Director Scott Derrickson: From “Emily Rose” to “The Day the Earth Stood Still”

Critically acclaimed director Scott Derrickson is one of the most vocal Christians working in Hollywood today. When his film The Exorcism of Emily Rose caught the eye of producer and manager Erwin Stoff, Derrickson was invited to direct the remake of the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still.

During a worldwide press tour, we caught up with Scott in Hollywood and by phone to talk about the film, his faith, and the filmmakers who influenced him.

The original film was very politically-minded, but yours is directed more toward ecological concerns.

The original film has a grand reputation for the very strong political ideas that are in there. I think both the original film and this one are much more about human nature than even the social issues. They’re about how our human nature has this propensity toward self-destruction, and whether or not we have the capacity to avoid that.

As far as the political or social issues are concerned, in the original it was the Cold War. It was a perilous situation where we were possibly going to destroy ourselves through nuclear weapons. Now the peril that we’re bringing on ourselves is the destruction of our environment. It’s serious and it’s real, and it’s something that I thought made sense in terms of updating the story. At the same time, I didn’t want to make too much of it, and there’s not a lot said in the movie about it.

It’s certainly not trying to tell anybody what to do, because I don’t like films particularly that do that. What I was intending was making a movie that’s more of a picture about what’s happening in the world right now, and we’re good at making messes of things.

You reworked the script with the original writer David Scarpa. How much time did you spend working on the script?

Quite a lot of time. The script was written and then sent to me as a screenplay that 20th Century Fox wanted to make. I didn’t write it and I didn’t start on it. When I read it, I thought there was a lot in it that made me want to do the movie, but it still needed a ways to go.

I worked with the writer for a few months right away, and then when Keanu [Reeves, playing the alien Klaatu] got involved, that was a more intensive time working together. It was myself and Keanu and the screenwriter locked in a room for quite a few weeks, all day every day, just going through the script scene by scene and trying to work out how the movie would function.

The alien Klaatu actually learns as much from us as we learn from him. He learns about compassion.

There’s no question that’s the story. It’s one of the most interesting things about the movie to me. I love the idea that he comes to assess human nature. He takes human form, and it’s through his experience of being human that he sees that there’s more than just the obvious fact that we’re destructive. He sees this other side that is profound and startling, and his own human of what he feels at seeing this mother and son is indescribable. It goes beyond his categories. So, essentially, he does become humanized.

I heard Keanu say that Klaatu starts off more alien than human and ends more human than alien. I really like that part of the story; I think it’s one of the very interesting aspects of the story.

There’s a wonderful scene with a character named Mr. Woo, and it’s all about human nature.

That’s my favorite scene in the movie. It was my favorite scene in the script, and it’s the scene that made me do the movie. When I read the script, I thought there was something so beautiful and just fantastic about two aliens speaking Mandarin in a New Jersey McDonald’s about human nature and what it is, and how there are these two sides to it. I love it when Mr. Woo says, “Here’s what I can explain to you. They’re destructive. They’re bent toward the destruction of each other and themselves. That’s a fact. But there’s this other side,” and he can’t really describe it. He struggles.

He says, “What I can tell you is I’ll die with them. They’re that meaningful to me.” He sort of puts the burden back on Keanu’s character Klaatu and leaves it up to him to figure out what that means. It is my favorite scene in the film.

I secretly believe that Mr. Woo is putting him on a course, and he’s saying, “if you’re going to make a decision, you have to figure this out.” He plants something in Klaatu, and the look on Keanu’s face when Mr. Woo says there’s another side to them that I can’t explain to you, and human life is hard having lived it, I’m so grateful I have that I’m going to die here. Klaatu looks at him like he can’t quite grasp what he told him.

To me, that was the first crack in Klaatu’s ice. And Barnhardt opens even more, then Helen and Jacob open it all the way, and he gets it. He realizes that they’re just as important as the planet itself, and he can’t choose one over the other.

There’s one scene where you have the cross on the tombstone almost half the size of the screen, then the kid’s posture is almost like kneeling at the foot of the cross.

That was very conscientious for me. I thought the Christ analogy of Klaatu is very strong, and I get asked that at every press conference I do. The DNA sample, the wound in the hand, which is a stigmata, where he walks on water, etc.

I wanted to take on that aspect of the original because I love the fact that he makes a sacrificial death, and the final affirmation that he’s leaving is the ascension. He’s not dead, he’s not gone. For me that Christ-story of Klaatu is so embedded in the story, it’s inescapable. I tried to put things in there that I thought would be elegant enough for a modern audience to appreciate and enjoy. For the record, every press conference I’ve gone to around the world makes a big deal about it. Particularly because it’s Keanu, and he’s played the Christ figure in The Matrix. That and the remake seem to be the two most common questions I receive.

This film shows your hope for human nature. What is it you see around you that gives you that hope?

