as he listens to my suggestions about lighting, etc.

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Q: Were you a fan of the original Tron?

Steve Preeg: Of course. I don’t see how anybody wouldn’t be. It was so far ahead of its time and so groundbreaking. Plus after conversations with Steve Lisberger (the director of the original Tron) there is so much more to it than people think. He has amazing insight on our world and I think Tron had a lot of additional meaning that Steve was trying to make.

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Q: You received an Academy Award for achievement in visual effects for your work on ‘Benjamin Button.’ Has this win given you more creative freedom on the films you have worked on since then?

Steve Preeg: The creative freedom on a film is largely dependent on the director you are working with. Joe was great about hearing ideas and he collaborated with us in a way that made it a real treat to work on his film. However, in the end our goal is to make the directors vision come to life.

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Q: Do you have any words of wisdom for aspiring film makers who want to get into animation?

Steve Preeg: Make sure you love the craft. Don’t try to get into this industry because you think you will get rich or meet famous people. We work really hard in this industry and without a true passion for film and the work you do, you will burn out quickly. I think maybe that’s true for a lot of industries, work on what you love to do.

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Q: Did you have to create any new tools and use anything unique to generate the effects?

Steve Preeg: Most films we work on require some new tools to be created, we never get a director that comes and says, “just make what you did before.” They always want to push it to the next level. On Tron we had to write new tools for the 3D part of it, as well as a new facial solver for the type of data we were receiving from set. There were a whole host of additional smaller tools written for the different departments, and we are continuing to develop those tools for our current and upcoming shows.

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Q: Can you talk about which films have influenced you?

Steve Preeg: The most inspirational film to me is Baraka. It is sort of a film about everything. Every time I watch that film I can take something else out of it. There is something for every mood and every aspect of life in there, so I watch it about once every 6 months, just to see how amazing our lives and planet really are.

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Q: Have you worked on the original Tron conversion for HD? How was that? How was it for you to work on a classic movie?

Steve Preeg: We were not involved in the conversion, but I can’t wait to see it.

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Q: Can you explain the uncanny valley? How did your experience on Benjamin Button help you?

Steve Preeg: The uncanny valley basically suggests that as a character gets closer and closer to real looking, people respond better and better to it, until you get ALMOST real, and then people become disgusted by it. I think signs like skin that’s off color; eyes that stare off to infinity, etc. are some of the things that throw characters into the uncanny valley. There are many theories about why this is true, but the best one I have heard is that over the generations we have learned to avoid dead bodies to avoid disease, and many of the signs of a dead body are exactly what the uncanny valley seems to be about. Our work on Button certainly helped us learn more about what humans accept and don’t accept about another humans face, but there is still a lot to learn.

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Q: How did you first get involved in this project?

Steve Preeg: Just as Button was wrapping, Eric (the VFX supervisor) was approached by Joe Kosinski and Disney about doing Tron. Having worked with him for a few years prior, he asked me to be involved, which of course I had to say yes. It’s Tron after all.

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Q: Were there any moments where you just geeked out when thinking that you are working on a TRON movie?

Steve Preeg: Some of us were on Tron Legacy for 27 months, and I think we were in that geek out phase the entire time. It was a real honor to be allowed to continue Tron for a new generation.

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Q: What is the advantage of your E-motion capture technology compared to the performance capturing system James Cameron used in AVATAR?

Steve Preeg: They are really different tasks. On Avatar, the capture was happening with the body and face at the same time. We needed to make one person’s facial performance on another person’s body movement. They are both very difficult tasks, but require different methods.

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Q: Can you explain the additional difficulties that you had to solve, because the film was shot in 3-D? Did you play with 3-D effects to enhance some visual effects?

Steve Preeg: Well first off there are two cameras to track and they have to be far more accurate tracks than traditional VFX tracks, because the two together define the depth of an object. It also makes it harder for the end of the pipeline where traditionally you can always paint or nudge things in the final composite, but with 3D that paint work has to be the same in both eyes and that presents a problem, as well. There are quite a few other issues, like polarized light (such as reflections) showing up different in the two cameras, vertical disparity, using elements from two takes that had different 3D settings, the list goes on and on.

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Q: Can you tell us something about “Tron 3 ” yet?

Steve Preeg: If I knew anything I probably couldn’t tell you anyway, but honestly I don’t know anything more than you about it. I hope they make one though, and I hope they ask me to work on it.

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Q: The opening sequence was shown in 2D. Was this an artistic or a technical decision?

Steve Preeg: That was the director’s decision. He wanted the Tron world to feel different, sort of like how the Wizard of Oz was black and white in the real world and in color in Oz. It was a similar effect he was going for.

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Q: How does additional filming or reshoots affect your process?

Steve Preeg: It doesn’t really affect it other than it is just plate delivery that is later and we would have less time to work on it. It is pretty typical to get additional filming on projects, so it was no big deal on Tron Legacy.

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Q: Can you tell us what you’ve got going on next?

Steve Preeg: I would be happy to tell you if I knew. We are looking at a number of projects, but honestly after more than 2 years on Tron, I am okay with it taking a couple months for something else to pop up.

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Q: Do you think 3D is here to stay or will it move out of fashion again?

Steve Preeg: That’s a tough call. I think it will depend a lot on the home market and if the box office difference stays as high as it is. I know there are some indications that it is dying down, so maybe it is on its way out, but I don’t think anyone really knows.

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Q: Was there any thought to redoing any effects for the Blu-ray release? It must be tempting to go back and redo Clu with what you’ve learned since then.

Steve Preeg: I think in this industry we would always like more time or a shot at redoing things. We never really finish a shot; it just gets taken away at some point. The option for redoing any FX for the Blu-ray would not have been up to us, but it sure would have been fun.

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Q: How much experience did you have with 3D prior to this film?

Steve Preeg: Very little, our company had done one 3D conversion, but I didn’t work on it. It was certainly a learning process for me.

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Q: When “Tron Legacy” was released, some people talked about the Clu 2 recreation. It`s completely digital?

Steve Preeg: Clu’s head is always 100% digital. His body is sometimes a body double and sometimes all digital.

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Q: Digital characters are more and more perfect like Neytiri in “Avatar”. Actors in digital roles in the eyes of critics are not real, but we all see their fantastic performances – do you think in future actors will receive awards for their digital roles?

Steve Preeg: I hope so. It is just as valid of an acting job to be a digital character and in some ways even harder as there is not always something to react to. Someday I hope the recognition is there.

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Q: Have you watched a movie you’ve worked on and caught a “bug”? A little glitch or quirk that was missed, probably something nobody else would even notice, that made you cringe in your seat?

Steve Preeg: I really have a hard time watching movies I have worked on because that’s all I see. There is never a finished shot, I always feel like we could do more, but at some point it has to get out to theaters.

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Q: Did the look of the original movie limit you in your creativity or was there still room for new ideas?

Steve Preeg: I think it helped spur creativity. How do you take that original look and update it for a new generation? That was one of the most challenging and fun parts about working on this film.

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Q: Any word on Tron 3?

Steve Preeg: Nothing but rumors.

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Q: Percentage wise how much of the film is live action compared to CG would you say?

Steve Preeg: In the Tron world every shot had some digital work done, even if it was just suit enhancement. Probably about half of the real world footage had work done to it. I am not sure how much of the film was completely CG but I would guess about 20% maybe, all of the lightbike and lightjet sequences were all CG and a large portion of the disc game, as well as the big cityscapes.

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Q: This massive 5-disc set may be the biggest 3D Blu-ray release to come out yet. Do you think this could be the title that really spurs growth in the 3D Blu-ray market?

Steve Preeg: I hadn’t really thought of that, but wouldn’t that be awesome? I haven’t seen it in 3D on Blu-ray yet, but Joe says it looks amazing, so I can’t wait.

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Q: Where do you see the advantages of 3D for telling stories like TRON: LEGACY?

Steve Preeg: I think in a film where you create a whole new world for people to see is a great place for 3D to be used. You can really use it to give a feeling of actually being in this new place, that’s where I would like to see it used more. I don’t think we need to start seeing romantic comedies in 3D, but that’s just me.

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Q: Did you participate in the creation of the Blu-ray’s featurettes? How do you choose these bonuses?

Steve Preeg: I was not part of it, which for me is great because I want to see it with fresh eyes. I am really looking forward to seeing what Disney did with it.
Q – Did the first Tron film in any way inspire you have a career in special effects?

Steve Preeg: Not only was it an inspiration but it started the work that is my career, it has been great meeting some of the original crew of the first Tron and to see how hard it was to make the first Tron, they were true pioneers.

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Q: Any final thoughts on Tron Legacy?

Steve Preeg: Well I just hope people enjoyed our work and the film itself. It was a real pleasure working on it as well as sharing some insight with all you guys. Thanks for reading all my ramblings; I hope you enjoyed it too.

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Tron is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

For more information on Tron and Tron Legacy, visit the official Tron web site.

Animator Glen Keane Talks ‘Tangled’

Kevin Carr — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:58:31 +0000

Executive Producer and Supervising Animator Glen Keane answered some questions about the making-of Tangled, available on 3D Blu-ray, DVD and Blu-ray on March 29.

