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April 2012

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director's chair Andrew Stanton — John Carter H By IAIN BLAIR OLLYWOOD — The line between live action and animation is becom- ingly increasingly blurred these days, with some very high-profile cross-fertilization going on. After directing the first three films in the mega-franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, Gore Verbinski and ILM teamed up to make their first animated film, Rango, which just won the Oscar. Brad Bird, the director/writer of Pixar's The Incredibles and Ratatouille, success- fully took over the reins of Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol. Now animation wiz Andrew Stanton, who This Wall-E director takes the helm of his first live-action film. won Oscars for his work on the Pixar hits Wall- E and Finding Nemo, has directed his first live- action film, the big-budget, sci-fi epic John Carter, which is stuffed to the gills with bizarre aliens and a ton of VFX shots. Disney reportedly spent $250 million on the new Martian odyssey set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars) and based on a classic novel by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. Hiring Stanton to helm the huge live-action production, which tells the story of John Carter (Friday Night Lights' Taylor Kitsch), a disillusioned Civil War veteran, who miracu- lously finds himself on the surface of Mars — and stars a large cast, including Willem Dafoe, Bryan Cranston and Samantha Mor- ton — was a calculated risk on Disney's part. Here, in an exclusive interview, the director talks about making the film and the transition to live action, dealing with all the effects, and his love of post. POST: What sort of film did you set out to make? Andrew Stanton: "For me, we were making an animated film as equally as a live-action one." 14 ANDREW STANTON: "I wanted to cap- ture the timeless, mythic adventure aspect of how the book made me feel when I read it when I was about 11 years old. The book was published in 1912 and I felt that if it could touch me at that age, there was already something timeless and mythic about it." POST: What were the main technical chal- lenges of pulling all this together? STANTON: "It was the same thing I felt as a kid — I wanted to believe I could really go there. I wanted it to feel like a period film or historical film, so it was all about realism and a gritty, grimy feel. And not just the look of the environment, but any kind of creature described in the books had to be as believ- able as possible. There were these amazing creatures — things sort of like horses but not really, eight-legged horse-like creatures called Thoats, and main characters 10-feet tall with Post • April 2012 STANTON: "Not as bad as I expected. It was very hard just from the physical stamina standpoint, but as far as the actual creativity — the thinking behind it, the artistic discus- sions and problem-solving that went on whether we were on a stage or out in a desert — it was almost identical to every- thing I'd gone through over the past 20 years." POST: This was a very complex production. How tough was the shoot? STANTON: "We were originally going to shoot on location in the US, but due to great tax breaks and logistics, we moved to London — and then most of the effects shots we did inside. We shot at Shepperton and Longcross Studios, and also converted a huge ware- house in North London into a massive stage for the greenscreens. We then moved to Utah for another two or three months for all the location work, and also had a huge exterior www.postmagazine.com it all. I really love putting on a show, when it all comes together. People get confused about post now, with all the digital stuff. "During the shoot I kept saying, 'Stop calling it post — it's not post, it's digital printable pho- tography. We're going into a year-and-a-half of post after the six-month shoot.' For me, we were making an animated film as equally as a live action one. In fact, there are more charac- ter animation shots in this than there were in Finding Nemo. So it was like making two mov- ies. I did the live action and then began doing what I'd do on my next Pixar film." POST: Where did you do the post? STANTON: "Because of the tax incen- tives, we had to do all the initial post in Lon- don, and then we moved back to the States." POST: The film was edited by Eric Zum- brennen. Tell us about that relationship and how it worked? tusks. So those were the main challenges: How to make these things come across as totally believable." POST: How far did you push the technical limits of filmmaking to make this happen? STANTON: "It's funny since I never felt we had to invent new ground. There may be some specific visual effects things that happened with the houses we used, but I felt it was more a case of fully embracing what both mediums — live action and CGI — had to offer. In that sense, it was really a 50-50 movie." POST: How tough was it making the transi- tion from animation to live action? greenscreen set at Lake Powell in Arizona." POST: Was there ever a time when you went, "What have I got myself into?" STANTON: "It's more, was there ever not a time? (Laughs hard). But again I've had that feeling on an animated film many times where, despite the freedom of CGI, you're still limited by time, money and technology. It's no different." POST: Do you like the post process? STANTON: "I do, although the truth is, I don't love any part of the filmmaking process. When I'm writing, I hate writing, and the same with directing (laughs). But after the fact I love Double Negative was responsible for creating the film's white apes. Many of the effects shots were captured on an indoor stage, though production did shoot for several months on location in Utah.

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