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00:00Welcome to the Special Features!
00:22Welcome to Sony Pictures Animation, where we've just completed our first animated film, Open Season.
00:30When we started Sony Animation four years ago, the most important thing that we did is focus on story.
00:38Because story, story, story, you have to have heart and humor, you have to have characters you care about, characters
00:44you're going to want to take into your home.
00:47In my cartoon, in the bleachers, I do a lot of hunting cartoons, the jokes about animals and hunters.
00:53I do a lot of bears, and actually going back in my cartoon like 15 years, I've always had this
01:00one deer who was like the screw-up of the forest.
01:03My stuff is kind of like the raw material. It's not as developed as the movie.
01:08That's where the animation department came in and really made it.
01:13Woohoo!
01:14Animation is such an amazing process.
01:16To the outside world, we seem like crazy people because each little step is so meticulous.
01:21But I love seeing the evolution of these films.
01:25Seeing a story take place, something you dream of from scratch, and seeing it develop and the characters develop.
01:33Giving life to these characters and a form to them, and then seeing them animated and come to life in
01:38front of your eyes.
01:39And then these characters also take on a life of their own, so that by the time people watch them,
01:45they just believe Luke and Elliot are real.
01:48But they're just completely constructed, completely fabricated, you know, from the dream of the character designer,
01:54through the animation and the voice talent, all the way to the end.
01:59And there's something really exciting about taking a character that doesn't exist at all, and putting them in a story,
02:05and giving them life, and seeing them become real.
02:12Elliot comes in, and he's like an ADD character.
02:16He's like, look at this. Oh, wow, this is cool. Look at this, look at this.
02:19And he's going every single way.
02:21And Boog is just a little bit slower to process things.
02:24He's like, hey, wait, that's my bed. He's like, hey, get out of there.
02:27So Boog is always sort of like two paces behind Elliot as he zips around.
02:32I love the contrast of their tempos.
02:34You know, this place is big enough for two.
02:37I mean, obviously, we have a bear and a deer as the main characters that walk around and talk and
02:42stuff.
02:43So it's not necessarily completely grounded in reality.
02:46But you still want to work in a little bit of what the actual animal is like.
02:50I mean, in animation, you're trying to sort of enhance reality.
02:53Oh, yeah!
02:54In a sense, you want to just take it to the next level.
02:56I mean, what we like to do is basically come out and actually see the animals sort of in their
03:00environment that just allows us to sort of view them as they're moving around, just acting normally.
03:06You know, we have to look at a number of different animals. The bear is obviously one of them.
03:09We looked at a couple deer today. We looked at some rabbits. Basically, we're looking at these for reference because
03:15we're in the process of building those characters right now.
03:17So the actual simplicity of the characters that were designed, you know, by Carter Goodrich to have this simple get.
03:25You know, the first time you look at them, you get them. You get what their personality is.
03:28The more you learn about these animals and the more you learn of the truth of what they really are,
03:33the more opportunity you have to bring something to their character.
03:38The look of the character grows in order to match the characteristics that we develop in our story.
03:46What the characters look like should serve who the characters are and what they have to do.
03:51You remember what happened the last time you talked to me.
03:53And it will take about an eight month process to move each sequence into the production pipeline.
03:58And then there are 250 artists that are responsible for delivering every single one of the shots of the movie.
04:05Imageworks is the production facility that is producing all imagery for a Sony Pictures Animation movie.
04:12What we had at Imageworks was we had kind of like the factory, if you will.
04:16We had the people actually make the movies. What we didn't have is the front end.
04:21We didn't have the guys who came up with the ideas on a blank sheet of paper.
04:26We didn't have the story artists. We didn't have the character designer. We didn't have visual development.
04:30That came in. We brought that in in animation.
04:34And those people kind of work hand in hand with the factory, with the animators, with the riggers, with the
04:39modelers, with the lighters.
04:40And it's that partnership that we built with the launch of animation.
04:45Partners!
04:47We have a great story department. That's one of the good things that worked out here at Sony is that
04:52Sandy and Penny and Yair did a really good job of pulling in a lot of different storyboard artists from
04:58different places.
04:59I had a sequence where I was supposed to have Elliot go to where Boo was sleeping in his garage.
05:05He was trying to get his attention. And then I had this one drawing of him looking in the window.
05:08And then when I drew it, it looked like a rabbit.
05:11Just like, oh, it looks like a rabbit. Ah, that'd be funny. If instead of rocks, he was throwing rabbits.
05:16Our head of story, Dave Feast, came up with the rabbits against the window sequence, and then he just kept
05:21taking it further and further.
05:26Who's there?
05:27It wasn't written down. It wasn't in a script page. It was just like a happy accident.
