Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    August 13, 2011 3:31am-4:01am EDT

3:31 am
iran. next to the spotlight plays host to a russian called tunis and on director now working in the u.s. who explains why america's most successful animated shows including the simpsons they have a slight russian accent. hello again and welcome to spotlight they enter the show and party alvin out and today my guest is. the simpsons has become so popular in the united states it made it to the big screen but only few people know that this typical
3:32 am
american family actually has growth so are several other super popular animated show in the u.s. how could this happen are the russians still coming or are they already there we're asking the simpsons are there. was a part of the award winning any mission studio called pilot but after the fall of the soviet union he moved to america only to help create the country's best animated cartoons he joined his friend and colleague david cohen off another talented russian and the cost animation studio together they created one of the most successful animated good to the ninety's called rug rats the movie dream has also been a director for the simpsons movie and the television serious the simpsons. mr bill and she was into the show thank you thank you very much for being with us
3:33 am
well first of all he in russia as we just heard you worked in the best cartoon studio that's that we had at that time and maybe maybe the best still is so why did you decide to move and start working in the u.s. for economic reasons for for political reasons certainly not political ones. probably economical reasons at the time at ninety four i was out of a job for probably more than a year i was three i was already willing economically so when i got the invitation from the president of klaas kids. and definitely a ghurka whether of insisted. on having me over there so i gladly accepted his invitation and at that time it was just invitation to come over for a year probably two and to see if i like it or not and we'll go from there that was
3:34 am
the decision and we went to los angeles and one year passed another one and i'm still there well. it makes make stuff which is pretty different from what you were making when you were working here in russia and they knew that so why do you think if you have an opinion on this matter why do you think they decided to invite you they wanted they wanted you to somehow change and the the the the image in the face of the. american cartoons and what. i believe the reason was that since. chip and his wife eileen claussen they started their own studio basically in the bedroom of their apartment that's how they started their series. so probably governors business model was to. i have
3:35 am
a studio which is not like any other studio so he wanted the constant addition of the proud author of the fresh blood and him being an artist himself he really liked what igor did and what they saw that animation. he was a huge fan of it so all he constantly infused fresh blood from western europe i believe that was the reason and at the time and that was pretty successful. later his policy changed he lost a little bit the latest in the mission itself. and the studio started to stall a little bit technical it official it still exists but it's out of the business well let's take a look at some of the recent russian animation of success stories and they're bored by spotlights in a dim either. impressionist painting is moving that's how
3:36 am
alexander petrov's cartoons are often described the artist is drawn when released fingertips on gloss the technique brought him international recognition and the highest possible award an oscar russian cartoons have lately been more often nominated for the cademy awards than russian movies the latest nominee was a simplistic black man why denham ation my constantine bronze eat and although the ski team then turns it against to boast of at least twenty international awards for his cartoons what might make russian animation particular interest into western audiences is that there are you clinics in which cartoons are done to really terms of the soviet union the russian animation industry enjoyed substantial state support which allowed for creativity and the russian could tunis had to go through harsh adaptation to market economy their creativity survived it was demonstrated to the full in the ninety nine. days when the most cool animations to do christmas did
3:37 am
the series known as then they made it shakespeare for the b.b.c. half hour adaptations of shakespeare's plays produced using different animation dick nixon enjoyed international success precious biggest commercial success in animation so far is the series called sma shari the popularity of the little round bellied characters is so huge that it is susan was made to distribute the good to an international but still the real pride of russian animation and non commercial projects real works of art like the recently released harry bard in stop motion the ugly duckling with tchaikovsky's music as the soundtrack only why you should make use of money are the current would be made at the old is trying to make a new company so use more film. and i think you will have the best people to ask what's the main difference between russian and american
3:38 am
approaches to. well old examples what we just saw. we can talk about success when. those are really deeply individual this has been made by great artists and. targeted towards. you know mass production of the same episode of the same kind of episode like week after week after week. of the animation is really great and it is great only and mainly because of that he does what he feels he has to do and exactly the way. he feels it has to be done i can easily imagine that if it was. really on a production level new episode every several waves would have been so much different so of course. author's festival kind of animation is way much different from.
3:39 am
the animation which is done for cartoon network's and there's so many of them i've talked to a number of people working working in animation and this is strange they usually not the not the people working in the movies but people working in cartoons in russia say here they have more freedom then they would have had in their colleagues have the people like you who work for big studios in the west do you agree. probably probably again it really depends on the project because there are projects. where certain level of freedom is really welcome to but again only a certain level when. we talk about russian animators working on their own which maybe not targeted directly to bring commercial success so you know
3:40 am
a list of only the more freedom is that what you try well that's always the you know necessity is mother of invention so yeah when you. i have a lot of limitations you really have to be extremely in with inventive so that really pushes you to words more and more creativity you said you said if he petroff had to do an episode every week yes are you envious to people that who don't have to do an episode every week would you prefer to work this way rather than doing commercially successful. i i had a chance to compare working on the mass production. in imation and on like really individual. festival oriented this is a by. of course from creative standpoint it's much more interesting and.
