Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/2965
them. Often you get back results that you hadn't anticipated but go way beyond your expectations. at's the great thing about the collaborative nature of fi lmmaking. I think my years of teaching prepared me for being a director because it is all about being clear, setting achievable goals, and being able to communicate an approach to get there. Were you able to use any of the assets from the short, or did you start from scratch? e assets from the short were used mainly for reference. We studied the characters, and they served as a departure point from which we started the redesign to make them more robust and refi ned for the feature. Are there any new surprises in the fea- ture fi lm? Plenty, but if I told you, then they wouldn't be surprises then, would they? [smile] In the feature, there is dialog, whereas the short had none. How did you adjust to that? What's nice about animation and also a little hair-raising is that it's always a process. Always. We would have a ses- sion with the actors, and we would leave it pretty open. We'd explore the character and dialog with the actors, and then we'd run back to our secret lab with that ma- terial and see what comes out of it. You make new discoveries, and then you go back and do the process over again. It's exciting because you collaborate on ev- ery level, which is great, and the fi lm just kind of organically shapes itself. e ac- tors brought a tremendous amount to the table, and we actually sought the actors who had the characteristics of the charac- ters that we were portraying. We wanted them to speak in a very natural way, and it is not as pushed as some animation, and it's not as broad. We learned a lot about our characters from the actors. ey're sort of the fi rst round of the acting, and they give you a lot of raw material. en you also work with the animators, who do another level of acting on top, so you're always fl eshing out the characters. How does this fi lm diff er from other CG movies that we have been seeing in theaters? I think [co-producer] Timur Bekmam- betov has said it eloquently: "It's not your kid brother's animated movie." And in that regard, I think the fi lm pushes into terri- tory rarely explored in animation. But for me, it wasn't a conscious goal to do some- thing diff erent; this is just how I think. is is the thrust that I have as a fi lmmaker and the interest I have in animation. For me, it's what I think animation should be. I'm just expressing myself and telling a story in a way I wanted to tell it. Hopefully, if people like it and engage in it, it will open the door for other possibilities and allow other fi lmmakers to explore and expand the medium. Who is the fi lm geared toward? e fi lm is geared toward the kid in all of us who loves the pure escapist fan- tasy/adventure fi lm. Even though the fi lm takes place in a dark setting and has some intense moments, it really is a lot of fun. ere are some amazing action sequences, and the unique world and characters really draw you in. I think there is something for everyone in the fi lm. ■ The characters, made from bits of scrap and illustrative of a natural selection process, have different detailing that is particularly well suited to their individual capabilities. September 2009 44 ■ ■ ■ ■ Computer Animation