12/17/2004 Archives: "Report from the Incredibles screening with Brad Bird"

Animated News just got back from ASIFA-Hollywood's special presentation of Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles. Matt Groening acted as host and writer/director Brad Bird was the guest of honor. After a screening of the film Matt and Brad had a discussion about it and then opened it up to questions from the audience. Includes info on Michael Eisner, Pixar's future with 2D, possibilities for a sequel to The Incredibles, and much more. Full article here!

• Brad mentioned that he tried to work in some of the mundane and some of the fantastic into the movie. As a case in point he mentioned Elastigirl fantastically sneaking into the secret base, then mundanely checking herself in a mirror once in the base
• Mentioned that Syndrome was made to look like him but didn't realize the animators had done that until it was too late to change the character design
• Talked about working on The Fox and the Hound and said that some of the people in charge of it purposely kept out some of the best material, but that the bear fight sequence turned out best because of less meddling from higher ups
• Mentioned an alternate opening where Syndrome dies - it was never fully animated but the story reel of this will be on the DVD
• Did a brief Edna Mode impression, much to the delight of the audience; Edna Mode is not based on any one person but people have still come up with all sorts of guesses as to who she may have been based on: Edith Head, Linda Hunt, even a male Japanese fashion designer
• Said that some people in the press have tried to make him out as being "anti-Eisner" but said he is not anti-Eisner at all and that Disney has done a great job in handling the release of his film
• Said he is not planning a sequel but will do one only if it can be as good as the first one
• Somebody asked (again) about the possibility of Pixar doing 2D films and Brad said there is a small possibility of it but a very, very low likelihood and that absolutely nothing is on the boards; Everyone at Pixar loves 2D animated films and hope that they continue to get made; Nobody at Pixar thinks that 2D is dead or that movies fail because of being 2D rather than 3D
• Brad wanted to dispel the myth that CGI is easier to do than hand-drawn animation. He said that it is harder and that they had one long, boring meeting during the production of The Incredibles where they talked about nothing but how leaves (yes, those green things on the end of tree branches) would be handled in the film
• Thinks it's a problem that colleges are not teaching hand-drawn animation anymore
• Said that Peanuts and Pogo were big influences
• Talked about how Samuel L. Jackson and Craig T. Nelson hit it off when they first met for voice recording sessions when they discovered their common interest in golf
• Brad mentioned that he was glad that Pixar protected his rights to make the film he wanted with no meddling from executives but that they also challenged him to create the best possible film
• Said that The Incredibles was already complete when he went to see Spiderman 2 and then was a little nervous that people would think he was ripping off Spiderman 2's "superhero-that's-saving-the-train-that's-about-to-fall-off-the-tracks" sequence
• When he was little he was very involved with watching TV and if a Western was about to come on he would change into his cowboy costume
• Said that there's not going to be any bloopers because he didn't want people expecting that there would be with every Pixar film; he figured that others would want him to have bloopers in the end credits though so his only way to stave that off was to create an end credit sequence that was as cool as the one for the original Pink Panther movie
• Brad's next project? Taking a break.

'Nuff said.

Posted by Christian at 3:58 am ET