I Am Number Four — The Story Behind the Story is Even Stranger
Posted on December 6, 2010 at 3:59 pm
I Am Number Four is the story of a 15-year-old with special powers, one of nine children who fled a planet called Lorien and landed on Earth ten years earlier along with their adult teachers. As they mature, each child develops powers called Legacies, which help them fight the evil Mogadarians. The Nine can only be killed in order. The Mogadorians have killed One, Two, and Three, and Four is on the run with his guardian, Henri. The movie, starring “Glee’s” Diana Agron, “Deadwood’s” Timothy Olyphant as Henri, and “Alex Ryder’s” Alex Pettyfer as Number Four.
According to the book’s cover, its author is Pittacus Lore, described inside as a 10,000 year old from the planet Lorien. That may be easier to believe than the real-life story of the book’s author, or, I should say, authors.
A remarkable story in New York Magazine explains that the book is a product of James Frey’s “fiction factory.” Frey will forever be known as the best-selling author who got a major on-air take-down from Oprah after it was revealed that he had made up some of the lurid details of his purportedly non-fiction story of his struggles with drug addiction, A Million Little Pieces. Now he is inviting students in graduate writing programs to work with him on developing books designed to be best-sellers.
Frey said he was interested in conceiving commercial ideas that would sell extremely well. He was in the process of hiring writers–he said he’d already been to Princeton and was planning on recruiting from the other New York M.F.A. programs as well. We had probably heard of Jobie Hughes? Hughes was a former Columbia M.F.A. student who had graduated the previous spring. Frey told us that he and Hughes had sold the rights to an alien book they had co-written to Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay.
That book is I Am Number Four, written by Hughes under the direction of Frey. The contract Frey asks his young writers to sign gives them as little as $250 plus a percentage of any revenue — and a $50,000 penalty for revealing the arrangement without permission.
On one hand, this is an established and successful (if discredited) author giving opportunities to aspiring writers. On the other hand, it asks them to give up a great deal in return. I wonder if the relationship with Frey inspired in part the description of the hounded Number Four.
Neil Goldberg brings dreams to life. As director of Cirque Dreams, he is the man behind the gasp-inspiring live shows that combine music, movement, and visual splendor in shows filled with dance, acrobatics, humor, and the kind of wonder that only happens in theaters. As he prepared to bring his Holidazeshow to Washington’s Kennedy Center, he took a break from rehearsals to talk to me about the show the New York Daily News called “so full of energy it could end our dependence on oil.” The Holidaze show features an international cast of over 30 artists costumed as holiday ornaments including gingerbread men flipping mid air, toy soldiers marching on thin wires, snowmen daringly balancing, icemen powerfully sculpting, penguins spinning, puppets caroling, and reindeer soaring — and people singing, dancing, balancing, juggling, and tossing each other around, black light, strobe light, audience participation, and quick change artists who transform in less than the blink of an eye.
The costumes for this show must be quite a challenge.
We design and manufacture all our costumes in our studio in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. For Holidaze, there are probably more than 500 pieces including the hats and other accessories. It’s important for me as the captain of the ship to keep the process all done simultaneously under the same roof. In more traditional shows a producer will find a costume designer and they’ll shop different shops and you don’t put it together until the rehearsal process. If someone is swinging through the air and something isn’t right around their waist, it has to go back to the shop. Here it all happens simultaneously and under one roof. The singers are learning their songs at the same time the acrobats are doing their performance artistry and the set is being constructed and the costumes are being designed and it’s all being put together at the same time.
What makes Cirque Dreams unique?
Cirque Dreams is an American-based company, since 1993, designed exclusively to be performed on proscenium stages. We’re not affiliated with Cirque du Soliel, which is Canadian and shown in the round. I’m born and raised in New York. I’m a theater guy. My degree is in theater arts. People who love to go to the theater have an expectation of being engaged with the story that’s coming to life on stage and taking the journey as opposed to sitting in a tent or arena and having a circus experience. What distinguishes us is that it’s all English, it’s very relatable, it’s narrated, it has all the components of traditional music theater. But it also has the spectacle of the aerial acrobatics, the unusual and inventive artistry. The cast is very international. We have over 30 artists from 10-12 different countries. They’re all at the top of their game. They’re all world class. In some cases they’re the only ones who do what they do. This year we have over 150 artists in two identical companies touring this season.
