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SherlockChronicles.orgThe morning of the world premiere of The Golden Compass, New Line held a press conference. Conference panelists: Production Designer Michael Fink, Composer Alexandre Desplat, Costumer Designer Ruth Myers, and Producer Deborah Forte.
Moderator: On the more technical side, I'd like to introduce our platform. Our composer Alexandre Desplat, Michael Fink and Deborah Forte has joined us again. I'm going to kick off here again because I would love to hear from the people behind the scenes who make a movie what it is.
Moderator: The book has a particular way of describing things and situations and so on how much do you,
Ruth, as costume designer - is a world defined by the material?
Ruth: It's difficult to answer that because in fact the book was so visual to me that it was
simply putting what I saw in my mind on paper. It was an incredible joy to do that because very often when you read
a book you're a little confused as to how it looks but this book had such a visual impact on me that it didn't feel
difficult at all. I actually designed it very quickly because it was all in my mind. It had been a book - as
everyone had said earlier today - that I just loved. I loved all three of them. The moment that I had read the
script I was literally, as I was reading the script I was sketching on the other side of the page. And when I met
with Chris, when I met with everyone - which is something that I never, never do because it's like undressing in
public to take work with you. But I was so clear about what I wanted to do that I thought I might just as well go
for broke and take how I thought it should look.
Moderator: Michael, I've seen quotes saying that a thirty year career has built up to this point. Is this
the most complex film you've ever been involved in? And could you explain a bit about the challenge for you?
Mike: Yes, it was the most complex film I've ever been involved with. Like Ruth, I was swept
away by the stories and was so excited. The first draft I read of the script was a hundred and fifty pages. So it
was this long (motions) and then Chris narrowed it down to something that was shootable. For me the process was one
of finding the moments in the movie that we could enhance with performances by creatures and finding those places
where the film could feel fuller by just presenting a very small moment of relationship between either a person and
a daemon or a bear and a person. Those kinds of things. I was looking for the small things, believe it or not, and
not for the large things, which are the easy kinds.
Moderator: Alexandre, as the composer, the last often called in, confronted with the material, tell us a
bit about how you got involved with it and what the process you have with the movie was.
Alexandre: I was on board rather early. I went on the set at Shepperton and I read the books
also. I was also really thrilled and transported to another world by the books. I remember the second steps when I
went on the set. Chris showed me all the Dennis Gassner work, which included some of Ruth, of course, and all the
art direction. He gave such a wide, wonderful view of what would be the visuals - including Mike's work - that I was
really inspired by every element: the costumes, the characters, the landscapes, the production designs - Dennis
Gassner did amazing work there.
Moderator: This leads us actually to Deborah, because, we've talked about casting the cast. The crew of
course is as important as the cast and obviously we've mentioned one of the kep individuals here. Tell us who we're
talking about.
Deborah: First I just want to say that having this book, this trilogy as a calling card to
attract the kind of talent that's sitting up here, as well as the group that preceded them this morning was a real
advantage. Every single person here and Dennis Gassner, who is not here, was drawn to this project because of the
material and because of the challenges that the material presented them. Dennis in particular, who I'm sorry is not
able to be here today because he's working on another film (Bond 22?) on location, is someone who took this project
and really created the world in his production design. He invented a wonderful word for it: "cludging." In his own
way cludging represented taking something that would be familiar to an audience and combining it with something that
was entirely unique and Pullman-esque. So when you look at his production design, which we were all just awed by,
before we started building this movie there was an entire series of bulletin boards put together with the art for
the movie that told the entire story of the film with the art. That really became the road map for so many of us to
tell this story. Then Ruth came on board and showed me her most beautiful sketch book, where she was in her own way
doing her own thing but similar to Dennis, coming up with something that was really unique but could also be
familiar and relate-able to an audience and capture the elegance and the originality of Philip's story. And then Mike,
I think maybe hardest of all, I know it sounds like the Wizard of Oz with the tin man and whatever - our lion who as
the soul of the film had to create characters who actually had to act in some of the most important scenes in the
movie, particularly Lyra and the bear. I would say (it) was just an enormous challenge. And being able to represent
the daemons in a way that people completely bought in to the world of Philip Pullman. They never, from the first
scene in this movie, think it's odd to have these animals in the frame. And that was a tremendous accomplishment.
