Discord behind the scenes of FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
"I think he's a little sociopathic," cinematographer Oliver said. "I think he's a little O.C.D. Contact with people disturbs him. This way, he can spend an entire day locked inside an empty room with a computer. He's a bit like the Wizard of Oz. Behind the curtain."
Informed of Oliver's discontent, Anderson said: "I would say that kind of crosses the line for what's appropriate for the director of photography to say behind the director's back while he's working on the movie. So I don't even want to respond to it."
Actually, the article makes me generally side with Anderson over the animators. He insisted on doing the animation the old-fashioned way, without any green screen or computer effects, because he wanted the movie to have the crude charm of stop-motion from years ago. It probably was annoying to the animators to have to do stuff the way it hasn't been done in decades, but I get Anderson's point. As slick as something like The Corpse Bride is, it doesn't have the funky charm of an older movie like Mad Monster Party.
The gossipy parts of the article are fun, but it also actually makes the movie sound more interesting.
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5 comments:
quote - "He insisted on doing the animation the old-fashioned way, without any green screen or computer effects, because he wanted the movie to have the crude charm of stop-motion from years ago."
Don't believe the hype. There's quite a bit of digital vfx work on Fox. Of course there is. CGI, greenscreen, yep both. Wes wasted a fair bit of money trying to avoid it, and then ended up using loads by the end. And then they send out press packs pretending there's no digital vfx work in there. Somewhat hypocritically, I would say, and disrespectfully to the vfx designers who worked hard on the picture.
Well, given that the effects artists are openly and bitterly critical about Anderson in the article, this strikes me a weird way to hype a movie. I gather that if any greenscreen effects were used, it was a last-minute thing to save some shots that weren't working the old-fashioned way.
I can see both sides of the argument on something like this - on the one hand, stop-motion animators got by for years without computer effects and other high-tech stuff, and those old movies are amazing. There's something to be said for doing things old school. But at the same time, stop-motion is damn hard, slow work, and I can understand wanting to use everything you can to get it done faster and have a better result.
Fantastic Mr fox used digital effects and green screen work in hundreds of shots. These shots were not last-minute additions as suggested by Greg Stacy's comments, but carefully executed mostly by an in-house team working for more than a year.
Saying that this film was created using no digital effects of green screen is just the normal marketing spin and should be seen as such. So there isn't any argument because Anderson used all of the digital tools to create his look.
What this shows is it is not the tools or approach that counts, but the personality and vision of the director.
Got any sources for that, Anonymous? The LA Times article was printed October 11th, mere days ago. And again, if this is marketing spin it's a very strange way to do it; it arguably makes Anderson look unprofessional and difficult to work for.
The marketing spin is that the film is the fact that they say there no or very little digital effects or green screen used in the film, and the LA Times article was reporters catching comments from tired people working hard on the film and blowing it up in to stupid levels.
Anderson was not unprofessional and no more difficult than any other director with strong vision.
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