The word “remake” can make every critic cringe and writhe in their seats. Granted, the original was not very entertaining but that’s the point. A bad film that was bad the first time is pretty sure to be bad the second time around. While, a good film that was good does not need a second cycle to ‘update’ the feels. And yet film studios continue to shell out these abominations in the hopes that one could slip through the cracks and become a hit. So, is the Crazies such a film?

Fuck no. Not at all. Believe it or not it’s tough to say something like that; especially, because there are a lot of people who put a lot of hard work into this film and who likely hope this film may be a substantial offering into a recycled genre. Sadly, a lot of them will be disappointed; as will most of the audience. There’s absolutely no illusion about what you’re getting into when you say to yourself (or, God forbid, someone else), “I really wanna see that movie.” Nevertheless, it’s not an excuse for what you actually get to see.

The story take place in everytown, Iowa (the place has a name, but who cares?). You know: corn fields, baseball, guns, whiteness. In this wonderful cornucopia of fuck-all happens to be the home of an accidental viral outbreak that sends its victims into a frenzy, often killing or brutalizing others around them, before succumbing to the disease. For all intents and purposes, this is your standard horror film. It’s got a spooky plot, a spooky ambiance, and plenty of false scares that jolt you a degree or two out of your seat. The gore is not quite as thick as you think, but when it is gory it’s really gory. Something most people would stay far away from. The other problem with this film is that every horrific situation (save the end) seems to be extremely contrived and farfetched. You would think that an entire town taken over by blood lusty people and shoot-to-kill government cronies could make for a pretty sticky situation, but none of it comes off genuine.

If you wanna see a horror film and this is all there is, then fine; it’ll quench your thirst for blood. But if you’re anyone else on this planet, I suggest you stay far, far away.

How did you meet Animal Collective?

I met them 2002. I was with Black Dice and it was my very first time going on tour.And we were meeting up with them in Louisiana and they were going on tour. So, I basically met them on tour. And that was their first tour as well so it was really, really RAW. Really gnarley, really… what’s the word I’m looking for? Not confrontational, but just pretty… I don’t know.

So, how did the relationship grow to where you were doing the videos?
Well, then just from there, I started to know them in New York. I had met Dave in school. He went to NYU briefly while I was there, then he left. So I wouldn’t say I knew them from college. I was in film school and Dave and Eric from Black Dice did music and sound for my senior experimental movie; so, they knew that I made stuff and just from hanging out and watching movies and sharing tastes they knew that, at the very least I was someone who knew how to technically use a camera. And had made some interesting stuff.

The rabbit video I did for them was basically like the first thing that I did outside of college and I was really excited and put a lot of work into it. If anything, I was pretty fresh off the college experience. With setting up a shoot and how to do it. It was very meticulously storyboarded and had everything planned out and then- basically from there that was kind of right where they broke with that album and I’ve been lucky enough to have been friends with them since. They’re super supportive of me and given me a lot of opportunity, so that’s just kind of how it happened.
What was the inspiration behind the “Who Could Win the Rabbit?” video?
The rabbit video was actually… they came to me with the idea. They’re like, “We want to have a tortoise and hare on bikes. And whether it was puppets or whether it was them or whatever, it was up to me. So, I then designed the costume, the look of it, chose a location, then shot it, did all the editing… So that’s kind of how the “Summertime Clothes’ video worked and also for the movie. They’ll come to me with an idea (usually) minimal, really, really raw. They’ll be like, “Oh. We want to do this.” “Ok. Then what.” “Oh, well we thought you could fill that in.” Literally, the smallest idea. Then I say, “Ok” and just expound upon it. Then, I’ll work on the design and how it’s gonna look and such. So, that video: tortoise & hare, totally their idea and then I just did the costumes. So, Dave’ll do this and then I would do this. Then, we shot it and I edited for a long time. Or what seemed like a long time. I edited for like 4 weeks; then, worked with someone else on the composites. Yeah, ya know, I was happy this was the first thing I did outside of school.

Have you seen Donnie Darko?
Yeah…

They kind of stole your design a little bit.
I don’t know if they made it at the same time though!

Did they?
I thought they did. Didn’t they?

It was about 5 years ago.
Well, you know, it’s not like- actually I heard that Dunkin’ Doughnuts straight up ripped off the video.

Oh, really?
I never saw, but a friend saw. This Dunkin’ Doughnuts commercial that basically looked like the “Who Could Win a Rabbit?” video. So, I’m not super protective of that idea because it’s common archetype, ya know? It’s “Tortoise and the Hare”.

