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Spielberg on Tintin

Collider.com has an interesting article with Steven Spielberg on the film and the decision to use motion capture.  Here are the highlights:

“It was based on my respect for the art of Hergé and wanting to get as close to that art as I could… Hergé wrote about fictional people in a real world, not in a fantasy universe. It was the real universe he was working with, and he used National Geographic to research his adventure stories. It just seemed that live action would be too stylized for an audience to relate to. You’d have to have costumes that are a little outrageous when you see actors wearing them. The costumes seem to fit better when the medium chosen is a digital one.”

Spielberg and his crew used the latest in motion capture technology, with over 100 cameras films taking each shot,picking up every last bit of movement. Spielberg had a bit to say about this:

“I just adored it. It made me more like a painter than ever before. I got a chance to do so many jobs that I don’t often do as a director. You get to paint with this device that puts you into a virtual world, and allows you to make your shots and block all the actors with a small hand-held device only three times as large as an Xbox game controller… When Captain Haddock runs across the volume, the cameras capture all the information of his physical and emotional moves. So as Andy Serkis runs across the stage, there’s Captain Haddock on the monitor, in full anime, running along the streets of Belgium. Not only are the actors represented in real time, they enter into a three-dimensional world.”

Spielberg than made a curious remark about the emotional side of the film. Spielberg is very experienced in bringing out the emotion in his films, and but I’m dying to see what that will mean for the Tintin Movie.  Here Spielberg praises Jamie Bell’s performance. After all,it’s not all directing but acting as well. Don’t let the futuristic outfits and computer generated final results fool you: there is a huge amount of work put into the acting in a motion capture film. On this subject Spielberg remarked:

“[The on-screen portrayal of Tintin] will be Jamie Bell’s complete physical and emotional performance.  If Tintin makes you feel something, it’s Jamie Bell’s soul you’re sensing.”

I literally cannot wait to see a trailer. I find myself screaming around the house saying ”I need to see a trailer NOW!” (well… OK, maybe I don’t, but I want to).  In my opinion,  it may very well be the most important movie trailer in the history of computer-generated movies,  and will certainly be the most important trailer for a motion capture film.

Special thanks to Mike Dutton for finding this information. There are some other articles at collider.com worth a visit you can find a link to at the end of their article. Hopefully there will be important news soon.

Posted in Steven Spielberg, Uncategorized

6 Responses to “Spielberg on Tintin”

  1. Proman Says:

    “Spielberg is known for being a sentimentalist”

    People, especially for the lack of a better word, haters try to paint him that way.

    Spielberg is not a sentimentalist, a very strong word that. This is a man who made Duel, Sugarland Express, Jaws, Amistad, Minority Report and Munich, among others. What he does have tend to have is an emotional core, which is one of the reasons why his movies are so good. Characters perform actions they care about and viewers can connect with. It’s not any different from what other big directors are trying to do, including the likes of Jackson, Cameron and Scorese. He does it well.

    This is very different from mushiness and empty sentimentality. In fact, Spielberg can be and often is very dark.

    I realize this is off topic, but I just had to get it off my chest.

    As for the trailer which I am equally impatient about seeing (I can totally relate there lol), I think there is a good chacne will see something by June. It’s possible that something could be attached to Super 8 even though that movie will not be in 2D, mainly because it’s a Spielberg produced blockbuster shot also primed for IMAX release.

    March 22nd, 2011 at 11:29 pm
  2. Britto Says:

    The article is from over a year ago. Was published in LA Times february 2010: http://www.tintimportintim.com/2010/02/spielberg-fala-sobre-tecnologia-de.html

    March 23rd, 2011 at 1:38 am
  3. Stephen Says:

    Both of you are right on both accounts! :-) I actually do agree with you Proman, Spielberg does have more of an emotional core,and that shows. Without that,nobody would be able to relate to the characters. I expect to see good performances (which is important in motion-capture,with the problems many other movies have had,in my opinion,of the motion cap characters not really looking like they are really acting,but sometimes more like zombies reciting their lines.) Of course that is not ALWAYS true and expect much better from this film!
    And Britto,you are right about how old this article is…:-P Guess you can’t exactly call this news :-D But hey,I’m sure at least one reader missed it the first time around and would like to read it again. I’ll try to stay on top of things and post on,well,slightly more recent things :-)

    March 23rd, 2011 at 7:45 am
  4. Britto Says:

    In fact, Stephen, the error was of Collider and other sites that reflected one as old news.

    March 23rd, 2011 at 2:30 pm
  5. Stephen Says:

    Proman, after thinking some more about the post I decided to change that part of the post. After all,your right,he’s not really a ”sentimentalist”.
    Keep up the search for new news! If you see anything that’s not on Twitter,let me know!

    March 23rd, 2011 at 5:22 pm
  6. Dosage Says:

    I just looked over the cast list — who the hell are all these characters?

    I guess the story doesn’t remotely reflect what Herge wrote.

    March 25th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
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