Gore Verbinski interview
Gore Verbinski is famous in directing films of various genres, but at this time he has directed his first feature-length animated western "Rango", continuing collaboration with Johnny Depp, which has voiced the main character - a chameleon Rango. Here is an interview with the director.
- One gets the impression that your film was conceived not as a children's cartoon. Did you thing from the very beginning that the main character will be a lizard?
I was planning to shoot the children's cartoon and now I pleased to see, that children and their parents enjoy it in cinemas around the world. Children are constantly overlooked, and yet they always catch the essence. So I do not know the answer to your question.
- On the premiere the whole hall was packed with children, but it seemed that adults were laughing the loudest.
Probably. I do not think that working on the film, you can deliberately choose a future audience for which you shoot it. We must shoot for ourselves and hope that others will enjoy it too.
- Most people from the "Rango" team have worked with you on "Pirates", including your permanent editor Craig Wood. Before them has been set a goal – to shoot an animated film, but for many of them it is a new task.
I think if those people with whom you work, are very talented, you can get from them even more if you weed them out of their usual environment. We have a team of associates, and we together wake up at 3 am in a cold sweat with the thought of how can we realize our plans. And this thought brings us together and makes us stronger. We really wanted to invent a new chip in the field of animation. Too many people create wonderful cartoons, we just did not want to repeat their path, and therefore decided not to refer to the "Rango" as to the cartoon. We’ve imagined that we work with ordinary actors, I have a camera on my shoulder, and I shoot the lizard growth of 5 feet, which speaks with a turtle.
- So summarizing, you were shooting in order to get a live sound track, and did motion capture, is not it?
Yes, but the sound - a very important detail. We filmed with multiple cameras and use this stuff from time to time, for example, told the animators: "Look what Johnny does with his face here and here." There were very useful moments, but basically, we got the pleasure of the work that is considered normal traditional animation, rather than motion capture.
- Your idea worked because, watching "Rango", you forget that this is a cartoon about talking animals.
Thank you. We tried to create characters with character, such as rabbit Dock - city tippler; all the characters are designed in the best traditions of the genre.
- You signed a contract to shoot the film "Lone Ranger" with Depp in the title role, despite the fact that you both had just finished work on westerns. Do you plan to shoot anything else in between these two movies?
Yes, I would like. We're still working on the script for "Ranger" and tried to stick to the schedule. I spent three and a half years staring at a computer monitor, and now I dream to be on that side of it and shoot something, such as "Synoptic".