What I see that makes me hopeful about the future is certainly not the circumstances we’re in, nor the gigantic messes that we’ve made. What makes me hopeful is human nature, and I feel that way about myself as an individual as much as I feel it that way about America as a country or the human race as a species. I feel that, very often, we have to make mistakes and sometimes get ourselves into bad situations before we have the strength to recognize that we have to change on deep levels and make really significant alterations to who we are and the way we’re living. Sometimes that’s the very thing that forces us to grow beyond where we were before we made the mess in the first place.

I see a lot of that every way I turn. I feel that way from my church community, from watching the national news and watching the way the country, from all sides and all political parties, how everyone has recognized the significant things that needed to be changed. I feel that way as I’ve recently traveled around the world and listened to people in various countries talking about these issues.

People talk about issues like environmentalism, which in my opinion is something that should not have become so politicized. But I think that everybody is realizing that we should be good stewards of our planet. We can all at least agree on that, so let’s do what we can to sustain this life-giving world that we live in.

I don’t feel any sense of blind optimism, but I love it when I see people change. I love it when I see people grow. I love it when I see it in myself, in my children, in my wife. As much as there’s a lot of adversity and a lot of hurting people right now...there are a lot of hurting people right now, especially because of the economic crunch. It’s a basic belief of mine that that’s the very thing that forges us into better human beings, if we respond properly. And I see a lot of good responses going on right now.

The Day the Earth Stood Still speaks to many big “life questions” that a lot of other films address, but from a faith perspective. How difficult is it to make that part of the film without “scripture-slapping” people?

It’s not something I ever had to fight for. It’s been very encouraging in the course of my career that I’ve never felt on any level pressure to divorce my perspective as a Christian from the work that I do. I don’t think I’d be able to.

I’ve got a lot of problems and shortcomings, but one of the things I think I do well is that I’m a pretty integrated person. My faith isn’t a compartment in my life; it just is who I am. It’s fundamental and foundational to who I am, and I can’t do anything that’s separated from it.

I happen to believe that Christianity is true, and not just true in terms of the revelation of the Bible and Christ and all that, but it’s also true about life and wisdom. It speaks to all issues well. I find that also Christianity is so rooted in Western storytelling, a tradition we’ve all inherited for 2000 years.

Keanu and I have had good conversations about this, how you can’t escape it. You literally can’t get away from it, and I think the filmmakers that go out of their way to get away from it end up telling stories that don’t resonate as well with the popular public because they’re breaking the storytelling tradition that people are sort of built to understand.

With this movie, the Christ allegory of the alien character Klaatu is very overt in the original, and it works beautifully. It doesn’t matter what your religious perspective is coming into the movie, it just works on a storytelling level. So I made the decision not to discard that, but to shape it for a modern audience in some ways. I think it’s in people’s DNA to respond to those things.

But it can’t be an attempt to get people to believe the way you believe. It’s never that for me, because once you do that, people resist it. If the movie feels like it has a message, like it’s trying to tell people how to think or how to act, even if they agree with that message, they know it’s not good storytelling.

But if you’ve got truth in there, and they get to discover it, the packaging of it is something that doesn’t bother them. If it doesn’t feel specifically “Christian,” but feels truthful, they love it. I certainly don’t expect to have any criticism at all to have done that with this film.

I think to try to extract it from the original Robert Wise movie would force you to break the back of the story. If you tried to take it out, you’d be left with a house with no rafters and the roof would fall in. There weren’t any conversations about taking it out, because everyone knew it would have to be there, because that’s what the story is.

You’ve been quoted as saying that your role as an artist is to “shine light into the dark corners of human life.” Where did that philosophy play out the strongest in this film?

It has to do with the manner in which the film is an attempt to portray this moment in time, this era, this year of 2008. The original film was such a product of its time – it was about the whole war, the fear of the atomic bomb, the establishment of the UN.

To me, what justified doing the remake in my own mind, was to tell the same story, but update it to modern day and deal with the social realities that we’re all surrounded by, these kind of messes that we’ve made.

We’ve made a mess of things on so many things, and we have yet so many problems, that it’s becoming really serious. The war that we’re in, the destruction of our planet, the cynicism of some people in powerful positions over the years, and certainly the economy being the one that we feel the most. I’m not saying that because of the presidential election this year, but I see it in my friends and families in our church. It’s HARD out there!

I don’t think of this as being a movie with a message, but it is an attempt to portray the world we live in. Human beings seem to be intent on self-destruction and the destruction of others. But there is this other side to us, and I’m seeing that other side shine.

I’m trying to shine a light on the fact that there’s hope for us, because people are responding to the messes that we’re in and are rolling up their sleeves saying, “OK, let’s see what we can do about it. Let’s figure out how we’re going to ‘change.’”

I almost hate to use the word “change,” because it’s become such a catch-phrase from everybody. Again, that’s not a partisan statement, that’s everyone. But what you have to do is step back even farther and think, it is kind of amazing that our whole country in America, and even the whole of the world, listening to specific individuals, are gathered around this idea that “yes, we’ve made some really bad mistakes, and we’ve gotten ourselves into them. But we’re going to do what we’ve got to do here.”

