DESPICABLE ME was one of the most talked-about animated films of all time. Director Cal Brunker is back with a new movie: ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH. Blue aliens, an all-star cast and a Canadian production? Sounds like our kind of movie! We got the chance to speak with him and writer Bob Barlen. Here’s what they had to say.
What drew you to start working in animation?
Cal: My grandparents are artists, my parents dragged me around to art galleries my whole life. I was always drawing and keeping a sketchbook growing up and I think I really desperately didn’t want to work in an office…or maybe at a regular desk job because I do work in an office, but as I got to the end of high school and started looking at career paths and animation seemed to be one where you get to draw cool stuff and that couldn’t have been a better fit. I went to Sheridan college for animation and while I was there, that love grew into more than drawing, it grew into really film making and animation as being the tool to do that.
And Bob really comes at the whole thing from a writing perspective. He went to live action film school — regular film school — so he’s driven by the same love for animation. He really kept it to the table from a story perspective, thinking of what’s going to be compelling. It’s a nice partnership from a writing standpoint.
As writers and directors, how much control do you have over the visual animation of the film?
Cal: I would say… a lot. Certainly on a film like this, you’re limited by resources and time as every film maker is. But the thing that’s nice about animation is that you control it at such a small level like I would say, “Here the character needs to blink a bit later or they need to take a breath before turning here.” You’re making very small, controlled decisions so you really get to orchestrate the whole thing. There’s also the collaboration with the studio… obviously the people at the studio have strong opinions about movies and that’s great, you know they have a great track record, so we’re always excited to collaborate with them. So what it really comes down to, I think it’s probably 95% of exactly what we want them to do, a chunk of which was better ideas from them and 5% ends up being stuff that other collaborators in the process felt really strongly about and that ends up being in there too, we love it all but it may not have started as our ideas.
What do you look for when you’re auditioning actors for only speaking parts?
Cal: Well there’s a few things. When you have a cast like our cast, which is pretty crazy in terms of the amount of amazing performers we have, it’s not so much as an audition process as much as it is just begging them to come and do your movie because, I won’t read off all the names on the list, but you know with every one of them that said yes we we’re over the moon. But when it comes to the secondary roles and auditioning, it generally comes down to finding someone that fits the vision for what the character would be, you know, you hear their voice and you go “Yes! That’s it! That’s what we we’re writing towards.” And then seeing how they respond to a little poking and prodding, if you say, “Why don’t you try it like this…?” and they run off in a new direction and that really works, generally that’s somebody who’s going to be a great voice actor. You know sometimes people will come in and have one way they can do it that sounds good and everything else falls apart, that generally isn’t very helpful because you need people to be a bit flexible. That was certainly part of casting some of the secondary rolls, was finding people and good collaborators and people who could change their ideas on the fly.
How did you come up with the idea for this movie?
Cal: Well before Bob and I had came on to the project the studio had gone down a whole bunch of different paths as is what usually happened with these types of animated films, is you try a bunch of paths to figure out what you don’t want to do and you kind of end up knowing OK this is what we want the movie to be and at that point they wanted a fresh take on the movie and I got a chance to go down and pitch in and here what he wanted to do with the film and when that looked like it was going to work, I called my writing partner and we collaborated with Bob and he jumped on and we’ve been writing and rewriting the movie ever since.
If you couldn’t be a writer or director, which career would you have wanted to pursue?
Cal: That’s a tough one! I’ll try and not dodge the question by saying a comic book artist or something. I don’t know, maybe a chef or something, still have the ability to create and please and audience and put your work out there.
Bob: If I couldn’t be working as a film writer I’d probably want to be a magician I think. It’s a little way to feel like, what we do with movies in many ways is the same type of reaction you’re getting out of audience to hopefully entertain at group of people I feel we have entertainment in our blood.
Thanks, Cal and Bob!
ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH is in theatres now so be sure to check it out!