Brad Bird ‘s career started out as an animator in the early 80s on films such as Fox and the Hound, The Plague Dogs, and The Black Cauldron. Afterwards, he moved to television by collaborating with Steven Spielberg on episodes of Amazing Stories, followed by The Simpsons. He is the director of such animated classics as The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, its’ sequel, and Ratatouille. He also worked on live-action projects, such as Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and Tomorrowland. He is currently working on a musical film, which will be an animation/live-action hybrid.

Below you can read our interview with him.

Clicca qui per leggere la versione italiana di questa intervista

Let’s start with some basics. What’s your personal definition of animation?

Brad Bird: “Something that was done in a way that’s not spontaneous. It’s a frame by frame by frame assembly meant to be seen as motion. In other words, you do it one frame at a time in order to be seen as a group. It’s not a motion that existed before it’s projected. Whereas in a live-action movie, somebody is moving, and it’s being recorded, and then you replay that motion, in animation that motion never exists, except when it’s projected, it never existed in any other way. For example, somebody is doing a stop-motion with a puppet, they’re moving the puppet, they stand back and let a frame come in, rinse and repeat. Getting there is very different than the end process, wherein most films, you’re recording an existing performance done in real time. I don’t have a simple, one-line description of it, but that’s what it is. Whether you do it with pixels, drawing, or clay, it’s about doing it one frame at a time, and the only time it exists in its current form is the first time that it’s projected.”

In your masterclass, you were talking about animators studying reality, and making it believable through animation rules. Do you think animation is trying to become like live-action too much?

Brad Bird: “It depends what film you’re talking about. I don’t think reproducing live action totally is an interesting goal for me. If you’re using it to mix with a live action film, like how Gollum from Lord of the Rings, an animated character, is sharing a screen with a live-action character, and both are meant to be real, I think that’s interesting. You are getting animation and you’re trying to integrate it into living performances. If you’re trying to create a completely animated world that looks completely photo-realistic, that’s not something that I find interesting. It’s like if you made an orange completely out of clay, and it’s very orange-like, you bite into it, and it kinda tastes like an orange, has the juice like an orange, and you go “hey, this is almost like a real orange, and it’s made completely out of clay, you want that?” and I go “no, I’d like to have an orange!”. And whereas the real orange is 25 cents, the fake orange is 10 million dollars, and it’s not even as good of an orange. I think that progress in technology is always a good thing, but I think you have to be careful how to use it. Just recreating something to try to make it more real alone is not enough.”

Touching a bit more about animation and live-action, as we see trends of animation being transformed to live-action, but something still feels off about them. What’s one of the biggest mistakes that filmmakers make when they want to transfer animation to live-action?

Brad Bird: “To me, the core of animation is caricature. Usually that’s a word used negatively about something, but there’s a good way to do caricature. There are many great caricaturists around the world, but in the US the best so far was Al Hirschfeld. In his drawings, somebody looked more like them than in real life, because he found out what was so distinctive about somebody’s looks, amped it up, reduced the things that didn’t add to the look, and very selectively stylized and minimized it so that it seemed to be the essence of the person. You can do that not only with design, but also with movement. When somebody does an impression of someone you know, and they’re ruthlessly funny, they’re picking out things very selectively, and turning the volume up on them, sometimes turning the volume down, because if somebody’s quiet, and you make them really quiet, you’re exaggerating it. I think animation is about capturing the essence of something and making it moreso. Just reproducing something to live-action is kind of a boring goal, and it’s not reflecting the magic of animation, which is making something feel more intense, the raw feeling of what something is.”

Why don’t you like the definition of “movies for kids?”

Brad Bird: “Because it limits it in the same way that some adults treat kids like they’re stupid. I found that if you make something for older people that has a playful quality and joy to it, kids will gravitate to it, anyway. So when you aim something at kids, you’re not aiming it to yourself, because you’re not a kid. If you’re making films, you’re obviously an adult. And if I’m making a film for somebody who’s not me, or is an audience that doesn’t include me, there’s something patronising about that. Every film I make is a film that I want to see, and I think people sense that. I’m not talking down to them, and even when I make a moment that kids like, it works for adults, too. My favorite films as a kid were films that didn’t talk down to me. Even as a kid I felt on the ones that did, I said “who wants to see this crap?”. The stuff I responded to was Bugs Bunny. Now some people mistakenly think that Bugs Bunny was made for kids, but it actually wasn’t. It was made for people who wanted to see the Bogart movie or the Bettie Davis movie or an adult film. Bugs Bunny was like a little piece of candy before the adult film, one that’s gonna make you laugh, it’s gonna be quick and funny, and it was aimed at adults. It became a kids thing when television started, and they wanted things that kids would watch. So they grabbed those cartoons, because they were available, and then they aired them when kids were out of school. So people started thinking that cartoons were made only for kids, but if they really were, they wouldn’t have survived the way they have. The kiddie ones are the ones that nobody watches anymore, they have no cultural impact at all now. Put on a Bugs Bunny film, though, and everybody, old and young, 20 years ago and 20 years from now laughs at it. That’s much more what I’m interested in doing.”

Do you still hope to make 1906, the film about the San Francisco earthquakes?

Brad Bird: “Yes. It’s hard to discuss it right now without giving something away. There is a “war” going right now between streaming and movies as movies seem to be dying away, and TV is starting to become more movie-like (Note: last we heard of the project, it was said that it might end up being a series on streaming, with a live-action theatrical movie connected to it). I hope it doesn’t disappear, though, because the experience of being alone with a big audience of strangers in the dark, and not being able to pause, skip, or anything like that, that’s not the ultimate feeling of cinema. Cinema is a big screen, and strangers in the dark, sharing the experience together. I think that there can be much more experimentation with how these things are shown, and there are going to be different, more creative ways. I saw an episode of Breaking Bad in a big theatre with a crowd of 1000 people, and the audience loved it. As much as I enjoyed watching the show on TV, seeing it on a big screen with a bunch of strangers was a blast. There’s gotta be somebody who’s creative about the theatrical experience and creating situations where strangers can gather and watch something together on a much bigger scale than sitting in the living room. Living rooms are wonderful, and anything you do in film is going to exist in 24-hour availability in any size screen you want forever. But there is a short period of time that is golden, rare and special, that storytellers can control with how stories are told, and that is when a movie first opens. You have to go to the theatre, make an appointment, once you sit down, you’re in, no stopping, they won’t stop the movie when you have to go to the bathroom. The feeling of that and watching the film in a dark room alone with strangers in a gigantic screen, is something rare and special, and needs to be preserved for the future.”

Do you think, as a director, you have the responsibility to educate this new generation to watch these movies at the theatre?

Brad Bird: “The only way I can educate people to do that is to make things that are great in the movie theatre, and then exhort people to try to see it that way. It’s a complicated discussion, because there are millions of reasons for movies losing their value and interest from people, and all of them are small reasons. It’s like paper cuts. One small cut will hurt, but it will heal and you will be fine, but if you get ten thousand paper cuts, you’re going to bleed out and die, and that’s kinda what’s happening with movies. First, we got rid of movie theaters that had an identity and had different architecture, one looked like an Egyptian temple, the other a western town. Then we got rid of curtains that hide the film and reveal it. Now we just have the screen sitting there projecting ads on it, which is like taking a leak on the screen, makes it like you’re watching television again. To me, that’s an insult to the screen. The places aren’t special anymore, the auditoriums are getting smaller, makes it more like you’re in your living room. Then the kinds of movies we are making seem to be less interesting and smaller and the same, already proven kind of films. I think it needs to shake out, and I think multiplexes will start to fade away, but the ones that remain will hopefully be bigger and more special, and hopefully we are moving towards a more enlightened place. The reasons for movies popularity going down are myriad. Some blame the studios, some blame the filmmakers, some blame the theaters, and it goes on and on. But I think this is a difficult and complicated problem.”