Tell me about how you communicate with so many international performers.
It’s a business like everything else, with challenges every day. We have a commissary here on site and we have interpreters for Chinese, Mongolian, Ethiopian, African — it runs the gamut. It’s very exciting to learn about different languages and cultures. But for me, as the artistic director, I only have to learn to count to eight in every language! It’s all musically driven, and music is all about eight counts.
What was so exciting for me is that the journey took almost five years. I told presenters and producers who are our partners in many of our shows I wanted to take this particular genre and set it in the holidays. There’s a certain expectation from the word “Cirque” that the costumes and make-up and artistry are going to be elaborate and bizarre, and that does not seem to go with the holidays.
So five years ago, I came up with the idea for this heavy, metal Christmas tree that’s 30 feet tall, and taking 30 performers from all over the world and costuming them as ornaments. When the curtain comes up on the show, it is a big wow because there is this centerpiece of the tree and all the artists are hanging from the tree, dressed as ornaments. One by one, they come down and tell their particular story through the amazing acrobatics and aerial feats that they perform. The angels are flying. The soldiers are marching but on thin wires that cross the stage. The penguins are balancing and walking on globes and on roller skates. The dolls are climbing 24-foot candy canes up to the ceiling. We build a four-tiered chandelier with lit candles and crystals that is balanced on a performer’s forehead and he climbs up, balancing it, to light the tree with it. It draws people to the edge of the seat and leaves them with a smile on their faces.
What age group are you aiming for?
This show has something for everyone and it brings out the youth inside everyone. You know when you wished for a bicycle for Christmas — we have bicycles that come out of the presents. But they are for 24 beautiful Chinese girls who ride them and go on top of each other’s shoulders jump from bicycle to bicycle. The kids see the visuality and excitement of it. The more sophisticated theater-goer is fascinated by the acrobatic audacity and amazing performance artistry.
What is the music like in the show?
We have some traditional songs like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Jingle Bell Rock” and “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” But we also blend it with original music that has a cold, wintry, holiday, festive, celebratory feeling to it. It ends with a spectacular version of “O Holy Night” that sends chills up people’s spines.
Why is live theater still so important?
People understand that technology lets you do anything. Everything is attainable and reachable. Spontaneity is fascinating and shows real human emotion. This genre takes the art of the human mind, spirit and body and anything can go wrong at any time or any moment so it feels real. Theater feels very human, very real. I still get chills when I watch it, even in rehearsal.
Holidaze touring schedule
Nov 30, 2010 – Dec 05, 2010 Atlanta, GA – Cobb Center
Nov 30, 2010 – Dec 01, 2010 Bloomington, IN – Indiana University Auditorium
Dec 03, 2010 – Dec 05, 2010 New Brunswick, NJ – State Theatre
Dec 07, 2010 – Dec 09, 2010 Waterbury, CT – Palace Theatre
Dec 07, 2010 – Dec 12, 2010 Washington, DC – Kennedy Center
Dec 10, 2010 – Dec 12, 2010 Buffalo, NY – Shea’s Performing Arts Center
Dec 14, 2010 – Dec 15, 2010 Sarasota, FL – Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall
Dec 14, 2010 – Dec 19, 2010 Cleveland, OH – Palace Theatre
Dec 17, 2010 – Dec 19, 2010 Tampa, FL – David A. Straz Jr. Center / TBPAC
Dec 21, 2010 – Dec 29, 2010 St. Louis, MO – Fox Theatre
Dec 21, 2010 – Dec 26, 2010 Pittsburgh, PA – Heinz Hall
Dec 29, 2010 – Jan 02, 2011 Sacramento, CA – Community Center Theatre
Interview: Robert Vince of ‘The Search for Santa Paws’
Posted on November 29, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Robert Vince is the man behind the wildly popular “buddies” movies including the latest, The Search For Santa Paws. They feature adorable dogs and heartwarming stories, just right for family movie night. I spoke to him about the challenges of directing animals and children, what makes a great holiday movie, and why Christmas is his favorite time of year.
