The Fantastic Mr. Fox?

Started by Weak2ndAct, October 29, 2004, 02:06:02 PM

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modage

#75
July 29, 2009, 05:05:03 PM
Interview w/Jason Schwartzman
Source: AICN

Beaks: It was just announced that THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX is going to have its worldwide premiere at the London Film Festival. Have you seen the movie? And if so, can you give us an idea of what to expect from it? The pictures really have people freaking out. In a good way, I think

Schwartzman: I've seen the film, and I'm proud to be a part of it. I think it looks really beautiful. Wes didn't change his style of filmmaking and writing to suit the genre or the concept of the film. He brought it to him. It's just the new Wes Anderson film, but with puppets instead of live actors. It's stop-motion. It was really fun to be a part of it because Wes tried as hard as he could to not have all of the actors recording their voices separately in studios at various times. He really made an effort to get the actors together in groups, and literally act out the scenes with each other. To have overlapping [dialogue], and just weird exchanges. He'd have a gentleman with a boom mic running after us, following us doing it all. So, for example, the scenes in the movie where we dig? That's actually all of us on the ground digging - like digging in the real dirt. And if we were eating, we'd go "Rawr!" and have real stuff in our mouths. I play George Clooney's son, and there's a scene where we're talking to each other or having an emotional scene, and those scenes really are the two of us in a room acting and looking at each other - as opposed to being done separately and pieced together later. Of course, there are exceptions. Meryl Streep is in it, and I never got to act with her. But for the most part, most of my scenes were done with the actors I'm working with.

It's really beautiful. I was thinking about this yesterday, and I think it will appeal to the kid in adults and the adults in children. It crosses at a certain point because the dialogue is really funny, so adults will love it. But they'll also love it because maybe they loved the book. And, also, animation just does something to the brain where it makes you feel young. And I feel that kids will love it because it is animation, and they are young. But they'll also just love the dialogue and the physical action. There's a lot of physical humor in it that I feel Wes wouldn't have been able to do with live actors due to the constraints of the universe and physics and gravity. (Laughs)

For me, it was exciting because, though I did so much of the movie with the actual actors, it did take three years to make. So over time, new lines were being written, or a new scene idea would come about, and I'd get a call from Wes where he'd say, "Would it be at all possible for you to record a some new lines tomorrow?" So I'd go to the recording studio, and Wes would be on the phone - because he lives in France. So he'd be on the phone coming through my headphones, and I would talk into the microphone, and... in front of me on a music stand would be five or ten lines I was supposed to say. But out of context, and not in script form. So he would explain it to me verballly. "This is a scene where you've just come out of a tree." He'd describe it, but it would not be something I know. He would explain it, and then we would just do it. And what was exciting for me when I saw the movie was... when the lights came down and the movie began, I was like, "Gosh, I almost have amnesia! I don't remember any of this stuff!" I was really mesmerized and able to watch the film from a distance, which I'd never been able to do before.

I know it was definitely hard to make - they're never easy, the stop-motion ones. They've been making it for the last three-and-a-half years or maybe longer in London. Basically, they built these sets, and before they could start working on the scenes - which could take, because they're complicated, up to three weeks to shoot - they would take a still image that is the exact camera angle that they'll use, and... every time they'd do an angle, they'd take a still image and send it to Wes. And he'd give his notes back by email or phone, and say things like, "Could you lower the poster in the background an inch?" He'd go back and forth with these notes until they felt it was finally ready to shoot. It's not a very fluid process. I told him, "It's almost like you're directing in stop-motion." But the work is really beautiful. It's a beautiful movie.

Beaks: This sounds incredible. I knew he was being meticulous about the way he shot it, but I had no idea he was going into this extreme amount of detail.

Schwartzman: It's so weird, but, even though it's animated, there's so much spontaneity in the movie... the animators were having to animate based on all of this crazy, improvised stuff. It's a real combination of the written and the ethereal, which is what you get when you have live actors together. It feels really alive when I'm watching it because I know it's not a lot of static things put in motion; it has real breath in it, real life.

You'll have to wait until November 13th to see THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX. For now, you need to check out Schwartzman's cruelly aloof Mark Taylor Johnson in FUNNY PEOPLE (which opens Friday, July 31st).