Interview by Mihály Kobela

Pictures courtesy of VIEW Conference

The post View Conference 2019, Brad Bird on the art of animation and the future of cinema appeared first on Imperoland.

Dimian has been in the VFX industry for 27 years. His first work at Sony ImageWorks was on Hollow Man, creating transformation effects on the characters, and has since worked on many Sony Animation projects, such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Hotel Transylvania and most recently, Spider-Verse.

We had the chance to meet and talk with him at VIEW Conference. Below is our interview.

Clicca qui per la versione italiana di questa intervista

What were your many inspirations when starting to work on Into the Spider-Verse?

Danny Dimian: “It started with the idea that we wanted to do something different, something that people had never seen before. We were all excited about the idea that this will be a comic book movie, so we started with the actual comic books. The ones that looked more interesting and felt that had the most life in them were actually the really old comic books, the ones that were printed kind of weirdly, before you had the technology that allowed you to have smooth, perfect images. They had lots of half-tone errors, and other misprints, and all that. Not to mention that these drawings were drawn on paper, not digitally on a computer. The other inspiration was, because we had to make them move, there wasn’t a lot of examples of comic books moving. Anime was something that obviously inspired us, we looked at the way they handle movements and effects. There was an art that was appropriate in a lot of anime movies. Even pop art, the classic J.W. Turner paintings, anything in the fine art world that looked interesting to us, so we had lots of examples of that. All this inspiration turned out to be great, because the final answer was a little bit of everything.”

Since you mentioned the imperfections of comic books and how it inspired the movie; it’s very interesting because usually, when you are working with CGI, everything has to be perfect with no mistakes. How did you achieve this imperfect look?

Danny Dimian: “Some of it was embracing the things that went wrong in our early tests. Anything that looked interesting but wasn’t what we expected, we would put those aside and we would go “let’s remember this, maybe we can use this somewhere.” Another thing was to use hand drawn elements. In the effects, the majority of the hero pieces were actually hand drawn in 2D, then we used them with 3D in conjunction with simulation. The simulation can do timing, scale, and a lot of things, but the cycles themselves were hand-drawn. There were also all the tools that we wrote to draw on the screen. Our character designer was able to draw all the expressions on our models right on the flat screen, so not on Maya, not in 3D, but flat, to the views that he sees. Those were automatically converted into geometry, so that the rigging crew can rig them, and the animators can animate them. But they all started the way that our character designer decided how he would draw it, the origins of every piece of line work was from him. And they’re not attached to the surface, so with that, you get this imperfection that they’re not connected. The computer is still controlling it, but because it’s not connected, you’re not getting computer perfection. With every step on the way, we were looking for places that we could “break” something. Literally break it in the sense of traditionally, it’s not the way you do it.”

It’s really great how the film takes the best from CGI and hand drawn animation.

Danny Dimian: “Yeah. When we started, we only knew two things. We didn’t want this to be a cartoon. To us, cartoon is a sensibility that is not right for this. It has too much squash and stretch to 2D, and we didn’t want that. At the same time, we didn’t want anything that made people compare it to anything realistic. In the middle of those two, there was this big dark area. That’s another thing I like to tell people who are working on new things, that it’s okay to not know, to get deep into a project, and still not have it all come together. We didn’t really know how the pieces would fit until very late. We just knew we had all these pieces that we liked.”

You’ve been working with Sony for quite a long time…

Danny Dimian: “Yeah, I’ve been doing this job for about 27 years, and I’ve been with Sony for 20 years, starting with Hollow Man.”

…and you worked on Cloudy and Hotel Transylvania…

Danny Dimian: “Yeah, and before that, Surf’s Up and Monster House.”

And these are all very stylized compared to the standards that you see from a Disney or Pixar film, and then there’s Spider-Verse, which is totally stylized. Can you talk about the evolutionary process?

Danny Dimian: “One of the things that helped us on Spider-Verse was the fact that we had executive producers and directors and us, and we all wanted the same thing. Moreover, we had the protection from the Executive Producers to let us do it, and that’s not common. Another thing that helped is having too many Spider-Man movies. Before our film, there was already eight of them. When we did ours, we had to ask, “What do we do to tell people to see yet another one?” That’s where it started. Also, at ImageWorks, we don’t really have a style, and we didn’t have a big hit before. We’re not Pixar that had hit after hit, and each film having a house style, to the point where it’s not really a good idea to do something different. Success is not always a good thing. I mean we did well, but we never had the hit that stuck or constrained by. The fact that we do films not just for Sony Animation, but for other studios, as well, we get to do all these different looks. That leads to a methodology, a pipeline, where you’re always doing something new, and you’re used to that. We had done different things, like Hotel Transylvania, where Genndy Tartakovsky has a style that uses a lot of squash and stretch, but also he wants them shaped in certain ways to the camera, so we had all these tools where it takes the geometry and brakes it to do all kinds of things to the camera. We used all these things in Spider-Verse, as well, to make things look more like the way you might draw it, and not how the geometry would do.”

In the movie, there are six Spider people, each with their own different and unique style. Was there any challenge in balancing out these clashing looks?

Danny Dimian: “The short answer is, yes there was, but not as much, because we had fewer shots. If there were more shots, then it would’ve become more of a challenge to make sure those looks are efficient enough. We had 2700 shots in this movie, because of all the multi-panels and such. Animation now has lots more shots, than it used to. A 2D animated movie usually was 85 minutes and has 1200 shots. The thing that made it not much of a problem was two things. We have a very flexible way of exploring looks just because we didn’t know where things would go, and we had already tried so many things. The other was that you can muscle through many looks if it doesn’t require too many shots.”

For a lot of people, it seems it’s hard to grasp exactly what the animation style of Spider-Verse is. How can you describe it to the general audience?

Danny Dimian: “The animation is definitely a mix of all kinds of ideas. The best way I would describe it is the way I describe the look of the film, and that it’s a collage. It borrows from everything to try to find a new language to fit for this new content. It’s not appropriate for everything, though. We have a couple of other projects at Sony now that are going to look different from what you’ve seen, and it’s meant to look more inspired by physical drawings and paintings, but they don’t look like Spider-Verse at all. For us, that movie’s style is not appropriate for anything except what it was meant for, a comic book. The ideas, however, is what will and should be expanded and put into movies. The idea that people should look at their story and decide what is the best way to tell that story.”

It’s so rare that something like this happens for an animated movie.

Danny Dimian: “This is one of the times that happened to me, as well. Cloudy was something similar, and so was Hollow Man, in a different way. That was fun, because it was a technical challenge. Beforehand, there was no way of doing transformations of bodies, so we had to write the tools ourselves. I talk to people about this experience and what it was like to doing something without any sort of user interface, just people writing code, and writing a script to explain how you visualize things.”

Can you talk about any of your future projects?

Danny Dimian: “As soon as it’s announced and the first trailer comes out, then I can. I can tell you that there’s more stuff coming, and people feel good about things being different. There’s a willingness to try different things, and I’m excited about this, as well. There are little cracks in the wall of CG being just for kids’ movies. If you’d ask me five years ago where I thought animation would go, I would probably be sad with the thought that I might die without ever making an adult animated movie, but it’s less likely that will happen now. Who knows, it’s still a little hard, because it takes a lot of time, effort, and money. But I think people are starting to come around to the fact that it can be just a technique, not a genre to make anything animated. But we will see something out of Europe first before seeing something in the US.”