05:35Elliot went into town and slept in a dumpster alone. And now this is the next morning. Boo and Beth
05:41have gone in to do their routine amphitheater show.
05:44And Shaw is trolling the streets looking for Elliot. So take it away, Chris.
05:48Okay. So from inside the truck, Shaw's looking the other direction. And we see through the windshield, Elliot walking into
05:55the intersection doing the Kramer shuffle, drinking a cup of coffee on two legs.
05:59What?
06:03Comes in the frame there. Cut to Shaw. He looks forward. All of a sudden, he takes.
06:08The truck skids to a stop, just inches from Elliot there. Shaw's head hits the windshield. We cut inside to
06:14Shaw.
06:14You!
06:15You? It walks like a man.
06:19Elliot screams like a woman. Blasts off camera there. Shaw trounces on the gas.
06:24We cut wide as Elliot's running. Shaw's truck's peeling rubber on the asphalt there. Takes a sip of coffee. Throws
06:30it back. Truck comes into the camera.
06:33We cut wide on the street. Elliot zigzags in and out of the parking meters. Shaw hops the curb, taking
06:38out the meters with him.
06:39I killed you once and I'll kill you again.
06:46Not again.
06:47One of the things we were really going for is a really graphic look on Open Season. I think that
06:52it wasn't necessarily a choice for 2D versus 3D as much as it was just a choice to get a
06:58bold graphic look that really captures the feeling of being in the woods for the first time.
07:03Where there's really graphic light direction and the trees look gigantic and you feel so small. And we wanted to
07:09put our main character, Boo, in that position where he was in the woods for the first time, experiencing all
07:14that for the first time.
07:15Jill Colton came to Penny and I and said, I want to show you this wonderful book.
07:21Ivan Earl was a very famous graphic artist. And she said, see these beautiful shadows. See how the images disappear
07:28and go into very long landscapes. Look at the detail and the shape languages he's using.
07:35A lot of our larger shots, our large scale shots, we needed to populate as many as say, you know,
07:415, 10,000 trees.
07:42Every single bush, every blade of grass, every tree, every single environmental element that will go into this film was
07:49designed 2D on Photoshop first.
07:51Well, they would most of the time provide us with conceptual artwork that they'd done two dimensionally and that we
07:58would match through look dev three dimensionally.
08:00So some of the mandates the directors gave us on this film is that they wanted very malleable characters. And
08:07one of the things that they had asked for is they wanted characters that could squash and stretch to just
08:12extremes.
08:13So basically taking arms and pulling them way out or taking legs and taking heads and really kind of squishing
08:19their faces and doing all these things that normally we don't do here at Imageworks.
08:23So we had to come up with all these tools and techniques to allow us to do that.
08:27Stretch and squash is like the basics of this thing. The pliability of it, the caricature that it allows you
08:34gives more of a sense of impact, gives more of a sense of when Eliot pushes on Boog and Boog
08:40sort of wobbles, you know.
08:42It's that sort of thing that makes these characters so fun and takes it out of the realm of a
08:46live action movie.
08:47It really helped us just in getting back to just basic animation principles and being able to achieve really any
08:54pose that we wanted.
08:55We weren't limited by the rigs anymore of just purely just moving joints around.
09:00We had the flexibility in the rigs that Mike and his team created to actually sculpt any graphic shape that
09:08we wanted with these characters.
09:13Well, for myself and I know quite a few of the animators, we like use webcams or video cameras and
09:18you just act it out.
09:20You know, you just keep playing like the line on your computer over and over and then you act it
09:26out in yourself kind of mouthing the words and that gets you pretty far to begin with.
09:30But I do tend to find myself making the faces and sort of doing the movements that I'm trying to
09:37animate, yeah, without being aware of it.
09:39We created a tool called the Shaper Tool, which you can actually sculpt your character in your key poses.
09:47Sculpt every outline, every line, every shape of him to get a fantastic pose for every single key pose that
09:54you want to put him into.
09:55We have nine pretty much main characters. They're all furred and they're furred differently.
10:01And there's ducks and they need to be able to use their wings in a bunch of different ways.
10:05They need to be wet. They need to be dirty. One character has to get badly beaten up in the
10:11middle of a sequence.
10:12Boog has to come home one night completely covered in Cheerios and Slurpee machine colors.
10:18And, you know, at most studios that I've worked at, those are issues that would make technicians freeze up.
10:24But here at Imageworks, they're used to being confronted with these kind of problems and they have no problem with
10:29taking them on.
10:29We have something like 29 characters who are all-haired, 11 hairy people, we've got 18 hairy animals.
10:36Obviously, each character's, you know, millions of hairs. So you're talking, you know, billions and billions of hairs before this
10:41whole movie.
10:42Boog, he's got 1.6 million hairs. The porcupine, that's all hair. You've got the squirrels, they're obviously hair.
