Film Editor Kees van Dijkhuizen Jr. put together this respectful tribute to director Brad Bird (Incredibles, Ratatouille, Iron Giant) by combining his quotes with clips from films that illustrate his ideas. Via Cartoon Brew
"We make films that we ourselves would want to see and then hope that other people would want to see it. If you try to analyze audiences or think there's some sophisticated recipe for success, then I think you are doomed. You're making it too complicated."
"I think all movies are an illusion, whether they are live action or animation. And I think the best special effect that people don't pay enough attention to is caring about the characters who are going through the set pieces. If you can be invested in the characters that you are putting in danger, then you can amp up the pressure, and it really means something because people are rooting for them to survive. Characters are the special effect."
"When caricaturist, Al Hirschfeld, did a drawing of a celebrity, it often looked more like the person than the person did. That's our goal in animation."
"I think there's a tendency [among some animators] to wink at the audience so much that you feel that you're above the world that you're presenting—like the filmmaker doesn't really believe in the world that he's putting on screen. And there's a safety in that, because if you try to make the audience feel something besides comedy, like if you try to make them feel moved, you risk looking really silly if it doesn't work."
3 comments:
I can't find anything that I disagree with in this. I had to laugh at the montage of 'yammering' films at the start, including some very recent additions. Pity that this seems to be an example of a '(not-so-)sophisticated recipe for success' that many films, not just animated, rely on. All the way up to the Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston cameos - two of Disney's 'Nine Old Men' - in The Incredibles, at the end of the video. Having looked into their approach to animating and storytelling recently, I can see how much Brad's attitude meshes with what I know of theirs, and it gives more insight into the reason he chose to pay homage to them in that way.
No school like the old school.
But blimey, James. You gave me a fright! When I read 'respectful tribute', I thought he'd been taken from us...
Warren, yikes, I certainly meant "tribute" in the sense of a complimentary sumup of what a working colleague's accomplishments so far. Ididn't mean to imply Brad Bird wasn't still very much with us. He's a young guy--my age! He's working on Incredibles 2, which I'm looking forward to. Yes, he learned a lot from the Nine Old Men when he was at Disney, including Milt Kahl, who was incredibly demanding of the highest artistic effort.
November 2, 2016 at 9:49 P
It's about storytelling. It's ALL about the story. INCREDIBLES works on so many levels because every scene, visual, scrap of dialog, EVERYTHING is driven by the requirements of good storytelling. There are no shots added 'because this is cool', or 'this is a fun little nudge' or 'the director's girlfriend wanted a teddybear scene'. The characters all grow, change, learn - they are complete people. And there is a lot in it. There is the entire range of live actors plus the addition of the physical impossibility of animation.
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