3:41 am
there are really no boundaries for creativity on the project the problem is that they happen like once every five years. they last for six months they do not pay much. well you know if a project like it worse was happening every other month i would be ecstatic about that but it just cannot happen will we will we are of the same generation you remember like in the seventy's i think in the series union. as your honor appeared cartoons for the adults like me feel middle of the garden for adults and this was something new do you think this is adequate to have cartoons for children for help for snow white and the seven dwarfs i watched it the other day i think it's for absolutely for adults and only for the kids love it. good information of course you know if it's all the edges. i i really don't like this approach when sometimes
3:42 am
a lot of corners been caught because there's all explained this is for kids it has to be simple it has to be. maybe not that much you know creative and again it could be extremely simple because kids are rather stupid and they don't understand the difference between good and really good so it can be simple i don't buy into this theory so if. animation piece is done for kids but. it's done with a great africa and creativity everybody's going to like it was like in america it is extremely important even when the project is oriented towards the kids kids not going to go to the theater by themselves they're going to go with parents so it is very important so that the parents not going to get bored in the first fifteen minutes and want to walk out of the theater so they wouldn't want to have those parents stay throughout the movie so it has to have some elements which will be of
3:43 am
an interest of interest to parents as well at last i have somebody who understands me because i have to go to the movies with my side and when i have to well when i have to go i have to go and watch with them movies like avatar and he he's ecstatic about it i mean i mean i can't stand this is too much for me but the only the i agree that there are great for kids an edible edible for adults and this is this i think right ok we're talking to dimitri milan and she just reminded he's the i'd our director of the simpsons movie spotlight will be back shortly we'll talk more about his work in a minute after a break so don't go. bringing
3:44 am
you the latest in science and technology from around. we've got the future covered. hungry for the full story we've got it for. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers on. welcome back to spotlight i'm going off and just reminded of my guest in the studio today is the mutiny of milan each of the our director of the simpsons movie and also he worked on the rug rats movie that's true yes well. what you made the simpsons the series you made it into a full size widescreen movie what was the hardest part to morrow on working
3:45 am
on that big because we all we all are used to simpsons being like a series like like like like little nothing like a smile that said but you made the movie what what was it was it really hot it was really hard because two main challenges were about first of all of course translate the format which is familiar to a majority of the audience been seen or not like twenty inch screen and then you have to splash it over a hundred feet of the screen in a movie theater and if you will just. projected on such a huge screen it's not going to hold up to the. just even physics of the human vision because way too much of yellow color and it's going to look is terribly flat line will become and also the technique that it's the technique that you're drawing it so it's the guys are all their protection is going to be visible so. you have to use a lot of enhanced mints to basically fill out that it was up to us as another director
3:46 am
two years to change it to come up with ideas but the second challenge which pretty much cancels out the first challenge was to make it in such a way so that nobody would notice it again simpsons is such an icon in american culture are you do not treat it with such a freedom so that it changes its look and starts to look like something different that was the main goal of the creators of the movie not to make it like a one huge extended episode but it has to it had to stay true to the origins of the t.v. series and what about another thing did you did you ask yourself a question is anybody going to go to the movies and buy a ticket to watch this for two hours to know that they now had i had no down there no i had no doubt at all. the biggest challenge was you know knowing
3:47 am
that expectations were so high is what the expectation is is not to disappointed not to go again the biggest fear was that it would look just overly extended t.v. episode and. we just you know had no right to make that mistake so the stakes were really high. and this year expects the rate of success where will the movie. well it wasn't just it was just not disillusioning people in a disappointed but it was real success was that yes while i was seriously i was certainly hoping for that i was surprised what a big that it's of. i have read in one of the interviews that you grant to one of the american papers that you worked so hard and you were so much occupied. when you were in that movie
3:48 am
that you were sort of a depressed after it all finished after the work was terminated is that true while not depressed probably is not the right word. it's human nature you're getting used to an extremely high pressure pretty much you know becomes your. way of life the way of thinking you start thinking yellow a senior fellow in your dreams or nightmares so when the whole thing stops it really is a very abrupt and bizarre feeling because the world goes back to what it used to move. and you need some time to adapt to that because what you described did the work work on this and this piece you describe you have as working under restrictive conditions being very restrictive wildish one of those that was
3:49 am
mostly the very beginning of the project because of course we started working on a project and the script was not still there it was changing changing pretty much on a daily basis and creators they didn't quite know what to do with digitals of the movie it was not their main concern at the point so they wanted something by they didn't quite know what they want at some point the consensus on their side was that it's probably going to be safer just to go with what we used to have for the t.v. series and not do anything because again we start tampering with it and we lose some authenticity of the show and might lose something it's not going to be quite the same as it used to be. and that was
3:50 am
