‘Epic’ director balances detail with fantasy for nature-set spectacle
TORONTO — “Ice Age” director Chris Wedge set the bar high by naming his latest animated adventure “Epic.”
And he certainly didn’t make it easy on his animators by placing the coming-of-age story in the heart of a dense forest teeming with intricate flora, bizarre creatures and multiple bodies of water.
Wedge says technological advances helped him bring to life a fantasy world of tiny human-like warriors called Leafmen who protect the earth from death and decay.
“Epic” is inspired by characters from William Joyce’s book, “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs.” It centres on 17-year-old M.K., voiced by Amanda Seyfried, who struggles to reconnect with her estranged scientist dad Bomba ( Jason Sudeikis).
Wedge sat down with The Canadian Press to talk about stacking the voice cast with musicians, the challenge of drawing humans and whether detailed animation can ever be “too real.” T he Canadian Press: You’ve essentially made a nature film, but it’s animated. C hris Wedge: Once I had my green light on this movie I just assumed we’d be able to do everything. But when I would pitch out ideas for scenes, the stares that were returned and the silence in some of those rooms was a little deafening. So it was definitely a technical challenge for people. We make our movies with computers and computers do things that look geometric and kind of cold very easily and electronic. Nature is just filled with details on every level — the shapes of things, the numbers of things, the textures on things, the movement on things. C P: There were scenes that looked so real it looked like actual nature footage. Did you ever have to say, ‘Wait a minute, this is too precise’? C W: The style of the film is based on some of the great story illustrations that were done in the middle of the last century by (animators like) N.C. Wyeth. (Things like) the great classical illustrations of ‘Treasure Island’ or ‘Robin Hood’ that are done in a very realistic, romantic painting style. That’s what we started with. It doesn’t look perfectly real but it looks real enough to convince you. And it’s a fantasy. C P: And humans take centre stage here, unlike your previous outings with “Ice Age” and “Robots.” C W: We have taken a swing at much more realistic human proportions than we’ve ever done and that’s one thing that created a lot of complexity for the animators and designers, everything. There’s a thing called the ‘uncanny valley’ where the closer you get to simulating a human the more grotesque it becomes, until it’s perfect. And the closer you are to perfect the worse it gets until it’s perfect. And so we always stylize in animation — proportions are different … they’re like Barbie dolls, you know. C P: You’ve turned to musicians to voice some key roles here — Beyonce as Queen Tara, Steven Tyler as Nim Galuu and Pitbull as Bufo. Was that by design? C W: We didn’t set out to have musicians in key roles but I just listen to voices, you know. And sometimes someone will suggest something, like Pitbull for a specific character just because it kind of fit him. And I didn’t know Pitbull’s speaking voice very well but when I heard it I thought, ‘Oh, man, that’s it.’