If you’re a film fan, there’s a movie for you this weekend. The new Johnny Depp film Rango is an exuberant ode to film history complete with winking nods to everything from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns to the Roman Polanski classic Chinatown. Hardcore cinephiles will have a lot to talk about, while ticking off the various homages to western classics over post film coffee or drinks.
Beyond all that hyperbole, the real thrill may very well be the stellar work of the craftsmen at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) who use their visual magic in a way they have never used it before. Rango is the first fully animated film ILM has ever worked on and the results are stunning. It may even be a game changer for the way animation develops in the future.
For those who don’t know a lot about ILM, this is the company that practically invented modern special effects. Founded in May 1975 by George Lucas, ILM was created when Lucas discovered the special effects department at 20th Century Fox was shut down after he was given the green light to begin working on Star Wars. The studio originated in Van Nuys, California, later moved to the Bay Area, first in San Rafael and now in San Francisco. Over the years they have worked on some of the biggest films in movie history and won every award imaginable.
A couple of weeks ago, I had chance to sit down with Tim Alexander, the film’s visual effects supervisor and Kevin Martel, the film’s associate animation supervisor and talk about their involvement with the new Gore Verbinski film and it was obvious they really enjoyed working on this one.
“The thing is, we never looked on it as an animated film,” explained Alexander. “I think the rest of animated fare is– the range is all cartoony. Clearly a lot of studios are very good at making that kind of film. So, why go toe to toe with that? We wanted to do something different.”
To that end they used a lot of photos of real life elements and incorporated them digitally into the film, giving Rango a very different look from most other animated films. “Obviously it wasn’t live action, but we still looked at it as more of a film than an animated feature. I’ve been calling it photographic,” Alexander said.
Having seen the film, I know exactly what Alexander is talking about. When you watch Rango, you never feel like you’re watching a typical animated film. It’s a different experience than anything I have ever seen, both in the way it was filmed and the way the characters are animated.
Without giving away any spoilers, expect to find a lot of familiar movie icons represented by the various characters in the film. Using a method that worked so well for the great animators of the past like Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, many of the animals in the film are based on screen legends both past and present. Both Alexander and Martel indicated there was a real collaboration between all the principals when it came to developing the various characters that inhabit the film and credited Verbinski with creating an atmosphere for everyone involved to do their best work. The ability to have input into the film itself was one of the things that attracted the ILM team to Rango. “We’d really like to be able to do that in future films as well.” Martel stated.
In Rango we get a gritty world, a world far from the colorful landscapes of films like Ice Age and Shrek. Someone at the press conference even asked Verbinski if he felt the film would appeal to children. To which the director replied, “It appealed to mine.”
Personally I think it will appeal to adult audiences as much as it will to children. People forget many of the Disney classics like Snow White, Fantasia and even Bambi had some very dark passages both visually and emotionally, and kids have enjoyed those films for decades now. Most children actually like dark work. It’s more often the parents who freak out rather than the kids.
Asked if there were any other animated films in the ILM pipeline, Martel and Alexander told me there weren’t any films like Rango on the horizon, but that they would love to do another animated film in the future. “How about a version of The Wind in the Willows?” I asked.
“I thought of that a lot as we were doing this film,” Alexander jumped in. “We would love to do that.”
I for one would love to see them get to do it. Johnny Depp would be a wonderful Mr. Toad.