I believe in that, and I believe in that on every level. Probably one of the best examples I can use for it is that it matters not whether you were an Obama or a McCain supporter, but I think it’s extraordinarily significant that we elected a black President. What that does say is that America has overcome something huge.

Even if you believe he was the wrong guy for the job, I think everyone can at least agree that we surprised the world by doing that one thing, because people thought that we would never get over that.

I think the light that shines in the movie is that sometimes when things are very bad, when we make messes of things, those are the very things that propel us toward growth. It leaves us better than we were in the first place.

I’m very moved by that. As a Biblical reference, I was in Madrid doing press [for the film] and visited the Prado Museum. I saw this incredible painting I’d never seen of the Apostle Peter being crucified upside down. I was looking at the painting, and I thought, “I think he only gathered the strength to die that kind of martyr’s death,”

This was the guy who denied Christ. The guy who arguably had the worst moral failure of all the people in the New Testament, even possibly worse than Judas’ failure. The difference was that he recognized it, and it transformed him into something really extraordinary where he could go and become the foundation of the modern church, write a good portion of the Bible, and die this martyr’s death.

I’m very moved by that, and I’m a deep believer in that idea, that sometimes we have to make those mistakes, or be allowed to make those mistakes, and get ourselves in those desperate situations before we can grow to the level we need to grow to.

That, to me, is the light in the movie, that “at the precipice, we change.” That’s something that can be applied to someone who’s struggling with a marriage, or with an illness, or a country struggling with a war, even a human race struggling with its own issues. I love that idea and I thoroughly believe it.

Are there images or movies that have been significant to you in a spiritual way?

I just thought of 500 films, but I’ll name one. My favorite director is Akira Kurosawa. I have taught college courses on his films and seen all 30 of his films multiple times. My favorite of his is Ikiru. It had been my favorite film for many years. I think everyone’s life as a Christian takes different forms. There are different things that become important to individuals, and it’s the life of God in them, their calling as individuals. For me, it’s meaning.

I care so much about meaning. What is meaningful? I want to live a meaningful life. I don’t care about happiness. There are probably good things I should care more about, but I’m really obsessed with the idea of meaning. I feel like Ikiru is a film that captures meaning as well as any film I’ve ever seen. It’s about a man who’s dying of cancer. It’s about death, and halfway through the film he actually dies, and it’s very shocking.

But it’s really about when he finds he has cancer, he goes to look for the meaning of life. What do I do with this time that I have left? He tries to connect with his son, and he ultimately finds meaning in unselfishness. He realizes he has to do something outside of himself because that’s where meaning resides. To me, that is at the heart of Christian life.

From the time I first saw it, it was always my favorite film. I was teaching this class at Azusa Pacific University, and I was in the parking lot when I got the phone call that my dad had died. I had that film in my hand. It’s funny, because when I look at that and think about it, I think that the role cinema has in our lives is so deep and so profound for those of us who love it. It connects to real things, and that day it connected to an intensely personal event in my life.

©2008 ChristianCinema.com

“The Day the Earth Stood Still”: A Classic Goes Modern

Fifty-seven years ago director Robert Wise created the science-fiction classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” In a bit of irony worthy of a Hollywood script, the 2008 remake is helmed by director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose), who, as a film student, once had a private dinner with Wise. He had no idea that one day he would be re-imagining Wise’s film for today’s audience.

Where the premise of the original film was rooted in man’s violence against man, Derrickson’s story is rooted in mankind’s destruction of the Earth’s environment. “I was struck by the idea that updating this movie had tremendous value,” said Derrickson. “The original was so rooted in the social issues of its time. It was an intelligent and interesting self-reflective commentary coming from an American studio and American filmmaker. It included fear of the atomic bomb and the struggle to establish the United Nations, things that were controversial and divisive.

“I loved the idea of being able to tell basically the same story but bringing in these new social issues that we have now; these interesting messes that we’ve gotten ourselves into in the world. That alone seemed to have value to it and make sense.”

Why a remake?

The idea of remaking “The Day the Earth Stood Still” first struck producer Erwin Stoff, who has managed actor Keanu Reeves (Klaatu) since he first came to Hollywood. During a meeting at Twentieth Century Fox studios, Stoff noticed a poster for the classic film hanging on the wall. “I said, ‘Forget about the project I came here to talk to you about. What we should do is develop “The Day the Earth Stood Still” with Keanu playing Klaatu,’” he remembers. It was a great idea, but he didn’t see a screenplay for another 12 years.

When Stoff saw Derrickson’s thriller The Exorcism of Emily Rose, he was “knocked out by Scott as a director.” He wanted Derrickson for this story because “There is a thriller element to this film, a real sense of danger about Klaatu. You’re not sure what he’s going to do next, or how far he’s going to take things. Scott is a masterful storyteller in terms of creating that kind of tension and mystery and danger.”

