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Chris wedge rector8/8/2023 “That was a huge challenge, trying to get characters that were less cartoony, while staying away from the edge of the ‘uncanny valley.’”īut that was also one of the most fun aspects of the project for the animators. As you get closer to human motion, the audience’s eye is a little more discerning,” said Wedge. “The modelers had to deal with a lot more detail and realistic human proportions than we’ve ever tackled. He was also trying to achieve more realistic human characters. “We wanted a little more natural cinematography, and went a little wider in aspect ratio than we have typically.” “I kept saying to everybody at the beginning that I wanted to make an animated movie that looked and felt more like a live-action movie,” explained Wedge. “Renato would sit in every time we were having a layout meeting, and when we were placing cameras, he was there by my side.” Wedge explained that Renato Falcão heads Blue Sky’s camera department and is responsible for bringing a “cinematic eye” to the studio’s animated films. The depth of detail and cinematic scope of the film are striking. The film depicts the struggle between good and evil set in a lush forest environment where tiny Leafmen battle the Boggans to save the world, but these creatures are too small and too fast for normal-sized humans to even notice. We set a very high bar right at the beginning, which we had to maintain.” “As far as the technique goes, we just threw in a lot more detail than we’d ever done before. He contributed a tremendous amount in the execution of things.” Writer William Joyce also contributed to the production design.Īccording to Wedge, the level of detail in Epic surpasses that of any other animated film Blue Sky has released. He’s incredibly talented and Michael Knapp was the art director. “He’s been at Blue Sky since Ice Age,” said Wedge. Wedge started by tapping long-time collaborator production designer Greg Couch to help develop the look of this tiny forest kingdom. Wedge, who is one of the co-founders of Connecticut-based animation studio Blue Sky Studios, explained that Blue Sky has a little over 500 employees, and through the course of production, at one point or another, each one of them touched the movie in some way. The coffers open up and you bring on designers and writers and storyboard artists and that’s where the fun really starts.” “But once you get the greenlight, you’ve got all the help in the world. Wedge explained that by 2004, they had developed a first draft of the script and started doing elaborate animation tests in 2006, but it wasn’t until 2009 that he was able to get a greenlight.Įpic“I really believed in it, but it took some convincing to get the greenlight,” said Wedge. When a teenage girl ( Amanda Seyfried) finds herself magically transported into this tiny world, she teams up with an elite band of warriors known as the Leafmen to save the world. The film, which opened in May and is now on the shortlist for the best animated film Oscar, tells the story of an ongoing battle between the forces of good, who keep the natural world alive, and the forces of evil, known as the Boggans, who wish to destroy it. Wedge added that he wanted to “build a magical place with animation and honor some of the roots of what makes animation great.” “They looked like magnificent worlds, and I thought there had to be a movie here.” “The paintings had magical notions of tiny civilizations living in the trees and bushes,” Wedge recalled. Chris WedgeFor director Chris Wedge making the animated 3D spectacle Epic was an undertaking of “epic proportions.” The film had been germinating since 1998 when he and writer William Joyce attended an art exhibition of 19 th-Century paintings that depicted intricate fantasy realms in the woods.
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