How much of the visuals do you think come from the music itself?
I would say it’s “Super, super important to me.” I do my own editing and I don’t think I’m anyone who could ever cut something, slap it together, and then put it in a video. Even if it was a Mariah Carey video, ya know? Where it’s just like: obviously there’s not cuts happening to the beats or for effect or anything. It’s just her looking pretty or something. I’ve done editing jobs where it’s like something crappy songwise or for a band and I think that’s what I’ll do. “Oh. I’ll just cut it all together and then slap it on the song at the last minute that way I don’t have to listen to the music.” But I always feel like I’m bound to the track and I feel like that’s ‘cause right outside of college that’s what I got into. A lot of the 60s filmmakers out in California where they did this thing called synesthesia. Those films where it was a visual representation of the sound. I very much take influence from and need the sound. That’s why making the Animal Collective movie was crazy and weird. For the longest time, I didn’t have any music. So, I’d make cuts and say, “Ok. Make a song for this. And hopefully you’ll make something that’ll all fit this.” There would be a back forth, which was nice, but for the longest time it was really ambiguous. I was like, I have no idea what their gonna do for this scene.

Where did the name ODDSAC come from?

It took a while to find the title because the whole piece is kinda schizophrenic piece. It’s got a lot of different tones, it’s all over the place. Anything we came up with for the title was gonna be A. completely random and total bullshit because the nature of the piece is kind of out there or it was gonna be too literal. I mean, you wouldn’t want it to be “Trippy Colors” by Animal Collective and Danny Perez. I wanted something in the title that was visual. O-D-D-S-A-C fulfilled that-

So, it is an acronym?
No, it’s not. My girlfriend already found stuff online where people were trying to find the meaning to it… keep trying. So, Oddsac is good because- well, I’ll have to practice this answer I guess. ODD, I feel like, implies this tongue in cheek element which I like. I definitely find humor to it. It doesn’t take itself super seriously. SAC is interesting to me because it’s a verb and a noun. It implies a singular thing containing multiple things. Which is the same as the movie as far as being this singular thing. It’s not meant to be a music video or a series of music videos. It’s meant to be this singular thing. And sack can also be a verb. As in someone getting sacked. I liked that because it’s sort of comic aggressive. As to where a sack is totally docile. It’s kind of these two different words and then you tack ODD onto it and you think, “Oh, yeah. That’s kind of funny.”

You really thought that through.
I  have.

How do you feel about your film premiering at Sundance?
I’m just excited to get it out there, man. I could show it to a retirement home and be excited. It’s a bug out. I haven’t really processed it. I’m really happy. I’ve been with this thing for 4 years. I’ve been way too inside of my own head. As far as it being Sundance… I ain’t gonna lie, man. It’s kind of a certain amount of validation, too. Before I found out I got in, I was wallowing. “Ohh. I didn’t get in,” or, “Oh, am I crazy?”. Is this total nonsense or something I’ve puled out of my ass. It’s not good to put all your eggs in one basket-
-or in one sack.

Or in one sack. Just because Sundance excepted me doesn’t mean… ya know, it could go down like hell. They could hate it and say “This is garbage. This is self-indulgant.” But I’m excited about it.

So, is it gonna be an arthouse release?
I think we’re gonna do a screening tour. I’m excited just to try. Maybe in bigger cities we’ll try a multiple night run, but I don’t think it’ll theatrical release. It’s also, like, 50 minutes.
Is this film a little bit like The Wall?
I’ve actually never even seen the film.
It’s like a mix of narrative which gets broken apart randomly.
It’s probably a lot less narrative than that. I really feel like this is a 21st century work. Not that it’s super advanced and you’re gonna see new technology, but it’s a 21st century work as in everything is on the cusp of changing. The music industry has gone to shit, the movie industry is not far behind, everything. Every generation feels like they’re falling apart, but let’s focus on media. Media, music, movies, and internet. It is in a major change. Shit’s gonna be crazy different 10 years from now. 5 years from now rental stores will be gone. I bet ya. All these things are changing. So, when I say this is gonna be a 21st century work, it is reflective on itself. It is introverted on itself, as far as I am a slave to the screen. I watch movies and I watch youtube all the time. The way you take in information and they way you get it back out there. For instance, this was released in a day and bam! I’m going to Sundance. It’s a reaction to all these things; from being constantly bombarding by these things. Where the fuck else are we gonna go from here?