When Derrickson considered doing the film, he thought through the implications of remaking the classic. “I do think there’s something different about this film as opposed to other classics which are so much more known by the general movie-going audience. I think there is value to telling this story to the general movie-going population who for the most part won’t have seen the original and won’t know that story.”

The original only grossed $1.85 million at the box office in 1951. But thanks to developing television technology, the film became the best-loved movie of the Cold War era, and may have been the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial.”

The Cast

Keanu Reeves (Speed, The Matrix, The Lake House) heads the cast as the alien Klaatu. He lands his spaceship in New York City with the goal of meeting the leaders of Earth and warning them that the human race will be destroyed in order to save the planet. “I love [the science fiction] genre. It provides great storytelling opportunities,” said Reeves in a recent interview. “I’ve had the good fortune in the past to be part of good films.”

When Reeves joined the project, he and Derrickson and screenwriter David Scarpa spent weeks working together on the script, going scene by scene to work out how the movie would function. “I had a great experience working on the script with Scott and David and the producers,” Reeves reported. “It was a real collaborative effort and a lot of thinking was put into what we were trying to say and how we wanted to say it.”

“It was a very interesting process for me as a director to watch Keanu play Klaatu,” Derrickson said. “We had an interesting conversation quite a bit during the making of the movie about to what degree Klaatu is human. He says his body is human, but where does the body end and the mind begin? We had to work out at least an understanding for ourselves how him becoming human was really occurring, and that was part of what was really fun and interesting about the process of working on that character.”

Playing Dr. Helen Benson, whose interaction with the alien Klaatu could affect the future of the world, is veteran Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Blood Diamond, Hulk). Helen was the first human being to make physical contact with Klaatu when he emerged from his spacecraft, and their ongoing personal connection was the starting point for Klaatu to see the better side of humanity.

As Helen attempts to cope with the massive global catastrophe that is set in motion by Klaatu, the alien sees a much more intimate family drama being played out between the scientist and her rebellious 11-year-old stepson Jacob (played by Jaden Smith). “The relationship between Helen and Jacob is employed in a different way than it is in the original film,” said Connelly. “It’s really a sort of microcosm of human nature and how we’re treating each other.”

Jon Hamm (Mad Men, We Were Soldiers) plays Michael Granier, a government scientist who has the responsibility of pulling together a team of scientists to solve the problem. “I came on relatively late to the project,” says Hamm. “It was already going, and I came into the scene that explains what’s about to happen. It’s essentially a 3-page long monologue about astronomy and trajectories and things like that. I got off a plane, got fitted, and went right on set. It was a little nerve-wracking.”

Making her science fiction debut is Kathy Bates as Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson. “She’s put on the defensive from the get-go,” said Bates, “But she tries to control the situation as best she can.” Bates had only two weeks to shoot all of her scenes before going to another production, so she took a rather unorthodox approach to her scenes. When Derrickson would give her a direction about a scene, she would occasionally say, “You do it,” and he would have to act out the scene. “It was a bit intimidating,” said Derrickson,” but she would immediately understand what I was looking for.”

John Cleese (Monty Python) plays Professor Barnhardt, a Nobel prize-winning physicist. When Helen tries to persuade Klaatu that humans can change, she takes him to meet Professor Barnhardt, who is working on a complex mathematical equation. As Klaatu steps forward and makes corrections to his work, Barnhardt realizes he’s in the presence of someone with a great intellect and knowledge.

“We wanted it to look like a conversation,” said Reeves. “We tried to be truthful to the scientific aspect,” added Derrickson. “We had a physicist who worked with Keanu and John. I remember watching them for quite a long time in a room working out the back and forth of that scene. And we added material to make it longer at one point to get that kind of rhythm and flow to is. I didn’t really have much to do with it; it was really Keanu, the theoretical physicist and John Cleese. The three of them figured it out, and I thought it was just fantastic.”

The Technology

The original Klaatu came to earth in a flying saucer that became the standard for all science fiction cinema from that point on. Made of metallic materials and powered by engines, its influence can be seen in such films as Star Trek, Star Wars, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

When asked about his updates to the spacecraft, Derrickson said,“I thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to represent an alien civilization that had come from a completely different trajectory, that wasn’t born out of an industrial civilization like ours?’ I read a lot of science fiction literature, and that literature for the last 15 years has gotten into ecology, biology, and spirituality or theology. That’s really where it’s all going. It’s really not into technology.

“It was not easy. Those spheres were hard to design and work out. I thought how smart Stanley Kubrick was in not showing the aliens in 2001. There’s so much power in not knowing, in what you don’t see. That makes it all in the mind. So I started thinking what could we show on the outside that would make you really want to know ‘what’s in there?’”

The robot Gort who travels with Klaatu to Earth is as iconic as the flying saucer. It is updated in this remake with a fresh look and nanotechnology. In his 21st century incarnation, Gort is an entirely CGI (Computer-generated images) character who stands 28 feet tall. While government officials perceive Klaatu to be the biggest threat to the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants, it is Gort who unleashes a deadly force programmed to annihilate humanity.

