Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I love that Harry Lime’s been stepping up to do more DVD coverage here on the site lately. I took forever in publishing this, even though he turned it in to me last week, mainly because I’m a big doof. It’s a darn good interview, though, and I hope you get a kick out of it. He’ll return with a review of the DVD itself soon...
HARRY LIME INTERVIEWS ICE AGE DIRECTOR, CHRIS WEDGE
I don’t know about you, but I love animation. I’ve got a shelf of DVDs that are just family animated movies. I’ve got a ton of classic Disney as well as a handful of DreamWorks, Pixar, and PDI stuff. I just picked up the special edition BEAUTY & THE BEAST on DVD and currently am wading my way through the contents of that. I need to hurry up and finish that so that I can start checking out the new 2 disc DVD of ICE AGE, which hits stores November 26.
From my first viewing of that famous teaser trailer, they had me. It was refreshing to see a confident looking 3D animated film that wasn’t from one of the usual suspects. Fox and Blue Sky Studios collaborated on this one, as co-director Chris Wedge explains. “Fox came to us with the concept for ICE AGE and they came to us with the first draft of the script. They also gave us a mandate to make it into a comedy from what was previously a rather dramatic action concept.”
The 2 disc DVD set that’s coming out is loaded with extras. It kind of reminds me of the EPISODE II DVD (which I’ve been watching insistently since I got it last month), it’s so packed. There are multiple commentaries, trailers, documentaries, deleted scenes, television spots, Blue Sky Studio's Oscar-winning animated film "Bunny,” and a new animated short called “Scrat’s Missing Adventure.”
And that’s not all.
I had the good fortune of getting Chris Wedge’s attention long enough to chat with him a little about ICE AGE, his work, and his views about technology, the animation industry, and the lost art of 8mm backyard filmmaking.
HARRY LIME: First of all, that teaser trailer... amazing. The first time I saw it, I was taken aback by how perfect it is. It’s so good it could easily stand alone as a short film. Was it a daunting task following that up with the remaining eighty minutes?
CHRIS WEDGE: The following eighty minutes was absolutely more daunting. Scrat came easy.
HL: And you provided Scrat’s voice in the film. Will you consider doing larger roles in future projects?
CW: I wouldn’t rule it out. We all do a lot of scratch dialog recording for the films while we are creating the story reels.
HL: That reminds me of Joe Ranft voicing Heimlich in A BUG’S LIFE. I think it would be really cool to watch an animated movie that uses only the animators as voice talent. In the teaser for ICE AGE, there’s no dialogue, except for Ray Romano at the end. Was there ever a consideration about doing the entire film without human voices?
CW: Not then. The story for ICE AGE was already set, and it required dialog. I just wanted a better opening. The Scrat sequence was born from my feeling that the landscape should be a character as well. The Ice Age itself should have a presence. It would terrorize a hapless creature, and hence the Scrat.
HL: Did the actors who voiced the characters of this film influence the finished product in any unexpected ways?
CW: The actors were encouraged to improvise as much as possible. Some of the best comedic moments were improvised. It was a great tool for me, because if we came to a line that I hated, I could push the actors to do something else, and usually we got something better.
HL: Is there an actor you’d sell your soul to direct a vocal performance out of in an animated film down the road?
CW: That would depend on the role, but there are a couple of people that have great animation voices that I’d love to have. I wouldn’t sell my soul for them though. I’ve got bigger plans for it.
HL: The recent collaboration of Rob Coleman and Frank Oz on Yoda in ATTACK OF THE CLONES resulted in one of the year’s finest performances. Clearly, the true star of the movie is Yoda. They’ll probably get overlooked for an Academy Award, though, in the Best Supporting Actor category. When do you think this kind of acting will finally get the respect it deserves?
CW: It’s tough because no one person creates an animation performance. The actor provides the voice, but some else has designed it, someone else has animated it, someone else has directed it, etc, etc. One thing is for sure, we are going to see a lot more of these performances. But yes, I think Yoda deserves an Oscar for that. It made watching the rest of the movie completely worth it.
HL: Do you plan to ever direct a live action or a live action CG mix?
CW: We have done a bunch of effects projects at Blue Sky including my personal favorite, Joe’s Apartment. Whatever technique is employed on future projects will be dictated by the story.
HL: You co-directed this film with Carlos Saldanha. What is it like collaborating on a film like this?
CW: I think you have to know each other very well. Carlos and I have been working together for eight or nine years. When you work closely enough you share a lot of experience and a lot of trust. I have to know that he can take ideas from a certain point and finish them. I have to stand by decisions that he makes when I am not available. Another approach is to have a lot of lieutenants and give them plenty of responsibility and accountability.
HL: Did you guys see it as a big challenge entering an arena that’s mainly dominated by Disney and DreamWorks? Did this affect the way you approached crafting this film?
CW: I don’t believe that anyone has a monopoly on good ideas. If you worry about what other people are doing you will lose focus on your own work. We pounded on ICE AGE for as long as we had time for and then we sent it out. We will do the same for the next one. We can’t worry about competition. Besides, you aren’t competing with anyone but yourself. They have nothing to do with whether you make a good movie or not.
HL: Was there material that was cut from ICE AGE that made you cry to see it go?
CW: Plenty. There were many ideas that were thrown out too. You can see a few sequences on the DVD.