I'm grateful to all of them for that. And then just last but not least, because this was a very visual effects
intensive movie, we were a little bit late delivering some of our material to our composer who had been composing
this in his mind I think all along, but who gave our story the richness, the emotion, the scope, and the connective
tissue emotionally for the audience to go on this ride with this amazing score. I'm delighted to be here with all of
them.
Moderator: Now, do ask questions - we've got the roaming mic here so do ask away.
Question: (Inaudible name) with MovieWeb, two questions for Michael Fink. You have a star and a director
who have really no experience with the kind of visual effects that are in this film, and secondly there is a
tremendous fantasy implement to the production design - where there's not an ultra-realism but still very rich and
very imaginative. Can you talk about (these things?).
Mike: Oh, um...do we have a couple of hours? (Laughter)
Question: Briefly?
Mike: Never briefly! (Laughing) I hope I'm answering your questions, there were two and I've
got the speakers rather distorted and my hearing after two years on this film is not as good as it used to be. There
was a process of developing the creatures who we know as daemons, and a process to developing the creatures that are
bears. The daemons required an approach that made them as photo-real as possible, but still gave them a spiritual
quality, which allowed people to understand that they had a presence - a visual presence as well as a spiritual
presence and could identify them. We worked many, many months. The very first shot of Pan took us about six or eight
months and the very last shot of Pan took four days. There was quite a bit of development at the beginning to get
the look right. The bears were - and the bears are panserbjorne, they're not polar bears. Polar bears are
substantially yellow in color to our eyes especially against snow. We wanted our bears to be a little "purer" than
that. If you look at them there are actually quite a few colors in their fur and they're very, very sensitive to
their environment so it was a difficult task to put all that together. The bears were an amalgam of different
species. Ragnar in particular, if you look at Ragnar and you look at pictures of grizzly bears you'll actually see
quite a bit of a grizzly bear face in Ragnar. Iorek is a more traditional polar bear. I mean - I'm kind of lost
here, if you want to repeat your question?
Question: No, no you answered the second question pretty well but also when you're talking about Chris
Weitz, he doesn't pop up as the great visual effects director of this day. And the young star's never dealt with any
effects before. Can you talk about meeting them through the process of technical aspects?
Mike: When Chris came on he quite freely admitted that he had very little knowledge of visual
effects. But he is a wonderfully collaborative individual and so as part of the process of making this film, he came
to trust the visual effects team to carry the vision of these creatures and the vision of the story forward while he
struggled with the story and developed the movie, got the film cut. As he worked on that, we worked on the visual
effects and probably unlike any other film I've ever done there was a great deal of trust put in us to bring to the
screen things that the film required.
Question: Ruth, this expression that Deborah mentioned about Dennis Gassner, "cludging" did that come
into your brief at all? Explain what it meant to you.
Ruth: I worked very closely with Dennis. and it was one of those extraordinary occasions
where from the moment we met we understood, we had exactly the same eyes. Whether it was called cludging or whatever
we just saw things the same way and with the same sort of quirk. He had been working for many months before I
started, but we were looking at the same world. The moment I saw his designs I knew very well what I could do within
that. It's very rare in my job to have this sort of rapport that I had with Dennis - I think only once before in a
very long career. It was a magical thing because in the beginning we talked a lot. By the end we hardly spoke at
all, we just knew we were doing the same thing.
Question: There was a wonderful range of costumes from the high fashion of Mrs. Coulter to the more
rustic look of the Gyptians. You've got a fantastic range here it must give you lovely freedom?
Ruth: I was interested to hear Mike say thirty years, because for me it's thirty-five and I
worked with every single thing I've done in the thirty-five years leading up to this film - has been, to make this
film possible because there wasn't one single thing that I didn't feel. I was drawing on all the knowledge I'd ever
had and I was so grateful that I'd had all this knowledge before to be able to actually produce what I felt I could
to turn this into - I mean it was the most wonderful breed to have something that is somewhat familiar and
completely unfamiliar and magical.
