Animated, Adventure, Fantasy
Synopsis
In the faraway kingdom of Dor, a misfit mouse (Matthew Broderick) must find his inner knight in order to rescue a kidnapped princess (Emma Watson) .
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson, Tracey Ullman, Kevin Kline, William Macy, Stanley Tucci, Ciarán Hinds, Robbie Coltrane, Frances Conroy, Tony Hale, Frank Langella, Richard Jenkins, Christopher Lloyd, Sigourney Weaver
Producer(s): Larger Than Life
Crew: Director - Rob Stevenhagen, Director - Sam Fell, Screenwriter - Gary Ross, Screenwriter - Will McRobb, Screenwriter - Chris Viscardi, Producer - Gary Ross, Producer - Allison Thomas, Executive Producer - William Sargent, Executive Producer - Ryan Kavanaugh, Executive Producer - David Lipman, Executive Producer - Robin Bissell, Original Music - William Ross, Production Design - Evgeni Tomov, Film Editor - Mark Solomon, Casting - Debra Zane
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Release Date: 12/19/2008
Running Time: 94 minutes
OFFICIAL SITE
Production Notes:
- Notes provided by Universal Pictures. -
Production Notes
"The movie version of 'The Tale of Despereaux' is a feast for the eye and the heart andthe mind. It is smart and beautiful, richly imagined and deeply felt, and glows with itsown unique and wonderful light. The movie serves as a testament to the power of hopeand forgiveness and also works to remind us of the profound power of story,its ability to transform our hearts and change our world."
-Kate DiCamillo
Once in every generation, a book comes along that millions of children grow to know and love. In 2003, KATE DICAMILLO ("Because of Winn-Dixie") penned "The Tale of Despereaux," a fable about a tiny, brave mouse graced with oversized ears who follows his senses into territories uncharted by his kind. Born with an enthusiasm too big for his little mouse world, Despereaux Tilling befriends a banished rat, falls in love with a lonely princess and rescues the Kingdom of Dor from the tyranny of darkness and grief.
Upon publication, DiCamillo's tale of redemption became an instant classic. It jumped to the top of The New York Times best-seller list, where it stayed for 96 weeks...selling nearly two million copies (with an estimated readership of 10 million). Among its many honors were the coveted Newbery Medal and award for "Best Book of the Year" in its category by Publishers Weekly. Currently, the paperback is back at the top of the best-seller list, where it has remained for 42 weeks and counting.
Shortly after its publication, DiCamillo's book drew the attention of four-time Oscar®-nominated filmmaker GARY ROSS. The two had one great thing in common: They both had a knack for telling stories about the most unlikely of heroes.
For years, producer/writer Ross' specialty has been discovering the relatable values and humanity of underdogs: a crippled horse who achieves greatness in Seabiscuit, a guy who becomes his better self by finding the boy inside in Big and an everyman who redeems the decency of the Oval Office in Dave. When his wife, fellow producer ALLISON THOMAS (Seabiscuit), brought the book to his attention, Ross felt the modern fairy tale would make a wonderful CG-animated movie.
He responded to the novel's humanity and believed that it treated children with dignity and gave them credit for their intelligence and depth. Ross also loved that there are no purely evil figures in DiCamillo's story. Indeed, several of the characters only become hurtful after being hurt themselves, and each is redeemed through forgiveness. When they acquired the book, Ross and Thomas committed themselves to preserving the tone and richness of DiCamillo's fairy tale, ensuring that the qualities that had made "The Tale of Despereaux" an instant classic would translate to the big screen.
Four years later, Despereaux has arrived. SAM FELL (Flushed Away) and first-time director ROB STEVENHAGEN-working from a screenplay by Ross and a screen story by WILL MCROBB & CHRIS VISCARDI (Alvin and the Chipmunks)-tell the journey of four outcasts: Despereaux (MATTHEW BRODERICK, The Lion King), a mouse who loves music, stories and a princess; Roscuro (DUSTIN HOFFMAN, Meet the Fockers), a rat living in darkness who covets the light; Pea (EMMA WATSON, Harry Potter series), a princess who longs for an ordinary life; and Miggery Sow (TRACEY ULLMAN, State of the Union), a slow-witted serving girl whose impossible dream is to become a princess.