Do you have any other projects that you’re working on right now?
I mean, I have another long format feature that would not be affiliated with any band. So, if I could find someone who would be interested and wants to give me some more dough I’d really want to do that. I really want to work with this band, these friends of mine, IUD, up in New York. It’s one member from Gang Gang Dance and one member from Growing. It’s two female drummers; really dirge and heavy like Fucked Up. It almost sounds like a marching line getting sped up. And girls singing about getting fucked. It’s really good. I’m also gonna be doing a lot of shows with Panda Bear this year in Europe. Basically, just gonna finish this up and hope to be in a different place a year from now.

ODDSAC Trailer:

I have a question about the “…And then the sun came up” monologue-

Oren Moverman: Oh! Very specific…

What was it like to write and what was it like to perform it?

Oren: That’s real interesting that you ask about it because that was one scene that was written on the page in a particular way that, in working with Ben, started changing. Ben started putting his ideas in and I started putting my ideas in. It got to the point where, in the end (still on the page) exactly along the lines of what the original one was when I wrote with my co-writer Alessandro Camon. But, then gave it a whole other spin that really became its own. And by the time he was performing it, we only did it a few times. [We only had time to do it 3 or 4 times (actually 3).] It was his story by then.

I understand that you use meditation quite a bit. How was that used in preparing for the film.

Ben Foster: That’s a tough question. I’ve been meditating for so long that it’s hard to-

Did it not bring forward the extra intensity?

Ben: No. I don’t think the meditations were any more intense. It’s- you take an afternoon  for yourself and that’s your routine. What meditation does, for me if I can have any distance from it, is create more inside. And that benefits. It helps me project less and be available to more things.

Was it intentional to encode the film in such a way? Some of the music in the film, even the diagetic music, was king of what was in Sgt. Montgomery’s head. Especially in the scene where you give out the casualty report. If he didn’t cross the threshold we didn’t cross the threshold either. What was the motive behind that?

Oren: The music, definitely, we wanted to use as part of the character. And not only the characters of Will and Tony and Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson characters, but the character of the people being notified, the character of the house, the character of the room they’re entering. You know, I really wanted minimal score in the movie. I didn’t think you needed it to indicate the emotion in the movie. The emotion was going to be complete in the performance or not at all. So, the music had to be almost like a throw away. In scouting the movie, we went to a lot of houses and some were in poor neighborhoods and some in middle class neighborhoods. And one thing that we notice is, is that it’s never quiet. There’s always a TV on or there’s a radio on or there’s a CD playing somewhere. It’s always going on. So, it’s almost like we don’t know how to be with silence anymore. And, we definitely wanted that to be part of the movie. We also wanted it to be the kind of music where most of the time you could find anywhere in the country if you just turned on the radio. Which means older music, classic rock, and things like that. And we wanted it to be mostly diagetic. We wanted it mostly part of that world; wen don’t want to take you outside of that world. But we do have the few moments of score to keep indicating that “it’s just a movie”.

In terms of shooting those notifications: we shot them all one take. Everyone was thrown offset. It was just the cameraman, myself, focus puller, sound guy, and the actors. We never introduced the two sides, so Woody and Ben never met the other guys. They didn’t even know who was gonna open the door. They know who the actor was, but they didn’t know what they were gonna do. I encouraged everyone to get off script; to work with what’s there, but surprise each other with behavior that’s appropriate for the character in that moment. And we didn’t cut until the scene was over. So that we didn’t really leave room for manipulation beyond the acting. And I think it created a sort of respect for that moment because it’s not a documentary, it’s not real, they’re all actors, filmmakers, pretenders. But we also try to be true and respectful to the people who actually have to live this. Thats why it was important for us to have this theme of apology at the end. Because I actually heard on Veteran’s Day this mom speak on the radio who wrote a book on her son who died in the war. The last chapter in the book was about the notification and she apparently was very, very abusive with the notifiers; which is perfectly understandable. You cannot blame a mother for going off on someone who brings such awful news. And, this was very moving, she apologized to him on the radio. She didn’t know his name; she didn’t remember. She wrote a letter to him and published it. I just thought: “We have to do this.” We have to give this moment where they can say: “I wasn’t myself then. Can you forgive me?” Of course, there’s nothing to forgive. It’s an understandable thing.