Jeff Okun (visual effects supervisor), David Brisbin (production designer) and Derrickson considered hundreds of images, ideas and illustrations in their quest to update Gort for modern audiences. “We spent a lot of time designing these alien monster things that got increasingly ridiculous,” said Derrickson. “I remember after three or four months of work sitting in a room with these two pieces of artwork that were the current version and saying, ‘These look like something that should be in a musem of modern art or in a park as a piece of art.’ I didn’t even know what I was looking at.

“Then Jeff Okun said something I’ll never forget. He was standing in the doorway and said, ‘Why aren’t we just making it look like Gort?’

“I just looked at him and didn’t even want to acknowledge how dumb I felt. So I said, ‘Yeah, get rid of all these. We need to make it feel and look like the original somehow but have the scale and magnitude and impact that a modern audience will find satisfying.’”

The result was a solid, intractable, inscrutable human shape that was the essence of what was so threatening about him. Once the design was finalized and the character rendered, his impassive, impenetrable surface was carefully sculpted to reflect light in a dramatic manner, heightening his sinister look.

When asked about the nanotechnology, Derrickson replied, “I thought the nanotechnology aspect of it was very interesting, and it’s a major part of science fiction literature right now. I liked the idea of that playing a role and justifying why Gort is in that form. It’s not that he’s built that way, but he chose that shape to present himself, so that made rational sense to me.”

Saving the Earth

As part of Twentieth Century Fox parent company News Corp.’s corporate mandate to become a carbon-neutral company by the year 2010, The Day the Earth Stood Still was chosen to be the studio’s first green production. Where possible, departments used recyclable materials and biodegradable products. The art and costume departments utilized digital photography, cutting down on paper waste.

“This was a paperless production,” said Derrickson, “and for a director, storyboards become very complicated because they’re all in digital, so I never knew who had what. There was no notebook to carry around, and that became confusing. But it was a true green show.”

Despite its unwavering look at the shortcomings of the human race and the condition of our planet today, The Day the Earth Stood Still maintains a prevailing sense of optimism about the future of mankind. When the movie was in production, Derrickson knew it would be released in December of 2008, after a new president had been elected.

“I felt like I think most Americans felt. I felt we had slipped off track in a number of ways and gotten ourselves into some real serious jams. I had also the same feeling that the majority of Americans had, which was not one of cynical pessimism. I felt good. It felt like the collective community of America that I lived in was recognizing its mistakes, and that felt really encouraging to see and be a part of.

“I had faith and hope that this would be a time of optimism, of expectation, and that there would be some significant changes in this country. That’s not a partisan statement, it’s just a statement of fact.

“We all know we made some mistakes, we’ve made some misjudgments, and I think everyone is ready to admit them and correct them and represent ourselves better, not just domestically, but as part of a global community. I love the idea of making a big popcorn movie that has some of that uncynical point of view.”

Producer Stoff said, “we intended to stay true to the original film in telling a tale that is hopeful, about man’s ability to rise to the challenges presented to our evolution and existence.”

“I think the film is really positive in its view of human nature,” says Reeves. “Once things get pretty dire, we tend to rally. And I think this picture shows some of the worst of ourselves, and then promotes the idea of how we can be the best of ourselves.”

The Day the Earth Stood Still opens nationwide on Friday, December 12. It is rated PG-13 for some sci-fi disaster images and violence.

©2008 ChristianCinema.com

“Bolt” - Disney Film with Pixar Qualities

Walt Disney Animation Studios’ release of Bolt marks an important milestone in the studio’s history. It is the company’s first animated feature conceived and produced since Disney and Pixar merged three years ago. In that merger, Oscar®-winning director John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, the co-founders of Pixar Animation Studios, were chosen to head the two studios. Lasseter serves as Chief Creative Officer for both Disney and Pixar, and Catmull as president of both studios.

The Story

Super-dog Bolt’s (voiced by John Travolta) days are filled with adventure and intrigue as long as the cameras are rolling. The star of a hit TV show, he believes his amazing feats and powers are real, and lives to protect his person “Penny” (voiced by Miley Cyrus). One day he is accidentally shipped from his Hollywood soundstage to New York City, where he begins his biggest adventure ever, a cross-country journey to get back to Penny.

With the help of two very unlikely traveling companions, a jaded and cynical abandoned housecat named Mittens (voiced by Susie Essman) and a TV-obsessed hamster Rhino (voiced by Disney animator Mark Walton), Bolt discovers he doesn’t need superpowers to be a hero.

The Story Behind the Story

Like recent Pixar releases, Bolt has a quality that captures and holds onto adults as well as children, and when questioned about that, Lasseter remarked, “It’s quality. Quality is the best business plan.

“If you put out a bad movie, it’s not going to go anywhere. If you make a really good movie, then it will get legs and people will watch it again. My wife always says, “Don’t make your movies for the first time that someone will see them. Make them for the 100^th time that a parent has to suffer through it on video.

