Storyboarding for the likes of Spielberg, Ron Howard, David Fincher and Spike Jonze.
Second unit work for John Singleton and Roland Emmerich.
And now, directing his first feature,Rise Of The Guardians,for DreamWorks Animation.
Here, he tells us about the film, and how his career came to this point… Its almost narrative or nothing, and I dont see that so much any more.
Was that what you were going for?
To me, that feels stale and expected, and the safe thing to do.
Theyre real people to you, and I thought that was fascinating.
Just being able to incorporate that kind of emotional connection into a work of fiction.
To me, its like being able to contribute to a mythology.
But you also seem to have a lot of fun here in making the familiar unfamiliar?
I couldnt get it out of my head.
I started realising how much our perception of them is shaped by media.
Santa Claus, like Zeus, Falstaff.
Big energy, generosity, wildness… the Easter Bunny.
Even the Tooth Fairy with this idea that the teeth hold the memory.
They all started seeming like Greek gods to me.
Thats what we wanted to do with the guardians.
Its a dark story youve got here, not just in terms of the colour palette.
But this is a film that starts with a death.
Yeah, I see that.
But tonally, again you didnt pander.
That dont expose emotions like fear.
Its like laughter is okay, but fear isnt.
Well, emotion is ultimately the thing thats most difficult for many people to deal with.
Particularly in popular culture.
So much is about enforcing a conformity.
Its a real emotional connection.
Guillermo del Toro, whos our executive producer, says that its a romantic vision of the world.
We wanted to do it with no apologies in a way.
It is very interesting how some people, its difficult to embrace that or meet it half way.
I dont know how it is.
Can you talk about how you audibly get this right.
You hit really well pitched silences in this a few times, for instance.
Yeah, we try.
The movie is stuffed to bursting, and the pace is clearly relentless.
Theres a lot of story were trying to tell.
In a perfect world, Id have had a few more minutes.
But it really is about choosing your moments to get the quiet.
Its one of the big things about making movies watchable.
As fast and as overwhelming as the movie is sometimes, it is those quiet moments.
And then the score: Alexandre Desplat.
So many people discovered him here.
My eyes almost popped out of my sockets.
The moment he said it, I said hed be perfect.
What Alexandre brings is so much more unique, fine tuned and delicate.
He also really embraced the fun of the movie.
There are sequences in there that are almost Warner Bros cartoons.
Alexandre is a really funny guy, with an impish sense of humour.
He loved it, and jumped right into it.
Another quality your film has is glue.
Which is why I wanted to talk about sound with you.
Over my storyboarding career, Ive got to work with…
Pretty much everyone, that I can make out!
Ive been so lucky.
It was my film school, basically.
Im also just a film nut.
Watching films, absorbing them, reading whatever I could get my hands on about film.
Alexandre said something interesting.
As we were doing the score, and hear a theme, Id started whistling it.
I grew up in a household with a lot of music.
I live and breathe that.
Alexandre asked me, do you play an instrument?
I dont think the film drags.
Thats something I learned from storyboarding.
One of my earliest dates with my now-wife, we went to seeThe Shadow.
[Laughs] Im sorry!
I have to ask: did you do the dagger?
[does impression of it, leaves us convinced].
Was it Stephen Hopkins, or John Singleton?
My first real job storyboarding a movie was on a movie that never got made.
It made a lot of money.
The way he financed it, it was something to do with the stock market.
We got to go to Italy and all this stuff.
But that was my first real movie storyboarding job.
Before that, I was just working bookstore jobs, and I didnt know anything about the movie business.
I was just like the hick from Farmville, even though Id grown up in LA.
You did second unit on two John Singleton films two of his most difficult.
John actually gave me my first second unit job onPoetic Justice.
That was a really difficult film for him.
Yeah, it was a tough one.
I shot all the stuff of the mail truck going up the California coast, all that stuff.
Then you ended up onGodzilla?
I thought great, Ill do that.
Because things were picking up.
Id gone into storyboarding with the idea of being a director.
That was my goal.
I didnt have enough money to make my own film…
So not an animation director?
The whole thing of me ending up in animation was a little bit of a fluke.
I was going to be Kurosawa, or Orson Welles.
Its just taking a little longer than I thought [laughs].
It was a big second unit onTank Girl.
Aron Warner, the guy who produced that movie, went on to produce theShrekmovies for DreamWorks.
I think I turned it down onShrek 1, I was yeah, animation, shnanimation.
I checked out DreamWorks, loved it, its a great place to work.
Because Id done second unit stuff.
People get obsessed with classing animation as a genre in itself.
Right, and it isnt.
Yeah, I guess you could say that.
So we have you to thank for the Kubrick touches in that film?
[Laughs] No, actually those were there before.
From there, after I finishedMonsters Vs Aliens, I directed the TV special based on that movie.
And it was all designed around learning the way the studio worked, the pipeline, the production structure.
But they already had that well in hand.
So I was flipping free for just a little bit, and the opportunity for Guardians came up.
I was kind of shocked, but they liked what Id done.
[laughs]
Ill go a little bit further, though.
Are you going to doGuardians3?
you’re free to get locked intoGuardiansfilms for ten years…
Theoretically, yeah.
DreamWorks Animations business model on this is well known.
Yeah, if the audience wants more, were happy to give it to them.
There are two things.
Ive fallen in love with the characters, I really had a great time.
That and working with the people I worked with.
Its been an incredible experience.
Also, I had underestimated how big a part just experience can play.
A lot of it Ive been learning as Ive gone on this one.
Now I realise the value of having experience, just in terms of being able to be bolder.
I feel that I could do a much better one on a second one if I had the chance.
Im ultra-proud of the movie, and everything weve done.
Now weve done it though, its as if I think I know how to do it now!
One last question, then.
And that is one of the toughest things about the job, realising that.
Ive spent most of my career as a working stiff.
He was the best kind of collaborator you could ever hope for, and so was Roger.
Peter Ramsey, thank you very much.
Rise Of The Guardiansis out inUKcinemas now.