10:50We do the duck, which has, you know, something like 5,000 feathers.
10:54Elliot probably has the most hair. He's got about three and a half million hairs.
10:57And you wouldn't think it because he doesn't look that hairy, but what happens is the hair's so short that
11:02you need a lot of hair to fill in that area.
11:03So you'd be surprised. Beth only has about 150,000 hairs, which is actually pretty realistic.
11:11The average human, I think, has between 100 and 150,000 hairs. She's right there at 150.
11:15It's a big challenge. I'm glad we got the right people to work on it, because otherwise, without them, it
11:21would be impossible.
11:22I'm incredibly proud of the fluid dynamics when Boog pukes against the garage window.
11:27We did a lot of physics and modeling and simulating to get it just right.
11:31And when you hear the audience go, oh, you know you've been successful.
11:36Splash Mountain is probably one of the more challenging sequences in the movie.
11:39We knew that we were going to have one sequence in the movie that had a lot of water,
11:42combined with fur, combined with the geometry, and sort of the scope and scale of the sequence was a real
11:49challenge for us.
11:51In hand-drawn animation, we only have what the animator has drawn.
11:57In 3D animation, we're dealing with the whole world.
12:00So it was our chance to basically do the classic car chase and the classic water ride, all in the
12:07same sequence.
12:08Everything's moving. The water's moving. The characters are moving. The camera's moving. Everything is moving.
12:13The end shot in Splash Mountain where Shaw goes over the waterfall, that shot just blew me away.
12:19I was jumping up and down in my room because it's a shot you can't do in live action.
12:24Because if you're following the bad guy over the waterfall, you go past him and you catch up with our
12:29heroes.
12:30Then the bad guy catches up. It's like totally impossible to do physics-wise because the rate of fall doesn't
12:36quite work that way.
12:37And it falls forever and ever and ever. And the fur on Boog is fluttering in the wind.
12:44And it is just like the most amazing shot. When shots like that come in, everyone goes,
12:48Yes! We're making a good movie here.
12:50So we have 1,223 shots, 7,200 feet.
12:55200 people. You know, there's a pipeline and there's a process.
12:58And the baton goes from department to department to department. The shot goes from department to department.
13:03You see all the different hands and departments that touch this.
13:07You can see all of the different phases and what they look like and what the impasto is.
13:11So it goes from a storyboard. It gets translated into three dimensions.
13:14The layout department shoots it. They send it down to animation, which gives spirit to the characters.
13:21It goes back to layout. They put all the final high-resolution models in there.
13:25Send it to cloth hair and effects, which gives everything that sits on top of the animation life.
13:29And then it goes to lighting, where they light the final imagery.
13:33And then we go to release.
13:35How y'all doing?
13:36Hey!
13:37The post-production process for us, because we've been editing the film all the way along,
13:42is adding the sound effects and the music.
13:45It was liberating in a lot of ways to write for a storyline rather than just come up with a
13:52great song.
13:56This is where I belong, my home.
14:07Oh.
14:09I belong.
14:11You are home.
14:12If it's a message that kids can get out of this, I think the one thing is just the value
14:17of friendship.
14:17You know, how important friends are.
14:19It's through this friendship that Boog makes an enormous leap into maturity.
14:24And it's through this friendship that Elliot finds acceptance.
14:28And those are pretty profound gifts that friends can give each other.
14:32And in animation, it's about collaboration.
14:35If you can collaborate, if you can listen to what people have to say, you can find magic.
14:41And animation is about magic.
14:46The lines between traditional artists with a pen and CG artists on the computer are completely blurred now.
14:53I think that there's no such thing as a technical person on this show.
14:57They're all artists.
14:59And that's what you will see when you see open season.
15:02I really think that.
15:04No rabbits were harmed in the making of this film.
15:13...
15:28Hello, Boog.
15:31So, uh, where you all headed?
15:34To the safe place.
15:35This land of... garage.
15:38With buddies.
15:39Come on, you owe us, Tiny!
15:41Well, maybe.
