It was great to see the launch of a teaser tailer and advance posters for TINTIN, a movie I’m making with Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy. It’s been a very long time coming. This film, like all CGI-based movies, required a long period of previs and R&D—and then, once the movie is “shot” on the motion capture stage, it takes another two years to complete. It’s probably been 5 years since Steven and I started working on it.

Empire just released not one but two incredibly awesome movie posters! They are so epic I hardly have to say anything about them. I will of course, but regardless they speak for themselves:

What’s worth mentioning?

• Despite the lack of a subtitle, it is crystal clear that ”The Unicorn” is a ship, not a fantastical creature. The uninformed viewer will know the movie will be more like Pirates of The Caribbean in some scenes than ”My Little Pony”.
• Snowy is not fat.
• Tintin is not holding a gun. Spielberg made an epic movie poster without one.
• The combination of dark shadows and blazing flames both on 16th century ships and 20th century seaplanes add the feel of mystery, action and adventure without any words needing to be said. In the first, the lighting is simply dark and mysterious, adding to the ”film noir”.
• Tintin is obviously not really next to The Unicorn (unless the plot has been changed a lot…) in the first poster, so it may be too soon to assume that The Unicorn crashes in the desert. I think they just combined the sand and the water for dramatic effect and to add symmetry to the camels in the dessert on the left
• Tintin himself looks incredible. If you look closely at his face I think you may actually recognize his expression and even his pose from a panel in the comics. I definitely think they made his face dark here only for dramatic effect, nothing more.
• Hergé name is clearly mentioned before even the actor’s names. I’m sure he would appreciate that. I wonder if Moulinsart had anything to do with that…
• The 3D format will be well worth a watch.
• Finally, Spielberg and Jackson have done a magnificent job beginning their adverting campaign. I totally believe that even if I had never heard of Tintin I would gape in awe at these two posters. I just realized that Tintin is going to be that much more incredible and full scale than even I had imagined.

New trailer to come out tomorrow

At the end of empire’s post, they just threw in the info that the new Tintin trailer will not be released with Kung Fu Panda 2 but will actually in fact be on their site tomorrow morning! I am so excited! And after seeing these images, I am even more excited! These are definitely my favorite still images of Tintin released so far. I love every bit of them! I’m really hoping for another image of Haddock. I don’t know if I’m going to sleep tonight…

I’ve actually quoted a bit from this before, but up until know hadn’t seen the whole video. You can watch it here. It’s short and doesn’t reveal much, but it’s still Jamie Bell on Tintin. He reveals that he is very confident that the movie will be a hit, and that they really just don’t want to let the fans down. I laughed when he was asked if he had seen any finished footage and if he could talk about a specific scene that stood out to him because he only answered about the scenes we already knew about from the empire photos (something like this: well…there’s a lot of different landscapes in the film..a scene in the ocean…in the dessert…there’s an airplane sequence that’s really fantastic…) Then he said ”this is all stuff from the book, I’m not really revealing anything, but I think for the fans who know it they will know what I’m talking about.”  I hope I can safely speak for the rest of the fans ”who know it” here saying that not one of those 3 scenes actually was in the book ”The Secret of The Unicorn”  as the title of the video suggests but were in ”The Crab With The Golden Claws” and there has got to be more footage out there they could let us see…He must have been tipped off by somebody not to reveal much to the press about the film’s other content.  Sorry, but this isn’t good news for those of us dying to see a trailer…looks like they are going to continue to be very secretive about what gets out and when. This is just a guess,but considering the movie comes out in the fall I don’t expect to see a trailer until late summer. I don’t know if I can wait that long…

There is also an interesting part where Bell is asked if the film could be ”potentially more successful than Avatar”. That would be cool, but as he himself said ”that’s a pretty high bar to break…”. Ha ha ha ha a REALLY high bar… My favorite part is the end ” We just want to create a nice family-oriented action-film with characters that feel like they’re your family”.  That’s the kind of great movie that is so uncommon today, and I’m sure that’s the kind of movie Hergé would have wanted.

