00:05Can you tell us about film Smurf's The Legend of Smurfy Hollow?
00:09How did you approach the story?
00:12You know, Smurfy Hollow is about two things.
00:16It's about the mystery of those woods that are haunted.
00:21You know, Smurfy Hollow, it's Sleepy Hollow, so there's a ghost and all that stuff.
00:24So we try to recreate that sense of mystery and excitement
00:29in a way that was very Smurfy and that was within the world of the Smurfs,
00:34so appropriate for our subjects and our matter and our audiences and stuff like that,
00:39and also to try to get to the character story that's at the heart of it.
00:44And those stories, you know, you never really know when you start.
00:48The story kind of reveals itself as you go.
00:51And it became clear very quickly on this that this was really about family
00:55and about sibling rivalry and about how we all have, you know,
01:00either children or brothers, sisters, cousins.
01:02You know, we all have those relationships with those siblings in the broad sense.
01:08And there's always a little bit of competition and tension,
01:10but at the end of the day, those people are the people who will be with us for life.
01:14And that once we honed in on that idea, that's really what drove the movie.
01:18And, you know, that's how it revealed itself to us that way.
01:23The Smurfs are loved and known characters.
01:26Which of their aspects did you try to emphasize in the short film?
01:30And which part did you decide to personalize your work?
01:33Mm-hmm.
01:35Yeah, what's great about the Smurfs is that, you know,
01:37they all have a very defined trait, you know, personality trait.
01:42And so in this we have, I mean, our two hero Smurfs are Brainy and Gutsy,
01:49who are locked in this rivalry.
01:51And we had wonderful actors create great performances for us.
01:57We had Alan Cumming doing Gutsy and Fred Armisen doing Brainy.
02:01And even if those are translated and dubbed around the world,
02:04they kind of created the tone for those performances
02:06that are very, very broad and very entertaining,
02:10but also very, very honest and very natural.
02:15And so that sort of set the tone
02:17for how we were going to approach the characters.
02:20And the animation, you know, follows that up
02:23and then adds that very physical, very slapsticky,
02:26very fun and cartoony dimension to it.
02:30So this is how the tone and the characters developed.
02:34The film is a mixture of traditional and computer animation.
02:38How did you link the two techniques?
02:42Did I link the two techniques?
02:44You said?
02:44Yes.
02:47What works great for us in how we married 2D animation
02:52and 3D animation is we start with the Smurfs lost in the woods.
02:57And so we're in the universe of the movies, Smurfs 1 and 2.
03:01So this is CG animation
03:03and this is the reality of the Smurfs that we know these days.
03:06And then they get lost in the woods
03:07and they're around the campfire
03:09and they start telling ghost stories.
03:11And as we go into the story in the story,
03:13then we go into 2D animation.
03:16Your work at Film Realize with different techniques
03:19from the traditional animation of the Iron Giant
03:21to the stop motion of 9 to the computer graphic.
03:24What are, in your opinion,
03:26the most important features of each one?
03:29I think, yes, all those forms of animation
03:32do things really well,
03:35but they do it differently.
03:37And the focus is on different things.
03:40I think in CG animation,
03:43the big difference is that the camera becomes a character.
03:47Because now you have a virtual but physical camera
03:51that is really introduced into the scene,
03:53introduces a point of view that is very active.
03:56and the lenses push against the characters,
03:59you create that tension.
04:00So there is a subtlety in introducing the camera
04:04as a very strong point of view in CG animation
04:07that is usually more neutral in 2D animation.
04:11But what's really interesting is that
04:12now that we're coming back to 2D animation also,
04:16that experience enriches it.
04:18and when I was working with my animators,
04:20usually you just ask them to draw,
04:22because you draw everything in 2D animation,
04:24to draw the movement and the acting, the performance.
04:27And I also told them,
04:29when you draw, think about the camera.
04:31Think about the lens.
04:32Is it, you know, is it, where is it?
04:34Is it a wide lens?
04:35How is it pushing and connecting
04:37and engaging the characters?
04:38So we're now adding that dimension
04:41in the drawing, you know,
04:43in 2D animation,
04:43which we didn't do before.
04:45And that's because we went through CG animation
04:47and that kind of created that awareness for us.
04:51What are your models in the animation field?
04:54And there are any artists that you admire?
04:56And would you like to work with someone of them?
04:58Sure.
05:00For Smurfy Hollow,
05:03we really try to connect our 2D animation,
05:07to the golden age of animation
05:08and to amazing animators like Freddie Moore
05:11or Frank Thomas,
05:13and to really connect with that version of cartoon,
05:16which is very broad, very imaginative,
05:19but at the same time still very physical.
05:22They're not abstract.
05:23They have weight and volume
05:24and that stays consistent.
05:26And so what was interesting
05:29is to go back to that very classic version
05:32of animation and very fun,
05:33but also, as I was saying before,
05:35because now we know CG
05:36and we are more aware of the camera,
05:38to engage that style of animation
05:41with a more modern form of filmmaking.
05:45Okay. Thank you.
05:47Okay.
05:47Thank you.
05:57Thank you.
Commenti