“[When Disney and Pixar merged], there were a number of projects already in the works that I jumped in to work on and help with. ‘Bolt’ had just gotten started, so it was one of the ones that I said I wanted to roll up my sleeves and work on to help make great for the whole company.”

Lasseter, the Oscar®-winning director of “Toy Story,” “A Bug’s Life,” “Toy Story 2” and “Cars,” recognized the film’s potential for the company. “Walt Disney always said, ‘for every laugh, there should be a tear.’ That means having the humor come from the characters, but also showing the heart of the character.

“If you get people invested in the characters and the journey these characters go through, and get them into true situations, that’s where those emotions come from. That’s why I’m really proud of ‘Bolt’.”

Disney story and development veteran Chris Williams and animator Byron Howard (“Mulan,” “Lilo & Stitch” and “Brother Bear”) served as directors, the first time for both. Both were involved in the story process, and then Williams oversaw editorial, the recording sessions with the actors, and layout. Howard handled the animation side, after which it went back to Williams for lighting and effects.

The Talent

One of the most popular and sought-after talents in show business today, Miley Cyrus voices “Penny,” Bolt’s owner. “One reason I really wanted to do this movie is because I love animals,” said Cyrus. “I have five dogs of my own and I know if one ran away I wouldn’t be able to do anything. And that’s the way Penny is. She can’t work. She can’t sleep. She can’t eat.”

Two-time Oscar®-nominated actor John Travolta was invited to take the role of “Bolt” by Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studio Entertainment. “My good friends have done great animated features (Tom Hanks in the “Toy Story” films, Robin Williams in “Aladdin”) and I didn’t want to do an average film. If I’m going to do an animated feature, I’m going to do a great one.

“Michael Eisner (former head of Disney Animation) had offered me a couple and I didn’t quite think they were there. Finally Dick Cook called and said, ‘I think we’ve got the one for you. It’s going to be high end.’

“I know John [Lasseter] was involved, and Miley [Cyrus] and Susie [Essman} were involved, and I thought, ‘maybe it’s the one to say yes to.’”

Aiding in Travolta’s decision was the excitement of his family when they found out he was going to do a movie and music video with Miley Cyrus. “It was big enough doing a movie with her, but singing and dancing with her was a whole other thing! I could dine out on that for months. I was so popular when I got home with the news that I did a song with Miley.” Their song “I Thought I Lost You,” written by Cyrus and Jeff Steele, is one of the musical highlights of the film.

The Challenges of Animation

Since it was Travolta’s first animated film, he wasn’t quite sure what to expect. “When I read the script I couldn’t really imagine what it would end up like because it’s all up to the animator’s imagination. You have to take a little bit of risk that it’s going to go in the direction you want.”

He described his work with director Williams. “I’ve never had so much input from a director on a role. You’re completely dependent on the director for all the things you can’t think of. He really supplies the ambience and the emotional levels for us.

“You ask the director to show you the way, and then give them a “Chinese menu” of options. You give them 15 – 25 versions of one sentence and then the animators hopefully like one of them.”

Though this was Travolta’s first animated feature, he was comfortable with the idea of recording behind a microphone because of his previous work in voiceovers for radio and television. A veteran of television, stage and film known for developing his characters, he said, “I had not yet gone on the journey of discovering how an animated feature is put together, so the director (Williams) really helped guide me through this process.

“To some degree, it’s a leap of faith,” said Travolta, “Because you don’t have any other actors with you and you don’t really know what the animators are conjuring up as the end result.”

According to Lasseter, voicing animated films is one of the toughest acting jobs. “They really do not have inspiration from the set, from the other cast members, from the energy of the audience, or even the costume they’re wearing. They are just in the studio with the director, and they have to go deep inside themselves for emotions, energy, etc.

“We take videotapes [of the actors] just for reference, and it’s there for the animators to be able to see. While the characters don’t necessarily look like them, there are a lot of gestures that make their way into the animation process.

“The original voice actors really, really, really influence the characters. When people say actors don’t have a lot to do with animation, that’s wrong, because their voices are a lot of the inspiration for all of us to create the animation and characters.”

Adds Williams, “As a director, you really have to help them conjure up the scene. You might say, ‘your character is running,’ and they’ll ask, ‘well, how fast?’ “really, really fast!’ For our actors, it’s a very draining experience.”

Susie Essman, the voice of “Mittens,” said of her experience, “Chris [Williams] was incredible. Let’s say I would do 20 versions of something and he’d say, ‘OK, I like #2 and #17!’”

The Characters

“What attracted me to Mittens in the first place was her story arc and how much it changes. I kind of feel like she has the moral authority of the film. She’s the voice of reality. [Bolt] is delusional and out of his mind,” said Essman.

“But Bolt is delusional because he’s been misinformed, he’s been misused, and he’s a victim. I think once I find out that he’s not really crazy, just treated poorly, then I feel this incredible compassion for him and this friendship evolves.