With their huge roles in the new Sci-fi film ”Paul” and the media’s renewed interest in getting a few words from them, it was inevitable that Tintin come up in an interview once again sooner or later. They made some comments on what it was like to work on set with Spielberg. Ironically this fits in well with my last post on what Spielberg had to say about working with the motion-capture set (which I later realized was literally year old news).

The stars talked about working on set with Steven:

“Steven, he did a lot of his own camera work,” Frost said. “He’d get a movement he really liked, punch the air and do a little dance. It’s intoxicating. You want to perform for him. You want to be around that kind of enthusiasm.”

They also talked about Spielberg’s new experience with the digital technology:

It was like he had a new train set,” Pegg said.”There was a genuine sense of novelty to him.”

They had a bit to say about Peter Jackson as well. Even though he mainly watched from a monitor in New Zealand,he had his part in the now finished shooting stage of the movie:

“Peter would do a bunch of rewrites at night while we were asleep,” Frost said, “and then we’d come in in the morning and be given the script.”

The stars  both worked in Motion-capture suits, and told us about that experience as well:

“It was like rehearsing a play, like when you’re a kid and you’re pretending that thing over there could be the Millennium Falcon,” Frost said. “You have to concentrate. Peter Jackson is on the monitor, Kathy Kennedy is there producing. Daniel Craig — who looks amazing in a motion capture suit, by the way — is there. It’s like a big idiot’s dream.”

I know little about Nick and Simon since I personally haven’t seen any of their work,but from what I do know I get the comforting feeling that they work very well together and both have a tremendous sense of humor.  I am looking forward to seeing them as ”Thomson and Thompson”.

Also,I don’t know if anybody else already knew this info,but I don’t remember hearing anything about Kathy Kennedy producing the film.

Source: http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/03/14/tintin-simon-pegg-and-nick-frost-tells-tales-from-steven-spielbergs-new-tech-set/

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.

In a recent interview with Michael Kahn,the man in charge or editing ”Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn”, Michael informed us that the Tintin Movie will be edited ”just like any other film”. Michael has been editing for Spielberg since ”Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in 1976 and this year celebrates his 75th birthday. He has edited such action packed classics as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park,and Saving Private Ryan.

The Tintin movie is the first movie Michael has ever edited for Spielberg using Avid (a digital way to edit movies) instead of the Moviola, an old fashion tool used to edit movies invented way back in 1924. But Michael assures us that the editing process of the movie is still the same. He said the videos still needed a few touch ups in the background and such since the shots themselves weren’t finished, but that would not affect the actual editing of the movie. The Tintin Movie will be put together just like any other film would.

Right now you might be asking yourself  ”So what? Why wouldn’t it be?” But actually this is important. Although there are now many more 3D movies then there were even just a few years back,it is still not uncommon to see movies where the directors constantly try to impress the audience by throwing things out of the screen…especially in films created by computer.  Granted the effect is a lot of fun,but not if it slows down the story of the movie. But when it comes to Tintin not only are the directors directing the movie like they would any other film, but even the editing process is the same as other Spielberg films. Not only can we have faith that Spielberg will not tie up the story of the Tintin Movie because he,for instance,keeps shooting the Unicorn’s cannonballs at the screen or something like that (that would be completely out of character for him). We can even have faith that Kahn will make decisions on what seconds of the movie to keep or get rid of based on what is best for the story and flow of the movie and what Spielberg has always expected from him, not on what ”looks cool in 3D”. Both men are professionals with many many years of experience. We could not have hoped for a better crew working on this movie.

I enjoy editing home videos and such things in my spare time and I know that editing is a very precise and time consuming job. I admit I had never heard of Michael Kahn before,but I now have a respect towards him and anybody else who has been editing such great work for so many years. He certainly deserves it. Special thanks to Proman for finding this information,and to all of you who find leads and videos. Keep up the good work!

Sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjdOG-w0Zz4

picture found on http://www.edgarwrighthere.com/2011/02/21/michael-kahns-ace-lifetime-achievement-award-tribute-reel/

It’s not surprising with his big role in The Eagle and Tintin being the most anticipated of his next upcoming films that multiple reporters would interview Jamie Bell on Tintin. The following is the third interview I’ve found that has a section on his role in The Secret of The Unicorn. Some of this will sound similar to the other two interviews and there is almost no new information,but it’s fun to read none the less. The most interesting thing for me is the part at the end where he talks about Tintin’s voice.

Let’s talk about Tintin. Obviously, Spielberg is a director who’s in total command of his form, but here, he was working with technology he’s never used before. Could you see him figuring it out on set?
Oh, absolutely. He’d be like, “What does this do? Oh wow, it does that? I wish I could do that in the real world, I wish I could take out a lamppost and move it to the side of the street!” The simplistic things about motion capture that you can do with just the flick of a button are kind of amazing, but also, the use of light and color … for a filmmaker who’s incredibly visionary, I think it’s exciting because it gives him so many more options. The palette is endless, it’s infinite, and I think he definitely got a kick out of that. I think he said it made him more like a painter than he’d ever been before.

The look of the film is very painterly, just from the stills that have been released. Have you seen it in motion?
I’ve seen bits and pieces, yeah. It looks great. We call them “Tintin-ologists,” and as one of those people who’s really into it, it’s incredibly exciting. To see these characters come to life is something you’ve been waiting for your whole life, and when it’s you doing it … It’s actually got the vibe of a Hitchcockian film, a kind of noir film in a young person’s action-adventure film. It’s really great.

I’m assuming your friend Andy Serkis gave you advice on motion capture.
On everything. He’s the guru of that technology.

What’s the key thing you need to know if you’re doing it?
Just to overarticulate. He calls it “breaking through the technology,” and I like that idea because it means that you break through it and claim it for yourself. You don’t let it do the work for you, you attack it aggressively and control it. Look, if there’s anyone to listen to when it comes to motion capture, it’s that guy, so to have him next to me throughout felt great.

How do you know if you’re doing a good job?
You don’t. You trust your director, and I obviously have a great trust with Steven Spielberg. You’re in really good hands. There are some very specific beats with an action-adventure film, and you have to hit those moments of “I found a clue!” where you’re about to go into another adventure in the story. So the acting is still kind of the same, you’re still hitting these beats and those emotional peaks and lows. And you have to trust your animators, because that’s where the real work is done.

What’s your Tintin voice like?
Tintin is a native of Belgium, and we obviously couldn’t do it in French, although I would have loved to. So we kind of found an English sound that won’t distract people so much. You know, it’s very easy to upset people quickly when you’re taking on such a beloved character, so we want to remain as neutral as possible and not go too, too strongly in another direction. If Tintin had an American accent, I’m sure the rest of the world would be very upset!

In my last post I went into detail on the longest of two interviews with Jamie Bell,the well known actor cast as Tintin. Here I will review the second. There is no video of this one,and I am assuming there is more than I can find here but I haven’t found it yet. There is not too much I can say that isn’t stated there already,but there are a few thing’s worth mentioning and quotes from Jamie.

When Jamie Bell was approached with the project he was skeptical and clearly hadn’t worked with this technology before:

“What is it? That was my first thing initially. What is it? How do you do it? What does it require? How does it work? Does it even work? Let me see some evidence of it working. I watched some of those motion capture films, which were very early and primitive in terms of the technology. All props to Robert Zimeckis  for kind of spearheading the industry in saying that this is something we need to take note of.”

This quote is the biggest news from me. When he later talked about his first experience with motion capture he confirmed that he is a real fan of Tintin, as well as the fact that the new technology wound up being no problem at all:

“I knew everything about Tintin. I was already a Tintinophile or Tintinologist. I was very into that so it was literally trying to understand the mechanics of the technology. You want me to stand in a gray room and act as though I’m in a sea plane in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the Sahara desert with nothing around me that informs anything about this character’s journey? Anything about anything in the physical world? That’s great because it just means that I can make it all up!”

