Animation companies are always eager to show off the latest films that they have to offer to the movie-going public, and why wouldn’t they? It’s the chance not only to let people know what you’ve been up to but gives you the opportunity to hook in your audience early on. That and it’s always cool seeing footage of a brand new film before release, especially if it’s one nobody’s ever seen before like “Rise of the Guardians.”
Today some members of the press were treated to a nice footage presentation that showed off the first twenty five minutes of “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” along with fifteen minutes from their unseen but talked about new animated film “Rise of the Guardians.”
It’s easy to get people interested in a movie, especially when it’s a sequel from a popular DreamWorks Animation feature. Yes, we’re referring to the “Madagascar” series which has already made a whopping $373 million worldwide so far. We last saw our four favorite New York Zoo animals happily in the African wild, seemingly settled into their new habitat. What the first bit of footage from “Madagascar” 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” shows is the four of them on the hunt for the zany penguin crew who’s living it up in Monte Carlo. What should have been an easy capture and escape plan turns into an absolute fiasco as the four of them, along with the penguin crew, a monkey and the lemurs from Madagascar, try to flee the scene in a beat-up monstrous mini-van. The scene doesn’t go unnoticed, especially for animal control Captain Chantel DuBois (voiced by Frances McDormand) who goes on a hot-speed pursuit in order to get Alex (voiced by Ben Stiller), the lion she always wanted to capture.
They end up eluding the animal control team and DuBois by sneaking into a circus train where they’re given a very unhappy welcome by the ferocious Siberian tiger Vitaly (voiced by Bryan Cranston). Next thing you know, the four of them not only are trying to hide away from DuBois and the rest of her animal control posse but end up taking over the circus that Vitaly and the others are a part of, along with a glimpse as to how their final circus act turns out. You’ll have to see how the quartet of zoo animals end up in that situation when the movie hits theaters on June 8th.
The animation is what you’d expect from a “Madagascar” movie, meaning that it’s sharp, slightly blocky in character design but still fluid in movement all at the same time. The scenes they showed us very much demonstrate that their form of animation for this movie is specifically designed to make the 3D pop, which it does in the brand new trailer that’s scheduled to be released online soon.
Next they finally gave us a look at what they’ve been hiding from us for awhile, and that’s their new fantasy animated movie “Rise of the Guardians.” Directed by newcomer Peter Ramsey, the story is based off the book “The Guardians of Childhood” written by William Joyce. After a brief introduction by the director and actor Chris Pine, we’re transported into the mystical world of fairy tales and make-believe creatures as we first lay eyes on Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine). We witness his “birth” as he rises from an icy pond and quickly learning how to handle his new powers. The newly born guardian also figures out that he may appear to be flesh and blood but that doesn’t necessarily mean people can see him and know that he exists.
Next we’re brought to Santa’s workshop, a beautifully detailed domain where the Russian accented Santa named North (voiced by Alec Baldwin) is interrupted from his jovial duties in order to face a threat. The Boogeyman, better known as Pitch (voiced by Jude Law) is threatening to ruin the world with fear. The guardians won’t stand for that and the man on the moon has chosen Jack to be the latest appointed guardian to be a part of their team. Jack isn’t too thrilled with the idea and nor is Bunnymund (voiced by Hugh Jackman). However Tooth (voiced by Isla Fisher), Sandy and North are all on board to welcome the latest recruit. Despite his hesitation, North explains why it’s vital to be part of the group, opening up the “hero’s journey” story line for Jack. Their conversation is short-lived as Pitch begins to wreak havoc at a random part of the globe, thus sending our heroes on a chase to stop the mad guardian before it’s too late.
We were able to catch a glimpse of the brand new 3D trailer which explained how the guardians work in this universe. Keep your eyes out for it when it arrives in theaters on April 6th. It’s not hard to miss, especially given the fact that “Rise of the Guardians” easily is one of the most beautifully animated DreamWorks pictures anybody has seen so far.
Lastly, myself and another reporter got the chance to quickly ask director Peter Ramsey a couple of questions about his new movie.
Since this is your first feature, how did you land this gig?
Peter Ramsey: I’ve been at DreamWorks for the past eight years now. Before that I was in live-action, was a story board artist and directed a few second units. I worked on a lot of big movies with a lot of great directors like David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Francis Ford Coppola. So just a ton of guys and I have a lot of experience that way. Then DreamWorks latched onto me and here I am today. [laughs]
The kind of Russian influence for North, is that part of the book or is that something that came through in development?
Peter Ramsey: That was actually from the book. William Joyce thought ‘Oh let’s make this guy a big crazy Russian’ and just add some fun to it, make him a big wild warrior.
And since you’re very involved with story boarding and that aspect, how involved were you with the whole concept art because they have a very distinct look for each individual character.
Peter Ramsey: There was a long process of designing the characters and some of them were in the works even before I even got involved with the movie. When I came on I did work with our production designer Patrick Hanenberger and our producer Christina Steinberg to kind of fine tune the looks and aspects of the characters of their appearance and their design.