I’ve been waiting for a film like this for a long, long time. Incredible, passionate, and contemplative; The Messenger is the kind of film you go to see when you haven’t seen a good one in a very long time. It’s more than worth you money, it’s worth    Everything about this film radiates professionalism and quality; from the acting to the direction and writing. And, you know, there are films on the outside and then there are outsider films. This film has the qualities of both without sacrificing integrity. It reminds me of  a time when seeing a film that was ‘independent’ was truly just that. They were films made by fringe craftsmen to tell stories that otherwise wouldn’t have been told. Each story accompanied with powerful and intimate acting, a director with a keen eye for balance and aesthetic, and  The Messenger is that kind of a film.

The film’s ambiance is similar to that of a documentary. But what could be more fitting a style then that of a fly on the wall for a movie that has its man characters delivery notices of death to unaware and hopeful family members of fallen soldiers? And it’s not just a fly on the wall perspective.The camera itself is alive. It lives and breathes within the immediate sphere of the soldiers. It never moves passed them and keeps an awkward distance after emotional epiphany of the family; much like the characters. The sense of forced alienation is just as evident in the camera as it is in the shot.

Ben Foster is an incredibly talented young actor and watching this film it is not very hard to imagine him as being the first in the next generation of Oscar generating performers (the present being those like Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, etc.). The performance here is not that obvious. In fact, I dare to say that it’s not even a performance. It’s a portrayal. There wasn’t a single moment in this film that I doubted the authenticity of his character. However, it’s the contrast Woody Harrelson’s ‘performance’ as an Army Sargeant whose been around the block more than once that gives the movie most of its dynamic.  And while each character has a real sense of sincerity, there are moments where you realize that both characters are in need of something that the other has. That they are not as whole as they carry themselves to do. And that sort of struggle not to unveil that something (in much the way that military men do) reveals the depth of each individual in such a simple tone that it hits.

The script for this film is extremely solid. The characters are well fleshed out and fully developed throughout the film. However, the strong points stand out in one of the last scenes as Ben Foster’s character tells Harrelson his experience in the hospital after saving his platoon and being received as a hero. The words probably could have possibly stood alone as powerful and passionate without Foster’s incredible performance, but thank god this film was made. And we’ll never know the difference.

Yes, we interviewed to stars from Twilight: New Moon. We considered the pros and cons of this and while we were, we realized that lot of people were currently considering the pros and cons of being associated with this movie. The director, the stars, even half of the people on the soundtrack were debating what the hell they were doing with this film. And yet, all of them are reaping enormous benefits from being involved. Twilight: New Moon has surpassed Star Wars and the Dark Knight in most ticket pre-sales of all time. C’mon. It’s not selling out if you  had little ‘authentic’ credit in the first place, hm?  Plus, I mean… the soundtrack was good. Right? Sort of?

Here’s the interview, as conducted by Peter Kuhn. And anyone who is shaking their head in shame at us should especially read it. If you may not like the film, you have to understand that it’s not the actors. These are normal ‘bros’ doing their job and doing an admittedly good one at that.

Elitist Magazine: What was it like getting into the character roles? Any sort of specific preparation you did for the film? Read any of the books? Any background influences on becoming a vampire?

Daniel Cudmore: For me I sit down. I have built it from an emotional place that I can kinda connect. I wanted to find something that, you know you try to find an emotional thing you can kind of connect to your real life what you have so you can really get into this character. For me I just, as you look at Felix and his character the fact that he doesn’t have a special power. So I just kind of put that and said what happened if I was in this elite coven of vampires and I was the only one who didn’t really have a special power. Would I feel a bit jealous? You know, do certain vampires have better powers and now or are they they higher up on the later. Demetri feels he has been doing what they do for so long so well that I think he has a bit of jealousy in the fact that he doesn’t. But so he transfers that into anger and does what he does really well. So that is kind of where I took it from.

EM: So, Twilight mania. You no doubt saw the reaction to the first movie. How have things been so far since you joined on? Any preparation for the screaming teenage girls?

DC: Last night man. I had gone to concert recently and you know when you leave and your ears are kind of like just a little bit overwhelmed. People say something and you can kind of read their lips. That’s kind of what it was like. Tiny little girls blowing your ear drums out. It’s flattering because to have that many people, you know, who you only really know from a character in the book. So they are just associating you with someone they love in the book and you are still getting that kind of a turn out.

