Posted on January 3, 2017 at 8:00 am
The delightful and surprisingly wise film Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life is available today on DVD/Blu-Ray and we are honored to be able to present an exclusive behind the scenes clip about the main character’s pesky younger sister from the DVD extras.
Posted on January 1, 2017 at 7:00 am
This discussion of creativity includes “Hamilton’s” Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Atlanta’s” Donald Glover, “Insecure’s” Issa Rae, and “La La Land’s” Damien Chazelle. Their ideas should help you spark your own creativity as you get ready for the new year.
Posted on December 17, 2016 at 7:47 pm
For hard-core “Star Wars” fans only! SPOILER ALERT!
From Slashfilm: What the differences between the trailer and the finished film show us about the reshoots. Particularly interesting is the decision to soften Jyn’s character.
Most of this dialogue compiled from various trailers is very different. Jyn’s troublemaker backstory is mostly removed from the finished film. Her responses are more antagonistic and somewhat snarky. We had heard that the reshoots reworked the Jyn character to make her less arrogant and abrasive and more empathetic, and it appears this is true.
And, as you might imagine, there are a couple of very detailed lists of the Easter eggs and references to other “Star Wars” stories, including The Verge, Den of Geek, and Screen Rant.
And CinemaBlend has an intriguing theory on how “Rogue One” relates to the flashback sequence in “Force Awakens.”
These are the fan sites you are looking for.
Posted on November 25, 2016 at 9:57 pm
I love talking to Mark Henn, one of the greatest animation artists of all time. And I loved seeing his work in “Moana,” Disney’s new animated musical set in Polynesia. Henn worked on the animated tattoos sported by — and interacting with — Maui, a demi-god played by Dwayne Johnson.
How did the idea of animating Maui’s tattoos come about?
First off, there’s Ron Clements and John Musker. Most of their films have been traditional, hand-drawn and I’ve known them my entire career. So since this is their first CG film, I think it started with a desire from their point of view to in some way if possible to incorporate hand-drawn elements as much as they possibly could.
It had been kicked around early on in the development — how can we do this? And so as they researched when they were in the South Pacific they saw that the tattoos and all of that play a big part culturally for the people of Oceana. So, I think it became very apparent very quickly that this was a very simple but very effective way to incorporate the hand-drawn elements that they both grew up with and were involved with throughout their career and blend it with the modern, the CG computer animation that we we’re doing nowadays.
The tattoos have a very flat graphic character and design so we try to take advantage of that. At the early screenings of the film, in its story sketch phase, they would come out of the screenings and almost everybody to a person would say, “We’ve got to have more tattoos in. We need more of Mini Maui and more tattoos which Eric, we both felt… We were glad to hear that… So, they put him in as much as they possibly could and you’ve seen it… We can’t put any more in.
So, it was perfect really, and it worked out so well. And our technicians really made it very easy. We do our animation on paper and then it is practically a one-button push to get that information then mopped on as we call it and placed onto the CG characters. So it opened up a whole variety of visual things because it was not only the tattoos we did that way but part of Dwayne’s song, “You’re Welcome.” A lot of those elements were all hand-drawn, the dancing figures in the background and those singing little faces and the fish and birds and things. So those are all hand-drawn elements that open the door for more visual interpretations. Because of the limitlessness of the medium we could do all kinds of things. So it was just a lot of fun.
Oh, I love to hear that — it makes me so happy to return to an artist’s hands holding a pen or a brush.
Me too. That makes two of us.
What did you like to draw when you were a kid?
I enjoyed drawing and I drew all kinds of things. I went through my car phase when I was younger and then dogs. I had an experience once in Cleveland. I was doing a promotional tour at the time for “Pocahontas,” and I was in between presentations. A gal approached me backstage with those fateful lines: “Do you remember me?” I had to admit that I didn’t. She said, “Well, we went to high school together and I still have some of your drawings that you did on the bus.” And she pulled out drawings that I had done, and she had saved. I think we were in band together and it was probably on a band trip but she saved these drawings all these years and I was really quite touched by that, that somebody would think enough to keep them. I think they were cavemen or something.
