By Carolyn Giardina 27 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) -
"Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears
a Who," which opens in theaters Friday, is the first of the
classic stories written by Theodor Seuss Geisel to be made into
a computer-animated feature film. The story, first published in
1954, had previously been made as a half-hour TV special,
helmed by Chuck Jones, in 1970.
20th Century Fox's new "Horton" was created by Fox's
digital animation subsidiary Blue Sky Studios (perhaps best
known for its "Ice Age" films) and features the voices of Jim
Carrey as Horton and Steve Carell as the mayor of Whoville.
The film marked the directorial debut of animation veterans
Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino. Both are big Dr. Seuss fans,
and they emphasized that their goal was to stay true to the
work and legacy as it was translated into multidimensional
animation.
The directors did a lot of research, including a visit to
the archives at the University of California at San Diego. "I
held the original art from the book and put on white gloves,"
Martino says. "We studied his pen and ink work, we read his
manuscripts to see his development of the story.
"One major thing was that we looked at 3-D work that has
been done," he adds. "Dr. Seuss had done several sculptures ...
and we looked at how he translated his drawing style into 3-D.
From that, we created a style guide for the movie.
Part of this was developing an exaggerated animation style.
"Often (the characters) look like rubber hoses, without
joints," says Martino, explaining that the team developed
technology "so character animation could move very fluidly and
stretch. That was applied not only on the body but the facial
animation."
Hayward viewed the animation as a character in the film. He
also emphasized the role of the music and sound.
"The primary relationship in the picture (between Horton
and the Mayor) is between two people who never see each other;
they could only hear one another," he says. "We thought it was
important to really capture sonically what that experience is
like. (In the climactic scene in the film) the score is taking
you there emotionally, but then the Who noise becomes the
score. ... It was very collaborative. (In some cases) we
animated to music and sound design."
The directors also say they kept in mind the Dr. Seuss
theory of "logical insanity" when making the film, but they
also coined their own term: entertainingly correct. Says
Hayward: "We went way too far first, and then pulled back the
point when it was no longer entertainingly correct. ... In
other words, when it didn't feel authentic, we would stop."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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