Completing the all-star voice cast are returning favorites from Ross' previous films: SIGOURNEY WEAVER (Dave) as our Narrator; KEVIN KLINE (Dave) as the royal chef, Andre; WILLIAM H. MACY (Seabiscuit) as Despereaux's nervous father, Lester; and FRANK LANGELLA (Dave) as Mouseworld's Mayor. With them are ROBBIE COLTRANE (Harry Potter series) as Dor's jailer, Gregory; STANLEY TUCCI (The Devil Wears Prada) as the mischievous soup genie, Boldo; CIARAN HINDS (Munich) as the evil Ratworld leader, Botticelli; TONY HALE (Because I Said So) as our hero's meek brother, Furlough; FRANCES CONROY (Six Feet Under) as their timid mother, Antoinette; RICHARD JENKINS (Burn After Reading) as the Principal; and CHRISTOPHER LLOYD (Back to the Future franchise) as old, blind mouse Hovis.
Leading the accomplished crew of artists are cinematographer BRAD BLACKBOURN (Flushed Away), production designer EVGENI TOMOV (The Triplets of Belleville), editor MARK SOLOMON (Chicken Run), supervising art director OLIVIER ADAM (The Emperor's New Groove), animation supervisor GABRIELE ZUCCHELLI (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron), VFX supervisor BARRY ARMOUR (Minority Report) and composer WILLIAM ROSS (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). Executive producers for the film are WILLIAM SARGENT (The Golden Compass), RYAN KAVANAUGH (3:10 to Yuma), DAVID LIPMAN (Shrek 2) and ROBIN BISSELL (Seabiscuit).
The Tale of Despereaux is a production of the United Kingdom.
FILM SYNOPSIS
Once upon a time, there was magic in the air, laughter aplenty and gallons of mouthwatering soup. But an accident left the King broken-hearted, the Princess filled with longing and the townsfolk without their soup. Sunlight disappeared. The world became gray. All hope was lost in this land...until Despereaux was born.
Tiny Despereaux Tilling was born too brave for the timid place he called home. From the moment he came into this world, with his eyes wide open and his big ears perked up for a story, he saw more and heard more than anyone else. He couldn't help but hunger for adventure and couldn't imagine a life without it.
One day, our brave mouse snuck into the royal library. There, he learned to read (rather than eat) the books he came across-reveling in stories of the knights he wanted to join, dragons he wished to battle and fair maidens he dreamed of rescuing. While in the castle, he befriended a Princess named Pea, who longed to escape the doldrums that settled over her listless world since her mother died. Pea's father and the entire kingdom were stuck in a mourning that even permeated the land in swirls of gray clouds.
Once his actions were discovered by his fellow mice, Despereaux-for his inability to abide by the rules and for daring to speak with a human-was banished from the safety of Mouseworld to the vicious Ratworld, a place where light never penetrated. There, he was rescued by another outcast, the rat Roscuro, a visitor from another land banished by humans but who still dreamed of chivalry and derring-do. A connoisseur of fine food and global travels, the worldly Roscuro was an outsider among these rats- trapped in their dungeon-dreaming of the light he so missed and a chance to escape.
When, out of fear, the Princess scorned Roscuro's hand of friendship, he became the ultimate rat. Carrying a heart that has been broken and healed back together crooked, he plotted revenge with outsider Miggery Sow, a serving girl whose dreams of becoming a princess blinded her to the idea that every girl can be a princess in her own right.
After Pea was kidnapped, Despereaux discovered he alone could rescue her...and that even the tiniest mouse could find the courage of a knight in shining armor. In this tale of bravery, forgiveness and redemption, one small creature taught a kingdom that it takes only a little light to show the truth: What you look like doesn't equal who you are.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Translating "Despereaux" to the Big Screen:The Tale Continues
DiCamillo admits that when she penned "The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread," she wrote the type of novel she wanted to read as a child, and the kind that still enchants her as an adult. "When children's literature works really well, there's still magic and possibility that you're sometimes not allowed in an adult book," she offers. "It feeds some necessary part of us, and it speaks to the child in the adult. I wanted to write a story that addressed how profoundly complicated we are, how we can be good and bad at the same time and how we find comfort in each other."
Thomas and Ross agreed with her worldview and approach; they also believed that it was important that their translation honor the multilayered narrative and keep the Narrator as a guide to our hero's quest. "Kate established an intimate relationship between herself and the reader," Ross notes. "The first thing Allison and I wanted to do was maintain that relationship."
Though the writer/producer had penned award-winning screenplays over the years, The Tale of Despereaux offered opportunities other films often do not. Ross explains: "Fairy tales have in them a strong moral sense. There's a big underpinning to what the characters are. They wrestle with big ideas, big issues and resolve them. Kate wasn't afraid to go into that. And in a universe that has a lot of disposable pop culture in it, Kate set out to do the opposite."