What else did you do in “Moana?”
It was primarily the tattoos but tEric Goldberg and myself animated actually the opening part of the prologue when you hear grandmother explaining the history to the kids of how the world in their mind was fashioned. And you see these serpents and you see the crab and the first little image of Maui changing into the hawk, and the Island of the Sea raising up and spreading out. We also did a lot of these tapas which are these illustrated images that comes from Oceana the South Pacific. Those appear in the prologue and then a big part of Dwayne’s “You’re Welcome” song has that tapa look. The tapa paper, the type of paper that they use is similar to papyrus. It’s actually made from tree bark and some other organic materials so it has a real heavy texture to it. The technology allows us to create that look, to make it look like the tapa paper that they saw in person when they went on their research trips and then they were able to then give it a 3-D effect and made it look like it was torn on the edges. It was a lot of fun and as I said, it looks great.
Do you have a favorite classic Disney animated character?
I have many, no question, but one of my all-time favorites is Captain Hook and Frank Thomas, who animated Captain Hook, is still one of my inspirational animators. As for the ones I have animated, I get asked that question quite a bit and I always feel like Frank, who always said that it’s kind of like trying to pick a favorite child. But if push comes to shove and I had to pick one that just has a very, very ever so slight lead I would maybe go with Mulan.
I know your faith is very important to you. Would you like to share a favorite Bible verse?
For me like most people or a lot of people John 3:16 is foundational for me and has always been.
Posted on November 15, 2016 at 8:00 am
“Pete’s Dragon” screenwriter David Lowery answered my questions about updating and transforming the Disney classic for a live-action 21st century remake, and how being the oldest of nine children helped him learn how to tell stories. The movie is available on DVD/Blu-ray November 29, 2016.
How did you decide what elements of the original were important to you to keep and what new elements you wanted to add?
The only elements I wanted to keep from the original was a dragon named Elliott who could turn invisible and a boy named Pete who was an orphan. And I took those elements and thought that if I just maintained those and kept the title I would have the flexibility to tell a completely new story that would stand alongside the original on its own two feet. And that was it, I took those elements, I didn’t go back and watch the original. I just really wanted to focus on telling a new story and creating something the audience could appreciate and love just as much as they loved the original.
How did growing up with so many younger sisters and brothers help you become a writer? Did you read to them, tell them stories?
Oh man, that is a great question. I have eight younger brothers and sisters and it really taught me how to tap into a childlike sensibility. I definitely read to them. We wrote stories together, we wrote comic books together, we made movies together. Whenever I made a movie, my siblings were the actors. So we were creative together all the time. My parents encouraged us to always be expressing ourselves creatively through the arts, whether that be through movies or music and books, or drawings or paintings. And it really, I think, has had a big effect on who I am today as a filmmaker, not only in terms of my sense of collaboration but also in the way I approach storytelling. I always approach every movie I make whether it’s for adults or families with a very childlike sensibility and I think that’s because I spent so much of my life growing up around so many other kids and it really has an effect on how I see the world, how I want to see the world and how I feel I can best tell a story.
When you began working on the film what did you learn about the capacity for special effects or technology that inspired some of the storyline?
One of the things that was fun about this movie was getting to do visual effects on a scale that I never had done before. I knew a little bit about how CGI worked and how visual effects worked and I knew that Elliot would be entirely created on the computer but there was a lot that I had to learn, especially once we got done shooting and were in post production and I saw all the work that went into making him do anything. If they wanted him to blink his eyes it required a lot of steps to get him to blink his eyes right. It is an incredible team at Weta who brought him to life. There are modelers and sculptors, there are animators, there are people who are in charge of putting the 20 million hairs of fur on the body and making sure that that fur moves right if the wind is blowing. It’s just really incredible and so I learned a lot. There is no shortage of boring technical details that I could fill in here but it’s really amazing what is possible with modern digital technology. At the same time it’s important to learn the limits of it. You don’t push it too far because at the end of the day you want the movie to feel real. You want to feel like it is really happening. You want actors to feel like they belong in this world and so you have to find the right balance with it as well.
