It’s no secret that
Ratatouille has been hailed by critics and movie-goers alike as one of the top movies of 2007. Writer/director Brad Bird, who took on the same duties for
The Incredibles, tackled the familiar, yet ever-daunting task of trying to continue Pixar’s seemingly infallible Certified Fresh winning streak.
Bird managed to outdo his previous critically acclaimed animated effort and Ratatouille has been crowned RT’s Golden Tomato Award winner for Best Reviewed Film (Wide Release) of 2007.
On the heels of the film’s five Academy Award nominations, Bird took some time out to speak with RT about the film, critics, modern animation, and his most recent mantle-worthy achievement — The Golden Tomato Award.
You must be having a great morning.
Brad Bird: Yeah, fine morning!
5 Oscar nominations, not too shabby.
BB: Yeah, couldn’t be happier!
However, we’re here to talk about the Golden Tomatoes Awards at Rotten Tomatoes.
BB: Well, the Oscars pale [in comparison]. Actually, it’s very gratifying because it has to with an overall acceptance of the film. [Rotten Tomatoes’] a wonderful site to go to and get the vibe on things. It’s wonderful that it got this recognition. So it’s very appreciated from everyone who worked on Ratatouille.
The difference between the two awards is that Ratatouille was a favorite of the critical community.
BB: Oh yeah, here’s a film where a lot of people were worried that critics would misunderstand it and think that the critic was a “bad guy.” He actually ends up being an enlightened character. I think that some people were concerned that critics would take it the wrong way and think that it was anti-critic. It really isn’t.
It’s about staying connected to what you love. The critic who becomes a critic because he is connected with what he loves, sort of loses his way a little bit and finds his way back from the most unexpected source that could ever bring him back. He has to review his own life and his place in it. Critics, most of them, got it in the spirit that it was meant and that was very gratifying.
When you first saw some of these reviews start trickling in, were you sitting around nervously checking the site to see what happened?
BB: We weren’t sitting around because the film was opening in France and all over the world. It didn’t open on the same day and it was kind of rolling out.
Probably wrong choice of words to say “sitting around.”
BB: Yeah, it’s more looking at it when we had a moment or getting an email saying, “It’s at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes!” I knew that those moments were numbered. The minute somebody said that, I went well,
"Okay, here it comes…"
“Grab a screenshot, quickly!!”
BB: Yeah! It’s a wonderful site and it was a great pleasure to get that award.
BB: I think somewhat towards the end. But when you’re going through it, particularly with sort of a sped-up schedule that we had, you turn your attention from one fire to another. As soon as one fire is solved, you don’t go, “Wow, I really put out that fire.” You swivel your head around and go after the next one. You keep going until there are no more fires. Suddenly, you look back and there’s a movie behind you and you go, “Wow, when did that happen?”
I suppose there are little moments when you get to enjoy a thing that was tough to pull off and it worked. Most of the time, your attention is on the next problem to be solved because the clock is still running and there’s a finite amount of time, dollars, and man hours that you have at your disposal. You want to get as many of those things solved before the resources run out. You don’t really get a chance to take it in until probably a couple months after the film is released because you’re always running around promoting the film. It’s an ongoing, cascading thing.
The film looks gorgeous. For years, we’ve been hearing that water is the hardest thing. Then, it was hair. What’s the next frontier for animators?
BB: Fortunately, it’s getting subtle. It’s kind of technical, but for me, this sounds very tedious, but it’s getting “arched blur.” What that means is when a pitcher throws a ball, if you were to put a little marker on the path of action of his wrist, you would see a big curving shape. In CG animation, the camera blurs, but it blurs in a straight line between poses. To get an arc, you have to trick it. You end up doing a thing that’s not really an arc. An arc, for animators, is in the top ten or five things that you do all the time in your actions. For me, personally, I would like it to be arched blur.
That’s appropriately geeky.
BB: Total geek speak. The better thing is to just say that the medium has developed far enough that the next things to get are more subtle. I think what we would like to see as an art form is for there to be, rather than sort of splitting off – where hand-drawn is over here, clay animation is over here, CG is the dominant form over here – I would love to see a future where all these forms are mixed and matched in different combinations where CG films can become more graphic, hand-drawn films can use some CG tools in new ways, clay is combined with hand-drawn, which is combined with CG, you know what I mean?
That’s sort of what goes on behind the scenes, but are you saying that’s not really happening?
BB: I think with all the tools at our disposal, there can be a very wide variety of looks for a film. Ratatouille has a special place in doing a very lush, romantic look, which I think is kind of new for CG. It would be wonderful to see something that was more graphic and had some of the graphic qualities of flat 2D artwork, but done in a way that really plays off of things the computer can do. I just think that the fact that the three nominees for best animated film have different approaches to them – Persepolis is black and white and hand-drawn, graphic, coming from a graphic novel, it’s fascinating for those reasons. Surf’s Up has this documentary approach that is unusual – it points the way that there are so many different ways to approach an animated feature. I think it’s an exciting time.
Anything that you’d like to say to the Rotten Tomatoes crowd?
BB: I’m looking forward to keeping things as fresh as possible!
Has 1906 [Bird’s live-action feature about the San Francisco
earthquake] been announced?
BB: It hasn’t really been announced, but I can tell you that as soon as the strike is resolved, I’ll resume working on it. It’s a very exciting project and I can’t wait for things to be worked out so we can all get back to work.
For the full list of all of this year’s Golden Tomato Award winners, click here.
