- 6 weeks ago
A Bonus Feature From Planes 2013 DVD Australia
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Short filmTranscript
00:11Check this out. This is an F9F Panther. These things were built in about 1947. Flew to about 1951-52.
00:21That's the thing that you'll notice about Navy aircraft. This is the very first successful jet to launch off of
00:28aircraft carriers.
00:32I was just finishing my last movie, working with John Lasseter, and he asked, you know, what would you like
00:37to do next?
00:38And I said, well, there's a few ideas I've been working on, you know, possibly maybe a train's movie.
00:43It was not set in a car's room. It was its own thing, because there were humans in it. It
00:48was set in the West.
00:49He thought that was a cool idea, and I sort of pursued that a little bit.
00:52The more I started thinking about it, the more I thought, what if there's a bigger idea here?
00:58So flying down from Northern California to Burbank, I had this epiphany.
01:04In the world of cars, I always thought that every kind of vehicle could be a character.
01:09I thought, what if we started doing a series of films that told the stories of those characters?
01:16So I got off the airplane, and I called Clay right away.
01:19The phone rings, and it's John. And he's like, Clay. He goes, I have this idea.
01:25What do you think about, I know you're working on the trains thing, but what do you think about if
01:29we switched it from trains to planes?
01:32And I told him, John, if there's one thing I love more than trains, it's planes.
01:46I've always been an airplane nut. I have loved airplanes from practically the day I was born.
01:52My feet on the pedals.
01:56My hand on the throttle.
01:58Wow. My dad loved airplanes, loved everything about it.
02:01And he rolled that into a brief stint while he was in the U.S. Navy, and he flew for
02:05the Navy.
02:08What makes this airplane really, really cool for us is this is the plane that Grandpa Riley flew in.
02:15Now, it's unfortunate you guys never got a chance to meet him.
02:17This is my connection with my dad because of all the photographs that I have when he was in the
02:21Navy.
02:22It's with this airplane.
02:25My dad, his dad, Grandpa, they grew up in Dayton, Ohio, which is the birthplace of flight.
02:31Take a look at this. You guys know what this is?
02:33The Wright Flyer plane.
02:35That's right. It's the Wright Flyer.
02:37First plane that actually flew.
02:40Kitty Hawk.
02:42What's kind of cool about the whole Wright Brothers story is they were bicycle guys, if I remember correctly.
02:47Their shop was in Dayton, Ohio.
02:50That's where Grandpa was born.
02:52Dayton, Ohio.
02:53He often would tell me that, you know, he was destined to fly because he was from the birthplace of
02:58flight.
02:59My grandpa taught my dad how to fly at a very early age.
03:02He learned, I think, the original is in the Smithsonian.
03:05It was pretty cool that we were able to come here to Chino, California,
03:08and actually see a Wright Flyer in all its glory.
03:11What Clay has brought to the project because of his family,
03:15because of that aviation is in his blood, is that he brought authenticity.
03:20I also think his attention to detail with it is just beyond what you would think.
03:25He just has this natural instinct with aviation, having grown up around it,
03:29that it definitely, like, shows itself throughout the work of the film.
03:32Even though it's an animated movie, and we have eyes and things like that,
03:36you still want to embrace as much authenticity as you possibly can.
03:40One of the things I believe in so strongly in all the films we create,
03:43but especially Cars and Cars 2, we want to get every detail correct.
03:50With John, it's all about research, research, and a little more research.
03:55That's one of the hallmarks of his methodology is to learn from the people who actually do this,
04:01because he feels like the best stories come out of research.
04:05I had an amazing opportunity to meet with World War II veterans and Korean War veterans,
04:10with civilian pilots, and then we met with crop dusters.
04:14John felt very strongly that we would meet with our corporate pilots, the Disney corporate pilots.
04:19We all sat down, and I said, okay, I'm going to have this type of aircraft, this dusty aircraft,
04:24but he needs to fly around the world.
04:26Where is he going to need to go to be able to make this happen?
04:28And they helped chart a course, understanding his flight characteristics and the weight of his aircraft
04:33and where he would need to go to refuel.
04:35And that's actually what informed our race routes.
04:38A dead spread across the North Atlantic.
04:40That's right, Brent. This is how it works.
04:41And then on top of that, we actually were able to go to several different locations.
