A general criticism that has come out of the release of the trailer for Wes Anderson’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” has been that the voice contributions from actors seemed “phoned-in” and uninspired. As Jason Schwartman explained though, this is despite the fact that Anderson and co. went to great lengths to avoid exactly that.
“It was really fun to be a part of it because Wes tried as hard as he could to not have all of the actors recording their voices separately in studios at various times. He really made an effort to get the actors together in groups, and literally act out the scenes with each other. To have overlapping [dialogue], and just weird exchanges. He’d have a gentleman with a boom mic running after us, following us doing it all. So, for example, the scenes in the movie where we dig? That’s actually all of us on the ground digging – like digging in the real dirt. And if we were eating, we’d go “Rawr!” and have real stuff in our mouths. I play George Clooney’s son, and there’s a scene where we’re talking to each other or having an emotional scene, and those scenes really are the two of us in a room acting and looking at each other – as opposed to being done separately and pieced together later. Of course, there are exceptions. Meryl Streep is in it, and I never got to act with her. But for the most part, most of my scenes were done with the actors I’m working with.”
Though Anderson himself wasn’t always physically present when he wanted to tweak scenes.
“I’d get a call from Wes where he’d say, “Would it be at all possible for you to record some new lines tomorrow?” So I’d go to the recording studio, and Wes would be on the phone – because he lives in France. So he’d be on the phone coming through my headphones, and I would talk into the microphone, and… in front of me on a music stand would be five or ten lines I was supposed to say. But out of context, and not in script form. So he would explain it to me verballly. ‘This is a scene where you’ve just come out of a tree’.”
Suppose we’ll have to wait for the release to judge to the full extent. [AICN]
I'm a longstanding Wes Anderson fan and I've been a Roald Dahl fan since childhood, so it's a perfect combination as far as I'm concerned.
Richard Laignel, I doubt it was deliberately decided that way. Anderson isn't that kind of director.
we really like wes's movies and Mr. fox its looks very different.good for kids..
Phoned in direction is fine in this case, given it's just directing voices.
It seems the whole film is directed "phoned in".
I think it's more the case that Anderson picked actors he liked for their live action performances versus voice actors who may have given better vocal performances. This is a common mistake in animation, almost always with the casting of celebrity actors. Notice the difference of acting quality in a Pixar versus a Dreamworks film.
My guess is Anderson cast the roles as he would a live-action picture, then tried to make the most of it by getting "authentic" performances on tape. Can't knock him for trying, but I forsee some missteps attributed to being a first time animation director. It's not as easy as it looks!
jenn
almost every animated film has phoned in direction during the final stages of post production. but i've never heard of an animated film that actually has actors play out the scenes in front of each other. as far as i can tell, this film seems to be the most authentic, non-digital, diy animated film to come out in ages (though thankfully there's a few greats this year). i don't really understand why everyone's griping so much on it. maybe they're so desensitized to cgi that they lash against anything that doesn't use it??
I agree with Jenn here, the problems is the voices. Anderson is doing (by phone or otherwise) regular direction, not voice animation direction.
We as an audience have become accustomed to voice work in animated films that POP, see Pixar.
The voice work here by comparison feels flat and enervated.
hmm, i can agree with you and jenn there for sure. when i rewatched dark crystal recently i was struck by how good voices were when studios used voice actors instead of celebrities. i also quickly want to point out that part of my argument was directly inspired from sam's myth (samsmyth.blogspot.com) . thanks!