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Q: How did you reach the amazing “organic quality” in terms of the character animation? Did you have any special tools or techniques to improve that effect, or is it in the end just the hard work of the artists?

Glen Keane: For me it was very important to find what I call “bridge people.” These are people who understand computer and hand drawn animation. They are translators in a sense. John Kahrs and Clay Kaytis where my partners as supervising animators. I call us “the triumvirate.” And they found ways to pull me in so I could do what comes naturally to me, draw. We installed a cintiq tablet in our dailies screening room and I would watch the animators’ recent animation. I could draw over the top of every frame if necessary and the animators would see it large on the screen and those drawings would then appear on each animator’s computer back in their offices. That way it was a constant natural mentorship throughout the making of this film bringing the appeal of hand drawn into CG.

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Q: Hair animation is still one of the most challenging parts in today’s CG animation work. How much effort and research did you need to end up with such perfect effects?

Glen Keane: We started writing software to animate the hair in 2005. Kelly Ward, who has a PhD in animating computer hair, joined our team and was every bit as creative as I am with a pencil as she was with numbers, equations, concepts and the vision to interpret those elements into a beautiful, flowing, organic hair on the screen.

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Q: Can you talk about how the casting of Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore influenced your drawings, if they did at all?

Glen Keane: When you are about to animate a character, the voice has a huge impact on the look of that character. For example, if you are speaking to someone on the phone who you have never met, that voice immediately conjures up images of what that person looks like. Maybe when you meet them they don’t look like that but that voice carries the visual DNA in it. I had been listening to a lot of different actresses and Mandy Moore has that irrepressible quality in her voice. And that was the specific word we were using to describe Rapunzel, irrepressible. Zac has a very carefree irreverence in his personality and voice which affected the way the character moved and also the design. For Rapunzel that irrepressible quality came out in the large eyes that are so expressive and for Zac, this wry smile, the expression that we put into the character really came from listening to Zac’s voice.

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Q: You’ve said in interviews that you modeled Ariel after you wife, Tarzan after your son and The Beast after yourself. Who was Rapunzel modeled after? Is she in anything like Ariel/Pocahontas?

Glen Keane: Using my family for inspiration is really a part of my own creative DNA. It’s what my Dad did when he created The Family Circus, the syndicated cartoon which he based on his own family. Dad said that I was Billy in The Family Circus. Dad always told me to draw what you know and there is nobody that I know better than my wife and children. With Rapunzel, she has this irrepressible spirit and right away in thinking through this story I thought, how does she survive in this tower for 18 years? This creative energy in her would have to come out I surmised in the form of artistic expression. I figured Rapunzel would have painted on every square inch of her walls. As I was developing this idea, I realized this was my daughter Claire. When she was 7 years old she was telling my wife that she wanted to paint her bedroom walls and ceiling. She had all sorts of ideas of images to paint. My wife said, “I’m not going to let a 7 year old loose with a paint brush painting the walls of the house” Jump to 13 years later, Claire was attending Academy Julian in Paris, an art school, and when it came time to hire someone to create Rapunzel’s artistic style, Claire was the perfect choice. So she started working with me on Rapunzel. When you see Rapunzel paint on the walls you see Claire paint and actually fulfill her dream.

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Q: What was it like to work with Ollie and Eric? Did they give you any advice that you still use today?

Glen Keane: It’s funny, when I started at Disney 37 years ago I was a 20 year old artist who knew nothing about animation. I had the privilege of working with Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men.” Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Eric Larsen were my mentors. The things they told me were deeply implanted in my mind and throughout the whole process of this movie I repeated those. I felt like I was passing on the baton. I remember Ollie saying, “Don’t draw what the character is doing, draw what the character is thinking.” It was very important in Tangled that the animators would crawl into the skin of the characters and live in them. You can feel it when an animator believes in what he is animating. Eric Larsen used to say all the time, “The key to Disney animation is sincerity.” That translates for an actor to mean take something real in your own experience and put it up on screen. So besides the drawing and design elements, this was more of the intuitive or spiritual element I was trying to bring to the animators, the idea of living in the characters we animate.

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Q: Bringing Rapunzel to life had to be a big challenge, because she moves in one way but her hair, as another character, has its own life. Could you explain to us the process to animate her? Did you animate Rapunzel first and then her hair? Which steps did you follow?

Glen Keane: The first step in animating Rapunzel was to design the character with all the bells and whistles necessary to animate incredibly subtle emotion. That meant working closely with modelers and riggers, the people that create the entire nervous system under the skin of a CG character. Then the directors issue the scene to the animator. Byron and Nathan would act the scene out so the animator could watch their expression and body attitude. Sometimes I would do drawings at that moment as I would interpret Byron as Rapunzel doing that same action. The animator then would do a rough first pass of the animation and I would do drawing corrections over the top in our dailies sessions. The directors would then make comments about what they wanted to take out or add or push. Once we had the basic movement down we would animate the hair. Sometimes the animator would control the 14 tubes of hair, each with 10,000 hairs in each tube, or we would have the simulation team animate the hair based on the movement the animator had created with the body. The simulation follows the laws of physics with some extra Pixie dust ingredients that our team of hair animators created.

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Q: Which one from your many, many past projects was most defining for your career, and why?

Glen Keane: I would have to say The Little Mermaid because I discovered I love characters who have this burning desire inside that they believe the impossible is possible. Since then I have followed that path, now with Tangled. This character of Rapunzel has brought me to a new crossroads. How far can hand drawn affect, or be integrated into, computer animation? I now try to see animation not as CG or hand drawn but simply as filmmaking.

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Q: Your background is huge. How hard is it for you to step into that digital world now and in which parts can you count on you massive experiences from the past?

Glen Keane: At first I was very tentative about how I could influence CG with my pencil. I have to say that I don’t know how to animate on the computer but I have never been afraid of the computer. John Lasseter and I did the very first computer animation test back in the 80’s, so I have always seen computer animation wherever it crosses the path of hand drawn, forcing me to draw better and to think more sculpturally. Drawing on the Syntec over top of computer images was very natural and fluid. I could even animate very quickly live in front of the room full of animators and demonstrate how I felt the action could play. Drawing is an incredibly affective tool to communicate ideas. It really is true that a picture is worth a thousand words.

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Q: Would you call “Tangled” a feminist movie? Your female characters, regardless of who they are, good or bad, are strong and persevering.

Glen Keane: I don’t think of Tangled as a feminist or non-feminist movie. I think of Rapunzel as an example of the highest qualities of human nature, male or female. I see her as an illustration of every human being who is born with a divine spark, a potential to become something unique. And the walls that surround her, and hold her back, are symbolic of walls in anyone’s life, those things that hold us back from being who we really long to be. Yes, that is feminist and masculinist and humanist.

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Q: What has been your favorite film to work on for Disney?

Glen Keane: It’s a little like who is your favorite child? Every film holds some very special moments in my life. Ariel was a character that launched a renaissance and that will always be perhaps the most special. Tangled in a very similar way is a launching pad for what I hope will be a new renaissance and someday in retrospect I hope to say the same thing about Tangled as I said about The Little Mermaid. I do believe the greatest moments in Disney history have been launched by fairytales.

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Q: What’s your opinion about the Disney Animation evolution?

Glen Keane: Disney animation needs to continue to evolve, embracing both its hand drawn heritage and the newest inventions of CG. It’s funny but hand drawn animation at Disney has a look that was created out of technical limitations, i.e. painting on cells. CG can liberate us from this restrictive form. It’s a future I am anxious to be a part of.

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Q: Your Dad drew “The Family Circus,” and you were the model for Billy. What effect did seeing yourself as a comic strip character have on you or the way you approach animation?

Glen Keane: When I draw, I become the character that I draw. Perhaps I owe that to seeing myself portrayed in my dad’s comics as a child.

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Q: How has your father influenced your work in animation?

Glen Keane: My dad is an entertainer. Every dinner with him was an opportunity to tell jokes and entertain the family. I always wanted that opportunity to be on stage and to entertain. At the same time. my dad encouraged me to approach art from a classical standpoint. When I was 10 he gave me a book called Dynamic Anatomy, and I started to study drawing the figure from the inside out: muscles, skeleton, design. These two aspects of entertainer and artist that my dad encouraged have found the perfect blend in animation.

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Q: When did you decide to give Rapunzel brown hair in the end? Was that part of the story from day one, or something that came up later in the making of the movie?

Glen Keane: The brown hair developed in the process of telling the story. We needed to show that the hair died or lost its power. Color is the clearest way of doing that. It was difficult at first to imagine Rapunzel as a brunette, but ultimately it reinforced the theme that outward appearances don’t define who we really are.

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Q: How do you start drawing a character? It is just a matter of inspiration or maybe it implies a long period of study?

Glen Keane: The development of a character for me is a very personal journey. I have an odd belief that the character already exists before I start to draw them. Similar to what Michelangelo describes in setting a figure free from the marble that surrounds it. This liberation may happen quickly or slowly but there is definitely a moment when the character rises out of the paper and I recognize them. It’s a wonderful day when that happens.