15:49it is the most important thing we do to pick the right voice for the right character bringing a
15:55character to life and animation is so dependent on the voice because that's all you have at the
16:01beginning behold the mighty grizzly we rocked that house didn't we boog put me down for a box
16:12of thin mints will you sweetie put a twig in the hole that was not a compliment maggot oh mr
16:19happy
16:19didn't go on you're gonna get yourself in a lot of trouble girlfriend buddy hello elliot catch you
16:28later boog when i'm drawing i have voices in my heads i mean i'm hearing these characters what
16:33they're saying and it's fun to hear the voices that i hear all the time going out on the screen
16:37and other people hearing them i'm going to sleep in the garage who's sleeping in the garage that's
16:44right elliot sleep in the garage the big incredible mr e sleeping in the garage in our case we made
16:53it
16:53a big point to really let the actors add their own flavor into the characters because really their
16:59voices are so much of the character what we often do is we often bring the storyboards into the
17:03recording session and pitch the storyboard to them so that they have an idea of what the intent
17:08of the story is so even just beyond getting cold script pages there they've got the the rough visuals
17:14then it was funny because ashton's actually a pretty big guy and his voice fits perfectly down
17:19into this tiny scrawny little mule deer i gotta hide i gotta hide gotta hide i gotta hide can i
17:27hide with
17:27you so i kind of came in with an energy of like it was a little bouncing off the walls
17:32um and then the
17:35directors helped me because it you know when i would have that energy um they always let me know yeah
17:44yeah yeah that's that's the one that's the one i mean ashton is elliot in fact probably a fifth of
17:51the lines are ashton just riffing in the room with us and us trying not to laugh over the tank
17:56because
17:56it was so funny i really didn't know how to create a character for a boob because he was he's
18:03a bear and
18:03all that so you know i probably thought like oh i need to have this big voice to fit into
18:08this big body
18:10these are my people this is where i reside nobody's hunting this bear so we wanted to find somebody
18:17who could make boob funny but still take him through all the emotional changes that he needed to go to
18:22because it's his story he's the one who goes the furthest he goes through the biggest loss and the
18:27biggest emotional change i didn't have to uh try to roll you know project like i'm this bear or anything
18:34i just have to talk like i'm talking now but you know uh do the dialogue and let the energy
18:40work for
18:40me hey hey hey hey hey hey
18:51we've got deborah messing as beth the park ranger and she brings a little goofiness to this character
18:59which really uh gives some spice to this the character of beth evolved along the way when she
19:05was first presented to me there wasn't obvious humor or quirks that were associated with her but they
19:13made it clear that they wanted to explore and play and just sort of discover it together wait he's
19:19harmless stay calm stay calm
19:27you have gary sinise who is this kind of buttoned down really serious actor and when he came in and
19:34started reading the role he sort of approached it by stages and kept increasing and increasing it
19:39until he finally gave a version that was really whacked out there and he did this crazy laugh and
19:44he went that's it he went you're kidding you can say i'm in love you can say i'm insane but
19:50no one
19:51understands me like my darling moraine the air guitar i think became more of a thing maybe i did it
20:04once and then they came back and said do that again we're gonna do that in this sequence now we're
20:08gonna add it and make it kind of a running thing for for shaw it's a fun little thing and
20:13i think i
20:13think a great way to intro the character this is McSquizzy's turf nobody messes with McSquizzy
20:19because that's me we knew billy just from billy's voice and you know other roles that he's played
20:25and he reads and it's the funniest thing he doesn't even have to do too many takes somehow he is
20:30McSquizzy
20:31the video tape your face as it's doing it and they incorporate it in your character
20:36in the drawing your little idiosyncrasies that you have you know and and it comes out although you're a
20:43squirrel it's got a weird resemblance to you you know and it's it's i think it's a lot it's dead
20:47clever i'm proud to say that i i thought i was playing uh riley but it turns out i'm playing
20:53many of the beavers okay ladies this damn ain't gonna build itself you owe two i want you to cantilever
21:01that cedar on the bias down by the north end you got that the alpha of any herd that elliot
21:06was from
21:06would have to be the most alpha of alpha males that possible that uh that fit patrick warburton
21:12so perfectly and i think early on they sort of just decided that that was the voice for him hello
21:18smelly it i called him smelly it i find it amazing how they make these movies how they put it
21:26together
21:26it's all in the creators heads and we have no idea what we're doing they just hire actors that are
21:31willing to make absolute idiots of themselves in front of the microphone and just trust that it's
21:36meant to be in the film somewhere really i heard you got hit by a truck
21:43i was amazed how the whole movie came together because you don't you just trust what the director
21:47tells you what is happening in the scene you don't see anything you do it all by yourself you don't
21:51meet
21:52any of the other actors and somehow the whole thing comes together because of their vision and what
21:56they always knew it was going to be mapped out as when i look at the movie you would think
22:01that me
22:01and this guy hang out we know each other all right we know each other's common timing and everything
22:06else so i just think you know that's just uh part of the magic that uh you know that that
22:11production you
22:13know brings to it hi how are you how you know this is the first time we got a chance
22:18to meet man
22:19i'm so happy it's on film people people at home are watching it on tv what's up how are you
22:27man i'm
22:27good good to see you man you're really good in the movie you're good in the movie i had so
22:32much fun
22:32when we did that scene that we didn't do together for three years that was three years me and this
22:37guy
22:38for three years worked together and this is the first time we met y'all got it on camera right
22:42here me and asher
22:58ç±³i you
22:59you
23:01you