The producers agreed that if they were to do justice to the adventures of this "enthusiastic, pluckish young mouse" the film could not simply become a cartoonish interpretation of DiCamillo's intricate novel. Rather, they chose to pursue it as a classic fairy tale informed by the richness of a modern fairy tale that would work well for a character-based epic. Ross relates, "We wanted to reflect a cinematic version of a great illustrated book, filled with those images from childhood that never leave you."
This fundamental choice affected decisions made in the areas of visual style, character design, color, lighting, animation style and performance. These lofty ambitions were all accomplished for a budget of approximately one-half to one-third of other CG-animated movies from major studios (The Tale of Despereaux is budgeted at $60 million).
CG director Sam Fell and fellow director, veteran story artist and animator Rob Stevenhagen joined forces to form the team who would direct Despereaux. Together with production designer Evgeni Tomov, director of photography Brad Blackbourn and the experienced visual effects company Framestore Animation of London, The Tale of Despereaux production team embarked on a complex, new path for the project.
Director Fell remembers: "When I came across 'The Tale of Despereaux,' I felt I had found something that was unique and full of magical characters and tone. It was something I missed in everything else I was seeing around at the moment-material geared toward cynical comedies. It really grabbed me." Just like the producers, he was moved by how intricately DiCamillo had developed the emotions of her characters. He offers: "That kind of psychology is much fuller than in your average animated fare."
Producer Thomas explains the unique talents the team offered: "From stop-motion to CG features, Sam brought an eclectic background in animation and the ideal experience we were looking for in a director. As his partner, Rob, with his unique narrative skills, complemented him perfectly. Evgeni had a clear vision of the sophisticated look we wanted, and Brad wanted to design software that emulated true film exposure and lenses. With Gary's live-action approach to directing actors, cinematic style and cutting patterns, this team's integration has been seamless."
Framestore has a celebrated 20-year history in commercials, visual effects and television animation and was poised to make its first full-length animated feature film with Despereaux. It would work with Larger Than Life to craft a CG-animated film with a "handmade feel," one that did not seem as if it was made within the computer.
Of the team's eagerness to work with Framestore, Thomas lauds: "We loved the performance of Framestore's hippogriff created for the Harry Potter movies, and since we've worked together, they have won an Oscar® for their stunning polar bears in The Golden Compass. They are known for delivering high quality images for a price and made a great partner for The Tale of Despereaux."
Looking to the Masters:Visual Style of the Film
For the visual style of Despereaux, the production agreed that the film needed to feel as rich as the fantasies of a child when he or she reads stories of knights and fair maidens. This would be a challenge, as the team knew that computer animation can easily be filled with images that have very smooth, shiny surfaces and clean edges-an airbrushed look that makes the creations feel as if they are plastic. This look was the opposite of the desired qualities the crew wanted for Despereaux.
The filmmakers, in collaboration with production designer Tomov, strove for a painterly feel to the worlds our hero mouse explores, relying on Flemish masters, including Vermeer and Brueghel, for inspiration. Whether in design, color, lighting or camera moves, the intention was that everything seen would have an organic feeling, not a computer-generated one. Naturally, the hope was that this style would allow children to immerse themselves in the world of Despereaux-as well as to match the imaginings they had when they read the book.
Explains Tomov: "Our goal was to give Despereaux, the other characters and the settings in Dor a painterly, atmospheric look. Much like the rich Flemish paintings, Dor and its citizens needed to look as if they belonged in the Middle Ages. So often, CG animation has a look that can be clinical. We wanted to bring heart and soul to the visuals. We knew they should not only be beautiful, but also moving and emotionally engaging. We wanted this organic, immersive quality to the film...so the audience will feel like they are part of the story and there isn't an invisible glass wall between them and the screen."
The design flowed through to a restrained color palette that reflected the colors that would paint this fairy-tale world. "We deliberately chose a very muted and subtle palette, along the same lines as all of our other design choices," continues Tomov. "As colors are also a form of lighting, we did not want saturated, vinyl or obviously digital colors. We wanted everything in the design to have an organic feel."
Ross points out an example of this at the pig herder's farm, where we first meet Miggery Sow: "At Mig's farm, you can feel Brueghel. In fact, you can see a lot of Dutch Illuminators all over the movie. And when I look at this farm, I can feel those paintings-the mud of the farm, the palette, the soft Flemish sky. In fact, there are a lot of times where it's just a half step from the painterly reference. That was an enormous challenge for our team."