Your work often focuses on children who are on their own. Why is that a good basis for a story?
If a child is on their own they have somewhere they need to get, there is somewhere they need to be and that automatically gives your story a narrative arc because all of a sudden you have a journey that must be embarked upon. Whether it is a little kid that has run away from home or a little kid like my first film “St. Nick” or a little kid who is lost in the woods like “Pete’s Dragon” or even a grown-up who thinks he’s still a little kid like in my last film “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” where the Casey Affleck character in that movie a full grown man who is on the inside just a 7 year old playing with a gun and trying to find where he belongs in the world — I have gradually realized it is one of the key tenets of all my movies. It wasn’t intentional but I think part of it comes from having such a strong home life, of having such a strong family that I’m coming from that the thought of not having that has been the basis for so many of the stories I have sought to tell on the big screen. You tell stories of what you know but also you imagine yourself in different circumstances and how you would react to that. And I try to imagine myself in a world where I didn’t have the things I had growing up or I wasn’t surrounded by such a strong family that cared for me. That is great food for thought but also a great basis for exploring various stories.
Okay this is a two-part question, do you remember the first Disney movie you saw?
The very first Disney movie I saw was also the very first movie I ever saw, period. and that was “Pinocchio.” It was re-released in theaters in the 80s and my parents let me go see it and I just was spellbound. I had a huge crush on the Blue Fairy. There was a big cardboard stand of the Blue Fairy in the lobby of the theater and I wanted to take it home. I was just madly in love with her at the age of three or four, however old I was. I guess my favorite Disney animated character would probably be Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” because I was just obsessed with that movie. I really love that I really connected to her character and I still love it. I remember when we were shooting “Pete’s Dragon” when we moved locations as I got to another hotel and turned on the TV and “The Little Mermaid” was playing and I just sat down and watched the whole thing and that was one of the happiest moment in the entire shoot.
One thing that I loved about the film is that the bad guy is not entirely bad. What do you think makes a good movie villain?
David: You know a really good movie villain is someone who you love to hate, who is very enjoyable to watch even though you don’t like him but also one who you understand. You might not agree with him but you understand where he is coming from. With the character Gavin, I think the character is kind of a big dummy, he’s not the brightest, he is not the sharpest tool in the set but he doesn’t want to be a bad person, he thinks he is doing the right thing, he thinks he is protecting the town or protecting the kids and I think that’s important. I think it’s really important especially in this day and age to have empathy for people you don’t understand and you don’t agree with. And to understand they are not necessarily evil even if you strongly disagree with what they’re doing. So Gavin does some horrible things in this movie, he does some really bad things, but I wanted to make sure he was someone who can learn, who can grow because I believe that all people can and who ultimately isn’t that bad of a person because I do believe everybody has goodness in them and I wanted that to be present in this character.
There are some great movie villains who are just purely evil, I certainly enjoyed a lot of them over the course of movie history and sometimes it’s really fun to see someone you just purely hate and you’re happy to see die at the end of the film but I personally wanted to make a movie where the bad guy was someone who wasn’t purely bad but who got better, who grew as a human being. I really think that it’s important, especially for children, to see that there is more than one side to every story. There are perspectives that you are going to have to learn to adjust to as you grow older and as you meet people of different beliefs and different values and to understand that people make mistakes and come back from them and be better for it. I think that all those things are important for kids to understand and I wanted to just touch on that a little bit with the character of Gavin.
The forest in the story feels magical all on its own. How do you see the role of the natural world in the film and why is that important?
I think nature is spectacular, I really think it’s full of mystery and wonder and so many amazing things that we don’t even, we can’t even see. The ecosystem in the natural world that is beyond our comprehension is proof that magic does exist in the world. I don’t think that magic exists in terms of spells or witchcraft or anything like that but I do think that magic exists in the natural world and the forest. And I wanted the forest in the film to convey that sense of wonder and awe and mystery and magic because I do believe that that’s what you find in the real world.