Interview by Mihály Kobela

Pictures courtesy of VIEW Conference

The post View Conference 2019: interview with Danny Dimian, VFX supervisor for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse appeared first on Imperoland.

Conrad Vernon is a director, writer and storyboard artist. He started out in television, working on classics such as Ren and Stimpy, Rocko’s Modern Life and Dexter’s Laboratory. He joined DreamWorks in 1996, where he directed Shrek 2, Monsters Vs. Aliens and Madagascar 3. Afterwards, he directed the adult animated film Sausage Party. Alex Schwartz has been a producer for over 25 years. She was head of many notable studios, including Touchstone Pictures, Walden Media and DreamWorks Animation, overseeing production on films such as Sister Act, Narnia, Bridge to Terabithia, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, etc. She is currently producing a feature for Sony Pictures Animation.

We had a chance to talk with them at VIEW Conference. Below you can find our interview.

Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano di questa intervista

With this new Addams Family movie, you have basically reintroduced the characters to an audience, most of which has already been familiar with the Barry Sonnenfield movies of the 90s, and their initial reaction to this new version was a bit mixed, due to their strong connection to the live-action films. Has this caused any challenges or concerns during the making of this film, along with the introduction to a new generation?

Conrad Vernon: “What was interesting was when we came out of the character designs, based on the classic designs of the Charles Addams comics, there were some initial shock to people, saying “oh my god, that’s not Raul Julia, that’s not Anjelica Huston!” and then there were the deep, hardcore fans saying “yes, this is based on the original comics, look at those cartoons, this is how they’re supposed to look!”. This little back and forth online was nice to see that people were debating and talking about it.”

Alex Schwartz: “But as you pointed it out, there’s also the new generation, who has nothing to base this on, and I think to them, the Addams Family appeals the same way it did for the older generation with the other adaptations, how they’re freaky and weird and seems to be doing things their own way, and they’re cool looking. People like that.”

Speaking of the character designs, I was wondering how did you actually come up with them? Obviously, they’re based on the comics, but was there any moment during production where it was radically different?

Vernon: “Not really. When starting out, I gave the direction to our character designer, Craig Kellman, to start at the comics, at Charles Addams’ designs and show me what you got. He did a lot of iterations, but it wasn’t so radically different from the original designs, because both of us agreed that the core of the designs should stay at the comics. Everything that Craig changed was just facials, proportions, very subtle stuff. And Craig managed it like a champion, he would give me 15 different designs of Morticia, and each would have very little differences.”

Schwartz: “The other thing that was really fun was the extended family characters he designed.”

Vernon: “Yeah, he took a lot of those from Charles Addams, as well, lots of background characters. There were only 2-3 characters that he did himself.”

Your previous work was Sausage Party, which was a completely different movie, way more adult. Did you have to hold yourself back with jokes and writing when you had to switch back to making an animated feature?

Schwartz: “Every time!” ((everyone laughs))

Vernon: “Obviously! I mean there was no orgy at the end of the film! ((laughs)) What I will say, though, was that I definitely felt the screws being put back on.”

Speaking of the technical factors, this movie was made on a much smaller budget, way less, than your average big animated feature. Has that also created any challenges?

Schwartz: “Oh sure! There were compromises made, but also the solutions often create what then becomes so distinctive. We’ve all come from animation, which has become capable of recreating the world down to the tiniest Addam…I mean, atom ((laughs)) but is that what you really want? Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean that you actually want to do it. I think this movie has a very fun and unique style to it that partly allowed us to make this for the amount of money it cost us.”

Vernon: “Yeah, I would say that, to me, it’s actually a relief to have a lower budget, because the technology has come far enough where you could make it look good for less money. We did Sausage Party at about half as much as The Addams Family. What’s also nice is that we don’t have to make a gigantic amount of money on it for the first weekend, and the others. That caused me a lot of pressure at DreamWorks where our opening weekend was so crucial, otherwise it would’ve sunk us. Here, we made double our budget back at Sausage Party, and we made more than half our budget back in the first weekend of Addams Family, and it really is such a relief.”

Schwartz: “I would say our challenge was more time, than money. Time we couldn’t expand beyond what it was.”

Vernon: “Yeah, absolutely. We actually found out our release date through Variety. And we were like “well, I guess we have two years!”

Schwartz: “Time to write the script!” ((everyone laughs))

How did you work with the voice actors to find the personality for the characters? How did the casting go?

Vernon: “Luckily, we all got our first choices. Since we made the Addams Family immigrants coming to America, we gave the actors the challenge to come up with accents.”

Schwartz: “They actually pitched us accents, and we went through them all. For example, Charlize Theron, who voices Morticia, had done an almost Romanian-sounding accent, and we recorded quite a lot with it, and she ended up sounding like a vampire because of it, so we had to drop the accent, and then she created a sort of mid-Atlantic, Catherine Hepburn kind of accent.”

Vernon: “Bette gave her sense of style and confidence, Oscar came in with that beautiful, romantic Spanish accent. Wednesday and Pugsley don’t have accents, because they are first generation Americans.”

Schwartz: “But Bette Midler’s accent, she was very exacting.”

Vernon: “Yeah, when she called and asked me what accent I want, I would say “how about some unknown country from Eastern Europe?” and she called me back with two or three different versions, and I would pick one of them, and went back and forth, as she read from the script, and we decided on that choice. And of course, Nick Kroll came in, and he didn’t have an accent, but a speech impediment.”

As the sequel has already been announced, can we expect you to return for that one?

Schwartz: “I will not be working on it, because I’ve moved on to something new.”

Vernon: “And I will be doing it as more of a producorial role, I won’t be directing it.”

Interview by Mihály Kobela

Pictures courtesy of VIEW Conference

The post View Conference 2019: The Addams Family, interview with Conrad Vernon and Alex Schwartz appeared first on Imperoland.

1. L’elemento organico, ovvero la natura e gli ambienti. Essi sono ispirati ai fiordi norvegesi, che a loro volta vengono dall’ambientazione della fiaba originale di Hans Christian Andersen (La Regina delle Nevi, a cui Frozen è liberamente ispirato) e dalle ricerche degli artisti sul campo. La natura dà l’elemento di verticalità alla composizione: montagne, cascate, alberi, tutti gli elementi naturali in Frozen si sviluppano verso l’alto dando l’idea di maestosità e dramma.
2. L’architettura, in particolare le chiese di legno tipiche della Norvegia. Esse stabiliscono una forma geometrica ben definita caratterizzata dal triangolo, inoltre sono arricchite dai dettagli come gli intagli nel legno. Le ritroviamo nel castello di Arendelle, che contrasta sia con gli altri castelli Disney che con quanto spiegato al punto 1. Infatti il castello rappresenta l’elemento orizzontale, non si sviluppa in verticale seguendo gli elementi naturali, ma rimane basso sul fiordo e circondato dalle case del paese. Questo crea il contrasto con le montagne e il paesaggio sovrastanti, suggerendo l’opposizione tra senso di dramma e di tranquillità e familiarità.
3. Il Rosemaling, ovvero i dettagli di fiori, incisioni o decori che si rintracciano specialmente negli abiti o negli oggetti (ma non solo). Questo è l’elemento che unifica i personaggi al paesaggio, perché è l’unica cosa che hanno in comune. Per esempio, il mantello di Elsa è decorato con fiocchi di neve, che sono anche la base della struttura del suo palazzo di ghiaccio. In Le Avventure di Olaf si è mantenuto questo elemento: il decoro del mantello ricorda la forma di un albero di Natale, un elemento centrale in un’importante sequenza del film.