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41866
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

modage

#76
July 30, 2009, 01:00:45 PM
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Stefen

#77
July 30, 2009, 01:06:23 PM
I do not like.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

modage

#78
July 30, 2009, 01:07:39 PM
even putting aside that this was cut by the "generic trailer dept.", it still looks not good. 
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Stefen

#79
July 30, 2009, 01:08:47 PM
I watched it without sound so I didn't know what the content was but the look just seems cheap and low budget. I don't like the look.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

MacGuffin

#80
July 30, 2009, 01:12:53 PM
It looks like someone did a parody of a Wes Anderson film in stop motion form.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

SiliasRuby

#81
July 30, 2009, 01:18:55 PM
The kids will like it and it will make plenty of cash (I hope)
The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.

When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

My Collection

Ghostboy

#82
July 30, 2009, 01:48:39 PM
Awful trailer, but I really like the look of it. Looks exactly like a Svenkmajer film done in Wes Anderson's style, which is what he said he was going for.

squints

#83
July 30, 2009, 02:21:26 PM
It looks better than the Darjeeling Limited so I'm happy.
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

Kal

#84
July 30, 2009, 02:47:01 PM
I'm already bothered by the 'whistle with the clicking sound' and it will probably go on throughout the movie a lot. It looks innovative and maybe its funny but I'm not sure it will be any good and I'm also not sure that kids will love this. It will be another Wes Anderson disappointment for most.

The Perineum Falcon

#85
July 30, 2009, 05:30:49 PM
Oh, don't be too hasty, kal. My response to the trailer hasn't been overwhelmingly favorable, but I see some promise there. The dialogue, especially.
The animation is REALLY strange, and the Foxes look like sticks. I think what was most immediately off-putting, was hearing the voices with the puppets. It's not that I don't like the voices.... it was just totally strange and bizarre. Hopefully it is something I can get use to, and it should be, but hearing voices so familiar applied to strange animal puppets in a style so familiar, i dunno, there's something alienating about that.
But, like I said, there is something there. It feels warm and fuzzy, like nostalgia.
We often went to the cinema, the screen would light up and we would tremble, but also, increasingly often, Madeleine and I were disappointed. The images had dated, they jittered, and Marilyn Monroe had gotten terribly old. We were sad, this wasn't the film we had dreamed of, this wasn't the total film that we all carried around inside us, this film that we would have wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we would have wanted to live.

RegularKarate

#86
July 30, 2009, 05:44:52 PM
I'm the only one that liked it.

It's a kid's movie.  I would TOTALLY take a kid to this.

ElPandaRoyal

#87
July 30, 2009, 06:26:57 PM
I loved the look of it. I really hope to like this movie a lot. The way some of those shots are made, including the ones with the floor on the same level as the bottom of the screen, like kid's drawings, really worked for me. I actually want to see it even more than I did before.
Si

AntiDumbFrogQuestion

#88
July 30, 2009, 10:44:12 PM
Well godDAMN

Thank you for the last two Posts

I LOVE the look of it, and I'm thinking maybe the only deterrent for the film is "I'm Lookin' for a FOX" playing in the background
(maybe next is Hendrix?)

Also, I like the voice acting and humor already

so basically what I'm saying is I didn't think XIXAX would have whiny fans who didn't think the movie looked like "how they thought it would"...how DID you think it would look? NORMAL?!?!?

THIS IS WES ANDERSON PEOPLE!!!!

Just because it looks like FUN and hmm A KID'S !)&$*$in' MOVIE doesn't mean it SUCKS
Anyways. This movie does not look like it sucks. Pull your heads out of your asses.
[get assaulted by Blume]

[NOTE: all the previous being said is the juvenile side of my fandom and interest in film...otherwise, yes, you're all entitled to your opinions and they are valid and well thought-out. The movie just looks Kick-@$$ to me.]

SiliasRuby

#89
July 30, 2009, 10:49:05 PM Last Edit: August 26, 2009, 02:51:55 AM by SiliasRuby
Hear hear. Looking at the trailer again I'm looking forward to it more.
The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.

When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

My Collection
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