Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1438629
1 3 8 P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 To find the unarnished truth to a story, follow the practice of knowing as little as possible about a script before read it. try to table the ecitement for a potential new proect by reading in the moment and allowing the story to innocently unfold before me. focus on the characters and not the design sae that for the second read. The only notes make are writing down the characters names, ages and any notations as to their relationships with one another. efine the characters paths and goals clearly, and the world will fill in around them. hen we meet, the director and will uickly discoer if we share common ideas for the film which will then proide a strong foundation to support the adenture ahead. n Finch, defining the characters was a larger task than a typical script in that there were only four principal characters one human, one dog and two robots. Tom anks would play the titular character in this twohander road trip. oodyear, the dog, would be the adorable scene stealer that .. ields warned us about, a necessary soft furry touchstone needed in this harsh world. dditionally, there would be ewey, the dutiful roerbot of limited doglike intelligence and loyal companionship. nd finally, the antagonist would be inchs creation, the robot eff. The design of these two principal robot characters would be the first order of business that the films director iguel Sapochnik wanted me to tackle. erfect efine the characters and define the design we had established the foundation for the task ahead. e need to forget that eff is a robot was the first thought iguel shared. f the audience was constantly mareling at how cool eff looked or if he was unnecessarily complicated, it would distract from the story. iguel described an image i n d t h e h a r a c t e r s , i n d t h e e s i g n F I N C H B Y T O M M E Y E R , P R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E R A A. FINCH DISCOVERS JEFF'S "HEAD." B. JEFF HEAD STUDY. SKETCH BY MIGUEL SAPOCHNIK. C. JEFF HEAD SIZE STUDY. MODEL BY LEGACY EFFECTS.