Question: I've got a question for Deborah. I'm from Iceland, writing for the National (Inaudible) from Iceland. I just want to say that I'm so grateful to see a film that is up there (North) and has that strong young lady. I was wondering if you would be keeping this in mind for projects in the future?
Deborah: I do have a couple of others and ironically they both have female protagonists. Your point is a good one and it is quite remarkable that a story of this size and scope a) has a female protagonist, b) she starts out as eleven years old, and c) that the followings (fans) that Philip has developed, just right out of the gate had so many males following Lyra. When you look at probably the demographics initially of the books they were skewed a little bit male so the fact that people in the film business have said for years that a female protagonist cannot attract males I think is not true.
Question: Alexandre, how free are you to do your own thing?
Alexandre: (Quietly) Totally free. (Laughter) The embarrassing thing is that listening to Ruth and listening to Mike, I feel I'm going to repeat what they just said. This project was such an amazing gift where the power of your imagination can grow away that it's easy. It's a lot of work. I was at work for days and weeks and months, but it's easy to find the resources, the energy, the desire, the envy every morning to go and search and try. I'm only twenty years into the business, but still as you said I've used all my craft on this one because I knew that I could use and expand it to all the purposes that the movie could offer.
Question: For Michael I have two questions. The first question would be, quickly (inaudible). And the second one, in the near future what do you think would be possible to do? (Inaudible, a third question)
Moderator: Briefly, explain about the effects in this movie. And I'll add a sidebar to that - was there
anything on the written page where you thought "My God, how am I going to do that?"
Mike: Not a moment. Everything. One of the rules in my business is that if you know what
you're doing or you think you know what you're doing, you're making a really big mistake. If you feel frightened and
uncertain, you're probably doing just the right thing.
Moderator: And did you move effects forward, are there new things in the movie that we haven't really
seen before (from the wider visual effects world)?
Mike: There are things that you will see in this film that you haven't seen before, but you
won't know that*. We developed a number of new tools to animate characters, to render fur, to create the interaction
with characters and human beings which was critical to this film. In fact, one of the first big worries I had was
how we were going to deal with the interaction between CG characters and humans. We developed special tools -
interactive grooming tools. There's a scene, a shot where Lyra runs her hand through the fur of Iorek and we
developed a tool that allowed us to move a virtual hand to track with her hand through virtual fur and disturb the
fur just as the fur would actually move. Nobody will notice that we developed a new technique for that, but it
worked, which is why they won't notice.
Moderator: The second part of the question regards the future of special effects and also I think how
far can we go? Can we bring back - although it's happened already - actors, do you think there's a possibility this
might happen more and more?
Mike: I think there's a possibility that films such as Beowulf or other conceits in terms of
animated character will continue to get pushed and that maybe actors from the past will be brought back. I hope to
have nothing to do with that stuff. I personally can't imagine not having a camera looking at an actor performing
that role and when you know as I do what it takes to create a digital actor doing the same thing not nearly as well,
by the time we get the technology there - I don't understand it. It's a wonderful thing to see, but to bring back
Marilyn Monroe or Humphrey Bogart: why would you want to do that?
Question: Deborah was talking a little bit earlier about the importance of getting key crew, the
importance of getting cast. But since you don't really have at this point any plans for more films are you concerned
about loosing these people who brought you a talent - in terms of consistency for the following films.?
Deborah: Always. Always concerned, but I think that we were able to work together in a way
that I hope all of these people will be a little bit sorry to loose that connection with this material because of
the fabulous work that they've done in the first installment of the story. So it's my hope that when we come back
everyone will come back with it.
Moderator: So you're keeping your diaries (calendars) open, is the assumption?
Ruth: Sort of. (Laughter)
Question; I'm wondering if there's any thought to incorporating the 3D process into either the next one
or the following one?
Mike: Well, nobody's ever discusses anything like that with me. It's entirely possible,
technology's come a long way. I guess I'm getting old. I enjoy films very much and I sometimes like to rest an eye
and just look with one eye. I'm not sure, it depends on how the studio and the producers want want to see - I really
couldn't answer. But it's entirely possible. The bear hug would've been pretty exciting.
