Kelly Asbury

0:03Hey Kelly. Hi, how are you good? How are you? I am great your great boss because your movies opening in a few days Any warm beautiful Southern California there you can I'm in freezing cold Canada lovely. I will I've been there Yeah, I understand yeah, well you were here for for some of this film were you not I was here I was there for about the year and seven months right there in Toronto It's start working at stars animation. How could why Canada for the subsidies? Part of that and also because there's a lot of talent there and we were looking for a studio to really help us Deliver a film that was very complex and and stars had the goods So yes, certainly part of it was for budgetary reasons and tax credits, but another part of it was They're just so and I want to talk about this film obviously

0:52That's why you're on the phone, but but I want to start with you and you you've only really worked in animation What why the love of animation so much? You know When I was about seven years old I saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs In the Jefferson Theater in Balmont, Texas to do acting and I loved writing stories and I saw that movie And I said I have got to learn how to do that and I pretty much Channeled all I put all my gnomes in one basket And you with the puns for toward getting into the animation business from a from a young age and Who could stop me? I by the time I was 17 I was writing letters and sending drawings to Disney and they told me about

1:41California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California and After a couple of years of local going to school at a local university Lamar University I transferred there and then I was hired out of Cal Arts very soon into Disney in 1983 And I've worked in the business ever since then just really kind of dabbling in almost every area of it And here I am now making movies with gnomes Yeah Is Disney still the pinnacle for animation or has it changed is it Pixar or something like that now? You know, I'll tell you it's certainly you know Disney is still one of those certainly people dream of working I think Pixar and DreamWorks are also in that in that arena of places that are now That people you know, they set their sights on

2:29When I was a kid all there really was was Disney if you wanted to make a feature animated film of quality Now they've got more choices, so I've watched the industry really grow So it's a broader field than it used to be and I'm sure a lot of that has to do with CGI How has that changed things for you because obviously you started off with the actual, you know, animation animation? Yeah, it's interesting, you know my career It's funny the first film I worked on was called the black cauldron at Disney and it was the first time that Disney used computer-generated imagery in one section of it and Every single film I've worked on since then to more each time to a larger degree Has used at some point some computer animation be it for effects or for backgrounds or something

3:16all the way through the little mermaid with the and then in Beauty and the Beast the Victor d'ontoy story And that was the first fully CG animated film and it's been fascinating to have grown up in this business at the same time That CG has grown and sort of come to the forefront and I'm amazed now at how Gray the area is between live action and animation. It's almost hard. I mean avatar for instance is to me I don't know whether to call that a live-action film or an animated film Did that blow your mind coming coming from that world was that something that absolutely I think anytime something of that great an advancement

4:03Changes you know avatar changed everything so high that yeah, and that that's always exciting You know to be put to be in an industry and be working and and seeing this happen and then being able to sort of in many ways Reep the benefits of what the film like that does the way 3d I always wanted no meow in Juliet to be 3d I thought it was very up to the scale of the characters and where we were putting the camera and the studio that we should do that But we are the yes 3d can be something that that helps you said where we should put the camera forgive my my ignorance here But there's an actual camera involved well with computer animation in computer animation as with any animated film

4:54There is the implied camera right okay? imaginary camera lens that is That yeah, you think of it, you know animated movies Really are not that different in terms of the sensibility you have to have in the think the thought process You're still thinking cinema. You're still thinking as a movie and a camera and you think about lenses and focal length And depth of field and all the things that you have to think about are Absolutely the same in animation. You're just doing it with a different tool than an actual camera I've had this discussion with my father several times I think it stems off a time magazine article from a few years ago Do you ever see a day where actors will be obsolete in the in the sense of live action where CG will take over? You know, I'll tell you here's how I sort of look at that, you know

5:42Let's take for instance these new I book telling my fiance the other day Wow, you know as much as I love this Kindle. I can't read it in the bathtub So I think there's always going to be I don't think we're ever gonna just want to see Just purely gen computer-generated characters people I just don't think it's ever gonna it's ever gonna take over to that degree Do I think that CG is going to start continuing to be part of movies and be a storytelling device that enhances the ability of what? You can see and the worlds you can create and the environments Absolutely and certainly in and the advancement elements capture is gonna continue. I don't think in my lifetime