Dopo un corto solare ed estivo come Frozen Fever, si è scelto di ambientare Le Avventure di Olaf in inverno, tornando quindi al setting originale freddo e innevato. Con un’importante variazione: mentre nel lungometraggio di Frozen l’inverno doveva dare una sensazione di ostilità, essendo nato dall’incapacità di Elsa di controllare i propri poteri, questa volta ci troviamo a Natale e dunque la sensazione dev’essere quella di famiglia, accoglienza e calore.
Oltre a cambiare i colori della palette è stato quindi necessario studiare di nuovo le luci. Due sono state le ispirazioni principali: la città di Bergen in Norvegia, che ha costituito la base per il villaggio, e un vero Ice Hotel che la crew ha visitato in Quebec. Si tratta di un hotel di ghiaccio che ogni anno viene non solo smontato e rimontato, ma soprattutto decorato con incisioni e giochi di luce. Per Jacomini e il suo team l’osservazione sul campo è stata importante perché ha permesso di visualizzare nella realtà il comportamento della luce sul ghiaccio, e non solo della luce naturale. L’osservazione dell’Ice Hotel è stata combinata con lo studio di spettacoli di Broadway e produzioni teatrali in modo da creare un’illuminazione che non sia totalmente fotorealistica, bensì stilizzata, ma comunque plausibile. In particolare l’utilizzo del cosiddetto “pool of light” permette di separare i personaggi dallo sfondo, ma soprattutto di evocare atmosfere, emozioni, e in generale di aiutare lo spettatore a comprendere cosa il personaggio sta pensando e provando.
Il talk si è concluso infine con la proiezione di una sequenza musicale dal corto, accompagnata dalla canzone That Time Of Year. La sequenza comprende anche una scena in cui gli animatori hanno giocato con la stilizzazione bidimensionale dei personaggi, realizzandoli come se fossero intrecciati in un tessuto di lana.

Ecco infine alcune domande che abbiamo posto a Jacomini per approfondire:
Durante il tuo talk hai parlato dell’organicità del franchise di Frozen: i cortometraggi saranno in continuity con i due film, per un progetto che non ha praticamente eguali su questa larga scala. A livello di studio, chi è che controlla e mantiene questa coerenza interna, soprattutto dal momento che i registi possono cambiare, come è accaduto per Le Avventure di Olaf?
La mente e il cuore dei nostri progetti è certamente John Lasseter, che ci coordina insieme a Ed Catmull. Ma è soprattutto John ad avere la visione d’insieme. È davvero un geniaccio, che ha capito le potenzialità del mondo di Frozen e ha capito che valeva la pena portarlo avanti e mantenerlo vivo. Ha visto che c’era la possibilità di raccontare nuove storie e che quell’universo non si era esaurito con il primo film. Ovviamente poi John si affida agli autori originali, nel caso per esempio del corto Frozen Fever la necessità l’hanno sentita i registi del film Chris Buck e Jennifer Lee: avevano da pochi mesi finito di girare Frozen, ma la voglia di tornare a lavorare con quei personaggi era talmente tanta che hanno voluto raccontare una nuova storia.
Hai parlato anche di un uso dell’illuminazione più “stilizzato”. Come si confronta questo con l’utilizzo che ne fa per esempio la Pixar, che ha uno stile più prettamente fotorealistico?
Tutto è in funzione della storia: come tecnici e artisti dobbiamo sempre rapportarci a ciò che stiamo narrando. È vero, in Pixar utilizzano uno stile più fotorealistico, ma a ben vedere è perché è le storie che raccontano lo richiedono. La Pixar vuole che lo spettatore si immedesimi in una macchina o in un giocattolo, e dunque deve dare all’oggetto tangibilità e mantenere canoni di realismo più elevati per raggiungere questo obiettivo. Il mondo Disney è invece spesso più fiabesco e si può permettere quindi di essere più stilizzato. È poi assolutamente vero che c’è una tradizione espressiva molto forte, che viene dal nostro passato come studio e in particolare dall’esperienza dell’animazione a mano. Ma per come produciamo film oggi non è una cosa decisa a tavolino, i nostri filmmakers non vanno a ricercare quella particolare estetica semplicemente perché ce l’hanno già nel DNA, sono formati in quel modo di narrare e in quella raffinatezza visiva, e inoltre ne sono grandissimi appassionati. Per esempio, Mike Giaimo che ho citato durante la presentazione è in Disney fin da Pocahontas, ed è una persona di grande cultura e raffinatissima. Quando ci parli capisci che si porta dietro le influenze e la lezione del passato, che a sua volta ha imparato dai grandissimi di una volta, che l’hanno tramandata fin dalla fondazione dello studio. Per me è una grandissima fortuna e un onore poter lavorare con artisti così talentuosi.

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Che Cars sia uno dei film d’animazione più amati degli ultimi tempi non è certo una novità. Eppure non tutti sanno che dietro il successo del film c’è l’incredibile storia di un uomo che non si è mai arreso. Parliamo di Angel Delgadillo, che con estremo coraggio ha salvato la sua cittadina, guadagnandosi così il soprannome di “Angelo della Route 66”.
Siamo nel 1978, Angel è un semplice barbiere e insieme a sua moglie Wilma si è costruito un angolo di felicità nella sua città natale, Seligman, in Arizona. Grazie alla Highway 66 ogni giorno un cospicuo numero di viaggiatori attraversa la piccola cittadina, diventando così la sua primaria fonte di ricchezza.

Il 22 settembre dello stesso anno accade qualcosa che cambierà radicalmente la vita delle piccole comunità lungo la Highway 66: viene inaugurata la nuova e moderna Interstate 40, un’autostrada veloce che permette ai viaggiatori di raggiungere le loro mete nel minor tempo possibile, tagliando fuori intere cittadine e strade, come ad esempio il tratto di strada della Highway 66 tra Kingman e Seligman, chiamato Route 66. Adesso gli automobilisti non hanno più motivo di fermarsi a riposare a Seligman, e ben presto la città inizia a finire nel dimenticatoio.
Tutti cominciano ad abbandonare Seligman tentando fortuna altrove, ma Angel non si dà per vinto. Fonda la Route 66 Association of Arizona e comincia un periodo estenuante di battaglie affinché lo stato dell’Arizona riconosca l’importanza storica di quel territorio.
Dopo nove anni, nel 1987, Angel vede il suo sogno finalmente divenire realtà, e nasce così la Historic Route 66. Oggi Angel vive ancora a Seligman e gestisce il Route 66 Gift Shop insieme a sua moglie Wilma.
Noi di Impero Disney siamo riusciti a contattarlo per una piccola intervista, ed ecco cosa ci ha raccontato.