04:48We set out doing a number of research trips, going to the Reno Air Races, the Dayton Air Show, different
04:55air museums.
04:56What's really cool about airplanes as a star, they're vast in design.
05:00They all have different personalities.
05:02Even as a kid, going to air shows with my dad or being at the runway,
05:05I could tell there were, like, timid airplanes out there that are a perfect example of a plane that might
05:11be scared to fly.
05:12Give it a stall! He's off the pitch! Go down!
05:17Jump on up in there.
05:20That was a lot of fun for me to sit there and listen to my dad,
05:24who would talk about the characteristics of the airplanes as they would fly over
05:29or as they would taxi out in front of us.
05:31I have actually passed that sort of on with my son.
05:34And, you know, if you've got your feet on the pedals there, you can actually feel a little play.
05:38You know, feel that.
05:38You know, they're moving, left, back and forth.
05:40And then, of course, you've got your stick here.
05:44What things in the movie relate to Grandpa?
05:47Several that come to mind right away are, you know, he was a member of the Jolly Roger squadron.
05:51I saw this flight suit at home.
05:52And, you know, that's that iconic sort of skull and crossbones look.
05:57Now, in our movie, we planified that idea.
05:59We took the skull and crossbones and made him a piston and some cross wrenches,
06:03and we call it the Jolly Wrenches.
06:05One of the other ones was that, you know, the name of our mentor character, the tough love guy, is
06:10Skipper Riley.
06:11Well, Grandpa's name was Riley.
06:13So that's how that sort of worked into the equation there, you know.
06:20We knew that our story was going to start in the Midwest of the United States and then eventually go
06:26global.
06:26So we were able to take this trip, and we hit all these different little airfields.
06:31We did a big tour across Minnesota, visiting all these little airfields that aren't even on the map sometimes.
06:37We were able to find an abandoned airfield cut right out of a cornfield.
06:42We were like, man, that's Brock Wash Junction right there.
06:45We found an abandoned fuel truck, sort of a rigged together fuel truck.
06:51He was overgrown in some bushes, and we took pictures of him, and he was our inspiration for Chod.
06:56There you go, Sparky.
06:58You're a whole thing.
06:59Sure thing.
07:01So this is the F4U Corsair.
07:03And one of the reasons why I picked this for the movie was it's probably, to me, one of the
07:08most iconic airplanes of the Second World War,
07:11primarily because of that gull wing shape of the wings.
07:14You know, you can see these guys from about two miles out.
07:17So this was the Skipper character, and as I mentioned to you guys earlier, this is where the Jolly Roger
07:22gang started with these type of aircraft.
07:25So this character resembles your dad's personality?
07:28Yeah, he does in a lot of ways.
07:30You know, we briefly talked about how Dad was sort of tough love, and Skipper is very much tough love.
07:35You know, at first he's pretty hard on Dusty.
07:38But then once he sees that Dusty has, like, the passion and the desire and is ready to sort of
07:45almost step out of that comfort zone, Skipper gets on board.
07:48No, you're not flatheader. We'll work on that. Roger that.
07:52How do you think Grandpa Riley would feel about being in the movie?
07:56I've actually thought about that several times and reflected back on it.
08:00I think he would feel pretty darn proud.
08:08There were a couple moments during the different research trips we did that really hit home of how cool this
08:13whole thing was.
08:15I got to ride in a B-25 World War II bomber.
08:19So here we are. We're in the plane. We're going to be taking off in a little bit.
08:22We're going to go for a flight, for about an hour flight, and really see what it was like to
08:26feel it and smell it and just immerse ourselves in the overall experience of flying in vintage aircraft.
08:34We got to crawl up to the front of the aircraft, where the bombardier's sight is.
08:39It's not a few I've ever seen flying in any aircraft before, and that was just amazing.
08:45So, guys, this is the B-25 Mitchell.
08:47Named after Lieutenant Billy Mitchell. Medium bomber, twin engine.
08:51I think it had about a five-man crew in it.
08:53Really cool airplane.
08:54I was able to get, you know, part of my research early on in the movie was I was able
08:58to take a ride in one of these things, and it was beyond crazy cool.
09:01We learned a lot as a team while we were experiencing the flight.
09:04The inertia, the weight of the aircraft, the power of the aircraft as it would make a turn and bank
09:09and then level out.