The production design crew, along with the filmmakers, established a visual style and design for the movie, which was then brought to life in a CG environment by Framestore Animation. Framestore applied traditional painting techniques onto the CG process to achieve the desired effect. For example, in addition to 2-D matte paintings, the painters also touched up 3-D renders with minute detail. As Flemish painters often had detail fall off into shadows in their work (and added sharper detail in the focal area), this type of touch-up gave exactly the look the artists wanted.
Casting and Recording Talent:Voices of Despereaux
The production began the process of bringing the animated designs to life by casting a variety of talented actors. From Matthew Broderick and Dustin Hoffman as the film's main rodents, Despereaux and Roscuro, to Emma Watson and Tracey Ullman as the story's leading ladies, Princess Pea and Miggery Sow, the global cast comprised performers and comics from stage and screen.
As mentioned, screenwriter Ross chose to honor DiCamillo's voice of the book- the Narrator-by integrating that character into the screenplay. As stories are often read aloud to children, the Narrator guides us through the lasting themes and morals The Tale of Despereaux shares with classic fairy tales. As she does in the novel, the Narrator engages the audience in a conversation, speaking directly to the viewers (readers) and drawing them into Despereaux's tale.
About her role, Sigourney Weaver notes, "You have to feel like the Narrator is going to take care of you, no matter how dark or dangerous the story gets. You have to know that she knows where she's going and that somehow it's going to be all right. The voice has to give you that confidence. The Narrator must be willing to take the audience right to the edge, and at the same time let them know she's there to catch them."
Of her performance, director Stevenhagen compliments, "Sigourney did an absolutely wonderful job in really engaging the audience in the story. She's almost like an aunt who sits and reads the story to a group of children." The director points out that DiCamillo's tale can be complex, and having a voice as a guide was invaluable. "There are also moments where it's been incredibly helpful to just have her come in and tie one character or one character's predicament to the other and introduce a new world."
Cast as the brave, unlikely hero Despereaux Tilling was stage and screen performer Matthew Broderick. Quite familiar with the world of animation, Broderick has previously lent his voice to Disney's blockbuster The Lion King and, most recently, DreamWorks Animation's hit Bee Movie.
Director Fell believed that Broderick's experience on stage and screen was just what the production needed for the voice of its lead mouse. He compliments: "Matthew has this fantastic ability to vocalize the utter joy and wonder we always imagined would come from Despereaux. When you listen to his performance, he simultaneously sounds curious, hopeful and noble."
Broderick really enjoyed finding a character to play that he found to be "very brave and headstrong and [who] doesn't care very much what other people think about him." Of one of his first meetings with the producers, he recalls: "I remember Gary telling me that he felt it was early teenage angst, that Despereaux was somebody who felt too strongly about everything all at once, in the way that an adolescent might. Everything is right and wrong, and he's overly passionate."
For the actor, working on an animated film offered a different set of challenges from those found on a live-action set. He says, "The process is more collaborative, because I'm trying to suit what's being drawn and written, which, often, I haven't even seen. I'm dependent on the director and everybody to explain Despereaux's world, because it often doesn't exist when you're recording. You also have to indicate more with your voice, because the animation isn't capable of expressing some of the types of humor. It needs a broader reading."
Discussing Ross' process of recording with other performers outside of a sound booth, he notes that this ideal situation made him feel less self-conscious during vocal work. Broderick states: "When you're recording alone in a booth with four or five people telling you, 'That was almost right,' it's hard to not get self-conscious. But if there's another actor, at least you can listen to each other and not be so aware of the people listening to it. It's easier to forget about yourself."
Two-time Oscar® winner Dustin Hoffman was selected to play the good-hearted but self-loathing rat Roscuro, who alternately assists and impedes Despereaux's quest. For the filmmakers, working with Hoffman was a fantastic experience.
Perhaps the most complex character in DiCamillo's story, Roscuro runs the gamut of feelings-from joy at his freedom to pain of rejection and peace of forgiveness. Stevenhagen explains of Hoffman's misunderstood character: "Roscuro has a spirit of adventure and a zest for life and a love of the sea and the wind. The world sees him as a rat, but he sees himself as this rogue who sails the seas. He doesn't understand that the world would view him differently than he sees himself, and it breaks his heart. Dustin captured these qualities exactly."
