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| December 6, 2008 THE MAKING OF 'BATTLE FOR TERRA' PART 3 Fantasy turns into reality. During the middle of intense animatics and script development, director Aristomenis Tsirbas recounts the time when Battle For Terra transitioned from ?Project in Development? to ?Green-lit Feature Film?. Developing the script Time to nail down look and feel. Since the story was dramatic science fiction with serious themes, I envisioned integrating live action humans with photoreal digital alien environments and characters. However even our best hopes at financing wouldn?t afford anywhere near a money needed to pull of such an idea. So I looked for other ways to break ground and honor my ambitions, and felt we could turn the idea of an independent animation into an advantage and try new, risky things. One idea was for the aliens to not speak english but an invented language. We even brought in a linguist to develop a completely new lexicon for the Terrian race. However as the animatics and script developed it became clear to the producers that the project had big potential at broad appeal. So that idea was dropped and the entire film?s tone was shifted to feel younger and more accessible. With this in mind writer Evan Spiliotopoulos delivered a first draft. He expanded several sections of the story, most importantly the beginning. Initially I started with the humans already in orbit planning an invasion, but Evan rightfully felt that we should first establish the alien culture and its daily routine and only after dramatically introduce the human mother-ship as a mysterious object in the sky. Evan also incorporated familiarity to help the audience relate more to the alien world. This included scenes recalling Jaws, Independence Day, and Saving Private Ryan. Lesser known films like the Dark Crystal were also referenced and much of the dialogue payed homage to famous movies. Since I aspired to make a film like no other, Evan?s approach of using familiarity was a bit at odds with my own. So we worked together to find common ground. For example Star Wars fans who watch this film may catch Admiral Akbar?s ?It?s a trap!? line form ?Return of the Jedi?. Although I was resistant about including the famous phrase, the producers brought up the very good point that the scene was in fact about a trap, and that we shouldn?t be too concerned about staying purely original at the expense of advancing the story. Our biggest dialogue challenge was humor. Being a film about difficult moral choices we had to walk a fine line with the lighter moments so they didn?t betray the seriousness of the story?s themes. So this meant cutting out all of the initially written humor which felt tonally out of place. We then brought Evan back for another round which yielded a couple of appropriate one-liners that made it to the final cut. A few short weeks of collaboration produced a solid screenplay that combined action, drama and allegory into production-ready screenplay. Taking a scene to final quality Armed with a shooting script and several completed animatics scenes, the producers felt it was time to aggressively pursue full financing, but there was one missing component: an exciting example of how the finished film will look to help convince investors of the project?s integrity. I proposed a scene where Mala is chased by a vessel that culminates in the reveal of the human lead. The scene made sense since it not only encapsulated the premise in an exciting way, but the lack of extensive full body character animation (Mala spent most of their time strapped in her vehicle) made it a realistic choice for a skeleton crew. Our current animation team of one was obviously not enough, so Dane sent out a call for artists. After several days of demo-reel viewings we found four talented artists and two interns who worked on the assignment for a 2 months. We recored the single line of dialogue with an actor friend and used the temp music from a composer I hoped to get for the film, Philip Glass. I then edited everything together and burned it to a DVD. The idea worked. After a few weeks pounding the pavement the producers announced that we had funding for a low budget film. This was without a doubt one of the most exciting days of my life. Battle For Terra was officially real. We spent the next 6 months fast-tracking the animatics in order to be ready for voice recording and eventual production. Casting the characters The script made the rounds at the talent agencies with actor Brian Cox taking an early interest in the project due to his interest in the material. With someone of this calibre signed on word got around fast and we landed some incredible voice talent. My intention had always been to cast the role and not the celebrity, but with such interest in the project we were able to achieve both. The voice recording sessions were especially very enjoyable. Audio sessions represent one of the few times in an animated project that one can direct and see results in real-time. During recording the actors were shown an animatic of their scene, which allowed them to more easily be immersed in their specific situation. Every actor was different; the seasoned Brian Cox could switch on his character like a machine, while Evan Rachel Wood emotionally wrapped herself in the moment and performed from the heart. The quick-witted Justin Long improvised so much that half of his lines heard in the film were his own. With the selected voice recordings edited into the animatic, a solid template was ready for our next step: full animation production... |
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