HL: An animator friend of mine told me that if the film works at the boards stage, it’ll work when it’s finished. How did the storyboard phase of ICE AGE go? When did you know it was working?
CW: That’s true. Story is by far the hardest part. You might think that each stage of production, (story, layout, animation, rendering, etc.) adds to the effect, and improves the movie, but it merely magnifies what you’ve got in story. If it’s a good story, it gets better. If it’s a bad one, all the extra work just makes that fact more obvious. We kept story alive for the entire production of Ice Age. It changed daily, even while sequences were being animated and rendered, sometimes even after. We learned more about the movie and the characters as we went and fed that back into story. It got better and better at each test screening. We were almost two years into making the movie before I felt confident that it would work, and that was just on a logic level. It took longer to get the tone of the comedy and the emotion to play right. I still think we could improve it, but hell, you have to stop at some point.
HL: I’ve always believed that you have to be a pretty unique individual to be an animator. I say this with the utmost of respect for them. How would you describe most of the animators you’ve worked with?
CW: The best animators I know are obsessed with detail. They are magnificent observers and they are talented actors, albeit usually shy. They have the ability to analyze motion, which is hard because it doesn’t sit still for you to observe. If you are unsure about whether an animator has the right stuff, get them drunk at a party and see if they can dance.
HL: Some of the look of ICE AGE is very realistic, while other aspects are quite stylized. How difficult is the process of deciding how to play a film like this visually?
CW: Stylization was a survival tactic. There was too little time or money to make it look realistic. I chose to put the detail on the characters and simply suggest the environments rather than explain them with a lot of detail.
HL: Are you tired of cute, cuddly creatures infesting the world of animation?
CW: Sounds like you are.
HL: Actually, I don’t mind them. Sorry if it came out that way. I just wish there were more animated films aimed at an adult audience.
CW: We had a cuddly baby in ICE AGE that we all tried to downplay at the beginning. After a while we realized that it had a role to play - being cute invested the audience and raised the stakes. I’ve heard people gasp from the cute quotient when it first hits the screen. My kids are cute. Cuteness is a part of what makes the world go round.
HL: Do you think it's fair to say that 3D animation is beating the crap out of traditional animation?
CW: I hate this question. At some point soon a 2D movie will come along and kick butt, and people will stop asking it. It’s not a competition.
HL: What was your favorite Disney animated film as a child?
CW: BAMBI, for the style. DUMBO for the music. PINNOCHIO for the terrifying donkeys. And MARY POPPINS because I thought she was pretty.
HL: I heard somewhere that you wanted to make movies ever since you were twelve. Was it a particular movie you saw that sent you down this path and how has it shaped you as a filmmaker?
CW: My mom called me in to watch a TV show about a place called The Yellowball Workshop, where they taught kids to make animation. They showed some cut-out animation techniques that looked cool so I tried it. KING KONG played at our local movie theater around then and I really got jazzed by that. I was into Rankin-Bass Christmas specials and Ray Harryhausen movies. I spent summer vacations fooling around with my dad’s 8mm movie camera, doing little animation experiments and special effects. Then I started telling little stories. They were short. I think a roll of 8mm film only plays about two minutes. By the time I was in high school I was making 16mm epics. I guess the biggest influence is that I've been thinking about it for a long time. I won't tell you how long.
HL: What was your very first attempt at filmmaking?
CW: My first attempt was a little movie about my brother escaping from a wicked wizard played by my sister, who lived in our basement. (My sister didn’t live in the basement, the wizard did.) She popped magically into and out of scenes. Very tricky. I think he got out, but then she was waiting for him and zapped him dead.
HL: You served as creative supervisor on ALIEN RESURRECTION, which I happen to like quite a bit. Was the original ALIEN an influence for you?
CW: That was a scary movie. I went with a college buddy and we were both sweating. Alien II was even more of an assault. I can’t say that it has influenced me directly, but who knows what subconscious experiences guide our decisions?
HL: You also worked on TRON. I was twelve when I saw it on the big screen and I can still remember what I felt while seeing those images for the first time. What was it like working on that film? At the time, which was twenty years ago, what were your thoughts on the future of CG on the big screen? And where do you think this art is headed in the next two decades?
CW: I remember feeling that technology was like trying to draw with your foot. In a ski boot. It was the most indirect way to work imaginable, but the potential had us all excited. I started in stop motion. Dimensionality and lighting were what inspired me - the ability to make something look real that was obviously impossible. This is what the computer was starting to do and when we thought about what would be going on in twenty years we knew we were in the right place. Unfortunately our ideas were that far ahead of the times and it took a while for the technology, the business, and the audience to catch up. I feel fortunate to have been there at the time. All of that experience adds up to what we are doing now and what we are planning for the future. This technology will obviously become more prevalent. Who knows what will result? One thing is certain, computer technology will revolutionize the way we tell stories as much as movie film has.
Well, I gotta say, it was really awesome that Chris subjected himself to my little interview. He didn’t have to, but he’s a cool guy. My thanks to Chris and to Nan Rohr who coordinated the whole thing. On a final note, I can’t wait to check it out and file my report immediately. Until then, I guess it’s back to BEAUTY & THE BEAST... and probably EPISODE II a few dozen more times.
And with that, Harry Lime slinked away into the sewers and the shadows once more.
