TMNT
Overseas with TMNT
“I’d say the hardest part was our studio in Hong Kong was just developing as an animation studio, and it was a lot of trial and error,” said producer Thom Gray. “We had done Father of the Pride for DreamWorks, and that was probably where we cut our teeth on the CG quality, US-style quality. I think we were putting a lot of people that came right out of the polytechnicals right into the ebb and flow of animation. If we did this film again, it would be easier because people were training as they were going. But I think the hard part was just taking on the scope of this project, back and forth, back and forth, and I think Kevin made some great adjustments going out there working with the people. But I think that was the hardest part was taking on a project this big this early on in our development.”
Since most animated TV series also send their work to Asia, this was not a completely foreign process. “It’s a much higher end version of a TV dynamic, I think, because we have all the front and back of the development here: director, production designer, art director, story boards,” said director Kevin Munroe. “That’s all done here, all the design, character design. We do all the pre-vis here as well, so basically when a package leaves here, you can watch the entire movie with all the final camera moves all in grayscale like low action figure theater. And that goes back to Hong Kong, and they start working. We do all the color comps, the lighting here as well; we have the lighting keys, and then we send it to the studio in Hong Kong, and it’s floors and floors of people who work tirelessly to make it happen.”
The information superhighway has made communication easier. “There’s a lot of back and forth; every day, we sit here with a TV and a camera, much like this, just talk every day to the people in Hong Kong, and all the supervisors and then they start shipping things back, and we’re doing all the back end. We’re doing all the post here as well. It’s really the best of all worlds, I think.”
There were certainly times they could have simplified shots to make the translation easier, but they stuck it out for the benefit of the movie. “There’s quite a few off-ramps where you could have taken it a little easier where it doesn’t necessarily have to be quite this big in scope. And so there were those decisions to stay on that path, and it shot us in the foot and kept us here weekends, but it’s cool. It looks really good, I believe so.”
TMNT opens to theatres on March 23rd, 2007.
For posters, banners, trailers and more movie info, go to the TMNT
Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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