John Carter Preview

In preparation for its release in March, cast and crew members of the forthcoming Disney sci-fi extravaganza John Carter were in the capital this week to promote the film. I, along with seemingly every other film blogger and journalist not at the London Critic’s Circle Awards was in attendance at the Apollo cinema to see a selection of preview clips and partake in a Q&A with the film’s star, Taylor Kitsch, animation whiz Eamonn Butler visual effects wizard Sue Rowe. Producer Kevin Kurtz was on hand to introduce the film and its concept and director Andrew Stanton introduced the clips in pre-recorded videos.

John Carter (formerly known by the less vague denominator, John Carter of Mars) is based on the books of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. Carter is an American Civil War veteran that is mysteriously teleported to Mars, where he finds warring races, scary alien creatures and a convenient love-interest in the form of Princess Dejah Thoris. Bringing the character to the big screen has been the realisation of a childhood dream for Stanton, whose has previously worked on pretty much every Pixar film up to Toy Story 3 in some capacity, most notably directing Finding Nemo and Wall-E.

Of the clips we saw, the first was perhaps the most amusing. It saw Carter being forcefully recruited by Bryan Cranston’s colonel. Each time Carter makes to attack or escape there’s a hard cut to him being further restrained or incarcerated, much to the amusement of the audience. Other clips included Carter meeting alien ally Tars Tarkas, an Attack of the Clones style gladiatorial arena battle, Carter meeting his dog-like companion and a ‘last stand’ type battle which was particularly engaging, though probably a bit spoilery too.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned was that although John Carter was always intended to be a 3D film, the decision was made to add the effect in post-production, rather than shoot with 3D cameras. After the poor reception received by Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland for using this after-the-fact method of 3D-ifying, one wonders how wise this decision was.

The cast and crew seemed rather smitten with their director and each had several anecdotes to tell about his hardworking and visionary nature. Kitsch possibly hints at sequels to the film. I must apologise for some ellipsis and summarisation in the following transcript; I unwittingly left home without my Dictaphone and had to rely on my mobile phone and some rough notes to bring you the following Q&A…

Taylor; Andrew Stanton has had a vision in his head of John Carter for over thirty years. How do you make sure his vision tallies with what you have in your own head?

TK Yeah no pressure by the way! I wasn’t exposed to John Carter until my first meeting with Andrew. I walked into the room and it was literally floor to ceiling in preparation. Not just the visuals we’ve just seen, but a complete character arc for John Carter. [I left] completely inspired by that energy that he had. You envelope yourself in the books, but more importantly, when you get the script, it becomes your bible… We were collaborative in shaping Carter. It’s a very empowering thing directing with a vision like this. He wants your take on it to draw from too.

Carter’s rough edges haven’t been taken off. He’s a dark hero at heart.

TK That’s the most important thing for me. It’s truly an origin story of where John’s from. Obviously you can’t relate to be on Mars or dealing with the Tharks [aliens] and whatnot, but the Civil War and the family and the honour was what truly grounded me with who John is and is what I held on to throughout the whole thing.

Eammon, how difficult was the on-set motion capture?

EB Pretty difficult! We knew going in that we were going to use motion capture and facial capture for Willem Dafoe and Samantha Morton. Their characters were an abstraction that we took from real world to visual world… We needed animators that could work with the data… The actors would put on a real 70s looking Lycra suit on which captured their movements… They were allowed to act in this film. It’s a natural progression from Disney animators using mirrors [to draw facial expressions] and taking video references. Having actors acting their characters which we could just drop into the scene and mix and match; that was a big deal for us.

Sue, you and your team designed the film’s environments, often by taking real locations such as the Utah landscape and altering them, but also creating completely new sets. How long did that take?

SR Yes, along with Eammon, I’ve spent about two and a half years on the film, from storyboards to scripts… We built the sets in Shepperton and used cinemascope lenses to create different scales… We looked at the light, the sand, the dust, the rock [in Utah]; we took all those things and applied it to our digital environments.

Did the real geography of Mars inspire you?

SR Yes. We did a lot of research, looked at a lot of NASA photographs. In the opening shot of the film, we look all the way through; we see the canals of Mars, as Burroughs thought of them, we travel all the way through the clouds and into the Utah landscape. Then again we did have to make sure what we shot fitted into the live action stuff, so it was a little bit of one and a little bit of the other. The most important thing for Andrew was to make it photo real. It’s got to feel like you’re really there.

EB He wanted to make it feel like a period film.

SR We had a blue sky, not a red one, though a sunset on Mars would actually be purple. That’s how geeky I’ve gotten.

Was the film always conceived as a 3D movie and what considerations did you have to take to make that happen?

SR We knew pretty much from when we started shooting that it was going to be 3D. We decided not to shoot it in 3D because Andrew wanted to shoot it ‘for real’. We dimensionalised it afterwards, which has been done badly in the past, but this process has been done very well, it’s the best work I’ve seen. From an animation point of view, we had to take into account how the shot would be done.