That information complements the info from my previous post.  If any of us had any doubt about Jamie Bell,we shouldn’t now. He is a very good actor. But most important to me he is not going to do what many actors try and do in book or comic book based movies: try and put their own spin on a traditional character. That was one of my greatest fears about the Tintin movie. It’s one thing to take a character like Willy Wonka and twist him into something else or remake another Jane Eyre,but if such were ever attempted with Tintin the results would be disastrous. But Jamie Bell gives every indication that he did and will do his best to stay as true to the character as possible and to live up to Hergé’s work. That’s great news for all true Tintin fans!

Another possible issue was whether Tintin will appear to American audiences. I happen to be an American myself and I’ve asked myself this many times. A few people like my father knew about Tintin,but in general most people in the USA have never heard of him or confuse him with Rin tin tin. If the movie doesn’t go over well in the US that will definitely affect the final grossing and although this has no real source it might even affect the making of the sequels. This subject came up with Jamie as well:

“I think anyone who understands and appreciates Indiana Jones, understands Tintin and they don’t even know what it is yet. I feel like it’s not going to be difficult. I think the characters are great because they all have human flaws. The Tintin character is a very driven and ambitious guy. The structure of the story and the adventure is something we all know and love. There’s something at the end and they’ve got to get to it. There’s a very bizarre and quirky and exciting relationship in the center of it between these two guys. And there’s Steven Spielberg at the helm, who does this story incredibly well.”

The other day I heard somebody who had never heard of Tintin say that ”Tintin:the secret of the unicorn” was a funny sounding title. Had I not read the book or recognized the character,I probably would agree. But I think Jamie is right. The character’s are wonderful,the story is both entertaining and action packed,and I’m sure the huge amount of advertising that will be put out will get the American’s past the funny title. They may even see it just because Spielberg and Jackson made it.  That would be too bad if that were the only reason,but hopefully that will get Americans to know and love Tintin. As for myself,I can’t wait to see it and continue to wait anxiously for it’s premiere. These last two interviews are just two more reasons to look forward to opening night.

From what I can gather at least two different interviews with Jamie Bell after the press junket for ”The Eagle”, another upcoming film starring Jamie. Both have valuable information for Tintin Movie fans. Very special thanks to Pro-man, Wolfgang and Britto for finding information on these articles!

The first six minutes or so have almost nothing to do with Tintin,but he appears every so often from then on. There’s plenty of interesting info though for 10 minutes. Nothing that’s quite breaking news or anything that reveals much more than we knew already,but certainly worth a watch none the less. For those of you who don’t want to watch the whole video (or for those of you like me who have a computer that won’t have it loaded until the Tintin movie comes out) here is a summary of the Tintin related parts.

Jamie comments on the huge contrast between shooting on location for ”The Eagle” and shooting on a motion capture set where ”nothing is real” and things like a chair or even a camera are represented with pieces of metal. About 8 minutes into the video the interviewer asks a few questions about Tintin. Peter and Jamie have a professional relationship since King Kong. When approached on how he got the part Jamie talks about how he went down to New Zealand to meet with Peter Jackson and ”played around with the technology”. Jamie makes some comments on how he believes that motion capture is the only way to really stay true to Hergé’s artwork,the reason he believes that Tintin is still ”so successful and has withstood the test of time”.

He goes on to say ”I think what Hergé did was an incredible thing”. It’s refreshing to see that the actor playing Tintin is a true fan of Tintin as well. That will certainly show in the movie. Also,although he does not specifically say so in the interview about Tintin,at the beginning of the interview he spends a lot of time talking about how much work and research he put into playing his part in ”The Eagle” to the point where he even learned Gallic. If he was willing to do that for The Eagle,we can only imagine what his work on Tintin must have been like.

When asked if he had more respect for Andy Serkis now,Jamie answered ”Oh,for sure!…I’ve never worked so many times with Andy Serkis and now to actually work with him in something where I’m kind of in his back garden of technology…He is the guru! He is the Gandalf of motion capture!” He goes on to compare how just as Andy ceased to be Andy when he became the beast of King Kong he ceases to be himself when working on Captain Haddock. I can’t wait to see this on screen.