a little bit. dance for quite some time. later. actually they were way too busy with the visuals and that was a really blessing in disguise because they just forgot even to think about the way the movie is going to look so at that time i was pretty much free to come up with solutions that i in the end offered to them and they were really happy about that. lots of russians work and movies in the united states lots of russians in hollywood . but we never see them working as a teen i mean as a russian teen. it occurred to me when i when i read about these sciences the guys are good nobel prize and physically see if they have a russian floor like a whole whole floor or all the rooms they're all russians were there oh this is the russian flyer but it doesn't happen in movies in the united states why russians
3:51 am
represent a great school of cinematography why don't you flock together why don't you work as a team because because you quit it you want to do it to make american movies in america or because the producers try to keep your point and not the chip and not let you fly i but i wouldn't say that there is a there is an attempt to really spread people around depend on their ethnicity actually at the class there was some moment where a group of three or four maybe five russians were working together as a team but. i don't know it's just my observation probably it's not very welcomed to have people of the same cultural group been locked out from from the rest because initially i guess that in live action movies it's the same communication is the key it's extremely important to communicate with all the other people and when
3:52 am
the people start to being locked out and being isolated in a small group of their own something goes wrong communication wise and that usually is a really bad science so you think that that you have to keep keep it multicultural and yes we're getting back to cartoons nickelodeon a great channel a great a great. market for for for a cartoon do you think russia needs a channel i think that is absolutely absolutely and. of course from my not indicated standpoint of russia desperately needs an image that we do have the content do we all know that that's the problem because there's there's tons of content like imported content. nickelodeon d.n.a. and there's thousands of projects which could easily fill out the space on the such channels i strongly believe that russia needs its own content
3:53 am
nickelodeon has a very very strict requirements for animators for example they don't allow cartoon events of the past is that is that true why that used to be published i don't know because when i was describing the situation in one of my interviews that was the end of ninety's quite likely this. time this policy has changed at that point yes and that was one of the rules which were not carved in stone but we've been told several times that some projects that it was working on and let's say all the events were taken place in a like seventeenth century. nickelodeon advise does not to do so because they prefer to have all the action take place in either you know present time or in the future. your colleague eager karloff said in one of his interviews i quote i
3:54 am
like to draw like children do in primitive techniques what do you think makes such technique. tracked for contemporary artists in animation while our ego is a very strong artists and. yeah he might wish that he will draw like a kid even though he really admires let's say the drawings that my daughter made when she was like three years old he still has a few of them are on his wall. kids' day they think different day they do different they have such a freedom in their life and at the same time they are not burdened with the years of training in their lines and not straight or really thought out they just draw from hard and that what probably eager means because he wants to make you
3:55 am
you know really come in from your soul and from your heart the way kids do it is that the reason why my son when he was about three four five years of age he did wonderful drawings i had them as you said on the wall but now he's like eleven and they and they tried to teach him to draw in school he's awfully he i mean he's worse than anybody i've ever seen the same happened to my daughter i was absolutely sure that i have a genius on my hands because she was doing absolutely amazing drawings when she was like thirty five year olds freedom yeah they lose their cool because you know several years passed and all you could see you know those princesses and you know little dragons and extremely steve. doesn't is that it does that mean that an artist a true artist is the man that somebody who managed to sustain his fight to keep his freedom while growing up. yes of course even going to see him since
3:56 am
you know since becoming bigger louder brighter the huge change even from technical standpoint there and thirty six ten point happened about two years ago when the show was switched to high definition format. again the typical normal t.v. screen in the average american household it's not a twenty inch tube anymore it's like a fifty inch plasma so a lot of information has to fill out this screen so with that transition to the high definition show became much more sophisticated visual wise yet at the same time i kind of really strong the for the very first years of simpsons when it was really clumsy crude naive. and beautiful at the same time it was not so clearly drawn perspective buys it was not sophisticated yet it had really strong
3:57 am
sense of passion which was coming from creators thank you thank you very much for being with us and just a reminder that my guest in the studio today was meet the maligned chief our director of the simpsons movie and also the rug rats that's if an hour from all of us here if you don't have your sense spotlight just drop me a line we'll be back with more first hand comments on what's going on in and outside this country until then stay on our team and take care.
3:58 am
3:59 am
in india oldies available in the move to join the hotel rooms villas the gateway hotel the grand imperial truly the george weston. you can a letter to. sedona to go. run to the colonel was her job as a retreat. rigid rod
4:00 am
responds with the u.k. government promising tough measures to follow the streets may have experts fear proposed steps could make the situation even. as is red expects a fresh round of ten to protest refugees living in heavenly so the country's problems of social justice have much deeper the demonstrators see. and contaminated law is native americans from an area once used to be rainy and mining say the u.s. government corporations exploited them and that abounded them to suffer severe health consequences. a very warm welcome to you this is all sea life from moscow tensions have deepened in the u.k. between politicians and police.

53 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on