Foto: http://www.chicagotribune.com

Con la sua incredibile storia ha ispirato le persone a non arrendersi anche quando tutto sembra perduto. Lei non si è arreso, ed è riuscito a restituire alla Route 66 lo splendore di un tempo. Cos’è che l’ha spinta a continuare a lottare dopo gli innumerevoli rifiuti da parte del governo?
Sono nato il 19 aprile 1927, i miei otto fratelli e sorelle sono cresciuti durante la Depressione, i nostri genitori ci hanno insegnato ad arrangiarci, a fare qualcosa di buono con ciò che si ha a disposizione, e quello che avevamo noi era davvero poco. Dai tempi duri si impara tanto, perciò “No, non puoi!” non esisteva nel nostro vocabolario. Quando siamo stati bypassati dall’Interstate 40 in quell’orribile giorno di settembre 1978, il mio mondo si è fermato. Siamo passati da 9000 macchine che viaggiavano di fronte al mio negozio sulla Route 66, a interi giorni senza vederne nemmeno una. Sono nato e cresciuto a Seligman e i miei quattro figli erano nel pieno della gioventù, io e mia moglie non volevamo fare le valigie e trasferirci. Ho combattuto così duramente per far sì che la Route 66 acquisisse un’importanza storica e ci restituisse la nostra ricchezza, sia a Seligman, sia a tutte le altre piccole cittadine nei dintorni che erano state dimenticate. Era una battaglia che dovevo vincere, perché l’alternativa era abbandonare la mia terra insieme a molti altri e lasciarla morire.
Qual è l’importanza storica che lei attribuisce alla Route 66?
Per me ciò che più conta della Route 66 sono le persone felici che viaggiano e ricordano come era ai miei tempi. La Route 66 ha catturato l’immaginazione dei viaggiatori provenienti da tutto il mondo, ha unito persone diverse. La Route 66 non è solo una strada, è l’insieme di tutte le persone che vivono e lavorano lì, e delle persone che la visitano.

Foto: http://www.stevelovelessphotography.com

John Lasseter in persona l’ha intervistata per il film Pixar Cars. Com’è stato per lei sapere di essere fonte d’ispirazione per uno dei film d’animazione più amati in assoluto?
Sono stato intervistato da John Lasseter il 12 giugno 2001. Essere d’ispirazione per il film Cars è una delle cose più belle che mi siano mai successe. Incontrare le persone che hanno visto il film ed essere ringraziato per aver salvato un pezzo dell’America è una grande soddisfazione. Spero di essere un modello per le giovani generazioni, perché anche una sola persona può fare la differenza. Credo questo sia il messaggio più importante da passare ai giovani.
Il film ha avuto qualche impatto sulla zona?
Quando alla Route 66 è stata riconosciuta l’importanza storica, la maggior parte dei visitatori erano adulti. Dopo l’uscita del film Cars, nel 2006, intere famiglie sono venute a visitare la Route 66 e Seligman. L’impatto che il film ha avuto è sicuramente positivo per Seligman e per tutte le piccole cittadine della Route 66.
Domanda ovvia: cosa ne pensa del film? Le è piaciuto?
Amo il film Cars perché ha catturato l’immaginazione dei bambini, la prossima generazione dei supporters della Route 66. Questo film è un vero e proprio dono per la Route 66 e per tutte le persone che la amano. Grazie per avermi incluso nella vostra fanpage italiana!

The post Cars: la vera storia di Angel Delgadillo, l’angelo della Route 66 appeared first on Imperoland.

Both the Bancroft Brothers have a remarkable experience in the animation industry. They each spent about 12 years at Disney Animation, where they contributed to the creation of some of the most beloved characters of the studio. Tom was supervising animator for Mushu from Mulan, and he also worked on Iago (Aladdin) and little Simba (The Lion King). Among Tony’s contributions to the Disney legacy: Pumbaa (The Lion King), Kronk (The Emperor’s New Groove) and the feature film Mulan which he co-directed.

While at Lucca, our writers Irene, Giulia and Alessandro sat down with the artists to talk about the disappearance of 2D animation and the past and future of the art of animation at Disney.

Irene: Aside from being big Disney fans, one of the reasons why we’re here today is that I was listening to your podcast and I actually provided a tiny Italian translation on our blog of the episode where you and Nik Ranieri discuss the death of 2D. That article became very popular on Impero Disney and that made me happy, because nobody really knows what really happened at Disney with 2D animation. And nowadays if you ask someone from Disney, they all say the same things like “It’s up to the director” or “We are willing to try but…”

Tony Bancroft: But that’s not true, that’s kind of a company line that they have to say. I think it started out to be true when John Lasseter first came back and he became president of Disney Animation. He likes 2D, he loves the tradition of it, it’s what he grew up on and he never wanted to be the one to kill it, obviously. So his line was: if it’s right for the project, then we’ll do it. But there was no project that was ever right. So you can’t say that was true when very single project was actually pushed towards CGI. And I don’t see there’s any change in the near future either. Now I think it’s got to the point where directors don’t even ask if they can do a project in 2D. The studio isn’t even set up for it anymore.

Tom Bancroft: At the beginning we felt like: “Ok, 2D can still happen, we can submit an idea and maybe it could be a 2D film”. But I think what we didn’t know for many years was that on the other side there was the business and the marketing people and the executives, and they had made up their minds that they were not gonna do 2D anymore, that it didn’t sell and that the world wanted computer animation. We didn’t know that yet but I think everybody knows it know. They’re still saying things like that because they know that’s what Disney wants them to say, but at this point it’s obvious it’s not true. And also, the other part is: there are no 2D films in the pipeline. And the pipeline is ten years out, they have films slated for at least ten years, so if there’s no 2D planned you basically can say it’s dead.

Irene: And they don’t have the animators anymore. Almost everyone left.

Tom: I’ll tell a secret just for your article. That’s never been said. When Lasseter came back and they were shutting down the Disney Florida Animation Studio – which is where I worked – the rumor was that Lasseter and Catmull were thinking to buy the Florida studio and make a separate studio from Pixar that was a 2D studio. You can say it’s a rumor but I do know there were actual people checking out for Ed Catmull to find out if they could take over the studio and create a separate company that would be a 2D studio. I think it was John’s way to keep 2D alive, but unfortunately it didn’t work out.

Irene: And now they’re making Moana in CGI and it kills me.

Tom: Right. But there is some 2D animation in it, have you seen the trailer? It’s by Eric Goldberg, he did all this beautiful animation of the tattoo character. Mark Henn too, by the way. I had lunch with Mark Henn and he told me that Eric was in charge of the little tattoo character and then they added more footage ‘cause every time they had a screening people were like: “Oh, I love that! We want more!”. And so they added more and added more, and Eric couldn’t do it all so they brought in Mark Henn to help.

Irene: I think they’re the only 2d animators left, right?

Tony: I think there’s more than just them… Randy Haycock is probably still there.

Tom: There’s about five… maybe three. I know, that’s very sad.

Irene: It’s sad because I feel like people really miss 2D but the company just doesn’t understand that.

Tony: We hear that from so many fans just like you. All the fans that we know are just like you guys. But everything changes. And it’s a big corporation, it’s business first, that’s what we always have to remember. Even though we’re artists and even though you’re fans at the end of the day they’re gonna do what’s right if they think it’s gonna make money. It’s always art vs commerce, right?

Tom: But I will say that it’s great for us to hear and especially here in Europe and from Italians how much you love 2D and how much you want it back. We’ve heard it in the USA but I think there’s probably an even bigger group here in Europe that loves 2D. And I also think it thrives here a little bit more than it does in the USA. You still have Bruno Bozzetto, for example. We don’t have that really. We have some small little studios I guess, but…

Tony: 2D animation in the USA is more about TV animation, TV series and commercials here and there. Nothing on the feature level at all.

Tom: Actually I was excited when I saw that Moana had a little 2D in it. I thought, well that’s something! And what it does is, because people love it so much and they keep asking for more, it does help the executives to remember that maybe it’s not so dead. I mean, look, people are asking for it! But I do think that if it comes back, and even if Disney saw that it had value again, to me what they would do is they would find a studio like Ken Duncan’s and they would hire them to make a film. They just don’t have the means to do that anymore, equipment is gone, all the artists are gone.