As did Broderick, Hoffman recorded some scenes with other actors from the film. He was pleasantly surprised when he showed up at the recording session and realized he would be taping with others. "Animation is rather new to me," notes Hoffman. "As actors, we're used to interacting with each other. Usually with animation, you are looking at a microphone and reading lines and you don't really have a vision of what it's going to look like. You have to completely trust the director." In this case, said director was Gary Ross, a man of infinite rodent patience."
In the role of the graceful and lonely Princess Pea is young British actor Emma Watson. Best known for her work in the blockbuster Harry Potter franchise, Watson lends her voice to her first animated feature film in The Tale of Despereaux. Says Fell of her character and performance: "Princess Pea is an ordinary teenage girl. We wanted her to be like a modern girl as well as a fairy-tale princess. We didn't want her to be cold and distant. Emma did a wonderful job of portraying this teenager that's stuck in this gloomy old castle with a gloomy old dad in this land that is under this awful spell of gloom. She wants to see some light in the world, and she wants to enjoy life like you do when you're a teenager."
Like much of the cast, Watson was touched by the timeless messages of the story. Says the actress about her rationale for joining the project: "It really touched me, and the script had a really big heart. I loved how it was about achieving against adversity...about someone living out their dreams when they seem slightly impossible or unrealistic. Despereaux just doesn't give up; he has this amazing spirit."
Known for her comedic portrayals of dozens of characters, award-winning actress (and fellow Brit) Tracey Ullman was cast as the starry-eyed serving girl Miggery Sow. A pig herder who dreams of becoming a princess and works in the castle of Dor for Princess Pea, Mig's simple, impossible dream is crushed one day. Brokenhearted, she seeks to right perceived wrongs and makes a very costly mistake.
Fell elaborates: "Mig is this kind, humble servant girl-a rough farm girl who has had a terrible life on this awful farm with that terrible Uncle Ned. She's not attractive and she's not clever, but she's amazingly optimistic. She has this idea that one day she will become a princess in a castle. It's obviously nonsense, but yet she believes it. And I love her, actually. I love Miggery Sow because she has this enduring sense of optimism, despite all of her failings and misgivings. And Tracey brings this soulfulness, hopefulness and comic tragedy to the lovely character in a way I don't believe anyone else could."
Reuniting for another film together, A Midsummer Night's Dream co-stars Kevin Kline and Stanley Tucci joined the cast of Despereaux as, respectively, the royal chef Andre and eccentric soup genie Boldo. Kline, who compares Despereaux and his inventiveness to Don Quixote, enjoyed how the little mouse "has his own imagination and his own will, which transcends all rules. He's not affected adversely by the boundaries that the rest of society has set."
For Tucci, voicing a culinary genie who is all passion allows him to "play as an actor more than when you're just shooting a straight film." He reflects, "There's something really childlike about it, and that's the thing I'm most attracted to. You can invent things ad nauseam, like a kid does."
Kline and Tucci often recorded their scenes together, with props provided by Ross, allowing them to ad-lib and play off one another in explosively comic battles. All accidents would be caught on tape for animators to use at a later date, especially the scene in which Boldo and Andre get into a food fight as they make their latest masterpiece.
Kline elaborates on the experience: "Gary not only got us in the same room together, but also filmed the first session. He had a cameraman walking around, and we staged it and improvised, based on the scene as written. We had the food fight and were actually throwing things at each other because Gary wanted us to act it out fully. We tried it a variety of ways, with different degrees of insanity and intensity. Stanley was doing an Italian accent, and I was doing a French accent. As we ad-libbed, we would frequently pick up on each other's accent."
To populate the nervous denizens of Mouseworld, the filmmakers cast a number of additional noted performers. Rounding out the rest of the Tilling family are lauded character actor William H. Macy, cast as Despereaux's terrified and law-abiding father, Lester; award-winning television and film actress Frances Conroy as our hero's timid mother, Antoinette; and actor Tony Hale, best known for his comedic role of Byron "Buster" Bluth on FOX's Arrested Development, as Despereaux's nervous brother Furlough. Richard Jenkins plays Furlough and Despereaux's very by-the-book school Principal, and Tony Award winner Frank Langella brings his gravitas to the voice of Mouseworld's Mayor, who rules his domain with an iron fist. The final mouse of note, Hovis, is played by comic performer Christopher Lloyd. As the blind creature in charge of banishments to Ratworld, Hovis proves a gentle soul who offers Despereaux kind words (and strong red thread) for his journey into the sewers.