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Q: Which is your favorite Disney character hairstyle of all time?

Glen Keane: The hairstyle is very important because it is like someone’s signature. Rapunzel and Ariel vie for that special honor of having the favorite hairstyle for me. They both have the distinctive swoop that I emphasize for the doll makers and the merchandise books to follow. Both hairstyles have rhythm and volume. There is a sensuality to hair that I am fascinated with, it’s movement, it’s feel and this softening effect it can have on the audience’s attraction to that character.

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Q: What inspires you in you work? How much time do you need to draw a character?

Glen Keane: I find great joy in experiencing the emotions and physical actions of the characters I animate. The challenge of Tangled was to enjoy that experience through the hands of other animators. I find that I feel like a proud papa in seeing each animator take moments of their own life and put that on the screen, whether it is Mother Gothel, Flynn , Maximus or Rapunzel.

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Q: Tangled was first titled Rapunzel Unbraided. It was changed because the story focuses on Rapunzel en Flynn equally. It remained unchanged in parts of Europe however. Do you think Rapunzel isn’t just about Rapunzel? And the hair…

Glen Keane: Back in the early stages of Rapunzel, there was a desire to portray the fairytale in a very modern twist, thus the title Rapunzel Unbraided. Ultimately, I wanted to embrace the classic fairytale and set that title aside, as well as that story.

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Q: If the loss of her hair symbolized the loss of her power to heal, then how did her tears heal Flynn? Is it an inherent power within her that works even without singing or her hair?

Glen Keane: The healing tear was an important element in the original fairytale. It always symbolized for me that the true nature of Rapunzel’s gift came from her heart, not her hair. This dramatic ending allows us to revisit a similar moment from Dumbo. When he loses his magic feather and can still fly, he can fly because that’s who he was, a flying elephant. Rapunzel finds that the healing power never left her and is actually released by love. Does she keep healing every time she sheds a tear? I believe that was the last of that power.

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Q: How much video reference was done for “Tangled”?

Glen Keane: The animators had the habit of filming themselves. Sometimes in dailies we would critique the live action that they showed of themselves acting out the scenes. You could select key frames and build a very simplified version of their acting suitable for animation and then build on those poses, exaggerating. We would do that by drawing and pushing the curves of the CG figure, enhancing expressions. But the final effect still held its roots in that original performance that the animator filmed in his or her office. Some of the most amazing animators on the film were a team of female animators who really poured themselves into the character of Rapunzel.

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Q: This might be a tough question for you to answer, given not just Disney’s push but all the studios’ collective push for 3D, but if there were no outside pressures or preferences, would your preference have been to make a 2D or 3D film? Can you explain?

Glen Keane: On John Lasseter’s first day at Disney Animation as president, he came down to my office and gave me the choice to animate Rapunzel in 2D or CG. I told John if he had asked me three years ago I would have said 2D for sure but for the last three years I had been building a team around me with the idea that there was a better synthesis of the best of 2D and the best of CG possible. We had a new vision of what animation could be and I really wanted to pursue that goal. So I told John, let’s do it in CG.

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Q: How developed were the main characters of Rapunzel and Flynn Rider before you went looking for the right voice talents? Or did the talents come first, with the characters scarcely developed?

Glen Keane: We had the characters very clearly defined before we found the voices. So Mandy and Zac were the perfect match for what we envisioned.

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Q: Was it strange — after being a pencil & notebook guy for all those years — to suddenly be drawing on a tablet?

Glen Keane: The Syntec tablet at first was very slippery with the stylus pen on glass and it took a couple of weeks to get used to that but I quickly found that there were benefits to it. I could animate very quickly moving from one frame to the next and have my drawings projected up onto the screen in our dailies screening room. All the animators would watch my drawings form and I could talk and actually give animation lessons to the young animators on our crew. I saw this as an opportunity to pass on the baton that had been given to me by Walt’s “Nine Old Men.”

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Q: Is there a sequence you’re most proud of, and why?

Glen Keane: The sequence where Flynn is dying in Rapunzel’s arms. It was the most difficult and the most rewarding because the acting was so extremely subtle. The expressions of someone crying are inherently ugly. All the muscles in the face fight each other. No one wants a camera in their face at that moment. But we challenged the animators to go for the ugly face and as Rapunzel fights and holds back tears, the emotions are so real and so true. And it’s so effective because when that tear comes from Rapunzel’s eye and heals Flynn, you believe there is enormous pain in Rapunzel’s heart. If you don’t believe that tear comes from a heart of love the movie doesn’t work. It was successful and emotionally gripping. I was never more proud of our animators then at that moment.

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Q: Why was it decided to make Tangled a musical? It seems every Disney animated theatrical release is a musical; why is this?

Glen Keane: Music brings an enormous amount of freedom in storytelling. You can advance a story in fun ways and also in extremely emotional, dramatic ways. Howard Ashman used to say, when you have tried to say something through acting, through dialogue, in every way you possibly can and there is nothing left to do to communicate those feelings, your character has to sing. And there is something about music in fairytales that go together like peanut butter and jelly. It just seems to taste better.

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Q: You go to work closely with your daughter Claire on this animated feature. To the point that your granddaughter Matisse was the model for baby Rapunzel. What was it like to work on such a family-based project?

Glen Keane: I guess the idea of using your family in your work comes from my dad. He created a comic called The Family Circus based on his own family, I was the character Billy in Dad’s comic. So when it came time for me to animate I have always used my own family as models. Ariel was my wife, Tarzan was my son, I was Beast and my daughter Claire was very much the inspiration for Rapunzel. I remember when Claire was 7 years old she wanted to paint her bedroom walls and ceiling. My wife said no, but when Claire was 21 as an art student, I realized she was the perfect choice to create the look and style of Rapunzel’s paintings. So when you see Rapunzel paint you are seeing my daughter Claire’s paintings. During the making of the film she gave birth to our first grandchild, a little girl named Matisse. I used Matisse as an inspiration for designing little baby Rapunzel. It all goes back to taking what you know and using that as a source for inspiration. I believe the audience connects to the sincerity that inspired those characters.

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Q: Given that you worked on the Disney Princess movie that helped kick start Disney’s Second Golden Age of Animation (i.e. “The Little Mermaid”), how does it feel to have been so involved in the creation of “Tangled,” the Disney Princess movie that proved that WDAS can make truly great films in the CG format?

Glen Keane: It seems that a fairytale launches every important era of Disney animation. Snow White launched the golden age, Little Mermaid a renaissance, and now it’s my hope that Tangled can launch this third golden age of Disney animation. I think the key is finding the synthesis between a new technology, CG and the roots of our heritage, hand drawn.

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Q: What is some memorable advice you received from Ollie Johnston?

Glen Keane: My mentor was Ollie Johnston. When I was 20 years old he taught me things like the key to Disney animation is sincerity or don’t draw what the character is doing, draw what the character is thinking. These ideas I repeated again and again to our crew during the making of Tangled. For me it was really an occasion to pass on the baton to this new generation.

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Q: What advice would you give to people who want to break into the entertainment industry?

Glen Keane: I would say be yourself. The temptation is to give the audience what you think they want instead of opening up and being vulnerable and sharing who you are with them. It seems that every time someone takes that step of vulnerability they discover an audience ready to embrace them.

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Q: What was it like working with the directors on this feature?

Glen Keane: Nathan and Byron are great actors. They would issue the scenes to the animators by relating moments in their own lives to what they were asking the animators to do. They would act and express very deep emotions, sometimes even with tears. The animators would watch and take notes, I would do drawings on the Syntec tablet, all in an effort to capture Nathan and Byron’s performance. They were an engine for driving the subtlety, humor and drama in this film.

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Q: I’m told that you took a run at developing an animated version in the mid-1990s, before you started work on “Tarzan.” What was it about this Grimm’s fairy tale that grabbed and then held your attention?

Glen Keane: While I was working on Tarzan I was simultaneously developing Rapunzel. This story captured my desire to animate characters that have this burning desire inside of them to do what seems impossible. I was attracted to the story because of what I imagined to be Rapunzel’s irrepressible nature. And so I developed it with that idea and I believed with all my heart that Disney had to make this fairytale. It went through many changes of management and often times great doubts and efforts to change the story into something other then what I believed. Ultimately it was a joy to work with John Lasseter and Nathan and Byron who caught the original vision and allowed me to focus my efforts into bringing hand drawn into CG.

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Q: What do you believe is the most important part of creating a character?

Glen Keane: I have an odd belief that the character exists before they are designed, similar to Michelangelo seeing a figure incased in marble. His task was to set it free. So for me the joy of creating a character that I believe is real is at the heart of creating a memorable character. I use people I know as inspiration. It’s a very intimate personal process and I will do hundreds, sometimes thousands, of drawings in finding that design. There is a great “aha” moment when I finally recognize the character on my paper as someone I know. And that happened with Rapunzel. I look at her and I can say with confidence that’s her.