Charlie Bewley: There is no set way. There is obvious media training, which Dan and me did where you learn how to deal with the media. It’s not quite the same thing though when dealing with that velocity, that volume of people, who are just screaming rabidly at you. I think it’s your own psychology, your own how you work, how you translate things, how you process them. I don’t think anyone can really teach you how to absorb it or furthermore use it.

EM: Do your own stunts?

DC: Yea, I have been fortunate. I don’t really consider myself a stunt man because stuntman and women are really talented at what they do and that’s all they really do. There are things I can’t do. I have limitations, so I kind of consider myself like more of an actor who really enjoys doing his own stunt. Obviously there are going to be things where they are gonna say you can do it or I am going to look at it and go I can’t do that and I’m going to let a professional come in and do a great job. Yea, I have just been fortunate enough to be able to be in the right place at the right time and say hey I’d like to try it. I’ve had great stunt coordinators around me say, yea let’s go for it.

EM: A lot of stunts in New Moon?

DC: Yea, it was funny because I worked with the stunt coordinator on a show. So when I found out there was going to be a bit of a fight scene I called him up and said I want to do as much as I can. Just because I wanted to be as involved as I can, I’m kind of selfish in that way. I want to do as much of the character as I can and not feel like I sort of just come in said a few lines and leave. So I called him up and said is there any chance and he said yea, let’s work on it. So I worked with him and Rob Pattinson came in and we worked together for a week before and then we got a really cool fight scene. I’ve seen bits and pieces, I haven’t seen it pieced together, and it’s going to bring a whole new audience to this film. It’s kick ass.

EM: So you did most of the filming in Vancouver but then moved to Montepulciano, Italy. How was it there?

CB: It was a wonderful PR stunt, first and foremost on the part of Summit. We needed about six minutes of footage. We went there for almost two weeks, I think and the decision was probably made that we could find somewhere on location in Vancouver or we could go to Italy and really embrace what it is about the Volturi. Chris and Wick flew out there. They did so much research into finding the right place. When the found it, it was between Volterra and Montepulciano. It just didn’t work in Volterra, so they made the decision to go into Montepulciano, which is this little rustic – it’s beautiful, so ethereal

DC: Tough place to work…

CB: You kind of knew when you were going there that there was going to be this hive of activity up there. But when you are going up the cutbacks and it’s like hilltops, rustic, very very thousand years old. Everything is as was. Cobble streets, little shops. You get there and it’s just. There were 5,000 fans there at the film set. You go in and it’s like the most intense experience. There were only six cast men. Let’s face it, they are there to see Chris, our director and Robert. They want to see Rob Pattinson and Kristen. They want to see these guys. Once they realized, I walked around the first day with a security badge and no one knew who I was…

DC: I was getting security going what do you think you are doing?. Where do you think you’re going? It’s kind of fun.

CB: No one knows who I am, just enjoy the place. Someone was watching, only one person was watching because I don’t give a very good representation of myself. They tug on the shoulder and they say are you in Twilight and I say yea. They turn and look at me, I just kind of knew it was going to happen, that Notting Hill open the door without your pants on moment. Pandomomium, there was a wall  of photographers instantly within about ten seconds and it’s like [imitating camera noise]. I’m just like oh my god, this is ridiculous. This is what it was like all the eight days we were there. We only shot for one day and we got these shots and they were great. We just got to enjoy the lavish hospitality that they guys put on for us, which was just – I don’t think life could get any better than that week.

It was bound to happen… remember a few months ago, during the Summer, when a woman named Jaycee Dugard was found after over 18 years. The step father, who had looked vigorously for his daughter, was accused and divorced by his wife (Jaycee’s mother) and his life reduced to little. All the while, Jaycee lay captive in the backyard of a lunatic miles away. It’s a story that gets even crazier as time passes with all sorts of twists and surprises. So, it’s no wonder that there’s a film being made about it. But before Lifetime could snatch up the rights to this flick, a man named Shane Ryan has decided he would like to helm the first adaptation of this story. The problem there is that this is also the man directed such greats as Amateur Porn Star Killer Pt.1 and Romance Road Killers and he wants to shoot a similarly fashioned and slightly gratuitous film about Jaycee’s story.  You can read the full story here, but do you want to?

UP!

Can you give some advice to young people who would like to work in animation?

Pete Docter: I get a lot of people telling me, “I’m thinking of making an animated film.” Well don’t think about it… DO IT! Today’s technology makes it easier than ever to create films right in your home. I had a teacher tell me, “You’ve got 10 thousand bad drawings in you before you get to the good ones. So get drawing.” The same goes for films (though as you’re making them they’re all works of genius).

