Couriermail Interview with Stanton

[vanessajoyce]

www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24291971-5003420,00.html

Fantastic read, I thought. Love the contrast with Marvin from Hitchiker's Guide.

I also thought it was interesting that Stanton assumed the audience for WALL-E would be significantly smaller than the previous Pixar films and that it was "selfish" of him to make it because he thought only he would want to see a film like this.

Did he ever underestimate us. ;D

[bima]

Awesome, Vanessa! I'm really looking forward Australian reviewer.

[vanessajoyce]

Yes . . . I'm hoping we have a surge in Aussies joining us here too middle of September. They'll bring some great perspectives. (And maybe will be posting closer to your hours, bima -- you get left alone here a lot. )

[bima]

Yeah, I hope they will awake when I awake, vice versa. I feel like Wall-E, lately. Lonely...

[smkndofpnutdssrt]

I love this:

All the talk about his latest film brings Stanton to the question that follows. Could this be the first Pixar film to win an Oscar for best picture and not just the best animated feature.

"It's a huge compliment that anyone is even saying that," Stanton says.

"To me that means we did our job that we made it be seen as a movie, not as an animated movie. It's a movie and who cares how it's made?

So true.

Also, his statement about him being selfish with this film and making a film that, what he thinks, is a film only he would want to see, makes me wonder. Was he really picky with this movie? How much did he nag the rest of the team to make things the way he wanted them to be? I was watching a behind the scenes bit, and he seemed really bossy and everyone else seemed really frustrated with him. But this instance is proof that sometimes being bossy is a good thing.

[MidgardDragon]

Sept 4, 2008 17:23:21 GMT -5 smkndofpnutdssrt said:

I was watching a behind the scenes bit, and he seemed really bossy and everyone else seemed really frustrated with him.

Really? Everything I've ever seen with Stanton he's come across really humble and nice, and I've never seen anyone acting frustrated with him. I've heard comments to the effect that he knows what he wants, but I haven't heard anyone come out and say he made their job difficult or anything.

[bkim]

I didn't know that a quarter of the U.S. audience for WALL-E did not bring any children. Interesting article, I just admire how Stanton had these visions for what the character of WALL-E would represent, and how the issues he deals with parallel issues that every human deals with at some point in their life. It makes for a truly relateable film experience.

[Viva la Vida]

"It's been a conscious agenda since Toy Story to try and prove you can make an animated movie just like any other movie, that has the same amount of thought and integrity and artistic vision behind it and doesn't pander, isn't a product, isn't a cliche, isn't predictable,"

Wonderful words from one of today's most brilliant storytellers.

I have no doubt that Stanton is a great, decent person overall based on what I've read -- but I don't believe for a moment that he is 100% humble and unassuming in his work as a professional artist. That certainly doesn't mean that he's an egomaniac who abuses his crew, but he DOES have a strong vision of what he wants and he CAN indeed be demanding about it.

The same goes for Lasseter, Bird, Docter et al. For something to be as great as Pixar's films are, there needs to be a strong unified vision to serve as the foundation for all the years and many millions of dollars required to create a feature-quality animated film -- and visions simply cannot stand without a certain degree of confidence and self-assurance. It's not so much arrogantly proclaiming yourself infinitely superior to everyone else as it is about sincerely believing in yourself and your vision, and pushing yourself to realizing that vision to it's highest potential(without being abusive or unreasonable, of course). Even if Stanton felt that WALL-E wouldn't end up having as much appeal as it ultimately did, he obviously believed in what he was doing and he made the most of it.

I recently read a 2005 article about DreamWorks' animated films, and at one point, it reveals how Jeffrey Katzenberg and his company manages to "keep egos in check" -- in other words, creative freedom is suppressed in favor of a formulaic stability meant to benefit business much more than it does art. There's little, if any, true vision to their films.

[vanessajoyce]

You can't work in the pressure-cooker called "animation production" and be happy-happy-joy-joy all the time. It's a really, really, really tough job and the pressure to be creative and highly motivated never lets up. (Which is one reason why I personally never pursued a career in the industry.)

And that is quadrupled for the director. The stakes are so high and you will have months where everything is going wrong. Any human being in that position would get cranky at times.

myadversaria.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/making-of-walle-episode-1/ --> Second clip at :35 . . . Stanton's comment during the early stages of production on how he knows making WALL-E will affect him. Seeing this helps me understand why if Stanton says he does not want to do a WALL-E 2, he knows what he's talking about.

[bima]

Just watched the video. Ben Burtt looks so serious!!! No wonder the movie comes perfect.

[bima]

And is it Roger Deakins?

[vanessajoyce]

At 4:31 in the second clip? Yes!

[Khodhum]

"Morning, class."

[bkim]

Ooo ;D Those were interesting videos. I especially liked the soundtracking bit. Thank you for sharing those.

[bima]

Yeah, I like the soundtracking too. I hope it will reveals at the DVD/Blu-ray special features.