00:00Scrat was an idea that Chris Wedge had.
00:27He wanted to find a character who could somehow symbolize and introduce us into the world
00:36of the film.
00:38And he worked with the animators and with Peter Deceve in creating this character.
00:43Hello everybody, my name is Peter Deceve and I'm the character designer on Ice Age and
00:49Ice Age 2 The Meltdown.
00:51I'm glad you came to the studio today because I'm going to teach you how to draw probably
00:56my favorite character in the Ice Age movies, the Scrat.
00:59I start with the eyes.
01:01The Scrat, he's always got his eyes wide open, usually in terror or surprise.
01:09And his nose is basically a tube, very simple shape.
01:14And at the end of that tube is a triangle.
01:17He's got those long saber teeth.
01:20And the front, if you look at them, they are also triangles.
01:26His body, it's like a very big triangle.
01:29And connected to the triangle, for his legs, his haunches, is a big circle, two big circles.
01:36One behind the triangle, one in front of it.
01:40Moving off the circle are his feet, and those are tubes.
01:46At the end of the tubes are little triangles, little pizza slices.
01:52Those are his toes.
01:54His arm is just, it's like the letter L, very basic.
02:00And at the end of that are more of these triangles, and those are his fingers.
02:04Here's an interesting fact about the Scrat.
02:07You may never have noticed this before, but he doesn't have a thumb.
02:11He has no thumbs.
02:12Don't ask me why.
02:14His tail is a very long football shape.
02:18You know what a football looks like.
02:20Very basic shape.
02:22Those hairs coming out of his cheeks, you could draw them like you did his fingers and his toes.
02:29Like very little triangles.
02:32And for his ears, you can use like a tiny football shape.
02:36Now what's missing in this picture, I think it's pretty obvious.
02:39He has to be holding an acorn.
02:45Because what's the Scrat without his acorn?
02:50After I get the very basic shapes, I want to render it.
02:53And when I say render, I mean I'm adding a little bit of shadow, and it's making it feel
02:59a little bit more realistic, like a little fuller.
03:02So I pick one side of the shape, and I put a little tone, a little bit of a shadow.
03:08So it looks like there's a light coming from one side.
03:11And you can see he's looking a little bit fuller, a little bit more like he's standing off the
03:17paper.
03:18And the main thing is have fun with it.
03:21I add stripes on his tail, and those, if you think of those as triangles too.
03:30Now my friends, you have a drawing of a Scrat.
03:37After Pete has drawn the Scrat, his drawings are handed off to modeling where they'll sculpt
03:50him, scan that model, and bring him into the computer.
03:54And we get a 3D model.
03:55Of course, he's just naked, he doesn't have fur yet, it's our job to put the fur on him.
03:59We have this elaborate network, wires and arrows to describe which way the fur is going to grow.
04:05We have controls to make it wiggly and wavy.
04:08Once that's in place, we send it to the computers to cook overnight.
04:12It draws millions of hairs.
04:14The Scrat had 2 million hairs, and it draws each hair one at a time.
04:18Once we've got the fur on the Scrat, the animators will take a stab at describing how that fur is
04:25going to move.
04:26They have controls for how the wind can blow through the fur, how much the gravity affects
04:31the fur, how much the fur is going to wiggle and shake, and how long it takes to move.
04:35It takes to settle.
04:36With each abrupt motion of the Scrat, the fur sort of jiggles and shakes and then settles.
04:41Three years ago, we had some limitations, like fur, you know.
04:45And this time around, we came through and we managed to make it not only keeping the same
04:49style, but make it a little better.
04:51And the fur becomes a character.
04:52The fur became a character within a character.
04:54We can apply wind to it.
04:56If it goes underwater, it will flow a little bit with the water.
05:00So the fur will help put the characters in the environments that we create.
05:03After all, there are going to be a lot of elements that the fur has to interact with.
05:07We also went to the Central Park Zoo, where they have a great polar bear exhibit.
05:11You get to see the polar bear swimming underwater, so we can see how the fur behaves underwater,
05:16so we can deal with all the underwater sequences in the meltdown.
05:23Well, one afternoon, while we were making Ice Age, we just decided we needed a noise for
05:38the Scratts, so I got behind the mic, our cheap little cassette recorder microphone,
05:45and I started making noises for it.
05:47And that afternoon session that lasted about 15 minutes ended up being the Scratts voice
05:51in Ice Age.
05:52It was so funny because we did that temporarily until we found the right voice, but we fell in
05:57love with it and said, why get another voice if this one is perfect?
06:01His instinct that he needed to use restraint in how much sound and how much of a voice he
06:15gave the character, and I thought it was a fascinating process.
06:18This is a secret, an inside secret, a showbiz secret.
06:23There are three sounds, basically, that the Scratts does anyway.
06:27Scream, whimper, pant.
06:33Whimper, pant.
06:36Basically, you mix those babies up, put them where they come in the movie.
06:40You got a Scratts short.
06:42The Scratts sounds, I don't know, they just came out of me naturally that day.
06:46I think they just caught me on one of those days that I'm sure everybody has where, you
06:50know, you've been working really hard, and maybe nothing's working out, you know?
07:01It's a little frustration sounds, and when I do the voice, I actually get all tense.
07:06I get home at night, my chest muscles are all tense.
07:12That's good.
07:13That's good.
07:14I can do Scratts for about 20 minutes, and then that's that.
07:18Then I lose interest, you know?
07:20Enough's enough, enough pain.
07:30I think the Scratts hits a chord in people, because everyone knows what it's like to struggle
07:34at something, and everyone knows what it's like to lose every once in a while.
07:38And that's one of the rules about Scratts.
07:40He can't get the acorn.
07:42He can have it for a minute, but he has to lose it.
07:44You know, what's the secret to comedy?
07:46It's, you know, if it happens to you, it's tragedy.
07:48If it happens to the other guy, it's comedy.
07:50That's part of what he's about.
07:52Scream, scream, whimper, scream, scream, whimper.
07:55Exactly.
07:56After Ice Age, we made a short film with him, and then we started working on Ice Age 2.
08:01So he's always alive someplace.
08:03You know, it's a challenge to come up with new ideas for the Scratts,
08:06but you know him at this point.
08:08You pretty much know, you know, what he's going to do.
08:11You just put him in surprising situations if you can.
08:13The fun thing about the Scratts is that you don't have to think too hard about it.
08:17It's just fun.
08:18You know, if you have to work for a living, which I happen to have to do,
08:21it's just not a bad way to do it.
08:31Ha-ha-ha!
08:32Ha-ha!
08:33Ha-ha-ha!
08:34Ah, Tony...
08:35Ha-ha!
08:36Ha-ha-ha!
08:37Funny...
08:40Ha-ha!
08:41Ha-ha-ha!
08:42Ha-ha-ha-ha!
08:43Ha-ha...
08:56WHEN HE WILL COMF mais?
08:58The ice is melting!
09:28Peace!
09:37The Scrap Pack
09:39Is back!
09:42Ice Age 2 The Meltdown, coming 2006!
09:58The Scrap Pack
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