Final key cast members of the world of Dor include Robbie Coltrane as the palace jailer, Gregory. Coltrane, known to audiences worldwide as the beloved gentle giant Hagrid from the Harry Potter series, joins Watson for their latest film together. Lastly, frequent villain favorite, Irish performer Ciaran Hinds, was brought aboard to play the vicious leader of Ratworld, Botticelli.
Animation
For the production, it was crucial that The Tale of Despereaux be a character-driven film. Explains Fell: "We spent a lot of time with our animators trying to find an understated style of animation that allowed you to consider a bit more of what was going on inside each of these characters." And while the filmmakers knew the movie had to be emotionally impactful, they also wanted the tale to be filled with rollicking adventure as Despereaux and his cohorts embrace their respective quests.
As always, form followed function. When characters in animation are comedic or cartoonish, they tend to have a much more graphical design. It is quite difficult for a strongly graphical character to "give" a subtle performance in a more naturalistic fashion. In addition, because the stars of our fairy tale from the Middle Ages are a mouse and a rat who walk and talk, they were anthropomorphized...endowed with human qualities. Despereaux and Roscuro are eloquent, scurry on two feet, wear clothes, have 10 fingers, etc., but needed to be recognizable to children as familiar creatures they've seen scampering about.
As noted, all of the early vocal sessions were recorded for the animators. This allowed them, for example, to reference how Dustin Hoffman as Roscuro acted out a particular sequence in which he breathed in the heavenly vapors coming from the Queen's soup bowl. The recordings inspired the animators, as they were able to watch how each actor phrased a particular line or the posturing with which he or she stood.
Additionally, the artists shot references of themselves enacting the specific scenes that they were animating. Working with Fell, Stevenhagen and animation supervisor Gabriele Zucchelli, each animator looked at these personal references to select the best moments and edit out the decisions that were not right for the movie.
Of course, animators never simply copy what they regard in real life. Consider this analogy: Imagine the difference between taking a photograph and then putting tracing paper on top and tracing it, versus laying another sheet of paper alongside the photo and drawing the essential elements...and simplifying what isn't necessary.
Elaborates Zucchelli: "We bridged animation and live action in order to make these characters more believable. All the performances are quite restrained and subtle. We hope audiences will be drawn to these characters because they behave like real people in real situations. In animation, we often tend to exaggerate and pantomime. This film was quite new territory for feature animation.
"We avoided theatricality and spelling out what the character is thinking," Zucchelli continues. "So we had to edit out all kinds of clichés and gimmicks that we as animators build up over the years. We had to keep what's essential to the shot and to the moment. For example, we kept the acting in the eyes and subtleties of expression."
This deftness of animation was achieved through the unique synthesis of talents of Fell and Stevenhagen. As Ross comments: "Sam is a phenomenal CG director of animation. He's able to eke such wonderful nuance out of these performances and is just phenomenal at paying attention to the detail of the acting and the animation. Some of the nuance and subtleties he was able to achieve felt as real as any live action.
"Rob was just remarkable in his unique ability to hold the entire film in his head at any given moment," Ross continues. "He didn't just board the movie; he reflected the tone right down to the subtlest acting. Rob's also a brilliant 2-D animator, so our animatics, at times, actually had the quality of a 2-D animated film."
Storyboarding a Fairy Tale
The first pass of any animated feature is known as an animatic-storyboards edited together with dialogue, music and sound effects. In the case of Despereaux, these boards were developed differently than in other animated movies. Before a single board was drawn, lengthy meetings were held with Stevenhagen, Fell, Ross and Brad Blackbourn, the head of layout. In these meetings, a detailed shot list for every moment in the movie was created-a live-action approach influenced by Ross. The four men met to map out every shot, from camera angles to lenses, in the movie. These shots were thumbnailed by Stevenhagen and then turned over to the story department, which was under his close supervision.
This visual road map kept the complex story pieces thematically and artistically unified. For a movie with as strong a narrative as Despereaux, a single cinematic vision was necessary. This had to be articulated before the storyboarding could even begin. This shot listing served to maintain narrative drive and a cohesive tone in four interlocking stories (Despereaux's, Roscuro's, Pea's and Mig's). It also served to cut months, if not a year, off the development process in a movie operating on a tight budget.
Of his crew, Stevenhagen commends: "We had an extremely talented team of storyboard artists; they were all animators themselves. It was very useful because they could give a lot of the performance we wanted in the drawing. The whole story reel-the pencil drawings that form the basis of an animated film-became a very precise foundation for what the movie ultimately became. And the shot listing process its