EB In animation terms, it reduced the amount of cheating we could do. Animators are big cheaters. We had to make sure CGI characters were arranged in the shot properly to create the correct depth. Working in 3D is like working in a set of handcuffs, you can still work, but you’re kind of limited in what you can do. Andrew was very honest with us. He said he had enough on his plate directing his first live action film, a very complicated film from a special effects standpoint. He said he had enough on his plate without stereoscopy.

Are you a fan of 3D Taylor?

TK I am when it’s done right. I love it on this.

Did you want to throw things towards the lens?

TK To be honest it didn’t really factor in with my prep!

Why was the film’s title changed to John Carter from John Carter of Mars?

TK John Carter is truly an origin story and when you see film in its entirety, you’ll see why it was that way. Story-wise, he earns that title, something that I’m a huge fan of. Especially the last couple of minutes, they’re pretty great.

What’s it like going from independent films to big productions like this?

TK Oh, I just act harder [laughter]. I’ve done four million dollar independents, to these [these? Are we to assume Kitsch is signed up for a sequel? Probably] and others that are coming up… it’s no different.

John Carter has obviously influenced so many properties in the hundred years of its existence, from Superman to Avatar. How do avoid being accused of inadvertently ripping something off when that’s not in fact the case?

EB That wasn’t really a concern, we just wanted to make a great movie. You’ve got to get over your own prejudices towards those sorts of movies. You have to get past it and focus on what the story needs. Story is very important to Pixar and we knew we were in a safe pair of hands.

TK I think the beauty of this gig is that everyone’s going to have their own perception of it. I’ve read the books now that Stanton read when he was eight years, what we’ve both got in our heads is different and I love that. The second you start trying to emulate something, you have no base. The most important thing for any film or character is to have that true base and if I’m going to steal or copy from someone else, I got nothing.

Given that this is Stanton’s first live action film, at one point did you think ‘this is going to work’?

TK Going back to that first meeting we had. I knew nothing about JC. So at what point? Ten minutes into that first meeting. When you walk into that room it’s incredible. When we shot in London it was snowing really badly and just him and I made it in to the rehearsals. I walked into his office and obviously there were all the incredible action storyboards and so forth, but when in walked I saw in 360 degrees around the ceiling the emotional arc of JC, from the loss of his family, to his time on Mars, to his relationship to his dog, to Dejah, to Tars. It was a defining moment and I thought ‘I’m alright, I can trust this guy’.

I take it there were no questions about John Carter that you had that he didn’t have the answers to?

TK Oh I came up with some good stuff. One of Carter’s abilities is that he can jump really high. We were described scenes in which I’d be surrounded by Tharks and I was like, ‘Stant, why wouldn’t I just jump out of here?’ He gave it a minute and then he said, ‘Tharks with guns man. Any time you think you can jump away, there’s Tharks with guns. Right there.’

EB Andrew was very well prepared. If he didn’t have an answer to something, he’d come up with one very very quickly…. We were in very safe hands. He slotted into the live action worl very quickly.

SR You watch and learn, because man, he knows everything. He’s got it all boarded. On the back of his eyelids. He knows the emotions, how he wants stuff to look. He’s very articulate. He’d tell you exactly what he wants. Sometimes I’d have a visual effects problems and he’d tell me ‘it’s about the story, Sue!’

What was your favourite bit – what made you think ‘wow, I’ve done it’!

TK I don’t know if I’ve had that feeling. It’s an incredibly grounding gig. But it’s an honour to breathe life into a guy Andrew idolised growing up. When Andrew thanked me for the sacrifices I’d made, that was probably the greatest part.

EB So many great parts. Probably a scene where Carter and Tars and grappling, which was a technical challenge. I left it to the team and came back to it later. Being able to back away… You can get very myopic. It was good for me. I learnt a lot about being a supervisor. Sometimes you’ve got to trust dedicated people.

SR There’s a section in the movie where John and Dejah go to a building made from nanotechnology. How do you build something no one’s ever seen before? How do you make that? We went through months developing this idea. When we worked it out, I was like ‘oh this is what you mean!’ Andrew said, ‘I love it. You guys go to the pub. You’ve got it!’ That was a breakthrough.

Mr Kurtz, was there any pressure to update the time setting of the movie?

KK Andrew was trying to be as true as possible to how Burroughs saw Mars back then… That’s what Burroughs thought back then and that’s what Andrew tried to bring to life. Same thing with the Civil War part of the story in the character arc. It’s an event in John Carter’s life that people can relate to. They can relate to war, to loss, to trying to find themselves. Andrew tried to be true to the books and stayed within that timeframe.

Last question for Taylor; what preparation did you to get into the character?

TK None [makes as if to leave]! Well the body CG was great ‘cause I could just eat whatever I wanted… No, there was an excessively boring diet, a regiment of eleven month and training. I really tried to connect to the Civil War. I sat down with a bunch of historians at a university in Texas and studied it. They gave me hundreds of letters from Civil War veterans, guys who were writing home. I learnt an incredible amount through that. That was probably the biggest thing, the honour he has and the guilt for leaving his family.