Since Tintin has such a long post production period,Jamie was asked how he was doing waiting to finally see the movie. Jamie replied ”I am itching…literally itching to see some stuff”. He commented on how post things took so long because thing’s are done in bits and pieces and it is so easy to change stuff. ”You just type it into a computer and your whole world pops right back up,so it’s very easy to change things”. Jamie said he was pleased with the images he has seen so far,believes the movie will be very and cool and that it has a ”very very driven kind of action adventure story with some really great characters I think everyone’s gonna love”. Later talking about the reaction of fans who haven’t heard on Tintin he says ”For anyone who are fans of things like Indiana Jones, this is kind of a very fresh take on that with a character that is very well established”

He was then asked about the experience of acting in motion capture and if he acted with others simultaneously or if he acted on his own. He replied that he acted like you would for any other film. ”It’s almost like rehearsing for a play that will never be put on stage.” It doesn’t feel like a movie set,he says,because all it is is a grey room with a bunch of cameras on the ceiling. ”When you’re acting it feels like a rehearsal space,which is really great cause it allows you to feel a lot freer because the room just feels so creative in that sense”. ”It’s really about kind of letting your imagination run wild”.

Jamie later confirms ”Tintin 2” but says the idea right now is to work on it after Jackson is done working on The Hobbit,a project he is very busy on right now and very devoted to. All that’s left in the video of Tintin related interest is his excitement of travelling around the world when Tintin is released,excited about being able to talk about his work with Spielberg and Jackson.

I will post more about a shorter interview in my next post.

Its been a week since the Empire Tintin Issue came out and I’ve had time to digest the images in it.

Below are my thoughts on those images. Note, the images, not the film itself. There is a big difference between a handful of stills and a full length film. Not to mention there is still a year to go and a lot can change. When the film is released I will judge it on its own merits and not pre-judge it.

However, several stills have been released by Spielberg and Co. so they are fair game. It has always been my intention with this blog to write what I think about the film. When I like something, I say so. When I dislike something, I will also say so. You are free to disagree with me and voice your own opinions in the comments in a polite manner fitting of Tintin fans.

The Good

Scanned from Empire Magazine

This shot is the cream of the crop.

The texture of Silk’s beard, the look of the Twins, the detailed background, the composition of the shot, the lighting – they are all perfect.

The Not As Good But Still Good

Scanned from Empire Magazine

Dark and moody, full of portent and potential action. The low camera angle and heavy shadows gives the shot a nice feeling of tension.

From Empire’s online gallery

I wrote earlier that I didn’t like “the harsh light behind Haddock”. Interestingly, the print version of this image is much, much darker. This is down to the technological and production differences between VDU displays that emit light and printed matter that reflect light. In the print version, the back lighting looks less out of place and I much prefer the image even though it is harder to make out the details.

The Worrying

From Empire’s online gallery

A close up of a scanned image from Empire. Click the image for full size

These two images are the only ones from the film that show the full body lengths of our main characters plus Snowy. In both of them, something looks off-key. Haddock in particular look unnatural in his pose in both. Maybe this is just Andy Serkis’s acting of a drunk and it will look OK in context.

Snowy also doesn’t look right. This may be because he is the only true character animation in the film whilst everyone else is motion-capture.

Given the quality of everything else, I willing to bet that in the film everything will look right but it does leave me with a Polar Express type worry.

The Bad

I really don’t like this cover. The detail is exquisite but both Tintin and Snowy look really unnatural but without any of Herge’s charm. It would of been much better if they had only used actual images from the film. I suspect that this image is influencing my opinions and unduly increasing my worries about the two previous images.

Am I Excited? You Bet!

Despite all the quibbles and doubts I have about the images, all the signs are that will Spielberg & Jackson capture the look and the spirit of the books. Roll on October 2011!