6:37We'll ever replay that would be that would be very tragic. Mm-hmm. I hope that doesn't happen You meet too. Do you ever see yourself working in live action or is it will it always be animation for you? You know, I would love to make a live action film if I found the right project that I think was within my manageability I know animation and I know storytelling And really it's all if I found a project that I thought was the right project at the right time Yeah, and a system of people I would love to do that and I'm looking into that right now Anything you want to tell us about you know, there's nothing specific that I can't tell you about all fair enough Call me call me toward the middle of the summer after I'm married and settled in and I might have something to talk about

7:27All right, well, let's talk about this film. Why don't you tell people for those who don't know know me own Juliet from the title? Most people can gather it's a it's a takeoff of Romeo and Juliet, but why don't you tell people what it's about? Well, it's two neighboring gardens in the city of Stratford on Avon, which is the birthday Montague lives right next door to old mr. Capulet Their back gardens are separated by a big fence These two people are those people that everyone knows people would consider them tacky But Montague and Capulet think that they have these beautiful regal kind of crazy gardens So these people are very eccentric and they hate each other both have a lot of gnomes the mr. Montague gnomes where blue hats

8:21Mr. Capulet's gnomes where we know when the humans are not around the gnomes Feud and they don't like each other and it's all one-upsmanship and it's petty pranks They pull on each other and it's been going on for ages and no one knows how it all started It's just been going on the Montague hate the Capulet well a blue-headed boy named Nomeo Love it first like the play the only difference is the opposite of Shakespeare's original play

9:12They don't want all of their destiny and that's really what drives and it's beat for beat the same story That's cool. Do you think that's gonna be a trend bringing back the Shakespeare and animation now? You know, I don't know. I don't know if it's a trend I mean I think that you know Shakespeare has been interpreted a lot of different ways and Very disguised by a lot of movies particularly the Romeo and Juliet tales. No Certainly anything can happen. I mean the Lion King Interesting I have to think about that. Yeah, I mean it really is if you follow Hamlet

10:00It there's you know all the way down to the ghost of his father coming to visit him, right? This is not this is not a new thing and as far as Romeo and Juliet goes from West Side Story all the way to Greece all the way to Titanic the Twilight series Romeo and Juliet and every one of them have a different ending. That's true Pantheon of Interpretation you got a lot of interesting actors in this film Ozzy Hulk Hogan for those who don't know What's it like directing people who aren't the typical actor? You know the great thing about those guys is that you know Ozzy and Hulk and Dolly Parton who does a cameo for us

10:45All their lives for one reason or another So they walk in and they know exactly what I need. They're very professional and very nice people and Their personas that we know publicly and they were an absolute pleasure to work with they gave me everything I needed they gave me a lot of choices Lots of takes of everything and really helped me make this movie and helped me make their characters How long does it feel like this take well from the day? I got the phone call asking me to direct it to February 11th 2011 Was almost exactly five years to the day Wow

11:33I worked physically on the film probably four and a half years The actual production of the movie was probably right at four years So it's um, it's a long process for animation Right and what is the frankly any movie when it comes to the development process? That's a good point. What is the process though is it voices first and the animation next or do you have a Comp sit image process is developing the story Planning and editing it before you even make it because you have to create this world for the animators to know exactly Literally how many frames they have it's all got to be planned first as much as possible And then you do record the voices first and then the animators You are one half of the character and the animators are the other half

12:26On by the animator, right? So I guess there must not be much post editing done I'm maybe you're chopping out scenes here and there, but I mean you can't really Edit as much as a live action. Well, we try to minimize it because yeah The more you post edit the more it means you've wasted a lot of effort, but right does happen You certainly do you know you show the movie to groups of people who haven't seen it before you get feedback You hear those laughs and the timing of certain things is adjusted here and there and that's made a little bit easier These days because of the digital technology But we try to keep that minimal, but there is some post editing I know we got a wrap up here So we do something on the show called five questions five quick questions one more answers. Okay CGI or illustration

13:13Illustration Lennan or McCartney Lennon Shrek or Toy Story Shrek proudest film for you. No meo and Juliet nice and in one word Kelly Ashbury