Friday, Dec. 18, 1998 | 11:07 a.m.
For director John Lasseter, collecting bugs as a hobby when he was a child proved not only recreational and educational, but prepared him for his professional career in the field of computer animation.
As the director of "A Bug's Life," the holiday hit from Pixar and Disney studios, Lasseter intentionally broke the fourth wall of computer animation: For the first time, audiences are seeing outtakes and bloopers from a computer animated film, which had been tacked on to the end of "A Bug's Life." Who knew animated insects could flub their lines?
Due to the popularity of those outtakes, Disney has been inserting brand new bloopers into prints of the film, which will be shown in theaters beginning today. The Movie Guys spoke to Lasseter about his inspiration for "A Bug's Life," and the idea to include the popular outtakes in the film.
The Movie Guys: Where did the idea for "A Bug's Life" come from?
John Lasseter: It came from the fable "The Ants and the Grasshopper." It was the perfect subject matter for our medium. I love, as a filmmaker, to show people a world that they are very familiar with, but show it to them in a way that they have never seen before.
MG: Why did you wait so long to start the bloopers at the end of the film (during the credits)?
JL: We had this song that Randy Newman wrote for us, and I wanted it to have a little distance from it in the movie. The way the film finishes, it has a nice, upbeat feeling to it, a grandeur. With the song, and that the outtakes are verbal, you can't have both going on at once. What we decided to do is to play one verse of the song and then we'll have Randy do an instrumental of the song to play over the outtakes. I knew that people would be getting up and leaving at the end, but they would hear about it and come back to see it again.
MG: Whose idea was it for the outtakes?
JL: We came up with the idea to animate outtakes way back during the production of "Toy Story." We didn't have time to do it on "Toy Story," but we did have time to do it on "A Bug's Life."
MG: Was there any room for improvisation, or was everything tightly scripted?
JL: Oh, yeah! We studied a lot of movies that had outtakes in them to see what they were like -- "Cannonball Run" and the Jackie Chan films. The biggest inspiration was the Peter Sellers film "Being There," plus, TV shows like "Home Improvement," and we came up with a lot ideas from those areas.
The fun thing about them when you watch them is that you've just seen the movie and then the outtakes are from the movie, and there is something charming about that. We picked shots and the characters from the film, so that it had the feel that it was actually part of the film. Then we went to our last recording session with each of the actors. We talked to them about the idea about creating the outtakes, and they went nuts. They loved it. Our actors are so good at improvisation; they came up with great ideas on their own.
MG: Which is your favorite "Bug's Life" toy?
JL: My favorite toys are the interactive ones that talk to each other. Those blow me away.
MG: Did you have an ant farm as a child?
JL: Yes. I was always out in the back yard looking at bugs. My favorite bugs were the pill bugs. I was always amazed by spiders and their webs, and flying bugs.
MG: What can you tell us about "Toy Story 2?"
JL: I'm so excited about "Toy Story 2." The whole cast is back. It's a great story: Woody gets stolen by a toy collector and he gets caught up in his own value as a collectible. He has to relearn the value of being a toy, and this time around, Buzz Lightyear gets to say those immortal words, "You are a toy!"
MG: Can you confirm any rumors about what Pixar is working on next, story-wise?
JL: No, I can't. They haven't made the announcements yet.
MG: With every major studio announcing computer animated projects, how will Pixar and Disney be able to stand apart in the crowded arena?
JL: We will always concentrate on making the best stories and the best characters we can. Everything that Pixar has done breaks new ground and I don't see that changing in the future. It's not the medium that makes these films exciting, ... it's the people.
archive