I wanted to make a Christmas movie and our lofty goal was to make one that had timeless values, a classic, a perennial that parents could pull out for their children each year.
You have some great voice talent — tell me about casting.
Nine tenths of the job is finding talented people who are great at what they do and then they make me look great.
The voice talent people have to have a distinctive voice that comes out of that character rather than being placed into it. They have an ability to project; it’s more like being a theater actor in some ways than a film actor that can use their physicality.
Actors often say that you should never work with children or animals, but that seems to be your specialty! How do you make that work?
We’re making family films because we love them and we’ve been doing it for a long time. Family films and children and animals go “hand in paws,” as I like to say. Children are not acting in a lot of ways; they’re being who they are. That’s where casting is important. You have to choose children for a role that is based on who they are because they really can’t be something else very well or believably. So Madison Pettis really was the big sister figure to all the other girls on the set. And Kaitlyn Maher really is the cutest little thing on the planet is really a sweet little soul with a beautiful voice. I’d like to say it’s great directing but it’s really who they are.
And with the animals, it’s the trainers — they really know how to create characters with the animals. It’s a special talent. I tell them what I want and then with a look or the training, with their connection with the animals, they make it work.
Is it important to you to work with Blu-Ray and the other technological advances?
Yes, it makes it possible for the audience at home to see our movie as it was intended to be seen in a theater. It’s such a fantastic technology and really brings the movie to life in the home. With the CGI and digital effects we can create any environment we want to. Anything I can think of, we can do. The film-maker is not limited by the resources available, only by imagination.
The sky’s the limit — literally. You’ve taken the buddies to outer space!
I always laugh when people ask how we got the moon shots. I say, “Well, we didn’t go to the moon!”
What makes a classic holiday movie?
It has to appeal to the most important part of that time of year, the selflessness. This is the one time of year where we suspend our own interests in a selfless manner and take care of others. It has to connect with the heart and music is a big part of that. We have a beautiful song that really connects. You have to have a sense of faith and belief and the importance of the family bond.
To me, the spirit of Christmas is embodied in the hearts of children untouched by the fears, doubts, and disappointments of the adult world. That’s the line that means the most to me in the movie. Before I write a movie I try to write the theme in one sentence and that was it for me in this movie. That one line really says it all for me. As adults we get confused and have disappointments and the like but for a child, in the morning when they get up, their hearts filled with joy, giving to each other, that’s what the spirit of Christmas is all about.
Glen Keane is the man behind some of Disney’s most beloved animated films, including “Tarzan,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin.” As producer of the latest Disney movie, “Tangled,” he guided the project for more than fourteen years. It was an honor to have the opportunity to ask him about some of what went into making the film. We talked about what makes animation special, why the hair was the biggest challenge, and why Disney heroines always have cute animal sidekicks. My husband and I are both huge animation fans.
There is something about animation that really sinks in deep, isn’t there? Years ago, at a preview of what was in the Disney animation pipeline, I saw some very preliminary concept sketches for this film and it was completely different from the finished film both in look and storyline. Can you tell me a little bit about how the movie evolved?
I started developing this story in ’96 while I was doing “Tarzan” and “Treasure Planet” and then started to work on it in 2002 full-time. At that point, the studio was looking for more of a twist on the fairy tale. That was the way the wind was blowing and I put up my sails and blew in that direction. That version was called “Rapunzel Unbraided” and I worked on it for three years. It was a fun, wonderful, witty version and we had a couple of great writers. But in my heart of hearts I believed there was something much more sincere and genuine to get out of the story, so we set it aside and went back to the roots of the original fairy tale. I know one thing that is very hard to animate is hair. In this movie, the hair is like a character of its own. How hard was that to do?