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Q: Rapunzel is such a “real” teenage girl, especially when it comes to that sequence in the film where her emotions whipsaw back and forth (i.e. where she’s thrilled to be out of the tower one moment and then deeply depressed that she’s betrayed her mother’s trust the next). Given that Disney Princesses tend to be so optimistic and upbeat, was it hard to convince the Studio that a Disney Princess whose emotions were kind of all over the place would play better with today’s audiences?

Glen Keane: There was a time when Disney princesses were neatly packaged and always pristine and pretty. Ariel was the first to break from that box. I remember my mentors Frank (Thomas) and Ollie (Johnson) said after the opening of The Little Mermaid that they would never have animated Ariel that way. I said, ‘why?’ “Because you drew her face with ugly expressions at times when we were very careful to only draw our princesses with prettiest of expressions.” And at that time I realized that this was a new generation of acting. Anytime we had a choice to choose pretty or real we would always chose real. The authentic emotion is our goal.

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Q: How did you get your start in the entertainment industry? Was animation always you passion?

Glen Keane: I sent my portfolio when I was 18 to CalArts to the school of painting. I wanted to be a fine artist. My portfolio was sent by accident to the school of film graphics, an artsy way of saying animation. I was very disappointed but ultimately discovered animation as the ultimate art form. I liked to think that if Da Vinci or Rodin was alive today they would chose animation as their metier.

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Q: Which do you prefer, the 2D traditionally hand drawn animation or 3D computer generated animation?

Glen Keane: I love to live in the skin of the characters I animate. I find the pencil the most intimate connection to my heart in terms of communicating what is inside. There are artists today who don’t draw with the traditional pencil. Instead they express themselves with a much more expensive pencil, a computer. One of our top animators on Tangled used to be a plumber and discovered that animation was his true calling. So I have to say I have enormous respect for the pencil and the computer. Personally I prefer to draw with the pencil, but I chose to stand in the middle of the computer world and use everything in my power to make the computer more artist-friendly. Tangled is a result of those efforts.

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Q: Which character has been your favorite to animate?

Glen Keane: Every character has touched on some real part of my life. I suppose Ariel really was that character that opened up my heart, that connection in me to animate characters who believe that the impossible is possible. I am a guy who sees life as a glass half full and I relate to a character’s optimism.

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Q: Do you plan to do more computer animation, or do you see yourself returning to traditional hand-drawn?

Glen Keane: I see myself continuing on the path of bringing more of hand drawn influence into CG. However, this project has been a long, long journey. I can’t wait to get back into animating in 2D. So I suppose I will be running down both paths at the same time.

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Q: Was it a deliberate choice to take the audience’s expectations and then flip them?

Glen Keane: Have you ever been on a dark ride at Disneyland? The goal is to make the audience think they are heading one direction and then surprising them with a 90 degree turn in a new direction. Suddenly a black wall opens and what once seemed to be a lovely forest turns into a scary witch and you are delighted and scared at the same time. Tangled is like a dark ride in that sense. We are constantly surprising the audience with a twist by playing with their expectations on stereotypes. Really underneath it all is the theme of following your dreams. Even the toughest thugs have dreams.

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Q: Can you talk about the difficulties in drawing Rapunzel’s hair and how you overcome these?

Glen Keane: Rapunzel’s hair was 70 ft. long. 140,000 individual hairs animating and controlling thousands of hairs was at times like herding a thousand cats. The hair would often explode into a chaotic mess of strong willed pixels bouncing against one another and heading off in their own direction. The real miracle in this movie was Kelly Ward a software engineer who had a PhD in computer generated hair. She wrote software for 6 years on how to control this gigantic beast. We really thought of the hair as another character. I did many drawings to describe the esthetic look of the hair, the rhythm, twist, volume, etc. that needed to be incorporated into the animating of the hair. Drawing once again became the best tool for communicating ideas. A picture is worth a thousand words. But I discovered that creativity is not limited to pencils. Kelly proved that the domain of numbers and equations can be just as creative.

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Q: How are Ariel and Rapunzel alike and different?

Glen Keane: Ariel and Rapunzel both are being kept from living their dreams by a barrier. For Rapunzel it’s a tower wall and for Ariel it’s the ocean surface. They both share this irrepressible spirit . The joy in these characters is to watch them overcome impossible odds in attaining their dream.

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Q: How has your impression of computer animation changed over the years?

Glen Keane: In the early 80’s John Lasseter and I animated the first blend of hand drawn and CG in the Wild Things test. John eventually left Disney and started that obscure little company, Pixar. I continued down the path of hand drawn but anytime the computer crossed my path I embraced it. Tarzan surfing down the branches, thanks to deep Canvas, created a wonderful synthesis between 2D and CG. In Treasure Planet, Long John Silver was a combo of hand drawn and CG in the same character thanks to his cyborg body parts. So it was not a big stretch to move towards computer animation for Tangled. The upward path of computer animation continues to approach the beauty and intuitive feel of hand drawn. Eventually there will be a seamless marriage between the two.

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Q: Who are your inspirations as far as family, friends, or even other artists go?

Glen Keane: Frederic Back is my favorite animator – a French-Canadian artist, in his 80’s now, who created The Man Who Planted Trees. It is a tour de force of personal expression. I dream of doing something so beautiful someday.

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Q: How do you keep the creative ideas flowing? How do you fight back against creative blocks?

Glen Keane: I find that when I hit a creative block I see it differently now than I did when I was younger. I used to think of a creative block as proof that my creative journey had come to an end. That I just never really had it. Then I discovered it was not the end but a wall to climb, that really I had come to an end of a plateau and there were new ideas to discover and eventually another creative block to confront. So the way out of a block is to open yourself up to something new. The way I do that is escape from Disney, go to a library and randomly search through books of artists or writers and find some new wind of inspiration. Sometimes I head down the street not far from Disney to the Norton Simon Museum and I always am reminded that this is my time to be an artist and to make the most of the opportunity like these artists before me did i.e. Degas, Renoir, Rodin.

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Q: What was the hardest sequence to deal with in this movie and why?

Glen Keane: The difficulty of animating crowds is monumental. When Rapunzel enters the kingdom and sees a world filled with people it put the fear of God into all of us at the studio. How in the world could we animate this crowd and maintain the integrity of everything we wanted in Rapunzel herself? The heroes of that sequence were John Kahrs and Clay Kaytis, my fellow animation supervisors . Typically animation supervisors give the task of animating crowds to the newest animators as quote, “dirty work”. Instead John and Clay took it upon themselves to organize, oversee and animate those crowds. Those guys are awesome.

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Q: What was your favorite part of working on the masterpiece that is “Tangled”?

Glen Keane: The very best moments for me were working with the animators in helping them dig down deep and find something real inside their own hearts to put into their characters they were animating. It was so rewarding to see people genuinely respond with laughter and tears and to know I had a small part in encouraging this new generation of animators to enjoy what I have enjoyed over my own career. Amen!

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Q: What castle inspired you when drawing this one in TANGLED?

Glen Keane: Mont St. Michel in Normandy, France inspired our castle in Tangled. It sits out in the bay surrounded by water and feels so very fairytale like. When I visited it I knew this has to be the kingdom that Rapunzel will someday be Queen of.

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Q: Any final thoughts on TANGLED?

Glen Keane: Disney animation has been a home for me for 37 years and I have learned an enormous amount from the artists who I have worked with and the creative challenges in the characters I have animated. I have told the animators many times on this film that they are artists and had they been born five hundred years before, we would be talking about building a cathedral or painting on wet plaster and creating frescoes. But we are born at this time and our cathedral is animated filmmaking. This is their time on the planet to be artists and to be make it count. Open up what is inside of them and put all of their heart into moving this art form forward. That is the future for this art form of animation and Disney studios.

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Tangled is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

For more information on Tangled, visit the official Tangled web site.

Co-Directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard Talk ‘Tangled’

Kevin Carr — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 08:00:23 +0000

Co-directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard answered some questions about the making-of Tangled, available on 3D Blu-ray, DVD and Blu-ray on March 29.

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Q: Did you meet each other while working on Mulan?

Byron Howard: Nathan and I knew of each other while we were working at the Florida studios. Nathan went through his training internship a year or so after me, but we really became friends during the production of Bolt. Nathan was our head of story on that project and I was one of the directors. At the end of Bolt, Lasseter handpicked Nathan to direct the Bolt short (for the DVD) and that led to him becoming a director and teaming up with me on TANGLED.

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Q: What was the involvement of John Lasseter in this film?

Nathan Greno: John is fantastic to work with. He approves everything we do, and he helps with brainstorming. John is an amazing mentor. I have really learned a lot from him. I can’t say enough great stuff about the guy!

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Q: In the trailer you used several sequences that didn’t end up in the movie. Why leave them in if they weren’t part of the finished product?

Byron Howard: Very observant! That’s very true: in the initial teaser trailer we created an “alternate reality” version of how Flynn and Rapunzel first meet. This was because many of those scenes were experimental scenes to test the hair and animation technology that we were developing. We liked the tone of the pieces and thought they would be a great first look for the public.

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Q: What was the hardest sequence to deal with in this movie and why?

