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Pixar’s new
animated feature
THE INCREDIBLES
is about to take this revolutionary studio into a different league. Paul Dale spends a day with its director, BRAD BIRD, to find out what’s so special about the film.
cople die. it’s a fact. In bed. on stage. on screen. people haye heen corpsing for all eternity. There are. howey'er. a few places yott can guarantee a human mortality rate of zero: The .-l limit. The Dukes o/‘lluziurd and any productions associated with the names Walt Disney or l’isar. It comes as something of a surprise then. that less than 45 minutes into The lncredihles. the new film from the precocious animation studio Pixar. there are deaths. When a huilding goes down in an explosion the hy‘standers or nasty henchman do not always get up and walk away. 'l‘echnological advances aside. it is the clearest indication to any tan ol' l’ixar‘s work that the lunatics (or lunatic in this case) may haye taken oyer the asylum and in the process changed things l’oreyer.
Brad Bird — a loud. intelligently loquacious attisan with an Oregon State nasal whistle to his yoice. tries to soften the sound of reyolution in
the air: ‘\\'e had some discossions with Tom Schumacher who was the head of the animation diyision at the time. He said we either ha\e to tone this down so it‘s what eyeryone cspects or we hold hands and say that we’re doing something dill'crent and it's a flat out adyenturc and we‘re going to go for it. So I went like this . . .‘ Bird holds out his hands as it taking a schoolchild across a husy road. '.-\nd we all held hands and said. "This is what w e're going to do." I like genuine jeopardy in mmies. I think sometimes people are so well intentioned ahout protecting their children that they create these shows designed around sujwrlieroes hashing each other ahout. hut theres no consequence to it. The show‘s httilt around \iolence htit no one ever gets injured. To me that‘s a far worse message than to haye a world w here there's actual jeopardy and prices are paid.‘ Stopping for breath. Bird continues: ‘I think there‘s no more traumatic moy ie than Bum/u" hecause mom dies. But I wouldn't change a frame. :\nd 1 think the ultimate message of Bum/ii is that life goes on in spite of great. terrihle things happening. I like a hit ol hite in stot'y‘telling.‘
Meet the hand co/. the hands all here Boh l’arr and his family are The lncredihles. Boh. AKA .\lr lncredihle. has fallen on hard times. No one wants another hero due to a l‘ew' costly (out of his control) mishaps in his crime lighting years. His loyely wile llelen. once known as lilastigirl. has come to terms with life in the suhurhs in a weird kind of witness protection scheme with their three ‘gil‘ted‘ children. Dash. Violet and Bahy.
But the past has a way of catching tip on you and before they know it the Parts. along with their old friend Lucius Best (AKA Fro/one) and 'lttsltion designer to the superheroes‘ lidna Mode are caught up in a mighty hattle of good and eyil with a new haddic. Syndrome. So lar. so Alan Moore.
l’erched somewhere hetw'een Moore‘s classic graphic noyel Him/imam. the end of Scorsese's (iood/i'llus and a mauled Bond film plotline. 'I'lie [mm/[blus- is hardly the most original imitation to the dance. That is until you add three things to the mix: John Lasseter. Pixar and Bird.
Lasseter is the kindly house genius of what is possibly the greatest animation studio in the world. Without his atnhitious production. script doctorng and technical skill Toy Story. .llmzslvr's Inc and Finding Nemo would prohahly not have l‘ound their way into the world. Despite these successes. l.assetet‘ knew that there was 'this guy who has to he invited on hoard. not hecatise we need another tnemher but because he is so good. Brad Bird isjust about the hest director in animation working today.‘
And so it was that Bird. this speecy‘. geeky rel'ugee from The .S'impsons. ended up working on Pixat"s most costly production to date (855111 and counting). it was to he the biggest risk Pixar had taken since conyincing the world to stare at a 3D animation of a moying anglepoise lamp.
Bird hardly seemed the greatest proposition for a company with such a spotless record. In his bedroom the l-l—y‘ear-old Bird had produced a gauche animated yersion of The 'lhrroi'w and [/It’ Harv which got him inyited to the Walt Disney studios to help out with odd hits of work on their NS] film The For and the Hound. Bird found himself working with some of the Home Factory's most legendary talents — John Mtisker. Ron Clements (The Little .llvrmuid. Aladdin) and a certain dark spirited youth named Timothy
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