Tony: The weird thing is, it would be considered a risk. They would never take that kind of risk to make a full 2D animated feature without trying to outsource it first, ‘cause it would be less expensive. If they tried to do it all in house again – hire everybody back, make some more animation desks, buy paper and pencils – it would be so expensive it would be too much of a risk for their first movie. So it’s cheaper for them to go like “Maybe it would work but we’re not gonna be so invested: we’ll just hire somebody else to do it and make it look like a Disney film”.

Irene: What I think it’s funny is that I feel like CGI at the moment is trying to imitate 2D animation. At Disney, for example, they do a lot of pencil tests and stuff to make it look like 2D. And I really don’t get why… can’t you just make it in 2D?

Tom: Oh yeah, you look at the pencil tests and they’re beautiful, right? Did you ever see the King Candy one by Eric Goldberg? I was like: “That looks great, why can’t they just make it look like that?” And the CG version was great too, I can’t say it wasn’t good… but it was already done, they already had it on paper.

Irene: I met the supervising animator for Blue Sky’s Peanuts movie and he was giving a talk about how much money and time they spent on trying to imitate the 2D feel of Schulz’s line. And I was like… why?

Tony: My feeling is just like yours: why don’t just do it in 2D? Why even try to do it in 3D? They had those couple little thought-baloon moments where it was all 2D and that was great! Do the whole movie like that!

Tom: I will say, artistically, they did such an incredible job that to me had value. But was it worth the effort? I don’t know, probably not.

Giulia: So let’s go back to Mulan, probably your best known work for Disney. Can you talk about the development of the movie and how you created this incredible feminist heroine who is so different from all the previous Disney princesses?

Tony: I have three daughters, Tom has four daughters and that was one of the things I was attracted to when the film first came my way. I came on to the project a little later in its development, it had been in development for a good year a least, and I had just come off working on The Lion King and was working on The Hunchback of Notre Dame. So I got a call one day, and they asked me to come on board as a co-director. I knew about the project already ‘cause Tom and other friends in Florida were working on it, but I knew that they were struggling with the story. When I first read the material, it was much more serious than I had anticipated and I thought: “We’ve got to make this fun!”. In fact, that was one of the main things I think I’ve brought into the film – the humor. But above that I was attracted to this woman, this girl that would do anything for her father’s love and for her family. That was there from the beginning, it was the seed of the whole story. And at the time I only had one child and my wife was pregnant with our second daughter. I wanted to be able to give back to my daughters a heroine that they could look up to for the next generation.You know, things had changed even from Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid where the heroine was more traditional and based on fairytales. With Mulan we really had a chance to develop a character that would inspire the next generation. Also, Mulan is not sexy. She’s not supposed to be sexy. We had a lot of conversations and did a lot of drawings of the character design to understand how womanly she had to look. Obviously we had a problem because she has to look like a man at a certain point, but the nice thing about 2D – and this is why 2D animation rocks – is that we could cheat. Literally if you see the models for her as a girl and her as a boy they’re different. As a boy she has harder jaws, the lips are drawn differently, the eyes are different, the jawline is different. It works in the movie but if you looked at it side by side you’ll see the cheats we did.

Tom: I’ll tell you a story. Before Mulan came out, I went to a convention in Boston. At the time I was working on Mushu and we were about halfway through the film, so people had heard that the movie was gonna come out. I was signing autographs and I think I showed a little clip of Mushu and a Chinese man came into my line with his little girl. He told me that, being a super Disney fan, he wanted to share his love for Disney with his daughter and he had got so excited when he heard that we were doing Mulan, because he grew up hearing that story as a little boy and it was the only story he’d ever heard that was about a woman. This was the only Chinese story that he knew growing up that was about a female that was powerful and strong. And he talked about how he could not wait to share his love of Disney and of this powerful woman with his daughter. He started crying as he was telling me this and it was the most moving thing. I’ll never forget that. I came home and told Tony, because we were right in middle of figuring out who she was, and to hear this story really affected the film. I was doing Mushu, and he’s funny, it wasn’t really the feminist side of the film at all, but this made me look at the movie in a different way.

Irene: And now they’re making a live action Mulan. Are you excited about that?

Tony: I don’t really care. To me that’s just another business choice that Disney made. They took all the old movies and now they’re making the live action version of all their movies.

Giulia: Like the Lion King live action…

Tony: That’s the one that angers me the most. The Lion King being all CGI… it doesn’t make sense. They’re gonna go super realistic that it’s just like, why don’t do mouth replacing on real lions? But anyway, we interviewed for our podcast Ming-Na Wen and she cared more about the Mulan live action for sure. She was, I think, hoping to get a part in it. And she even said that maybe her daughter, who is now an actress, could play Mulan.

Giulia: Our last question is about the artbook you’re presenting here at Lucca Comics & Games. Can you talk about how the idea of the book was born and how did you select the artwork? 

Tony: Tom has always done sketchbooks from years past and we would always go to Comic-Con in San Diego and usually it was just Tom signing his artbooks and I would just be there saying hi to people. And so he suggested I should get a sketchbook too. I don’t draw as much anymore as Tom does, ‘cause I do more directing and producing, but I would have been happy to do it. So Nemo Academy came to me, and they had produced one for Tom already, like two years ago. They asked if I would be happy to do a sketchbook of my work too, and since I loved what they did for Tom and Sandro Cleuzo and Andreas Deja I said absolutely! Then I put together all the artwork. Some of it is new, some of it is older. I wanted it to have some Disney stuff in there and then a lot of personal drawings, cartoony stuff that I like to do, funny creatures… So there’s a lot of variety in there, from cute Disney stuff to weird zombies. It kinda represents everything that I like.

Click here to listen to the Bancroft Brothers podcast or get it on ITunes!

Click here to buy The Art of Tom Bancroft and the Tony Bancroft Sketchbook

Check out this blog again in a few days for a full video review of the two books as part of our recommended Christmas gifts video tag!

The post Lucca Comics 2016: the Bancroft Brothers on the “death of 2D”, past and future of Disney animation appeared first on Imperoland.

I fratelli Bancroft vantano una lunga esperienza (terminata per entrambi intorno agli anni 2000) all’interno degli studi di animazione Disney, dove hanno contribuito ad alcuni tra i film e i personaggi più amati di sempre. Tom è infatti la matita che ha creato il drago Mushu, oltre ad aver contribuito ad altri personaggi come Iago e Simba cucciolo. Tra le creazioni di Tony ci sono invece personaggi come Kronk e Pumbaa, nonché il film Mulan, di cui è stato co-regista.

I nostri Irene, Giulia e Alessandro hanno parlato con i due artisti della scomparsa dell’animazione tradizionale, del passato e del futuro dell’arte ai Disney Studios. Ecco il resoconto della nostra chiacchierata.

Irene: Oltre ad essere grandi fan Disney, uno dei motivi per cui siamo qui con voi è che tra gli articoli più popolari del nostro blog c’è una traduzione in italiano del vostro podcast in cui avete discusso insieme a Nik Ranieri la morte del 2D. Per la prima volta qualcuno ha avuto il coraggio di dire cosa è successo realmente alla Disney, quando attualmente li sentiamo ripetere continuamente cose come “dipende dal regista” o “noi vorremmo rifare film in 2D, ma…”

Tony Bancroft: Non è per niente vero, sono solo cose che la company gli impone di dire. Penso che fosse vero all’inizio, quando John Lasseter è tornato ed è diventato presidente della Disney Animation. Lui adora il 2D, ama la sua tradizione, è la tecnica con cui è cresciuto e non avrebbe mai voluto essere lui ad ucciderla, ovviamente. Quindi il suo motto era: se è la tecnica adatta per il progetto, allora la useremo. Ma il fatto è che nessun progetto era mai adatto. Perciò ciò che diceva non poteva essere vero se poi ogni film veniva automaticamente spinto verso la CGI. E non vedo nessun cambiamento nei prossimi anni su questo fronte. Adesso penso che siamo arrivati al punto in cui i registi non osano neppure chiedere se possono sviluppare un progetto in 2D. Lo studio non ha neanche più i mezzi per farlo.

