Brad Bird: “Blowing up planets? That’s easy. But shirt pulls? Those are impossible.”
Brad Bird and John Walker look back fondly at “The Incredibles,” the new Pixar film that just officially wrapped production last Friday.
Things didn’t go quite according to plan when Pixar Animation Studios invited Brad Bird – director of the much loved traditionally animated film, “The Iron Giant” – to come helm his first CG feature.
“They thought that I’d come up from LA, settle in, get comfortable, and then get an idea,” said Brad to a room full of animation fans at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. “But – when I arrived in Emeryville — I already had an idea for a film that I wanted to make: ‘The Incredibles.’ “
This idea – a film about a family of super heroes – was something that Bird had been toying with since the mid-1990s. Back when he was a consultant on Fox’s hit animated series, “The Simpsons,” but Brad couldn’t get any of his ideas for new animated features greenlit by the studios.
“I couldn’t get any of my ideas for movies off the runway,” Bird explained. “All these projects would get stalled out for purely bureaucratic reasons. My guy at the studio would get fired. Or they wouldn’t want to risk their parking spot on my iffy project.”
“Meanwhile, my family is getting larger,” he continued. “And I haven’t made it yet. I wasn’t getting the chance to do what I love. To do what I was good at.”
And out of all that frustration grew the core concept for “The Incredibles.” A comic action-adventure about crime fighters who (Thanks to a series of events that are too convoluted to reveal here) are forced to hang up their tights, renounce all of their super powers and then pretend to be average joes living in the suburbs.
“Incredibles” producer John Walker first remembers hearing about this somewhat bizarre idea for a motion picture back in 1999. When Brad invited John to meet him at a coffee shop in LA. Where he first unveiled the drawing of the film’s characters that “The Iron Giant” ‘s Tony Fucile had made for Bird.
“Brad told me the story in about an hour,” recalled Walker. “Of course, this was back when we were thinking of doing ‘The Incredibles’ in 2D. But – beyond that – this is still pretty much the same story that Brad set out to tell.”
But how does a traditional animation director actually go about directing his very first CG feature? Brad likened the process to trying to fill up a bottomless pit.
“With CG, you’re constantly having to make thousands of decisions. The film’s designers & technicians always need this incredibly specific information,” Bird explained. “It seems like you’re answering questions all day long. But then months can go by before you see any real progress.”
Which – given Brad’s familiarity with the traditional animation production pipeline (Which allows you fairly early on to get a real sense as to whether the film that you’re working on is actually working or not) – got to be a bit maddening. But — that said — Brad was still determined to make the movie that he originally set out to make. Which would be Pixar’s first film to successfully prominently feature human characters.
Not realistic-looking human characters, mind you. But seriously stylized CG figures. Men & women who were a credible hybrid between cartoons & humans. This was a real challenge for the folks at Pixar. Who have long considered human beings to be the studio’s Achilles heel.
But Bird – having seen the elderly gentleman that Jan Pinkava had created for Pixar’s Academy Award winning short, “Gerry’s Game” – knew that the studio was up to the task. Just so long as they kept from adding too much detail to the human characters that they were creating for “The Incredibles.”
“It was always a question of what’s too much,” Brad continued. “If you put blush on their cheeks, what about freckles? And – if the characters have noses – then why not nostrils and nose hair? You had to be really careful here. Otherwise your characters wound up looking like something out of a Fellini film.”
Bird also found it amusing what wound up panicking Pixar’s tech staff. Ask these guys to realistically knock over a building or blow up a planet? That they can do in their sleep. But if you were to suggest that one character were to playfully pull on another character’s shirt … THAT seemingly simple request would suddenly be the cause of emergency staff meetings.
“These tech guys would suddenly appear in my doorway,” Walker recalled with much amusement. “They say to me ‘Did you hear what Brad is asking for? He wants a shirt pull. We’re going to need a whole lot more money for that, John.’“
Thankfully, the talented tech teams at Pixar eventually got a handle on that shirt pull situation. And — with senior studio staffers like John Lasseter running interference for Bird (“John bodily put himself between this movie and mediocrity, “ said Brad. “He did everything he could to make sure that this film turned out the way we wanted.”) – he got to make the movie that he wanted to make.
Please notice that “got to make.” As in: past tense. Production officially wrapped on “The Incredibles” last Friday. The announcement went out over the studio PA system around 10 a.m. And – as they say in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – there was much rejoicing.
Mind you, Brad and John didn’t have much chance to rejoice. Last Friday morning (before they flew into San Diego’s Comic Con to host an exclusive preview www.jimhillmedia.com/mb/articles/showarticle.php?ID=1010 of the film), they were up at Skywalker Ranch. Riding herd on the foley artists who were putting the finished touches on “The Incredibles” soundtrack.
It’s obviously been quite a journey from Bird & Walker. In just 5 short years, to make that trip from an LA coffee shop to the stage in Room 20. Where 6400+ people stood up and cheered after seeing two short scenes from “The Incredibles.”
“I’m incredibly happy,” said Brad. “I got to make the movie that I wanted to make. With the help – of course – of a team of very talented, very dedicated people.”
So what’s next for Bird? As he wrapped up his appearance at Comic Con, Brad did say that he wanted to try his hand at live action. (Though – that said – this animation director has little tolerance for Hollywood types who come up to him and say: “I enjoy your animated movies. But when are you going to make a REAL movie?”)
But – at least for the foreseeable future – Bird’s just going to concentrate on wrapping up “The Incredibles” ‘s soundtrack and sound effects. And then – after that – there’s the promotion of the picture.
But – in the meantime – Bird’s going to enjoy watching people enjoy the movie that he made. The picture that – in spite of being Disney & Pixar’s big holiday release – is still a very personal film for Brad. (How personal? Jack-Jack, the Parr family’s super-powered toddler? He’s actually modeled after Bird’s middle son.)
Look for Disney/ Pixar’s “The Incredibles” to pop up at a theater near you sometime in early November. For further information on this film, Skwigly suggests that you check out the “Incredibles” website by following this link Disney.com – Incredibles