Deborah: I think what Mike, who is very modest about his accomplishment here, has done is
fairly extraordinary. I don't think it's ever been done before, where he's created creatures who are actors where
you're not conscious of them being anything but organic to the drama and to the setting. And I think what other
technology is at our disposal, moving forward to continue to do that would probably be what we'd chose to employ.
Moderator: I've heard it described sort of "timeless" or "Victorian", Ruth, how did you view the time
period of the world?
Ruth: Well, I think at the beginning of the book Philip says it's this world, but it's not
this world. I think that each separate bit, you have a feeling of an era of it being part of. So the beginning, I
think the beginning, the Oxford time you think of possibly as Edwardian. Mrs. Coulter and her world I very much
thought of the height of glamour and fashion which would be somewhat later - twenties, thirties, and even some
forties. Some of her clothes have distinct (Dior?) elements in them. It wasn't quite that it was one period.
Bolvangar was a sort of modernist Russian fifties sort of world. Every bit of the film had a sort of echo of a
different period. So it never was just the one thing.
Moderator: Mike, did you want to chip in on that?
Mike: No I was thinking of something when Ruth was talking, which is that doing our work is
very much like creating a piece in jazz, where improvisation on a basic structure is really what jazz is about to
me. So all of us were given that opportunity to do our solos and do our improvisation but all within the context of
the story. And I think that's why it's so thrilling for us. More like music than anything else for working on this
film.
Ruth: Sorry, can I just add something to that? Deborah will remember that after I'd been
doing the designs for about three weeks we had a presentation for Philip and I was very, very, very nervous indeed.
I could hear my knees knocking because I was exposing myself to what I thought his world was and we had elements of
everything that we had talked about. We'd done this very ornate presentation and he came with his wife and he walked
through and it was in four different rooms with drawings, with fabrics which were painted, with all sorts of things.
And he walked through and neither of them said a word and my knee knocking got louder and louder and at the end of
the fourth room, he turned around to me and he gave me this incredible smile and he said, "You've created my world,
only better than I could've imagined it." From then on it was like dancing for me. As Alexandre said, it was easy.
It was terribly hard work but you were on a road, you were on that track.
Deborah: And I just have to say of that process, the Gyptians in particular - the glamour of
Mrs. Coulter, of Lord Asriel are all glamourous, and elegant, and brilliant, and unique, but the Gyptians in
particular posed a tremendous challenge. None of us really know what Ruth was going to do and when Philip walked
into that room he just gasped because that's when he said - that was the last stop - "Even better than I could've
imagined."
Question: Hi, my name is Ryan den Rooijen from HisDarkMaterials.org. I have a question for Michael because in the movie (he explains how Dennis Gassner has a shot of air street in the film, and air street was the inspiration behind much architecture of the world of The Golden Compass). Did you have any scenes like this, with special meaning to you specifically because of this movie?
Moderator: That's an interesting question. There are bits in the movie that you retain in your mind.
Alexandre, I think that's - I wanted to ask you that question, too. When you were confronted with material later
than everybody else in a sense, what particular images drew you there?
Alexandre: For instance, the dress that Ruth designed for Mrs. Coulter when she first comes
to the high table, in the following scene in the sky ferry that's an amazing visual, magical moment to me. The
Gyptians were maybe the second great visual inspiring moment and Iorek and his armour.
Moderator: And Ruth, what are the bits you retain most fondly?
Ruth: It's really hard to say because it was doing so many different things all at once. I
loved doing Mrs. Coulter because it was a complete homage to every beautiful, glamourous film, every beautiful,
glamourous image I'd ever had. And Nicole - you can't go wrong. You don't have to work all that hard to make Nicole
look amazing, I love that. I love doing the witches, that was just so much fun. The fact is they were horizontal
most of the time so I was designing things could move that way - I'd never done anything like that and that was just
glorious to do. But, as Deborah says, at the end of the day, the Gyptians was the best challenge ever. We used very
basic fabric and we painted, and we appliqu