09:10You need to experience that, to convey that, to get it into your animation, to help make it believable.
09:16It's that whole weight and size. You know, you have to think about all that kind of stuff when you
09:20animate.
09:21We did have, in the beginning, a lot more movement in the air, which made them feel a lot lighter
09:26and took a lot of realism out of that flight movement.
09:29The weight and the feel of the planes has to be real, otherwise you're taken out of the character.
09:34And you want people not to be paying attention to the weight and feel of the planes so that they
09:37can focus on the character.
09:39And one thing that John Lasseter said pretty early on is that when they're flying in the air, they're planes.
09:44But when they're on the ground, that's when we can put more character into them.
09:48You are way behind.
09:49Thanks, guys.
09:50You saved my tail up there.
09:51We were able to actually experience a couple days on board the USS Carl Vinson, which is a nuclear-powered
09:59aircraft carrier based out of San Diego.
10:02Landing on the aircraft carrier, nobody was more excited to touch down than Clay.
10:06It was like right out of Top Gun because the steam was rolling off the thing and there was F
10:10-18 sitting there ready to go.
10:12I mean, it was surreal.
10:19Every little detail was just so exciting to him and he was beating it up.
10:24It was fantastic to see.
10:25We have this big moment in the movie when Dusty needs to land on the aircraft carrier.
10:30So I was able to take it out to Captain Spitterow, Vincent, and actually play him the clip on the
10:36aircraft carrier and go,
10:37What do you think?
10:38Overall, he really, really liked it.
10:39He had a couple little tweaks.
10:40He's going to give you that cut, cut, cut, and that's to, you're going to shut your throttles all the
10:44way down.
10:45On a few of our shots, our jets have their wings down, and the Navy guys were like, unless they're
10:51taken off, the wings are never down on a carrier.
10:54All the shots were done.
10:56They're looking at me and I go, well, we're going to change them.
10:58You know, that's a big enough fix.
11:00We wanted to make it authentic.
11:02I felt extremely proud and humbled to have been a part of that experience.
11:13And now what they're going to do is they're going to load up the camera team in there, but they
11:17have two extra seats.
11:18So guess what?
11:21You guys are going for a ride in the B-25.
11:25Yeah.
11:25Yeah, buddy.
11:27So, let's hang on and have some fun.
11:30This is going to be good.
11:33Here we go.
11:34Getting a chance to fly in a P-51 Mustang.
11:37Just unloaded.
11:38Jack and Luke, they're climbing in the B-25.
11:40They're going to chase us.
11:41This is a dream come true.
11:43This is a dream come true.
12:20Clay was right in the middle of it at all times.
12:23And he became this expert.
12:24And he's so enthusiastic.
12:26And then Clay's also a really great storyteller.
12:29And really crafting this story, the emotion.
12:32Because we wanted to have not only humor, but one of the hallmarks of our films is to have heart.
12:38And we wanted to have a heart in this film of airplanes' characters.
12:43Thanks, Skip.
12:44Don't thank me.
12:46I learned a lot more from you than you ever learned from me.
12:50To have been this little boy that loved airplanes and also had a passion to draw.
12:57And then to have those two worlds sort of collide on this project,
13:01to be able to direct a feature-length film starring airplanes with the Walt Disney Company,
13:06it's truly the dream come true.
13:15This is Luke Hall, Clay's son.
13:18And I just want to say how proud I am of him.
13:20And he's making the family really proud of me.
13:23This has always been his dream to make his own movie.
13:26And I know it means a lot to him.
13:28It means a lot to me that he's done this.
13:30He's been a great dad to me.
13:32And, uh, yeah, I just can't say how proud I am of him.
13:48I'm Jack Hall.
13:50It's been pretty amazing to see my dad make this movie.
13:55It relates back to how I've kind of always been into aviation myself.
13:59Just like him and his dad makes me very proud.
14:14This is Clay Hall, and I have to tell you guys that I think I just enjoyed one of the
14:18most special days of my life.
14:21You know, as a father being joined with my sons on just an epic flight at sunset,
14:26I think this moment, it'll be with me for the rest of my life,
14:29and I'm sure it will with my sons as well.
14:32It's a, it was a special day out here, a special moment,
14:36a chance to talk about grandpa, about aviation, about the movie planes,
14:42and most of all, about family.
14:44Thank you very much.
14:50.
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