“I think that’s the emotional arc of the film, the friendship of Mittens and Bolt. What Mittens learns from Bolt is all about friendship and trust and loyalty. He’s the most loyal and trusting friend. He wants to get back to Penny, even when he knows he’s not a superdog and she’s been lying to him in a certain way. He is loyal to his person.”

Bolt’s trust and positive attitude is in sharp contrast to Mittens’ pessimistic outlook and sarcastic sense of humor. “The central argument of the movie is this idea of making connections, and the risks and rewards of making those connections had to play out in Bolt and Mittens,” said Williams.

“We really had to have great chemistry between all three of those animals on the journey, so we were always tinkering with the balance to make sure the dynamic worked with all of them. There’s something very great about the distinct vocal ranges of those characters.”

In a move borrowed from Pixar, “Rhino,” a Disney employee, animator Mark Walton, voices the fun-loving TV-obsessed hamster. “Some people have said it’s a bit of typecasting because it’s not a far reach for me to get into the excitable kind of nerd fanboy geek. I love animation, I’ve always loved Disney, and having the chance to work here in the first place is an incredible dream that I could never have imagined coming true.

“Then getting to be a character voice in a Disney film – a really good, funny, well-written and animated film – it’s not hard for me to generate a lot of enthusiasm. It’s me dialed up a little it more than normal.”

Director Williams explains the selection of Walton for the voice of “Rhino.” “We do ‘scratch dialog’ with the intention of replacing it with the real actor who comes in from the outside. We had Mark doing the scratch, and after hearing it, obviously the search was over, because he was fantastic. We wanted to find a way to tell him so we could get it on camera.

“We set up a mock recording session and told him we were going to re-record a line and needed a little bit more enthusiasm. So we re-wrote the end of the line to say, ‘And I’m the voice of Rhino.’

“Mark goes through the line and is all hyped-up. He gets to the end of the line and looks at me and I say, ‘You got the part!’ He went bananas. He was jumping up and down and screaming and throwing the music stand around. It was a really genuine reaction, and it was great.”

The Story in 3-D

“Bolt” is Disney’s first film conceived from the very beginning as a 3-D movie. “Meet the Robinsons” and “Chicken Little” were both done in 3-D, but not until the end of their production.

Chief Creative Officer Lasseter has a fascination with 3-D. “I love 3-D. I got married in 1988 and did my wedding photos in 3-D. It’s an immersive experience and I have always loved it, so I’m excited to have theaters all over the world popping up to show 3-D films.

“When you see “Bolt” in 3-D, you get sucked into the film that much more. ‘Up’ will be the first Pixar film in 3-D, and all animated films in both studios from here on will be 3-D as well.”

One of the original founders of Pixar Animation Studios, Lasseter was an early proponent of the usage of advanced technology. “I’ve always loved technology and think about how to entertain our audiences with new technology. At Pixar when DVD was still a notion, we started planning ahead so we were the first to start mastering our films digitally. We started with ‘A Bug’s Life,’ which was the first DVD.

“We love the special features on the DVDs, and that’s become a big part of the DVD and the Blu-Ray market, so we always have something planned for that. Of course we have something up our sleeves we can’t announce quite yet for ‘Bolt’ that is going to be exceptional.”

Bolt at the Box Office

“Bolt” earned over $26 million in its first weekend at the box office. It was shown at more than 3,600 theaters and averaged $7,182 per theater. A delightful film for children and adults alike, “Bolt” is a great example of the positive effects of merging the vast pools of talent found in Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.

©2008 ChristianCinema.com

Lee Strobel: Making a Case for Faith

By Angela Walker

Author, journalist and now filmmaker Lee Strobel is best known for his “Case” books that explore the claims of Christianity. Educated at Yale Law School and former legal editor for The Chicago Tribune, he was an atheist for years. When his wife became a Christian, the changes he observed in her caused him to investigate God, the existence of Jesus Christ, and the Bible’s claims for faith.

What he found caused him to turn to Christ and a life that has influenced millions through his writing. So far, three of his books have been turned into documentary DVDs that take the view on a journey of a discovery – a discovery of the God of the Universe, His Son, and a faith that can withstand the greatest onslaughts.

Was there a particular chronological order in which you wanted to produce these DVDs?

Lee: Yes, initially, I wanted to do The Case for a Creator, which dealt with the scientific evidence pointing toward God. That’s sort of the central “God question.” Then The Case for Christ, which deals with the historical evidence for Jesus being the Son of God. Then I wanted to do The Case for Faith, the newest one, which deals with tough obstacles and tough objections to God. Objections like “How can there be so much pain and suffering if there is a loving God?” and “Why do Christians claim that Jesus is the only way to God?”

That’s the order in my mind, but it doesn’t really matter because people are at different places in their spiritual journey. Some of them might need one thing before another.

It’s been 20-something years since your conversion. In one of the films, you and your wife are very transparent about the struggle you had as a couple when she was a believer and you were just exploring faith.

