J*****s
发帖数: 185 | 1 http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/06/30/rango-johnny-depp/
by John Young
Categories: Animation, Movie Trailers, Movies, On the Scene
Image Credit: Paramount PicturesThe first proper trailer for the CG-animated
film Rango was unleashed yesterday (and embedded below), and despite its
peyote-infused imagery, it made a hell of a lot more sense than the wind-up
goldfish teaser that popped up a few weeks ago. But what if you wanted a bit
more dirt about this Gore Verbinski-directed, Johnny Depp-starring liz | J*****s
发帖数: 185 | 2 http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/06/30/rango-johnny-depp/
by John Young
Categories: Animation, Movie Trailers, Movies, On the Scene
Image Credit: Paramount PicturesThe first proper trailer for the CG-animated
film Rango was unleashed yesterday (and embedded below), and despite its
peyote-infused imagery, it made a hell of a lot more sense than the wind-up
goldfish teaser that popped up a few weeks ago. But what if you wanted a bit
more dirt about this Gore Verbinski-directed, Johnny Depp-starring lizard
western? Luckily, Verbinski invited a posse of reporters to his Blind Wink
offices on the Universal Studios lot, where we checked out some of the
artwork and character designs for the film (scheduled to release next March)
, and got an early glimpse of a couple of scenes.
But first, Verbinski cleared up some plot details. Rango (Depp) is a pet
chameleon who lives in a terrarium. “He’s a thespian in search of an
audience,” says Verbinski. “He’s made friends with the inanimate objects
in his terrarium — he calls them all by name. And when we meet him, he’s
in the process of putting on a play with the various objects.” Verbinski
then alluded to Roadkill, an armadillo voiced by Alfred Molina: “Roadkill’
s run over as part of the origin of Rango’s demise, where his terrarium is
thrust from his car, and he ends up in the desert.”
Through a bizarre set of circumstances, Rango winds up at a town called Dirt
, which is populated by all sorts of Mojave Desert wildlife. “This town is
really hungry for a hero, and they get the great pretender,” says Verbinski
. “Rango has to ultimately come to terms with the difference between
pretending and what’s real.” The director also mentioned that Rango, as an
aquatic creature desperately in need of hydration, ironically finds himself
getting involved in a Chinatown-esque water subplot.
Already Rango comes off as an animated film with more substance on its mind
and more tricks up its sleeve than most. And the way Verbinski went about
recording his characters’ voices was a departure for an animated movie.
Typically, actors perform their lines alone in a recording studio. But
instead, Verbinski gathered his entire cast — including Depp, Timothy
Olyphant, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy, Isla Fisher, Ray Winstone, and Harry
Dean Stanton — and had them act out the entire movie in a studio during the
course of a 20-day shoot. Using a limited amount of props, sets, and
costumes, the actors repeatedly tackled their scenes while video cameras
recorded their performances.
“It’s not motion capture — we call it emotion-capture,” says Verbinski.
“I didn’t want to give up the techniques that were developed in shooting
live action, where you try to optimize the possibility of capturing the
awkward moment — the moment where things aren’t cerebral or manufactured.
Everything in an animated film is manufactured. There are no accidents. So
we were trying to encourage a kinetic, raw spark to the audio track.”
Verbinski showed us some of this footage, and needless to say, the sight of
Johnny Depp pretending to be a heroic cowboy lizard is simultaneously
amusing and slightly disturbing.
What’s also unique about Rango is that it’s being entirely animated by the
visual-effects house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). ILM is typically hired
to provide the CGI for expensive blockbusters (such as Verbinski’s Pirates
of the Caribbean movies), but this is the first time the company has been
asked to handle a completely animated feature. Judging by the brief clips
shown to us, Rango features a beautifully stylized look that draws upon the
John Ford canon, Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, and — as Verbinski
pointed out — a hushed hint of Hayao Miyazaki mysticism. A particularly
striking clip showed a spiritually defeated Rango testing his fate by
walking across a busy highway with his eyes closed. As his lizard feet
marched across the road, the camera stayed low to the ground while the cars
whizzed by above our heads. I won’t give away what happens next, other than
to say that it involves pill bugs (a criminally underutilized creature
throughout film history) and a recreation of an iconic shot from Spider-Man
2.
By the conclusion of my visit to Verbinski’s office, we still hadn’t
learned the meaning behind that wind-up goldfish. But we did find out that
there will be a building in the town of Dirt that has the words “
Proctologist and Power Tools” plastered on it, and that’s enough to hold
me over until the next trailer is released. |
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