I had the distinct privilege of interviewing Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, last year. On February 26, 2012 he won an Academy Award for his animated feature, “Rango.” He is a powerhouse onto himself with blockbuster movies, innovation and genius. Trivia: Gore developed and directed a series of famous “Bud-Weis-Er” frog commercials which were a hit during the Superbowl from 1995-2000.
Gore was in San Francisco last year, the day after walking the red carpet in Los Angeles for the premier of his animated film, Rango .
Paramount Pictures – Nickelodeon present ILM’s (Industrial Light and Magic’s) first full-length animated movie on March 4, 2011. Rango is about a troubled chameleon who is having an identity crisis (quite ironic for a changeable creature). Along his journey he finds himself in a western town called “Dirt”, and it is here where he discovers who he is and what he’s made of. There are wonderfully colorful characters who guide him on his journey, including Priscilla, voiced by Abigail Breslin, and Rango, voiced by Johnny Depp. Priscilla is a vocal mouse who first disapproves of Rango and doubts his intentions. But she is just as surprised as he is with his determination and strength.
What was unique about the making of Rango is the environment Gore created to capture the authenticity of emotions through the actors voices. Rather than use traditional ‘sound booth capture’ that Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks use, Gore created a real set complete with costumes where the actors were shut away for nearly 3 weeks to play-act the script. This allowed them to actually work side-by-side unlike other animated films where actors usually voice their characters solo in a booth. Gore captured what he calls a “raw and kinetic” quality to differentiate it from the vocal performances of other animated films.
Verbinski first came up with the premise for Rango back in 2005 while still filming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (which holds the record for the highest opening weekend of all time). Verbinski pitched the movie to Depp who loved the idea of playing a reptile.
Rango is not the first repitle that Gore has worked with. As a matter of fact most adult males who watch football will instantly recognize the ” Bud-Wei-Ser ” frogs on a log commercial that Gore directed early in his career.
What follows is my interview with Gore:
Q: Is it true what your bio says, that you broke into this business by selling one of your guitars for a video camera? (Gore used to play in a punk rock band in his early years).
Gore: No, that’s not true, don’t trust you read. I don’t recall trading in a guitar for a video camera. It is true that I started directing music videos.
Q: What drew you to a story like Rango, it’s unconventional, how did it come about?
Gore: Well, we wrote it from scratch. Myself and five artists, John Logan a writer, in a house in the hills in above Pasadena writing for 16 months. We created storyboards and 2003 I had a rough outline, a narrative. We created a story reel which is the equivalent of a screen play. Basically we created a western with these creatures of the desert. Rango comes in as an outsider and his identify quest. Then we went off to do some pirate films and this idea incubated. Really decided after the pirate film in 2007 to focus on this in earnest. Working with friends and weaving the fabric.
Q: How were important were the underlying themes to real life?
Gore: The thematics of the film are an identity quest, the great pretender. We all want to belong, we all feel like outsiders in some point in our lives. I think when we discovered the concept of this, the story was going to be a story of a chameleon, that lead to an actor, that lead to someone who fancies himself the hero in the classical sense that lead to this.
Q: You have this great relationship with Disney studios, did you ever think you would make the animation with Paramount or ILM?
Gore: Paramount is the studio, ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) I used with Pirates, we have a great relationship. Paramount was a good fit, Disney has plenty of great animated movies. I suppose because Disney is packed with films, it was nice to work with a studio that is going to focus on your film. I continue to have a great relationship with Disney.
Q: What were the pros and cons in working with animated medium?
Gore: I would say that the cons are – nothing is intuitive, nothing is real time, everything is fabricated, it can take a month before you see a shot rendered. Endless iterations. It’s difficult to respond intuitively. Everything is conceived. There’s a tremendous capacity for things to get homogenized in the process. We tried to keep it live as possible, to do something that we could do as intuitively as possible. The pros are there is no pre or post production. The whole time you’re in the edit room. Your workstream with live action is you’re able to witness something and capture it, we were trying to get to a place where you would feel like there was a 5’8″ lizard and I was trying to capture that on camera.
Q: How did the idea of play-acting come about?
Gore: It’s something we do in live-action. It’s the first time we’ve done an animated film, and ILM, the whole crew. It just seemed natural to have them act and react. Born of reiteration. It’s what we do in live action. Reading in a sound booth seems very strange. Everyone has a process they are comfortable with, this was uncomfortable for me.
Q. How did your parents raise how you are today, What did they see in you as a five year old?
Gore: Raising kids these days is hard. I’m the second to last child in my family. I think it’s tough, I have two kids, I see them and I feel like I see things in them, – they awaken the inner child in you. I think my parents gave me a love of learning, from there you set out on your own path. Every kid is going to set out their own path. If you love learning, doing an animated film for the first time is an extension of learning. Love of learning – – I latched on the theater of the absurd, Monty Python. I discovered that on my own. My kids watch Monty Python. That (his parents) was a different generation. Now we share music with our kids, my parents liked Frank Sinatra. We all listen to the Foo Fighters. There’s not that gap.
Q: The characters in the movie – they’re all these creatures of the desert. How does that work in the movie’s favor?
Gore: Pursuing detail, so you don’t end up with the twelve expressions, happy, sad, – we can get expressions that characterize emotions, twitches, nervous, things like hair folicles, translucency of skin, real details, complex emotional languages. I don’t ‘get’ the history of cute (referencing other animated films), so asymetry is more interesting. I’m a fan of the western genre. When I see a character actor, I see a whole movie behind a scene before and after. There’s a whole other movie behind it. We’ve got a rabbit with a missing ear, – why? Since he’s somewhere on the journey there’s a whole other story there. It gives you a sense of depth behind all the characters, all the dirt under the nails. I think it’s fun.
Q: You have a wonderful relationship with Depp, do you have that with another actor?
Gore: You can say we made two films together, those three (Pirate) films were really one. Yeah, I think we’re pals, we’ve been talking about Lone Ranger for about two years now, it’s ready, he’s got Tonto nailed. We don’t want to do a traditional version. We’ve all heard the story of the Lone Ranger, this is the story from Tonto’s point of view. Turn it on its head a little.
Q: In your mind, where would Rango and some of the characters be ten years from now?
Gore: Wow, in an institution. Our posse, we tried to model them around the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Each one of them is only a different piece of the pie. In animated movies you come across a town and everyone is a pig. In this town, every individual is a different creature. I think Rango he’s settled in, he’s had his epiphany, he created a suit he didn’t fit into, and now he wears it.
Q: You wrote one of the songs in Rango?
Gore: Some of the lyrics ended up in the movie. Seven of us in this little house with microphones, pencil and paper and designing all the characters. Writing what were supposed to be scratch versions of the songs that would later get reworked but some of them stuck. Just happens like that sometimes. Some of the stuff doesn’t get replaced for one reason or another. I’m so lucky to work with musicians who are so incredibly talented, so joyous to watch these other guys come in and grace your film with their talent.
Rango opened in theaters March 4, 2011 and was released on DVD on July 12, 2011
Directed by Gore Verbinski
Actors: Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Timothy Olyphant, Bill Nighy, Ned Beatty
Writers: John Logan, Gore Verbinski, James Ward Byrkit