Tom Bancroft: Inizialmente pensavamo: “ok, possiamo ancora proporre un’idea e magari potrebbe diventare un film in 2D”. Ma ciò che non sapevamo è che dall’altra parte c’erano i dirigenti e i responsabili del marketing e loro ormai avevano deciso che non avrebbero più fatto film in 2D, che quella tecnica non vendeva più e che il mondo voleva la computer animation. Allora non lo sapevamo, ma credo che oggi sia molto chiaro. Dicono ancora cose come quelle perché è ciò che la Disney si aspetta che dicano, ma è ovvio che non è vero. E inoltre non ci sono film in programma nella loro pipeline, ovvero da qui ai prossimi 10 anni. E se non ci sono film in 2D nei piani, possiamo praticamente definirla una tecnica morta.

Irene: E non hanno più neanche gli animatori, perché ve ne siete andati tutti.

Tom: Vi dirò un segreto che non è mai stato rivelato, solo per il vostro articolo. Quando Lasseter arrivò alla Disney e mentre stavano chiudendo il Disney Florida Animation Studio, ovvero dove lavoravo io, c’erano dei rumor che dicevano che Lasseter e Catmull fossero in trattative per comprarlo e renderlo uno studio separato dalla Pixar che si occupasse solo di film in 2D. Certo, è solo un rumor, ma so per certo che c’erano delle persone che stavano portando avanti l’affare per conto di Catmull. Penso che per John fosse un modo di mantenere vivo il 2D, ma purtroppo non ha funzionato.

Irene: E ora stanno facendo Moana in CGI e questo mi uccide!

Tom: Esatto. Ma c’è un po’ di animazione tradizionale nel film, hai visto il trailer? È di Eric Goldberg, ha realizzato queste animazioni stupende del tatuaggio di Maui. E c’è coinvolto anche Mark Henn. Ho pranzato con lui e mi ha raccontato che Eric aveva il compito di animare il personaggio del tatuaggio, ma che ogni volta che la Disney faceva degli screen test il pubblico era tipo: “Che bello! Ne vogliamo ancora!”. E così hanno aggiunto sempre più scene disegnate in 2D, Eric non riusciva più ad animarle da solo e gli hanno affiancato Mark Henn.

Irene: Sono gli unici due animatori 2D rimasti, vero?

Tony: Dovrebbero essercene anche altri… Randy Haycock dovrebbe essere ancora lì.

Tom: Ce ne saranno circa cinque… forse tre. Lo so, è molto triste.

Irene: È triste perché mi sembra che alla gente manchi il 2D, ma che l’azienda non lo capisca.

Tony: Ce lo dicono molti fan come voi. Tutti quelli che conosciamo sono esattamente come voi. Ma le cose cambiano e la Disney è una grande azienda, è prima di tutto un business e questo dobbiamo ricordarcelo sempre. Anche se noi siamo artisti e voi siete fan, alla fine loro fanno quello che fanno solo se genera un profitto. È l’eterno dibattito dell’arte VS il mercato, no?

Tom: Ma vi dirò che per noi è fantastico sentire, specialmente qui in Europa e specialmente da voi italiani, quanto amate il 2D e quanto volete un suo ritorno. Ce lo hanno detto anche negli USA, ma credo che qui in Europa ci sia un gruppo di appassionati ancora più grande. E penso anche che qui da voi riesca a sopravvivere un po’ di più; per esempio avete ancora Bruno Bozzetto. Noi non lo abbiamo. Ci sono dei piccoli studi, ma…

Tony: L’animazione 2D negli Stati Uniti è rivolta più che altro alla televisione, alle serie tv e alle pubblicità. Assolutamente niente a livello cinematografico.

Tom: Infatti sono stato contento quando ho visto che Moana aveva delle scene in 2D. Se non altro è qualcosa! E l’effetto che farà, siccome il pubblico lo adora così tanto e continua a chiederne ancora, aiuterà i dirigenti a ricordare che forse questa tecnica non è morta del tutto. Insomma, guardate!, il pubblico lo desidera ancora. Comunque penso che se tornerà e se mai la Disney ne vedrà di nuovo il valore, ciò che faranno sarà trovare uno studio esterno come quello di Ken Duncan e assumerli per fare un film. Non hanno più i mezzi ormai: tutti gli artisti se ne sono andati e anche l’attrezzatura non c’è più.

Tony: Sarebbe considerato un rischio. Non correrebbero mai il rischio di produrre un film animato interamente in 2D senza provare a produrlo fuori. In questo modo sarebbe meno costoso. Se dovessero farlo nei loro studi dovrebbero richiamare di nuovo tutti gli animatori, comprare altri tavoli da lavoro, carta e matite e diventerebbe così costoso che per loro sarebbe un rischio troppo elevato. È più facile dire “ok, forse può funzionare, ma noi ci limiteremo a assumere un esterno e ad assicurarci che sembri un film Disney”.

Irene: La cosa che mi fa ridere è che mi sembra che la CGI al momento si stia evolvendo verso l’imitazione dell’animazione 2D. Alla Disney per esempio utilizzano molto i pencil test per far sì che i loro personaggi sembrino animati a mano. E non capisco il perché… perché non farlo direttamente in 2D?

Tom: È vero. Quando guardo i pencil test e sono bellissimi penso “sembra stupendo, perché non possono semplicemente tenerlo così?”. Avete mai visto quello di Re Candito fatto da Eric Goldberg? Anche la versione in CGI non era male, non posso dire che era brutta… ma ce l’avevano già, era già perfetto su carta.

Irene: Per esempio, ho incontrato il supervisore dell’animazione per il film dei Peanuts della Blue Sky e mi ha parlato di quanti soldi e quanto tempo hanno impiegato per ricreare in 3D il design e la linea di Schulz. Mi sono trattenuta dal chiedergli il senso di questa operazione… 

Tony: La penso esattamente come te. Perché non farlo direttamente in 2D? Perché anche solo pensare di farlo in 3D? Nel film c’erano quei brevi momenti in cui Charlie Brown pensa tramite dei baloon disegnati ed erano bellissimi! Avrebbero dovuto fare tutto il film in quel modo.

Tom: Dal punto di vista artistico per me hanno fatto un lavoro incredibile e sicuramente ha valore. Ma ne è valsa la pena di spendere tutto quel tempo e tutti quei soldi? Non saprei, probabilmente no.

Giulia: Cambiando argomento, parliamo di Mulan, probabilmente il vostro lavoro più noto per la Disney. Potete parlarci dello sviluppo del film e della creazione di questa eroina femminista così diversa dalle altre principesse Disney? 