Bob Peterson: Several things. First of all, just start animating! Don’t wait for someone to say it’s ok. When I was younger I drew a comic strip that appeared everyday in my college newspaper – I got to draw a lot and get a ton of feedback from readers. This was invaluable to me as a storyteller today. Always carry a notebook to do sketches. Watch and analyze animation. Go to conferences and get to know people – it is who you know sometimes that does get you the job. The best advice is to make sure to get good life experiences – we draw from our experiences every day in story and animation!

What was your experience like taking the film to Cannes?

Pete Docter: Cannes was amazing. It was overwhelming, like something out of a fever dream. Here we are, a bunch of geeks who draw cartoons, being mobbed by reporters and fans, at one of the most prestigious international film festivals in the world… I kept thinking, “You’ve got the wrong guys!” But we think of what we do as filmmaking — not anything more or less. We don’t think we should get any special “free pass,” or be seated at the little kids’ table, just because we use animation to tell our stories. And being selected to open the Cannes Film Festival showed us that the film community feels the same way. It was very gratifying.

Bob Peterson: It was like Alice going through the looking glass! Or another metaphor, it was like Pixar is a space administration and they sent us as astronauts to another planet. We kept pinching ourselves that it was real. Cannes after all welcomes amazing live action films with unique content. To be the first animated film to open the festival was an honor! The standing ovation after the film ended will be a memory I will always cherish.

What do you think is the most important adventure in life?

Bob Peterson: The great thing about this film and any film we work on is that it contains truths taken from our lives. Pixar lets the directors create an “autobiography.” In other words, things that are important to us make it into the film. I do believe that the greatest adventures happen between me and my kids, my wife, and in small moments. A morning around the kitchen table eating breakfast is an adventure in my house.

Is there anything about the movie that you’re still not satisfied with? If you could go back and change one thing about the movie after the fact, what would it be?

Pete Docter: We’ve trained ourselves to look for ways to improve our films at every turn. As John Lasseter says, we never actually finish our films, we just release them. So yes, every time I watch “Up,” I see things I would change… cut out two frames here for better timing, add another gag there… but overall I am happy with it. I’d better be after five years of work!

I’ve read a lot about the character of Carl being inspired by actor Spencer Tracy, but not so much about the source of Charles Muntz. Could you confirm if, in some way, he was inspired by actors like Errol Flynn or Clark Gable, funny adventurers?

Pete Docter: For Carl, we looked at Spencer Tracy, Walter Matthau, James Whitmore… as well as our own grandparents. For Muntz, we modeled him on strong, 30’s era adventurous types — Errol Flynn and Walt Disney were two inspirations, as well as real life adventurers like Roald Amundsen and Percy Fawcett.

Of all the exotic locales in the world, why did you choose South America as the place of Carl and Russell’s big adventure?

Bob Peterson: We wanted our locale to reflect and resonate with Carl’s emotional state in the film. The tepuis, or table top mountains, of South America are old, isolated, rugged, and dangerous but with a soulful beauty – a pretty good description of Carl. Going there gave us a good sense of what it would be like for Carl and his friends to be up there. In the film, we used a great many plants and rock shapes that we saw from the tepui.

One of the most amazing things in “Up,” I think, is the treatment of the love story between Carl and Ellie, this is a true love beyond death. Could you explain us the development of this crucial storyline?

Bob Peterson: Great question. The love story was the spine of the movie. When we develop these films we look for themes that guide us in how we tell the story. As the process of writing progressed, we realized that our main theme was “How does a person define adventure?” Is adventure out there in great deeds, or can it also be between people in the small moments that make up a life. Carl and Ellie’s love story helped us tell that theme – that small moments lead to a life’s adventure.

Do you remember the first time you drew something and thought, “Wow, this is something I want to do for a living.” Do you remember what you drew?

Pete Docter: You know how there are always those kids in your elementary school class that are really good at drawing? They sit there and “wow” everyone by drawing horses and tanks and battles and stuff? That was NOT me. I was lousy at drawing. But as soon as I figured out I could make something look like it was moving — and thinking — I was hooked. My parents are musicians, as are my sisters, so I was dragged to a lot of concerts growing up. I would always steal everyone’s programs and draw all over them, thinking up jokes like, “What would happen if all the strings on his violin broke?” or “What if someone fell in the tuba?” Comic gold, I’m telling you!

