An Oscar-winning art and production designer steps behind the camera for the first time on Maleficent.
You know, my dad was a low budget film director.
So the bug of directing has been there my whole career.
I feel like Ive been ready to do that for a long time.
The missing ingredient emotionally, or completing my own personal journey career wise, was this.
And so I got the opportunity.
I had over several years a trusting relationship with Joe Roth, a producer who producedAlice,Ozand alsoMaleficent.
He gave me the opportunity and I seized it.
Were you ever on your dads sets?
But hes a huge fan of Ray Harryhausen and those classic special effects guys back in the day.
Thats where I was introduced to visual effects.
I used to do stop motion in my own garage and Claymation and all that stuff.
That led to doing backgrounds and matte paintings.
I started doing matte paintings professionally back before the computer, sort of painting on glass.
But along the way I met a lot of directors.
So that was the first time I really sort of felt that I had learned something very valuable.
And many, many others Tim Burton, Sam Raimi.
I never felt like I was trying to teach somebody how to act.
Im really interpreting emotion.
Its a rhythm, like music is a rhythm or composition and art is a rhythm.
Dialogue is a rhythm as well.
I cant say that there was.
But with Angelina I think we had fun in the sense that we learned from each other.
And so I think we compared notes, learned from each other and that made it a beautiful collaboration.
And so if youre intimidated or distracted by that sort of thing then you probably shouldnt direct.
There is a female empowerment angle to this film.
I mean there are more and more strong female characters in real life than there used to be.
So why not take that and apply the same rules as you would to a superhero.
Why not apply the same rules to a plot or a storyline?
Some fun and new and interesting things may come out of that.
Why do you think fairy tales continue to have a modern resonance with people?
Probably because fairy tales in general are just very simple stories really.
But the Disney version of a fairy tale is a very simple thing.
Light meets dark, you know, the princess meets prince, happily ever after.
Weve just sort of jumbled them up in a different way.
There are elements in this movie which theres no question about it that they are fairy tale elements.
Its just maybe were looking at them in a slightly different way.
Im always trying to my mind is always wandering five years ahead.
Im doing what I think are some very exciting things in the technology of what storytelling may become.
There are a lot of big changes ahead, exciting things.
Im trying to stay in front of the curve.
Ill leave it at that.
Well talk again in two years.
Well Ive always been a huge science fiction fan.
Coming up through the ranks, I did a lot of work on theStar Trekfilms.
Im a huge fan of Ridley Scott andAlien.
I love those types of films.
I think just science fiction in general, maybe some more cerebral science fiction.
My dad made monster movies, you know, so theres a built in fascination with creatures and monsters.
Id love to one day maybe take a stab at that.
How involved were you in actually shaping the story of this film?
That was really the only major change.
One thing that I realized is that you have to understand who your audience is.
In our case, its a Disney film but we want families to come with their kids basically.
To make a movie thats two and a half hours long can be a bit much for young kids.
So I was all for making the story within two hours.
Did you have fun doing this?
Well, people have different definitions of fun.
Maleficentis currently in theaters.
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