Tony: Io ho tre figlie, Tom ne ha quattro e il personaggio di Mulan è stato una delle cose che mi hanno attratto di più quando ho iniziato a lavorare al film. Mi sono unito al progetto un po’ più tardi, quando ormai era passato un anno dall’inizio della lavorazione. Avevo appena finito di lavorare a Il Re Leone e stavo lavorando a Il Gobbo di Notre-Dame quando mi è arrivata una telefonata con la qualche mi hanno chiesto di diventare il co-regista di Mulan. Conoscevo il progetto perché Tom e altri amici in Florida ci stavano già lavorando e sapevo che erano in difficoltà con la storia. La prima volta che ho letto lo script ho pensato che fosse molto serio e che andavano aggiunti più elementi comici. Infatti penso che questo sia uno dei maggiori contributi che ho dato alla pellicola: l’umorismo. Ma più di ogni altra cosa, sono rimasto affascinato da questa ragazza che avrebbe fatto di tutto per suo padre e per la sua famiglia. E questo era un elemento presente fin dall’inizio, proprio la cellula iniziale dell’intera storia. All’epoca avevo solo una figlia e mia moglie era incinta della nostra seconda bambina. Volevo poter regalare alle mie figlie un’eroina a cui ispirarsi per gli anni a venire. Le cose erano cambiate da La Bella e la Bestia e La Sirenetta, dove la protagonista era più tradizionale e basata sulle fiabe. Con Mulan avevamo davvero l’opportunità di realizzare un personaggio che avrebbe ispirato la generazione successiva. Tra l’altro, Mulan non è pensata per essere una donna sexy. Abbiamo discusso molto su quanto doveva essere femminile, anche perché ovviamente a un certo punto del film deve sembrare un uomo. Ma la cosa bella dell’animazione 2D – ed ecco un altro punto che rende il 2D fantastico – è che ci ha permesso di barare un po’. Infatti se guardate i disegni di Mulan ragazza e di Mulan ragazzo sono leggermente diversi. Quando è un ragazzo ha la mandibola diversa, le labbra diverse, gli occhi diversi… Nel film funziona e non te ne accorgi, ma guardando i nostri modelli ci si accorge subito che abbiamo barato.

Tom: Io vi racconto una storia. Prima dell’uscita del film mi sono recato ad una convention a Boston. Al tempo stavo lavorando su Mushu ed eravamo circa a metà produzione, quindi il pubblico sapeva dell’uscita di questo lungometraggio. Stavo firmando autografi e credo di aver mostrato anche una breve clip di Mushu, quando un signore cinese è venuto da me insieme alla sua bambina. Mi ha detto che da super fan Disney qual era non vedeva l’ora di condividere la sua passione con la figlia e che si era emozionato tantissimo quando aveva letto che la Disney stava realizzando Mulan, perché tra le storie della sua infanzia quella era l’unica che aveva come protagonista una donna. Era l’unica leggenda cinese che mostrava una donna forte e combattiva. Mi ha detto che non vedeva l’ora di condividere tutto questo con sua figlia e mentre lo diceva si è messo a piangere. È stato un momento molto commovente e non lo dimenticherò mai. Sono andato a casa e l’ho detto subito a Tony, perché in quel periodo stavamo proprio cercando di capire chi fosse davvero Mulan. Ascoltare quella storia ha influito molto sul film. Io dopotutto stavo lavorando a Mushu, un personaggio comico che non è esattamente la parte femminista del film, ma questa esperienza mi ha fatto guardare alla pellicola con occhi diversi.

Irene: E ora stanno facendo una versione live action di Mulan. Che ne pensate?

Tony: Non mi interessa affatto. È solo un’altra scelta della Disney per fare soldi. Adesso prendono i film vecchi e fanno la versione live action di ogni classico.

Giulia: Come il live action del Re Leone…

Tony: Quello è il progetto che più mi fa arrabbiare. Il Re Leone interamente in CGI non ha alcun senso. Lo faranno super realistico, e allora perché non sostituire il labiale alle riprese di leoni veri? Comunque, per il nostro podcast abbiamo intervistato Ming-Na Wen (voce originale di Mulan, ndr) e lei era decisamente molto interessata al live action di Mulan. Penso che voglia una parte nel film. E ha anche suggerito che sua figlia potrebbe magari interpretare Mulan.

Giulia: La nostra ultima domanda riguarda l’artbook che Tony presenta in anteprima a Lucca Comics & Games. Puoi parlarci di come è nata l’idea per questo libro e della selezione delle opere?

Tony: Tom ha fatto molti sketchbook in passato e quando andavamo al Comic-Con di San Diego normalmente lui passava il tempo a firmare i suoi libri, mentre io stavo semplicemente lì a dire ciao ai fan. Perciò mi ha suggerito di pubblicare anch’io un artbook. Non disegno così tanto come fa lui, perché oggi mi occupo più di dirigere e produrre film, ma mi sarebbe piaciuto molto realizzare un libro del genere. Così la Nemo Academy, che due anni fa ha pubblicato l’artbook di Tom, mi ha scritto proponendomi di realizzarne uno tutto mio. E dato che ho adorato ciò che hanno fatto per Tom, Sandro Cleuzo e Andreas Deja ho risposto ovviamente di sì! Poi ho raccolto tutto il materiale: alcune cose sono nuove e altre no. Volevo che ci fossero dei disegni Disney e poi molti lavori personali, figure cartoonose e creature bizzarre… C’è molta varietà all’interno, da adorabili design Disney a buffi zombie. Più o meno rappresenta tutto ciò che mi piace.

Cliccate qui per ascoltare il The Bancroft Brothers podcast (anche su ITunes)!

Cliccate qui per acquistare The Art of Tom Bancroft e Tony Bancroft Sketchbook

Tra qualche giorno sarà online la nostra recensione completa dei due libri per il nostro video tag dedicato ai regali di Natale!

The post Lucca Comics 2016: i fratelli Bancroft sulla scomparsa del 2D, il passato e il futuro della Disney appeared first on Imperoland.

Secondo l’attrice, la sceneggiatura è stata quasi completata e si comincerà il doppiaggio tra questo e il prossimo mese. Sembra quindi che Frozen 2 sia una priorità per lo studio e che ci sia la (comprensibile) intenzione di farlo uscire il prima possibile.

La Bell non ha potuto invece sbilanciarsi sulle canzoni. “Star Wars non è l’unica saga per cui la Disney tiene tutto segreto”, ha scherzato, spiegando di non poter fornire nessuna anticipazione sui nuovi brani composti da Robert Lopez e Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

Le è stato infine chiesto come mai la Disney abbia impiegato ben due anni per annunciare un film che era dato praticamente per scontato, considerato l’incredibile successo ottenuto da Frozen al box office. Pare però che Frozen 2 sia stata una scelta discussa in Disney: pochi Classici della lista ufficiale della produzione dei Walt Disney Animation Studios hanno ricevuto dei sequel, mentre la maggior parte dei seguiti sono stati prodotti dai Disney Toon Studios e sono usciti direttamente per l’home video.

Secondo Kristen Bell, l’annuncio ufficiale è arrivato così tardi per permettere ai registi Chris Buck e Jennifer Lee di trovare una storia “che fosse necessario raccontare. Volevano qualcosa di significativo, e penso che ora lo abbiano trovato.”

The post Kristen Bell: “la sceneggiatura di Frozen 2 è pronta” appeared first on Imperoland.

Qui sotto il video con le prime domande ai due fondatori di Impero: Alessandro Biti e Irene Rosignoli.

Presto online anche le interviste ai nostri amministratori Jacopo Iovannitti, Lorenzo Dottorini e Martina Sionne.

The post Impero Disney intervistato da Avedon Artistic appeared first on Imperoland.

Ne abbiamo parlato con il supervisore alla direzione tecnica, Bill Watral, alla View Conference di Torino.

Trovate l’intervista su Movieforkids.it cliccando sull’immagine di seguito.

The post View Conference: su Movieforkids.it il report dal panel di Lava appeared first on Imperoland.