{"id":14549,"date":"2011-05-09T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T10:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=14549"},"modified":"2011-05-09T10:20:37","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T14:20:37","slug":"the-illusionist-and-bob-last-disc-dish-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=14549","title":{"rendered":"The Illusionist and Bob Last: Disc Dish Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Guest blogger Laurence Lerman of Disc Dish writes:<\/p>\n

If the story behind the genesis of the 2010 Oscar-nominated animated film The Illusionist<\/a> isn\u2019t as touching as the film itself, it\u2019s at least as engaging. The original script for the film\u2014which concerns the relationship between an aging magician whose art is on the brink of becoming pass\u00e9 and a young orphan girl who believes in the magic that he brings to her life\u2014was penned by the late, great French filmmaker Jacques Tati<\/a> (Mr. Hulot\u2019s Holiday among other greats). Reportedly, Tati\u2019s unproduced script was a love letter of sorts to one of his daughters. According to The Illusionist\u2019s director Sylvain Chomet<\/a>, he was made aware of the script through Tati\u2019s sole surviving daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, and the caretakers of the Tati estate, after the 2003 premiere of Chomet\u2019s Oscar-nominated animated feature The Triplets of Belleville<\/a>. All parties concerned felt that an animated approach\u2014specifically Chomet\u2019s 2D animated style\u2014would be perfect for a film adaptation of Tati\u2019s Illusionist script.<\/p>\n

Seven years later, The Illusionist was released to international acclaim and Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature. It\u2019s coming to disc from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment as a Blu-ray\/DVD combo pack on May 10.<\/p>\n

Disc Dish recently spoke with Bob Last, producer of The Illusionist, about how his work on the film and how he initially got involved with such a fine and fascinating project.<\/p>\n

Disc Dish:<\/strong> This is probably a standard question, but I have to kick off with it: Are you a big Jacques Tati fan?<\/p>\n

Bob Last:<\/strong> It\u2019s interesting\u2014I suppose I have to say that I wasn\u2019t all that familiar with Jacques Tati\u2019s entire canon at the beginning. I did make The Century of Cinema, a big, big series about the history of cinema, and obviously I knew his work, but it was a pleasure to investigate it all when the project came to me.<\/p>\n

DD:<\/strong> And how did this project come to you?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/a>BL:<\/strong> I had been producing live action features and had started a small animation studio \u2014Ink.Digital [in Dundee, Scotland]. I had always loved graphics and graphic novels. I met Sylvain and [his wife and producer] Sally at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2003 when they were presenting The Triplets of Belleville. They had been involved with the Tati estate for the licensing of a clip for that film and they had come across his script for The Illusionist. Both Sally and Sylvain loved Edinburgh as much as they did the script and Sylvain became very interested in setting Tati\u2019s story there as opposed to its original location. And that\u2019s where it started. I had been impressed by Triplets and then getting the opportunity to work with Sylvain, I just couldn\u2019t turn that down. With Sylvain\u2019s vision and the kind of animation he insisted upon for the film, which was mainly based around 2D animation, there was no single place we could go to on the globe to find what we needed. So we set up our own one-off animation studio in Edinburgh to create The Illusionist\u2019s very specific look.<\/p>\n

DD:<\/strong> And how was it working in Edinburgh?<\/p>\n

BL:<\/strong> Producing an animated film is a different kind of things. Edinburgh, for us, became a recruiting and producing site. For everyone involved, we were constantly exploring and feeling our way around, particularly since Edinburgh itself had provided so much information and inspiration to Sylvain for what he wanted to do.<\/p>\n

DD:<\/strong> What was the most challenging part of your \u201cexploration\u201d?<\/p>\n

BL:<\/strong> Something we discovered as we went along was that kind of dedicated work that was necessary when making an animated feature where many of the shots are widely framed. Most animated movies have a lot of two-shots and more tightened shots. We had to have a huge amount of background detail in the wide shots. That really caught us by surprise\u2014the extensive detailing, as well as the background characters and their personalities. The average shot in The Illusionist was 11-12 seconds, which is much rarer than the 4-5 seconds you see in other animated films. What\u2019s cool is that they didn\u2019t feel<\/em> long, but it meant we had to be on top of it as the eye has a longer time to linger.<\/p>\n

DD:<\/strong> How involved were you in the day-to-day activities of the production?<\/p>\n

BL:<\/strong> I was in-studio throughout the four-and-a-half years we were making The Illusionist. If it\u2019s part of a rhythm, it becomes more of a regular job so, yes, I was pretty hands-on in that sense. It\u2019s the director\u2019s vision there, ultimately. With animation, from a director\u2019s point of view, many of the key decisions are made. It\u2019s a kind of creativity in an industrial workplace.\u00a0 We set up the studio to involve more freedom to allow things to organically evolve and to give Sylvain and his animators a little more room.<\/p>\n

DD:<\/strong> Four-and-a-half years! I hope you were all happy with the end result after that kind of commitment!<\/p>\n

BL:<\/strong> Towards the end of the production, the pressure began to mount, not least, of course, because you\u2019ve spent a lot of money by that time. We had to take some scenes and flourishes out. In particular, a rugby match that we had animated\u2014I don\u2019t recommend animated sports events!\u2014never made it into the film.<\/p>\n

DD:<\/strong> Like Jacques Tati\u2019s live-action films, the music in <\/em>The Illusionist [composed by Sylvain Chomet] is downplayed in favor of what we see on the screen, as well as the non-musical audio content.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/strong><\/a>

The Illusionist (2010)<\/p><\/div>\n

BL: <\/strong>It\u2019s the perfect marriage between music and sounds and film. The music doesn\u2019t overload the movie. At one point, we thought of doing a more in-your-face and bombastic score, but Sylvain\u2019s music is just perfect. Every simple moment, visual and aural, plays a part and has a function in Jacques Tati\u2019s movies, just as in our film. If you leave that space open to breathe, the little details come through. What\u2019s been interesting is that you don\u2019t have to know anything about Tati to enjoy the film\u2014audiences have embraced a different way of storytelling.<\/p>\n

DD:<\/strong> What was the reaction of the Tati people when they saw the movie?<\/p>\n

BL:<\/strong> The Tati estate was very pleased with the finished movie but they did always kept an eye on it the entire time we were in production. As it happens, the estate was generous in giving us the space that we needed. I think everyone was extremely happy in the end?<\/p>\n

DD:<\/strong> Might there be any other Tati-related works in your future\u201d<\/p>\n

BL:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think so. At least, not right now. I have a couple of things I\u2019m working on, but there\u2019s not any other Tati stuff lying around that I know of.<\/p>\n

Laurence Lerman is editor of the DVD and Blu-ray website <\/em>DiscDish.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest blogger Laurence Lerman of Disc Dish writes: If the story behind the genesis of the 2010 Oscar-nominated animated film The Illusionist isn\u2019t as touching as the film itself, it\u2019s at least as engaging. The original script for the film\u2014which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":14550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-articles"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Illusionist and Bob Last: Disc Dish Interview - MovieFanFare<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Illusionist the 2010 animated comedic drama film directed by Sylvain Chomet.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=14549\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Illusionist and Bob Last: Disc Dish Interview - 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