“There will be no cell phones, no TV sets, no modern cars. Just timeless Europe.” – Steven Spielberg

Le Monde magazine interviewed Steven Spielberg about his work on Tintin. The interview was presumably done in English and translated to French for publication and I’m translating it back into English via Google so the wording may not be spot on. However, the meaning is clear, the Tintin movie will not be some hideously re-imagining of Tintin. Spielberg goes on to say.

“Peter Jackson and I have the opportunity to honor the art of Hergé, his tone, his palette, his characters.” He denies [The translation is garbled here, possibly "to amend the famous Tintin tuft"?] He added: “The body language is very important. There is no question of touching it. We religiously respect the art of Hergé.”

From this interview, it certainly sounds like the Tintin movie will stick closely to the classic Tintin look-and-feel though they have previously described it as “film noir”. We may have a better idea in the new year as Peter Jackson has previously indicated that the first images of the CGI will be released in January.

Also due in January is an announcement on Peter Jackson’s choice of books for his film or films. The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun are widely tipped as favourites.

Source: Steven Spielberg révèle ses secrets pour adapter Tintin au cinéma (via Spielberg, Jackson Talk More “Tintin”).

A new photo of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson on the set of Tintin.

Photo from Estrenos deCine.

The 20th Anniversary edition of Empire Magazine is out and it has been guest edited by Steven Spielberg. Most importantly, pages 20 – 25 are dedicated to Tintin. After a quick read, here are the highlights:

• The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn will cover parts of the Crab withe Golden Claw and Secret of the Unicorn.
• Red Rackham’s Treasure will be the second film …
• … and is currently in pre-production and has financing.
• A third film is not planned at the moment
• An additional week’s shooting will happen in New Zealand in June
• In the original 20 minute test reel, Jackson played all the parts
• The film will “have this film noir kind of look. Something very atmospheric” – Spielberg

Lieutenant Delcourt, the commander of the Afghar desert fort in The Crab with the Golden Claws is being played by scottish actor Tony Curran. The red-hair Glaswegian has a number of very minor roles under his belt but was first noticable in Underworld: Evolution and in the last year or so, he has been landing more significant roles.

“Steven was great. The first thing he said to me was: ‘All this motion capture work is new to me as well, so let’s have some fun with it’.”

Along with Bell, who plays the bequiffed Belgian adventurer, and Craig, in the role of villain Red Rackham, Andy Serkis – who shot to fame as Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings – stars as the whisky- swilling sidekick Captain Haddock in the first of atrilogy of Tintin movies, due for release in 2011.

And Curran admitted the English actor’s experience in performancecapture filming was a valuable asset.

He said: “Andy’s role in the Rings movies was pretty ground- breaking and he also did King Kong. He’s been around the block a few times with motion capture and that certainly helped the rest of us.

“The film will use the movements, expressions and the voices of the actors, but in an authentic, animated form.

“I think that was important for Steven and Peter as they wanted to stay true to the comic-book style of Herge’s original Tintin stories.”

Source: Scots Actor Lands Dream Role in Big Screen Version of Comic Classic

You Tube: Tony Curran in Underworld Evolution and a couple of fan videos – My Immortal Tony, Tony Curran Does He ….. ?

Nick Frost chats to the Birmingham Mail about Tintin (and his new film The Boat That Rocked).

Nick says of making The Adventures of Tintin: “It was amazing, as Spielberg is a real hero of mine. I vividly remember watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When you see him come out from behind his monitor, punching the air and doing a dance because you’ve done a good take, it’s like ‘oh my God, that’s Steven Spielberg!’.”

Full article: Upfront Nick has to bare his all

One the reasons behind the late start to the shooting of the Tintin movie was Spielberg’s breakaway from Paramount Studios with his Dreamworks production company. This coincided with the banking crisis making it very hard for Spielberg to get funding for Tintin.

That was resolved sometime ago but now Spielberg appears to have secured long-term financing for his company.

But getting money, even for Hollywood’s most bankable director, didn’t come without strings. These sources have confirmed that to get the loan the new DreamWorks was forced to reduce the risk to banks to unheard-of levels. As part of the new debt agreement, Spielberg and company will be required to put up half the money for each film that it puts into production—much more than the 20% or less that studios traditionally have put up when they have bank lines to cover the rest. There is also a provision, still not fully fleshed out, that might require DreamWorks to put up more money under specific circumstances if the film doesn’t hit certain targets, according to one source who has seen the loan documents. DreamWorks would not comment on the pending loan.

Source: Loan Deal for Spielberg Is Near

A couple of choice quotes from the a LA Times article about the Tintin Movie.

“The actors have green dots on their faces and wear a kind of wetsuit, and the computer reads every movement and every facial expression.” He said computers can also manipulate facial appearance. “It means we can freeze the age,” he said. “Tintin will never age.”

Source: ‘Tintin’ project brings moguls together

Comments from Spielberg about filming in 3D.

“Every movie I made, up until Tintin, I always kept one eye closed when I’ve been framing a shot,” Spielberg told me. That’s because he wanted to see the movie in 2-D, the way moviegoers would. “On Tintin, I have both of my eyes open.”

Source: 3-D: The Future of Movies – Worth a read because of the 3D technology being used for Tintin.

Last month, Spielberg and Jackson had a brief, live link-up with the European Comics Festival in Angouleme. We posted about this at the time ( Jack & Spielberg Talk Brief About Tintin ). Now the video has surfaced on the official Tintin site. To watch, click here and then click the button marked “Voir En Entier”.

The remarkable pace of this movie is evident in that the directors are talking about just starting production yet less the 6 weeks later, it is already over.

According to Variety magazine, Steven Spielberg is about to wrap up filming after just 32 days. Of course, when we talking about filming we are really talking about motion capture data. No cameras (in the traditional sense) are involved in this process. The raw motion capture footage will then be handed over to Peter Jackson who will now spend the next 18 months converting the data into a 3D world.

With the short 32 days period of motion capture being done by Spielberg and the long hard work of post production in the hands of Peter Jackson, there is some debate about whose film this is. Spielberg will be getting full directing credits and Jackson will be down as producer but in reality it is starting to look like the final film will owe more to Peter Jackson than Steven Spielberg.

The Variety article highlights how closely director and producer have to work in a motion capture film, challenging the traditional concepts of the roles. The collaboration between the two film makers is being likened to how Spielberg and George Lucus worked together on the Raiders of the Lost Ark films. Kathleen Kennedy, long time producer of Spielberg’s films, said that the transitions between the two creative talents are relatively seamless and that “They are amazingly collaborative”…

Officially Peter Jackson is down to direct the second film but that will only go ahead if the first one is successful. Yet it may be that Jackson, as producer and controller of the film’s technology, has far more influence over the first film’s success than Spielberg. In a way, this makes me happier. Jackson has shown with the Lords of the Rings and King Kong that he understands fan’s emotional connection to source material and can be sensitive to it. Steven Spielberg’s work has often been with original scripts for the big screen and when they have been adaptions, it has been from relatively obscure books. There is also a very European (or at least British) idea that Jackson as a New Zealander will be more in tune the European nature of Tintin than the American Spielberg.

Source: Spielberg, Jackson dig into ‘Tintin’