Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/19812
3D•CGI n n n n Why would a filmmaker choose to create a superhero action movie with animation rather than live action? One out-of-this-world reason is to turn the genre on its ear. “Tat’s the fun of this mo vie,” says Tom McGrath, who dir ected D reamWorks Anima - tion’s Megamind. “It turns the superher o genre upside down. It isn’t a par ody or a satir e. It’s a comedy.” And yet, the heart of the drama is a love story between two unlikely par tners, Megamind and Roxanne. Megamind, the star of the film, is a big-head- ed, blue alien v oiced by Will Ferrell, and he ’s a supervillain, not a superher o. With the help of his alien sidekick, M inion (D avid C ross), a fish-headed robot-gorilla, M egamind wants to conquer Metro City. But his evil plans never suc- ceed, thanks to superhero Metro Man (Brad Pitt). Roxanne (Tina Fey), a r eporter in M etro City, is Metro Man’s girlfriend and fr equent Mega- mind kidnap victim. Te plot twists when Megamind accidentally defeats Metro Man and a new villain emerges. At top, director Tom McGrath usually recorded the dialog tracks for Megamind (Will Ferrell) and Roxanne (Tina Fey) separately, but on three occasions, the actors improvised the shots together. At bottom, Minion, the fish inside the bowl, provided interesting opportunities for stereo 3D artists to dive deeply behind the glass. down. “We had to find a way to differentiate their silhou- ettes,” Schleifer says. Tey decided that Metro Man, who was born a super- “It was nice to hav e a small cast of char - acters,” says M cGrath, who pr eviously dir ected the ensemble cast in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (see “Home Is Where the Art Is,” October 2008). “We could focus on their relationships and on putting a new twist on the dynamics. It’s a huge, epic action stor y, but we have intimate relationship stories going on.” Move It, Move It, Move It Jason Schleifer, head of character animation, led the team of 40 animators at PDI/DreamWorks in R edwood City, California, and 20 more at DreamWorks animation in Glen- dale, California, who created the action and the emotion. “Our biggest challenge,” Schleifer says, “was making a likeable villain that the audience wants to follo w. In the first five minutes, Megamind kills the hero, but we had to make people root for him.” Te first test performances for M egamind produced a crazy-eyed, wicked villain who lifted his arched brows ma- niacally and frowned a lot. Typical evil behavior. Ten, the artists realized that even though his dialog might be wicked, if he smiled and looked happy rather than evil, he became appealing. “He is a villain because he likes the challenge, the excitement of ‘bad guy versus good guy,’ ” Schleifer ex- plains. “He enjoys taking o ver the city. When we played ©2010 DreamWorks Animation LLC. November 2010 11 hero, knew how to control his muscles when he used his superpowers. “If he wanted to heat a cup of coffee, he’d say ‘screw the microwave,’ tense his abs, position his legs and head, and use his laser vision, ” Schleifer says. “Te force would kick his head, but he could absorb the power.” Tighten, on the other hand, is a former cameraman without Metro Man’s lifetime of experience with super - powers. He would react differently. “Tighten would shoot backwards,” Schleifer says. “But as he became more pow- erful and gained control of his power, we played with us- ing his physicality differently.” To accent these superhero performances, the animators could activate a muscle-based system that made it possible to scale and flex the muscles. “We wanted Tighten and Metro Man to have crazy, powerful poses,” Schleifer says. All the characters in this film moved thanks to the studio’s new rigging tool called Rig. “O n How to Train Your Dragon, the dragons used Rig, but the humans had the old system,” Schleifer says. “So this was the first show that used Rig for all the characters. Te background char- acters had the same rig as the hero characters, which made it easier for the animators. B ecause they had consistent controls for ev ery character, they could concentrate on the character’s personality. Tey didn’t have to spend time learning new tools.” with that enjoyment factor, he became super appealing.” Te second performance challenge for the animation team was in differentiating Metro Man and Tighten, two superheroes who ar e physically identical fr om the neck