There’s 140,000 individual hairs and hair is the hardest thing to animate in a computer. It’s made up of pixels that bounce against each other. We did early tests. The hair reacted individually with a mind of its own like marbles dropping on a tile floor, the hair would just scatter in every direction. How in the world are we going to figure this out? We’ve been solving artistic problems with mathematics for six years on this film just trying to establish control. We broke it down to 147 different tubes each with a thousand hairs in it. There were much smarter people than I figuring out how to control it. My job was telling them what we wanted it to do. We needed to have rhythmic curves, we needed volume, we needed to twist it, we need to have individual hairs break out. The hair was the most complex character we had in the film.
Probably the most difficult scenes to do were the ones where she was just absent-mindedly touching her hair, the ones you just take for granted. I encouraged the animators to let Rapunzel touch her hair. The computer folks were like, “This is going to be big trouble!” But I told them no one would believe it if she couldn’t touch her hair. One of the highlights of the film is Rapunzel’s little chameleon friend, Pascal.
At first we did not have a sidekick. We thought, we’ve done sidekicks before, we don’t need to do it again. And then you realize why you need one. She’s alone in the tower! There’s so much going on in this girl’s mind and if you don’t have her talking to someone you don’t know what she’s thinking. At one point we had her talking to these little objects with personalities but you could start to think she might be crazy.
The little chameleon gave us an feeling of color. He could blend into different paintings and it just fit the idea of this girl who is an artist. It also fit with the idea that he’s just a tiny little character but he always helps Rapunzel take a step further. You made the male character a much more important and interesting part of the story than he was in the fairy tale.
We had to find the right person to come into the tower. In the original fairy tale, it’s a prince. It’s a lot more interesting to have this girl where her mother is telling her that the outside world has got all these bad people and that what she lets come into the tower is truly a bad person. That makes it a much more interesting story and that was the goal in having this guy have a more colorful background. I loved the character of the horse and the way his loyalties shift.
He’s the super-cop; he’s tough. Originally, that character was a dog. I had a heart attack in 2008 and stepped back from directing. The new directors took the dog and made it a horse. I was like, “No! You can’t take out the dog!” But it was even better; they had the personality of the dog and the attitude of someone so intent on getting Flynn. He was the ultimate sleuth — and it gave us a chance to take this character who was so dedicated to catching Flynn and have Rapunzel tame him. We were looking for ways that Rapunzel could show the transforming power that she has with the horse, with the thugs in the pub, with the people in the town that she gets to dance with her, and ultimately with Flynn himself. You gave it a contemporary feeling without getting snarky. It has a lot of heart. How do you keep that balance?
A lot of that is the sensibility of Byron Howard and Nathan Greno, who have this really, really, deep, deep love of the sincerity of Disney films. At the same time, they have an irreverence and a clever sense of humor. They’re always pushing to make it a little bit funnier. We would re-animate scenes a dozen times over, just making it funnier, funnier, funnier. If it was a little laugh, that wasn’t enough. At once point Flynn in the pub is surrounded by thugs who tell him to sing and he says, “Sorry boys, I don’t sing. Suddenly, he is surrounded by swords and we cut to him singing and dancing. Byron says, “I don’t think he should turn his head.” It was funnier. He said, “I don’t think he should look at the swords at all.” And it was even better. What do you love most about this story?
I love the idea of this girl with this incredible potential being kept back. The more you hold somebody back from who they’re meant to be, the more they have to get out and share it. There was enormous drive in getting that message out. I’ve always felt that hand-drawn has something so wonderful and can affect computer animation in a new way. This whole film was about taking the best of both worlds, infusing the best of hand-drawn and the best of computers. I want to continue to take hand-drawn to a whole new level, to have computers celebrate the artistry of drawing.
Marc Erlbaum wants to make films that touch people’s souls. He is the man behind Nationlight Productions, a film and television production company focused on creating inspiring, meaningful content for mainstream audiences of all backgrounds and affiliations. He was nice enough to take some time to answer my questions about his company and his films.
How did this project get started?
I’m a film-maker. I had made a couple of small films that I wrote and directed and about a year and a half ago I formed this company, Nationlight Productions, with an explicit mandate to make more positive and uplifting films. That was what I was doing already with my projects but I thought the time was right to create a more structured company focused on that mission. So we went out and raised money from some philanthropists who were interested in affecting the world through positive mass media. We made this film “Cafe,” an ensemble drama that we shot here in Philadelphia, that tracks intersecting stories of the patrons and workers in a little cafe, all of whom are dealing with life challenges. It’s infused with spirituality, but most of my work is about putting that in a subtle way.
