Gore Verbinski

0:15Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you. So, a Western with a Lizard. How does this idea come about? Why not? Why not? That's a good answer. But, okay, why animation? Why now? I've just always been fascinated with animation. I think it's the place you can do anything. You can be psychoanalyzed by the clams in your vongolay. You can, you know, anything goes. You can embrace the surreal. So I've always wanted to do it. It just felt like the right time. How are the characters developed, Ferengo? How did that come about? I want a cowboy lizard. Well, we had a great team of artists, Eugene Yeltsin, Crash McCreary, Jim Burkett, and David Shannon in my house, basically. And we started with Creatures of the Desert, Western, Go. You know, and anything goes.

1:01And, you know, immediately was like, whoa, what about scale? Can you ever wrap it with a coyote? And can we have a beetle with a snake? And I said, don't worry about the scale. It doesn't make sense. Just find these characters. So just a lot of pencil and paper and a lot of bad hot dogs and long walks. Was it always Johnny in line for Rangel? Yeah. Yeah, I had a 12-page outline and talked to Johnny when we were shooting the second pirate film about this idea of doing an animated movie with a lizard who doesn't know who he is, who enters this Western genre. And he was like, I mean, right away. So that was the one voice I always knew that we were going to have. Who can a custom built the whole thing around? And, you know, what Johnny does so well.

1:48Well, you were talking earlier. We had Stephen Rood on the show the other day. And he said something that I didn't know animators did this and directors in talking about films where they actually have the people per hearse on set in costumes and have little saloon doors and things going on. So what was the decision to do that instead of just having them in the booths? Well, I think it was just fear-based decision-making. I mean, I don't know how to direct an actor in front of a microphone with nobody else in the room. I mean, I know how. I used to sell sugar water and Budweiser and tennis shoes. I mean, the frogs. Yeah, I know how to do it. I just don't find it to be particularly. Everybody comes to set with a plan. Everybody comes with it. I even I come with my storyboards and my agenda. And then things happen, you know, because you may say something I didn't anticipate you

2:33were going to say. And then it causes me to say my lines slightly differently than I might have. It was like a bizarre Montessori school play. I mean, they were all just coming in street clothes and, you know, we're doing 10 pages of dialogue a day. 10 pages a day? Yeah. That seems like a lot. Is that a lot? For actors who are usually doing two and usually we're, you know, they're in the trailer for 45 minutes to come out to two lines, go back to your trailer while we re-rig the ship to explode or whatever. And then this was like, oh yeah, acting. We were acting. We actually have to, you know, we just ripped through it. So 20 days we recorded the whole movie. Wow. And it was really fun. A very liberating experience. Do you shoot for the theater? Do you shoot knowing it's going to end up on people's home screens as well?

3:20You know, 20 we've had years ago I had arguments with some DVD people and they were like, we need, can't do the letter box because the image is smaller. And, you know, people have square televisions in their home. I'm like, what era are you? Like, I know people who have no money. They don't have a couch. They have a mattress. One thing they have is a huge television. You know what I mean? It's like, it's huge. It's a big rectangle. So I shoot for kind of a white screen. And the decision not to make Rango 3D. How come? Now that everyone seems to be gearing towards the big 3D thing. I just felt like it wasn't missing a dimension. I mean, we looked at it, going in wasn't going to be 3D. There was a point about Midway where it was discussed, I think.

4:05Allison Wonderland came out and people sort of running the numbers were kind of saying, hey, you know, it was too late to make this 3D. We looked at it, we did a couple of tests and I just felt like it was different enough and it was unique enough and I didn't feel like we were gaining anything. But I certainly wasn't going to convert it to 3D. So I was quite happy with it. We do something called five questions. We have quick questions, one more answer. Spielberg or Scorsese? That's crazy. I can't answer that one. Stephen gave me my first three jobs. Stephen gave me the first three ad-bats, you know. So I'd have to go there. You know, I'd love them both. Leonard McCartney. Leonard. Animation or live action?

4:54Animation in live action. Oh.