The Oscars: Clements & Musker Talk More Princess and the Frog
JM: Yeah, there was a sort of biblical ending that we had but, to simplify the movie, we changed it, so you can see what might have been.
BD: So, what kind of 2D ideas are you pitching John?
JM: There are some that are period and some that are contemporary and some that are musical and some that are not.
RC: I think we're probably not going to do a fairy tale. Even when we did The Little Mermaid, we actually turned down Beauty and the Beast. And Aladdin just seemed like it would be a fun Arabian adventure to do next, so I think we're looking at some different areas of storytelling.
BD: What are the challenges that appeal to you?
JM: Whatever we do will have legitimacy for 2D and not CG. There are different techniques with After Effects and stuff like that.
BD: Your film reminded us again that it's such a different aesthetic with so many artistic possibilities yet to explore.
JM: Right, I think that's what we want to exploit: what hand-drawn does particularly well.
RC: We always describe it as a different paint brush. In general, we look for strong stories and strong characters and interesting worlds that lend themselves to hand-drawn more. But this is getting harder and harder to do with an Avatar that lets you tell any kind of story in any kind of way.
JM: It's interesting, the other night at the VES Awards, during his acceptance speech, James Cameron said that we're all warlocks and magicians and people don't understand what we do and we should keep it that way. And hopefully we are all doing these magical tricks.
Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.
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That reminds me of the time when Jess Marley wanted to make his animation look as though it were 2D. He had such a hard time with it.
People kept criticing it and eventually he hit one of his fellow classmates. He never did want to listen to people he had a really bad attitude. Decent animator though.
This is just a guess, but I think he was trying to point out that 2D and 3D animation can both dazzle audiences with their artistry, and "hopefully we are all doing these magical tricks" implies that he hopes that The Princess and the Frog and future projects like it will continue to hold their own against 3D films like Avatar.
thanks for this interview, always nice to hear these guys thoughts. cant wait for the blu-ray!
will be interesting to see what they mean with the next probably being "not a fairytale movie". I didnt think of that as a genre in itself. hopefully it means toning down the musical element and having a more "mature" pixar-style pacing though. beautiful and amazing as frog was it was a bit frantic...
one thing, I dont get the ending quote there? whats the point he wanted to make with that?
"One of the things on the Blu-ray is they're going to have the whole movie in rough animation, so you can click back and forth between both versions."
I can't wait!
I was so sorry to miss this movie in the box office. It's good to hear that we will be seeing more 2D animation though.
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