Nathan Greno: I’ll be honest — EVERYTHING was a challenge in this film. Rule of thumb: If it comes easy, it could probably be better! We pushed ourselves hard to make every sequence as great as it could be.

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Q: You have Bolt, which is an action movie, and TANGLED, which is a fairy tale. What would you like for your next movie?

Byron Howard: Nathan and I started work on our next project about six months before we finished TANGLED. It’s got action movie elements, definitely, but most importantly it’s got a strong emotional core… that’s really the first thing we go after when creating these stories. The actual subject of the film is top secret but believe me when I tell you that if you liked what you saw in TANGLED, you will love our next film.

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Q: What was your reaction when TANGLED got a PG rating instead of the G rating most Disney princess films get?

Nathan Greno: We feel like the film sits on the shelf next to Beauty and the Beast. We aren’t sure why it got the PG rating — but we went with it. We didn’t feel like there was anything to “fix”.

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Q: From what/whom did you draw inspiration for Maximus the Horse?

Nathan Greno: We just wanted to do something different with Max. We put together a board with photos of all the different animated horses that had been done… we wanted to do something fresh and new. We wanted Max to feel unique. Glad you like the way he turned out.

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Q: What does the line ‘chameleon babies’ mean in the very end of the titles?

Byron Howard: I love that people stick around until the end of the credits and see the “Chameleon Babies” credit. Pascal, our chameleon hero in TANGLED, is actually based on a real, live chameleon named Pascal. The real lizard is owned and cared for by Kellie Lewis, an animation artist here at the studio. It just so happened that when we were putting together our traditional “Production Babies” credits, Pascal became a father! His chameleon life-partner laid six eggs which hatched into tiny baby chameleons. My favorite is “Nathan Jr.”.

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Q: Is there a sequence you’re most proud of, and why?

Byron Howard: The way Nathan and I work is that initially, we will have favorite sequences and characters in the film. At that point, we say “Great, these are working; now how can we bring everything else around it up to the same level?” That way, by the end of production, the entire film is rock solid, which makes it very hard to pick a favorite. That said, the lantern sequence is a real milestone for sheer breathtaking beauty here at Disney. I’m also very, very proud of the incredibly subtle emotional acting in the final sequences of the film.

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Q: What was it about Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore that made you think they could be Flynn and Rapunzel?

Nathan Greno: Casting was a long process. We went to hundreds of auditions for both Flynn and Rapunzel. When Mandy came in, we knew we had our Rapunzel. Mandy IS Rapunzel. Same with Zac. We wanted our characters to feel real… we wanted them to be relatable. I feel like Zac and Mandy provided that. They were easy and fantastic to work with.

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Q: Given how hard you and Glen Keane worked on TANGLED, were you disappointed when it didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature Film?

Nathan Greno: The ENTIRE crew worked hard on the film. People worked seven day weeks and skipped holidays — everyone wanted to make TANGLED great. We are all so proud of the work we’ve done. Would we have liked an Oscar nod? Sure. But I have to say, the true reward is working on a film people love. The audience loves this film. I didn’t get into animation to win awards, I wanted to entertain people. We’re all very proud of the work we’ve done.

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Q: Since John Lasseter took over as Disney Animation’s creative director; all your films have been “princess” films. Why is this?

Byron Howard: Actually, there have been a few that weren’t, like Meet the Robinsons and Bolt. That said, there was a period where we had three fairy tales lined up in a row, Princess and the Frog, TANGLED, and Snow Queen. That kind of release slate felt too crowded with those types of stories and the decision was made to postpone Snow Queen to break it up a bit. It’s important that the audience know that Disney Animation is diverse. Disney should be able to release an animated action movie one year, a sci-fi film the next, and a musical fairy tale the year after that. Ultimately, the quality of the films is what matters.

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Q: Given that so many studios are making CGI animated films these days, what is Disney doing to stand out in an increasingly crowded market?

Nathan Greno: Our goal is to tell great stories. Our goal is to create believable worlds and fantastic characters. We want our audience to laugh and cry. We want them to be entertained. We can’t worry about all the other films out there — we just focus on making our films work. We believe if you make a great film, the audience will show up to see it. That’s our focus.

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Q: When was it decided to make TANGLED more about Flynn Ryder and less about Rapunzel? Did it have anything to do with the perception that the Princess and the Frog was considered “too girly”?

Byron Howard: As we were working on the film, we discovered that this story was about both characters. The film doesn’t work without Rapunzel, certainly, but it also doesn’t work without Flynn Rider. We worked very hard to balance our hero and heroine; sometimes Flynn would steal the show so much that we’d have to go back and re-board some of Rapunzel’s scenes to make her character more dynamic. What we love is that the final film feels balanced and appeals to both the male and female sides of our audience.

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Q: What are your personal Disney-favorites?

Byron Howard: The film that got me into animation in the first place was The Little Mermaid. I was in college studying live action film when I saw that film, and I just said “Wow.”. This is something I have to be a part of. Ariel herself was a revelation to me because she was the first Disney heroine who felt real and alive to me, there was a soul behind those eyes. A great part of that appeal that I saw in her came from Glen Keane, who we partnered with on TANGLED.

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Q: Can you talk about which films have influenced you?

Nathan Greno: Well for me it’s Dumbo. It’s one of my favorite films of all time. It works EVERY time you watch it. It makes you laugh and cry EVERY time you watch it. I saw Dumbo when I was a kid and I knew I had to work for Disney. I was in first grade. I didn’t understand how animation was made – but I knew I wanted to work for Disney.

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Q: Why did you decide to shoot the movie using CG? Would it have been different if you had chosen traditional animation?

Byron Howard: Nathan and I love BIG movies. CG animation gives you this enormous box of tools to play with to enhance and expand the world and characters that you’re creating to tell the story. We love traditional hand-drawn animation as well, but to realize the scope of the film Nathan and I had in our heads, CG was really the clear choice.

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Q: I saw your film twice in cinema and absolutely loved it! But how could you explain your decision to leave Maximus and Pascal silent? It is pretty unusual for animal-sidekicks in Disney animation films not to talk!

Byron Howard: Great question. Nathan and I are huge fans of silent film comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton. We said to each other “What if Charlie Chaplin was in this movie?” That thinking was a massive part of the decision to keep Maximus and Pascal silent, but expressive. It really worked out, no matter where we went all over the world; people could not get enough of that horse.

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Q: What, in your opinion, makes Rapunzel different than all the other Disney heroines?

Nathan Greno: Rapunzel is a princess that doesn’t know she’s a princess. That makes her different. She’s not a girl who sits around waiting to be rescued. She’s a tough, smart person — we wanted this film to be full of ‘girl power’. Even though this film takes place in the past, we wanted the characters to feel modern and relatable. We wanted Rapunzel to be a role model for people of our generation.

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Q: What’s your favorite aspect of the Blu-ray?

Byron Howard: Blu-Ray allows you to see TANGLED as Nathan and I saw it during its creation. The colors are perfect, the resolution is unbelievable, and the sound is as rich and full as when we mixed it on our recording stage. I love digital media because it preserves the beauty of these films so accurately. Not to mention extensive extras that take you behind the scenes of TANGLED.

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Q: Almost every Disney story has a second message. What do you think is the underlying message in this film?

Nathan Greno: There are a number of messages in this film. “Live your Dream” is one of the messages we hope will really hit home with people. I grew up in a factory town in Wisconsin. I remember some people from my hometown thought my dream of working for Disney was nuts. I believed in my dream. I worked hard to make it happen. Our studio is filled with people who have stories like mine. Rapunzel believes in her dream. She won’t let anything stand in her way to achieve it. We hope TANGLED inspires our audience to live out their dreams too!

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Q: What makes a perfect fairy tale for you guys?

Byron Howard: Ingredients like emotion, action, adventure, and comedy. Nathan and I want all of these things in every story we tell, whether it’s a classic tale or a modern action movie.

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Q: Did you expect that TANGLED would be that successful?

Byron Howard: It’s the best feeling in the world when audiences really love your work. We make these films to entertain, and to move people emotionally, so when your film becomes a hit, you know that you’ve done your job right. TANGLED’s massive success was very welcome news, and we know that Disney Animation’s future will be full of strong films like this.

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Q: How long did it take to make this project?

Nathan Greno: Usually you have 4 to 5 years to create and finish an animated film at Disney. We did it in about 2 years. The film had been in development and it had a release date — and we were brought on to direct, the studio asked us to hit the release date. Now if we couldn’t do it, they would have moved the date… but Byron and I thought it was possible. We work with an amazingly talented crew. A VERY devoted crew. The schedule was hard on us. We worked though most of our weekends and skipped holidays. It was a crazy time. We had a story we wanted to tell and we wanted the film to be great. We made a film in 2 years that looks like it took 5 years to make. That’s pretty incredible. I thank the crew for that. We made a film we are all very proud of.

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Q: One of John Hughes’ characters said the famous words ‘that when you grow up, your heart dies.’ I consider TANGLED a proof that it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. How did you manage to create such a magical tale, combining both Disney’s and Pixar’s best features?