Bob Peterson: I remember my teacher in 4th grade commenting on the hands that I drew on a surfer surfing a wave. That was the first time I was conscious of my drawings. But more than my own drawings, I was truly inspired by the cartoons of Charles Schulz as a kid, and I wanted to emulate him – my cartoon strips in college strived to have the Schulzian mix of surrealism and Charlie Brown angst. A bit of that combo shows up in “Up.”

How was the idea for collars enabling dogs to talk arrived at? How much of it was comedy and how much of it was inspired by fact?

Bob Peterson: We knew we wanted to give Carl a new family including a new “grandson” and “family dog.” It was a gauntlet laid down in front of him to accept new people into his life. Before Russell was invented, we just had Dug along for the journey and it turned out to a pretty quiet journey. So we invented the collars. We love comedy and we knew that the collars would provide plenty of laughs, peering into our beloved canine friends’ brains. But more importantly, Dug is a mentor for Carl in that new relationships are always offered to us, and it is up to us to act on them.

I love the amount of research that’s been put into the look of the mountain tops; were any similar tests conducted into using helium balloons to lift an entire house?

Pete Docter: The first thing our technical team did when they started working on the balloons was to figure out how many balloons it would take to lift a house in real life. Here’s his math: Carl’s house is 1,600 sq ft. He found some figures saying that the average 1,600 sq ft house weighs about 345,000 lbs, of which 160,000 lbs is from the foundation, and about 30,000 lbs is from the garage. Since Carl lifts off and leaves the foundation behind, that leaves about 155,000 lbs, which is 77.5 US tons or 70,306 kg, which the canopy needs to lift. Accelerating toward the ground at 9.8 m/s², that’s 688,998 N of force from gravity that the canopy has to overcome. With the density of helium at .1786 kg/m³ and representing a balloon as a sphere with a radius of 2.78 ft (like weather balloons), each balloon can generate 4.5 N of buoyant force. To generate at least 688,998 N of force to overcome gravity, you’d need 153,053 helium-filled, 5.56 ft diameter balloons. If you’re trying this with big party balloons, at about one foot diameter, then you’d need a whole lot more: about 26.5 million balloons. None of this takes into account the weight of the balloons themselves or the strings to tie them to the house.

My favorite scene was Carl’s montage at the beginning. It seems like such a simple idea, but I’m sure it was complicated. Can you explain the process of how the montage evolved?

Pete Docter: That was probably the scene I’m most proud of in the film. It came into play early as we developed the story of this guy floating away in his house, and we asked ourselves, “Why is he doing that?” We figured there was some sort of loss or unfulfilled dream that he was trying to make right, and so we came up with the back-story of Carl and his wife.  We initially constructed it as a compressed series of small short scenes, with dialogue and sound effects. Little snippets of life. When Ronnie del Carmen started to storyboard it, we felt like it would be nice to reduce it, simplify it, and take the dialogue out. My parents shot a lot of super 8 movies of our family growing up. Watching them now, there’s something really emotional about not having any sound.  That allows, I think, the audience to participate more actively and kind of imagine, “What are they talking about there?”  Or “what happened right before this moment? ” And that feeling was all part of what went into the scene…these really beautiful, little, real-life moments showing the highs and lows of life. Carl’s true adventure was their relationship together.

Were you concerned at all with delivering such an emotional gut-punch so early in the first act?

Bob Peterson: We weren’t concerned as much as we were vigilant. We knew that we were traversing deep emotional terrain early in the film and we wanted to keep that thread of emotion alive as the film progressed. The reason we went so deep was because we wanted the audience to buy that Carl would lift his house and go on such an audacious adventure. We wanted to keep Ellie alive in the second and third acts, as if she were along for the journey, and so we created a few “talismans” to do so – objects with symbolic meanings – such as the adventure book, the house itself, the colorful sash on Russell (and his Ellie-like sense of adventure) and the colorful bird. At the end of the second act, when Carl reads the adventure book, Ellie is there to give him the wisdom to keep going. It was our hope that in keeping Ellie’s spirit alive throughout the film, her passing earlier would be more poignant.

This is a parody of Radiohead’s Creep as done by our good friend Max Marguiles.

[Insert Video Gallery outsidevids]

Director: Max Marguiles

Featuring: Cameron Sima on Guitar and Ernst Hohmann as a Disgruntled German Man