One of the characters is a guy who’s always sitting in the cafe on his laptop and a young girl appears on his computer screen one day and informs him that he and everyone else in the cafe are avatars in a virtual world she has created. And of course he doesn’t believe her at first. But then things start to happen exactly as she says it will. Ultimately, it becomes a conversation with the Creator, an allegory. She wants him to do something and he asks her why she doesn’t make him and she explains she has built free will into the program. There’s nothing explicitly religious or spiritual but ultimately it is a meditation on a conversation with God.
What is your background? Have you studied theology?
I am a religious Hassidic Jew myself. I was not born that way but got into it in college and became very committed. But our goal, as someone who grew up very mainstream and very secular, my goal is not to preach to the choir but to create content that is going to appeal to people who are more like those I grew up with and instill some thematics without being heavy-handed or didactic.
Why do mainstream films stay away from spiritual themes?
Appealing to people’s baser natures is an easy way to make a buck. It’s easier to seduce people than it is to challenge them. What’s happening in recent years is that people are saying, “We’re not as ignorant as you think we are. If you do challenge us and provide us with messages of hope and redemption, that will appeal to us more than all the thrillers and genre stuff you’ve been feeding us.”
What films inspire you?
The films that don’t preach but that have inspiring themes without being heavy-handed, like “The Matrix,” which has a real message that this reality we’re living in is only superficial and there’s something much deeper. A similar thematic was developed in “The Truman Show.” And others, obvious but just as powerful, “Freedom Writers,” “Pay it Forward,” “The Blind Side.” That’s a great example of a mainstream film with positive values at its core.
What makes your company different?
We are unabashed in our mission. When I started writing, I wrote something with a clear moral framework. I was put in touch with a producer who demoralized me and told me that any art with an agenda is not art at all. I studied literature and I certainly have experienced that intellectual elitism. But we do have a mission and we are not afraid to say that. Great art has the ability to inspire. The images people expose themselves to will affect their outlook and their conduct. If we can participate in that, don’t we have a responsibility to do that in a positive way?
Michael Medved’s book Hollywood vs. America: The Explosive Bestseller that Shows How-and Why-the Entertainment Industry Has Broken Faith With Its Audience inspired me early on. He says if you’re telling me that visual images don’t affect people’s action, the advertising industry should return all those billions of dollars. “The Passion of the Christ” really proved that there is a huge audience that really wants these films. There was a story in the Wall Street Journal: “They’ve seen the light and it is green.” So Hollywood is following the money trail.
Anybody who has strong beliefs or opinions will have to face people who don’t agree with them. You can either go through your life backing off or taking a stand. Even before I was religious I was always raised to take a stand. My personal and religious beliefs are that you don’t try to force anyone but if you act with kindness, the majority of people will respond with kindness.
What is the status of your films?
“Cafe,” with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy, won the Crystal Heart award at the Heartland Film Festival. “Everything Must Go” stars Will Ferrell as a guy who loses his job and his wife and hits rock bottom before he can pick himself up and start over again. It co-stars Rebecca Hall and Michael Pena. That will be released this spring.
How can people stay in touch with what you’re doing?
We’re really focused on building up a community of people who are interested in our mission and our content. So we’ve launched a community page for Nationlight on Facebook. We want people to come on and say “We want more positive fare.” It’s really a call to action. The more people we have on this community, the more we’ll be able to do.”
. They feature adorable dogs and heartwarming stories, just right for family movie night. I spoke to him about the challenges of directing animals and children, what makes a great holiday movie, and why Christmas is his favorite time of year. 
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inspired me early on. He says if you’re telling me that visual images don’t affect people’s action, the advertising industry should return all those billions of dollars. “The Passion of the Christ” really proved that there is a huge audience that really wants these films. There was a story in the Wall Street Journal: “They’ve seen the light and it is green.” So Hollywood is following the money trail.