Byron Howard: I love this question because I love John Hughes. His writing was a great blend of pure entertainment with deep, truthful emotion. As we become adults, I think it’s very easy to become numb and distracted by the thousands of details that we have to process each day to live our lives and make ends meet. Films like TANGLED are so wonderful because they sweep away all of that for a few hours and remind you of what’s really important: love, compassion, trust and hope. That’s why Nathan and I focus so much on the emotional core of our movies; if we entertain you but don’t move you emotionally, we haven’t fully done our job.

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Q: What were the biggest challenges in the development of this film?

Nathan Greno: The hair was the biggest challenge. Without a doubt. Long realistic hair had never been done in a CG animated film before. Never. CG hair is usually in a ponytail, or cuts off at the shoulder because anything longer than that is a tech nightmare. Lucky for us, we work with some incredibly smart people! Byron and I were in the story room coming up with this wild stuff, “The hair is going to be used a bullwhip! She’s going to tie people up with it! It’s going to glow! It’s going to get wet!” –all this stuff that hasn’t been done before. Our crew got a little pale when they heard our pitch… but they figured it out. They believed in our story. They wanted to bring that story to the big screen. I can’t thank our crew enough. They made the impossible work.

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Q: What is with the name change from Rapunzel to TANGLED?

Byron Howard: During the first year of creating the film, it became clear to Nathan and I that the film was about both characters. It felt weird to us to keep the name of the film as RAPUNZEL. For example, you wouldn’t rename “Toy Story” as “Buzz Lightyear”, because Woody is as much a part of that story as Buzz. Knowing that, we started looking for alternate titles. TANGLED really appealed to us as a title because it felt smart, and sophisticated but still made it clear that the film was going to be a fun ride.

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Q: This movie is sure to be a Disney classic…now, Walt always said ‘for every laugh there should be a tear’ do you believe this movie TANGLED captured that essence?

Byron Howard: We love that quote from Walt Disney. It’s a guide for every film this studio makes. We definitely want those tears, every time. We’re in the story room trying to make ourselves laugh, and cry, to feel something genuine and real. It’s the highest priority for us, and we LOVE when people come up to us and say “I cried three times.” That’s a great reward.

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Q: Which movie are you the most proud of?

Byron Howard: TANGLED!

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Q: If you could develop an already existing fairytale, which would it be, and why?

Nathan Greno: I think Rapunzel was it! Byron and I love these classic stories — and Disney brings them to life better than anyone else. Being asked to direct TANGLED was a real honor. When people hear Snow White, they think of the Disney version. When people hear Beauty and the Beast, they think of the Disney version. We hope that Disney’s Rapunzel will now be the version of the character that stands the test of time.

——————————————————————————–

Q: What are your personal Disney-favorites?

Nathan Greno: Dumbo. It’s one of the best movies ever. Animated or live action! I love that film.

——————————————————————————–

Q: Every animation movie, today, has a 3D version. Is this something that changes the way of imagining and directing a cartoon?

Byron Howard: You have to be very careful with 3D. It’s very easy to distract from the story by throwing too many eye-popping effects at the audience. The trick is to balance the amazing depth that 3D gives you with the emotion and clarity of the story. Every 3D effect you produce should help the story, not hurt it.

——————————————————————————–

Q: Can you talk about the decision to make this a CGI movie versus doing it in traditional animation?

Nathan Greno: I don’t think the hair would have worked in 2D animation. It just would have been a big yellow shape… the texture of the CG hair really helps to sell the character of Rapunzel. We also had a number of BIG action sequences we wanted to do in this film. The CG “camera” is great for that. It’s a lot like a live action camera — but even more flexible. You can move your camera around sets and get any shot you want. 2D and CD animation are both storytelling tools. We very much believe CG was the best choice to bring our story to life.

——————————————————————————–

Q: TANGLED came after Bolt and it is the second time that you worked as director. In a direct compare with Bolt, in what kind of way was the work on TANGLED different?

Byron Howard: The scope and complexity of TANGLED is huge. Bolt was a simpler story to tell in many ways. The unfortunate thing about both films is that they were both made on extremely short, two year schedules (we normally get four years). I’m immensely proud of both movies but I am staggered by how much our studio has grown and matured between these two movies. You’ll see us tackling bigger and bigger films in the future, I promise.

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Q: I know you have been working in Disney Studios for many years but I guess you felt a lot of responsibility and pressure in accepting to direct the 50th Walt Disney movie, didn’t you?

Nathan Greno: Yeah it was a TON of pressure. We wanted to make a great film and that is a giant challenge. On top of that, we are working with John Lasseter. Lasseter only accepts the best. On top of that, we found out that this was going to be the 50th animated film from the Walt Disney Animation Studios! Ok! Enough! Are you trying to kill us?? It was a ton of pressure and a ton of work… and we couldn’t be happier with the results!

——————————————————————————–

Q: How much was Glen Keane involved in TANGLED’s production after you took over as directors?

Byron Howard: Glen Keane has been the heart and soul of Disney Animation for the last three decades. Nathan and I were always hoping that we would get to work on a project with him one day. After Nathan and I stepped in as directors Glen worked with our animation staff to create the most extraordinary human animation ever made. The great thing is that we have these young, energetic animators fresh out of school and Glen knows how to guide and channel that energy into amazing performances, pushing them to top themselves scene after scene. It’s a great mix of youthful energy and experience.

——————————————————————————–

Q: From Snow White to Rapunzel – why do you think, the Grimms are still popular?

Byron Howard: These classic tales are full of deep, human themes that everyone can relate to. Every great story has that quality at its core.

——————————————————————————–

Q: How did it come about that ”Rapunzel” was the basis for this film?

Nathan Greno: The idea of turning Rapunzel into an animated film has been around the Disney Studios since the 1930′s! We saw a list Walt had made and Rapunzel was listed along with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. It’s a great feeling to know Walt Disney wanted to do this film!

——————————————————————————–

Q: What advice would you give to anyone who wants to pursue a career in the industry?

Byron Howard: Do what you love, and do it with passion. Passion and dedication will carry you far in any occupation, and especially in the creative arts. When John Lasseter chooses you as a director, it’s because he’s seen that you have a fire in your belly, so to speak, a burning need to tell these stories and tell them well. Also, write to your heroes. I wrote to Chuck Jones years ago, and he wrote me back! Amazing.

——————————————————————————–

Q: How much of Grimm’s tale did you use – not meaning the story itself, but more in terms of thinking about the characters?

Byron Howard: What we loved about the original tale of Rapunzel was that it had the potential to be a great coming of age story. TANGLED is really about these two characters figuring out where they belong in the world. Again; deep, relatable, human themes are the key to any great story.

——————————————————————————–

Q: Since TANGLED is Disney’s 50th Animated Feature; did that put any pressure on the both of you?

Byron Howard: Yes! But we love pressure.

——————————————————————————–

Q: When selecting the type of music for this movie, were you inspired by other Disney films? Because there are some songs that sound very much a like in style to some of the ones in Enchanted or The Little Mermaid.

Nathan Greno: We wanted the film to relate to the classic films of the Disney legacy, but we wanted to also do something fresh, new and different. Alan Menken was a perfect choice for the music. He has written some of the best Disney music of all time and he was on board for doing something fresh and different. We love that our songs have the same great feeling of The Little Mermaid or Aladdin… but are very different than anything you have heard before. It’s exactly the mix we were going for!

——————————————————————————–

Q: Vladimir is spoken (voice acted) by Richard Kiel. So let’s be honest, which of you two is the James Bond Fan that the legendary Jaws gets a Voice Part in your movie?

Byron Howard: I confess. It’s me. We needed someone with a naturally low voice to do Vladimir, and so we asked our casting director to see if Richard Kiel would do it. I’m a HUGE Bond fan and working with Richard was a dream come true. I giggled through the whole recording session.

——————————————————————————–

Q: What’s the secret of Pascal’s success?

Byron Howard: He’s adorable. Just like Nathan and myself.

——————————————————————————–

Q: When Toy Story was released, did you think that this new animation technology will be such a blast?

Nathan Greno: I was very excited to see the original Toy Story. I’m a big fan of that film. I think I was still in college at the time. Little did I know, one day I would be directing a CG animated film! I’m glad animation has continued to grow and change over the years. It makes the industry more exciting to work in — and the films more exciting to watch.

——————————————————————————–

Q: What’s the one thing that the other person does that drives you crazy, and what’s the one thing they do that you really admire or wish you could improve on yourself?

Byron Howard: Nathan keeps telling me how handsome I am, which drives me crazy. Although I really admire what a good judge of handsomeness he is.

——————————————————————————–

Q: Any final thoughts on TANGLED?

Nathan Greno: I just wanted to say thanks for all the great questions! I just wish I could type faster. This has been a lot of fun for me. Also: a BIG thanks to all who support the film — TANGLED has been a true labor of love for us!

Byron Howard: We’re delighted that TANGLED has made such a big splash in the world. Wait till you see what we have in store next! Thanks everyone.

——————————————————————————–

Tangled is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

For more information on Tangled, visit the official Tangled web site.

Video: Kevin Reviews Movies on FOX 28 – March 11, 2011

Kevin Carr — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:23:49 +0000

On March 11, Fat Guy Kevin Carr rolled into the FOX 28 studios in Columbus, Ohio for a weekly movie review segment. This week, he talked about Mars Needs Moms, Red Riding Hood and Battle: Los Angeles.

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Episode 204 – Angry Piglet

Kevin Carr — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:00:02 +0000

This Week: Hot off the Oscars, Kevin invites his Idiot Boxers co-host Merrill Barr into the Magical Studio in the Sky to record Fat Guys Proper. Together, they rehash their thoughts on the Oscar wins while Merrill rages about David Fincher getting snubbed. Then they rip through four movie reviews post haste. The infamous middle segment gets a swearing Merrill and some box office analysis. Kevin once again defends 3D before they answer a voice mail and lay down a Fat Guy Five about westerns. Finally, the Idiot Fat Guys round up the DVDs and send you off into the wilderness.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Rango, The Adjustment Bureau, Beastly and Take Me Home Tonight

Episode Schedule:

Part I: The Big, Fat Oscar Recap (8:50)

Part II: Reviews of The Adjustment Bureau, Rango and Beastly, plus a preview of Take Me Home Tonight (10:40)

Part III: More on Take Me Home Tonight, an impromptu analysis of 3D trends, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions, Listener Voice Mail and the Fat Guy Five: Five Fun Westerns (28:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Bambi: Diamond Edition, 127 Hours, Love and Other Drugs, Faster, Burlesque, Beyblade Metal Fusion: Vol. 3, Moonstruck, Last Tango in Paris and Rain Man (6:35)

Next Week:

A look at Battle: Los Angeles, Red Riding Hood and Mars Needs Moms

Show Links:

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Movie Review: ‘Drive Angry 3D’

Kevin Carr — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:45:42 +0000

Rated R
Opens: February 25, 2011
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner, Billy Burke and Katy Mixon
Directed by: Patrick Lussier

Kevin says Drive Angry 3D ROCKS!
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Episode 201 – Flying Monkeys and Macaws

Kevin Carr — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 03:00:30 +0000

This Week: In an effort to show how worldly Fat Guys at the Movies is, Kevin invites Jamaican bloggger Andrew Robinson (from www.gmanreviews.com) into the Magical Studio in the Sky for the first international broadcast of the podcast. Even though Andrew hasn’t seen the movies this week, Kevin takes a chance to shoot some warning shots over the bow of the new Justin Bieber movie and Adam Sandler. Kevin and Andrew wax poetic about Gnomeo and Juliet and The Eagle. They also share their thoughts on box office, trailer spoilers and which Adam Sandler movies are actually entertaining.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Just Go With It, Gnomeo and Juliet and The Eagle

Episode Schedule:

Part I: Preview of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never 3D and intro to The Eagle (8:50)

Part II: Reviews of The Eagle, Gnomeo and Juliet and Just Go With It (10:40)

Part III: More on Just Go With It, Review of the Oscar-Nominated Shorts, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions, Listener Voice Mail and the Fat Guy Five: Five Adam Sandler Movies That Are Actually Entertaining (33:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Repo Chick, My Soul to Take, You Again, Life As We Know It, America America, Wild Target, Paranormal Activity 2, It’s Kind of a Funny Story and Uncle Buck on Blu-ray (6:35)

Next Week:

A look at I Am Number Four, Unknown and (God help us) Big Momma: Like Father Like Son

Show Links:

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Movie Review: ‘Sanctum’

Kevin Carr — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 01:57:55 +0000

Rated R
Opens: February 4, 2011
Studio: Universal
Starring: Richard Roxburgh, Alice Parkinson, Rhys Wakefield, Dan Wyllie and Christopher Baker
Directed by: Alister Grierson

Kevin says Sanctum kinda rocks!
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Video: Kevin Reviews Movies on FOX 28 – February 4, 2011

Kevin Carr — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:55:37 +0000

On February 4, Fat Guy Kevin Carr rolled into the FOX 28 studios in Columbus, Ohio for a weekly movie review segment. This week, he talked about Sanctum 3D, The Roommate and Blue Valentine

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Episode 200 – The Big Fat 2-0-0

Kevin Carr — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 23:30:07 +0000

This Week: Neil makes a triumphant return to the Magical Studio in the Sky while Kevin hits the flux capacitor to take the entire audience on a time travel adventures. With this episode, the Fat Guys hit the milestone of a 200th episode, which is damn near four years in your ears. Scary, huh? Kevin and Neil reminisce about starting the show on March 30, 2007 in a car, leading them to their status as podcasting legends. They also take some time to chat about Sanctum 3D and The Roommate as well as answering a listener voicemail. Then it’s a look back at the last 200 episodes with some well-wishes from friends of the show as well as the Fat Guy Five: Five Favorite Fat Guy Memories.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Sanctum 3D and The Roommate

Episode Schedule:

Part I: A Happy 200th Episode Celebration (8:50)

Part II: Reviews of Sanctum 3D and The Roommate (10:40)

Part III: Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions, Listener Voice Mail, Well Wishes and the Fat Guy Five: Five Favorite Fat Guy Memories (31:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Alice in Wonderland Blu-ray, Never Let Me Go, An Affair to Remember, All About Eve, Ray on Blu-ray, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, Monsters, The Double Life of Veronique, A Woman a Gun and a Noodle Shop, Let Me In and The Tillman Story (6:35)

Next Week:

The Fat Guys get all gooey over the new Justin Bieber flick, and they might also talk about gnomes, Adam Sandler and Channing Tatum in a sword & sandal flick.

Show Links:

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Links:
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Celluloid Spotlight: Episode 57 – Green Light

Merrill Barr — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:00:16 +0000

In this episode, Merrill and Hash get surreal thanks to surrealist extraordinaire Michel Gondry.

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Movie Review: ‘The Green Hornet’

Kevin Carr — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:39:29 +0000

Rated PG-13
Opens: January 14, 2011
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Starring: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Edward James Olmos and David Harbour
Directed by: Michel Gondry

Kevin says The Green Hornet kinda rocks!
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Video: Kevin Reviews Movies on FOX 28 – January 14, 2011

Kevin Carr — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:30:32 +0000

On January 14, Fat Guy Kevin Carr rolled into the FOX 28 studios in Columbus, Ohio for a weekly movie review segment. This week, he talked about The Dilemma and The Green Hornet

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Episode 197 – We May Even Give You a Lollipop

Kevin Carr — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:00:37 +0000

This Week: The Fat Guys go green this week while they test their skillz as superheroes. Unfortunately, without a cool-ass side-kick who can also make a mean cappuccino, they’re left with two chubby dudes who can’t fight worth a damn. But they can talk movies. So they give the audience the low-down on The Green Hornet and The Dilemma before laying down a Fat Guy Five about awesome sidekicks.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for The Green Hornet 3D and The Dilemma

Episode Schedule:

Part I:Review of The Dilemma (8:50)

Part II: Review of The Green Hornet (10:40)

Part III: Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions and the Fat Guy Five: Five Awesome Movie Sidekicks (16:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Robinson Caruso on Mars, Raging Bull, Piranha 3D, The Social Network, Dances with Wolves, Hot in Cleveland, ER: Season 14 and Dallas: Season 14 (6:35)

Next Week:

The Fat Guys hope for a half-naked Natalie Portman in No Strings Attached

Show Links:

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Download this DVD Rundown

Celluloid Spotlight: Episode 53 – Special Light

Merrill Barr — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:00:33 +0000

In this episode, Merrill and Hash hop the light train and break down the wonders of special effects.

[See post to listen to audio]
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Kevin Carr’s DVD Rundown for 12/07/2010

Kevin Carr — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:23:17 +0000

Kevin’s picks on DVD this week: Inception, Shrek Forever After, Videodrome: Criterion Blu-ray, Alice in Wonderland 3D Blu-ray and 20th Century Fox 75th Anniversary Gift Set

Stinker of the week: Taylor Swift: Her Life, Her Story Unauthorized

[See post to listen to audio]

Click to purchase the DVDs below…

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Episode 191 – The Fat Swan

Kevin Carr — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 07:23:01 +0000

On This Week’s Show: This week, Neil Miller has overdosed on turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, a self-destructive behavior that landed him directly into Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. Kevin wishes Neil a speedy recovery and has invited FSR box office guru and co-host of The Golden Briefcase, Jeremy Kirk, into the Magical Studio in the Sky. They talk about the new wide releases that no one has seen and the limited releases that apparently everyone has. From insane ballerinas to kung fu cowboys, Kevin and Jeremy try to do Neil justice by talking about a bunch of movies they haven’t seen… and saying a lot of creepy things about Natalie Portman.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for The Black Swan and I Love You, Phillip Morris

Episode Schedule:

Part I: A preview of The Warrior’s Way and The Nutcracker in 3D (8:50)

Part II: Reviews of The Black Swan and I Love You, Phillip Morris (10:40)

Part III: More on I Love You, Phillip Morris, Box Office Recap, Box Office Predictions and the Fat Guy Five: Five Natalie Portman Movies That Turned Us On (27:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Going the Distance, Looney Tunes: Foghorn Leghorn and Friends & Sylvester and Tweety, Valhalla Rising, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Fantasia/Fantasia 2000, Knight and Day, Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday Morning Hits, Vampires Suck and 12 Men of Christmas (6:35)

Next Week:

Kevin has no idea who will be in the Magical Studio in the Sky to talk about only The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage fo the Dawn Treader and The Tourist.

Show Links:

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Video: Kevin Reviews Movies on FOX 28 – November 26, 2010

Kevin Carr — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 19:28:26 +0000

On November 24, Fat Guy Kevin Carr rolled into the FOX 28 studios in Columbus, Ohio for a weekly movie review segment. This week, he talked about Tangled, Burlesque and Faster

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Video: Kevin Reviews Movies on FOX 28 – October 29, 2010

Kevin Carr — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:35:18 +0000

On October 29, Fat Guy Kevin Carr rolled into the FOX 28 studios in Columbus, Ohio for a weekly movie review segment. This week, he talked about Conviction, Saw 3D and Tron Night

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Movie Review: ‘Saw 3D’

Kevin Carr — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:32:07 +0000

Rated R
Opens: October 29, 2010
Studio: Lionsgate
Starring: Tobin Bell, Cary Elwes, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell and Sean Patrick Flanery
Directed by: Kevin Greutert

Kevin says Saw 3D kinda sucks!
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Episode 186 – The Big Fat Halloween Special

Kevin Carr — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:31:25 +0000

On This Week’s Show: It’s Halloween weekend, and that means the Fat Guys are more concerned about getting a big bag of candy instead of watching movies. This might account for the fact that neither of them saw Saw 3D… or maybe it was because like most of the other Saw movies, Lionsgate didn’t screen this one for press. That doesn’t stop the Fat Guys from talking about it, as well as a brief nod to the new Oscar-bait film Conviction, which Kevin did see. Neil is too tired in this episode to care either way. The show rolls on as Kevin tells how he almost got in a fight after seeing Paranormal Activity 2 before talking box office numbers and laying down a Fat Guy Five, in which he ranks the previous Saw movies.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Saw 3D and Conviction

Episode Schedule:

Part I: A fat lotta nothin’ and a preview of Saw 3D (8:50)

Part II: More on Saw 3D and a review of Conviction (10:40)

Part III: Kevin’s Paranormal Activity 2 smackdown story, Box Office Recap and the Fat Guy Five: The Five Best Saw Movies (17:30)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Alien Anthology on Blu-ray, Clone Wars: Season 2, Sex and the City 2, Elf: Ultimate Collector’s Edition, Legends of the Super Heroes, Back to the Future Trilogy on Blu-ray, The Girl Who Played with Fire, Winter’s Bone and House: Criterion Collection (6:35)

Next Week:

Kevin and Neil recover from too much Halloween candy whilst reviewing Megamind, Due Date and For Colored Girls.

Show Links:

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Episode 185 – Paranormal Fativity 2

Kevin Carr — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:04:38 +0000

On This Week’s Show: Neil and Kevin return to the Magical Studio in the Sky to contemplate ghost stories. Neil is, of course, wetting his pants in fear and Kevin is trying to get to a screening of Paranormal Activity 2. They also review Clint Eastwood’s latest Oscar grab, Hereafter and later discuss the potential fallout from Transformers: The Dark of the Moon being both shot in and post-converted to 3D. Finally, they lay down a Fat Give Five about great ghost movies before giving their DVD picks.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Paranormal Activity 2 and Hereafter

Episode Schedule:

Part I: A preview of Paranormal Activity 2 (8:50)

Part II: More on Paranormal Activity 2 and a review of Hereafter (10:40)

Part III: Transformers 3D News, Box Office Recap and the Fat Guy Five: Five Great Ghost Movies (21:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Psycho, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Oceans, The Crimson Wing, Mirrors 2, Predators, Seven Samurai, Moulin Rouge, Romeo+Juliet and Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (6:35)

Next Week:

Our big, fat Halloween episode, featuring reviews of Saw 3D and Conviction.

Show Links:

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Episode 183 – Fat As We Know It

Kevin Carr — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 10:48:43 +0000

On This Week’s Show: Neil Miller makes his triumphant return to the Magical Studio in the Sky to talk about films he hasn’t seen (like Secretariat, Life as We Know It and My Soul to Take 3D) as well as one he has (Buried). Kevin welcomes him back with open arms, which leads to an uncharacteristically insightful discussion in the infamous middle segment about everything from Zack Snyder directing the Superman film to the reasons behind Hatchet 2 being pulled from release. All this happens before they wrap things up with a neat little bow that includes DVD reviews and a look back at the fantastic Fantastic Fest.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Secretariat, Life As We Know It and My Soul To Take 3D

Episode Schedule:

Part I: A preview of My Soul To Take 3D and a review of Life As We Know It (8:50)

Part II: More on Life As We Know It and reviews of Secretariat and Buried (10:40)

Part III: Box Office Recap, Zack Snyder as the new Superman director, the skinny on Hatchet 2 and the Fat Guy Five: The Five Best-Reviewed Movies of Fantastic Fest (31:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Beauty & the Beast, The Human Centipede, Troll 2, Secret of the Kells, Grindhouse, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Splice, The Exorcist Blu-ray Book, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, The Last of the Mohicans, The Robocop Trilogy on Blu-ray, Space Chimps 2 and Mad Max (6:35)

Next Week:

More October horror with Red and Jackass 3D.

Show Links:

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Episode 180 – The Easy Fat Town

Kevin Carr — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 08:15:05 +0000

On This Week’s Show: Neil makes his triumphant return to the Magical Studio in the Sky by not seeing any of the new films this week. Though he claims to have seen the trailers. Kevin weeps upon his arrival and then berates him for not seeing anything. Kevin also defends M. Night Shyamalan while Neil says really creepy things about Emma Stone. Out of protest, the Fat Guys get rid of the Alpha and Omega trailer before laying down a Fat Guy Five about actors-turned-directors.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for The Town, Easy A and Devil

Episode Schedule:

Part I: Previews of Alpha and Omega and Devil (8:20)

Part II: More on Devil and reviews of The Town and Easy A (10:40)

Part III: Box Office Recap, thoughts on crappy 3D and the Fat Guy Five: Five Actors Who Can Direct (17:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: Letters to Juliet, Prince of Persia, Fringe: Season 2, The Big Bang Theory: Season 3, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 5, Glee: Season 1, Grey’s Anatomy: Season 6, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Invasion of the Body Snatchers Blu-ray, The Amityville Horror Blu-ray, Return of the Living Dead Blu-ray, The Lord of the Rings Blu-ray and Se7en Blu-ray (6:35)

Next Week:

The Fat Guys talk about You Again, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.

Show Links:

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Celluloid Spotlight: Episode 39 – Resident Light

Merrill Barr — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 17:00:32 +0000

In this episode, Merrill and Hash head to the armory to defend themselves against the impending zombie apocalypse. O, and Merrill admits his hard on for Paul W. S. Anderson.

[See post to listen to audio]
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Music:
House On A Hill by 405

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The Podcast Podcast #14

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Video: Kevin Reviews Movies on FOX 28 – September 10, 2010

Kevin Carr — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:24:14 +0000

On September 10, Fat Guy Kevin Carr rolled into the FOX 28 studios in Columbus, Ohio for a weekly movie review segment. This week, he talked about Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D and suggest some other movies from the summer

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Movie Review: ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D’

Kevin Carr — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:21:20 +0000

Rated R
Opens: September 10, 2010
Studio: Screen Gems
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Wentworth Miller, Ali Larter, Kim Coates and Spencer Locke
Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson

Kevin says Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D kinda sucks!
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Episode 177 – Sigh… It’s August

Kevin Carr — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:00:18 +0000

On This Week’s Show: While Neil is busy transferring FSR HQ to a new, undisclosed location, Kevin invites Tim Buel from The Golden Briefcase into the Magical Studio in the Sky to help suffer through the August doldrums. They contemplate if an Avatar re-release is really necessary for just nine freaking minutes. Then, they contemplate the necessity for a film like Takers. Finally, they contemplate why Lionsgate didn’t widely screen The Last Exorcism for press. This leads to a surprisingly relevant box office discussion about Piranha 3D and its sequel-earning box office disappointment. Tim and Kevin also discuss the future of 3D and lay down a Fat Guy Five about their favorite Devils.

[See post to listen to audio]

FSR’s Weekly Report Card for Takers and The Last Exorcism

Episode Schedule:

Part I: Review of Takers (8:50)

Part II: Previews of Avatar: The Big Blue Sex Scene Edition and The Last Exorcism (10:40)

Part III: Box Office Recap, the future of 3D and the Fat Guy Five: Our Five Favorite Devils (28:00)

Part IV: DVD Round-Up: LOST: Season Six, Time Bandits, The Simpsons: Season Thirteen, Survival of the Dead, Abandoned, $5 a Day and Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes (6:35)

Next Week:

Kevin welcomes another speical guest to talk about Going the Distance, The American and Machete.

Show Links:

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