Lee: It was a very difficult time. We actually did a book on that topic called, “Surviving a Spiritual Mismatch in Marriage.” We talk about the real struggle that happens when one spouse is a committed Christian and the other is not. (I was an atheist before becoming a Christian)

We try to talk honestly about that year of our life because a lot of people are there and need encouragement. They also need help in terms of how to reach out to someone, so we’re hoping these DVDs are something that a spouse might be willing to sit down to watch. Perhaps it will lead to some discussion.

Your wife mentioned that she didn’t realize coming to faith was such a deeply emotional process for you. A moment later, you said that you didn’t want to be held accountable.

Lee: I investigated Christianity because of the positive changes I had seen in my wife since she became a Christian. That impressed and intrigued me. It was very winsome and attractive. So it prompted me to use my journalism and legal training to investigate whether there was any truth to this.

It was a process where I tried to keep an open mind, as much as I could. At the same time, I had motivations for not finding God. I didn’t want to be held accountable for the immorality in my life. I knew that if God existed, there were things I had been involved with that He wouldn’t approve of. So I had reasons not to find God.

At the same time, I did try to approach it like an umpire at a baseball game. I tried to call a strike a strike and a ball a ball and let the outcome be whatever was appropriate.

When you realized the existence of God, did you simultaneously recognize Jesus as His Son, and that all of His claims were true, or was it a more gradual process?

Lee: I was investigating a lot of different strands of evidence at the same time. But I had to come to the conclusion first whether or not God existed before I could know whether or not Jesus is His Son. So the scientific evidence from physics and biochemistry and genetics and so forth was important in being confident that God does exist in the first place.

Then it becomes an historical question whether or not Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and whether or not He proved it by returning from the dead. That’s really a question of history, and as I looked at the historical evidence for the resurrection, I became convinced that it was an event that actually happened in time and space. Jesus, by returning from the dead, established His credentials as being divine. So that kind of completed the case and took me from general theism, or belief in God, to Christianity, which is believing as well in the divinity of Jesus.

What are some of the most compelling sources you found that you would recommend to someone who’s on a similar journey?

Lee: Fortunately, we have a lot of good resources these days. We have a lot of scholars who have spent a lifetime delving into the minutiae of the issues and documenting a lot of the historical material that makes this investigation easier today than it would have been a hundred years ago.

There are sources outside the Bible that tend to corroborate what the New Testament tells us. In his book, “The Historical Jesus,” Gary Habermas documents over 100 facts about the life, teachings, miracles, death and resurrection of Jesus that are in some way corroborated by material that comes from outside the Bible. That material is all over the board in terms of its reliability, but you can create sort of a contour of the essentials of Jesus’ life, even from sources outside the Bible.

Yet I think people who rely too much on that are missing the point because the New Testament is the best information we have about Jesus. Not just because it’s the Bible or “The Word of God,” but because it’s a set of ancient historical documents that come right from the first century, right from where Jesus lived and rooted in eyewitness testimony. They are corroborated in places by archaeology and stand up to scrutiny.

They have credibility, and I think that scholars who tend to dismiss the New Testament as propaganda have not really taken and applied the historical techniques that are used to determine whether any historical document is trustworthy and applied them to the New Testament. If they do, they find that the New Testament really does pass with flying colors.

Do you know why you were an atheist in the first place?

Lee: I would like to say that I was an atheist because I thoroughly examined the evidence and came to the most rational conclusion that God doesn’t exist. But I didn’t, and few atheists do, to be honest.

On the one hand, I did have intellectual objections to Christianity. I was not aware of the historical evidence for Jesus the scientific evidence for the existence of God. I did a smattering of reading. I read some atheist writers, who tend to reinforce each other. I read Bertrand Russell and Antony Flew, and lots of atheistic scholars who are sort of “preaching to the choir.”

To a degree, intellectual objections did keep me from God. On the other hand, in my case, and in the case of many people, there is a moral objection. I was living an immoral life, and I did not want God to exist. I had an ulterior motive in not finding God, so I cannot say it was purely a matter of intellectual objection. There was a moral issue involved, and as Ravi Zacharias has pointed out, it probably indicates more often than not that people have a reason for running from God. Many times it’s intellectual, by many more times it’s moral.

Part of your journey to faith involved hearing Bill Hybels speak at the Willowcreek Church, didn’t it?

Lee: On January 20, 1980, the first day I began to investigate Christianity as an atheist, my wife brought me to that church, which is where she found faith. That’s what started my whole journey, was hearing Bill Hybels talk. Years later, in 1987, after I became a Christian and felt called into the ministry, I ended up on the staff of Willowcreek. Ultimately, I ended up being ordained there and being on the teaching team as well as the management team. I was there from 1987 – 2000.

After your ordination and joining the staff there, did you continue to do investigative journalism and writing?

Lee: I really did stop writing for many years. I left The Chicago Tribune at the end of 1981, and stopped writing for almost a decade. I was editor of a newspaper in Missouri and later became managing editor of a string of newspapers in Illinois, so I was editing a lot of other people’s stories, but I really didn’t feel compelled to write.

It wasn’t until years later that I wrote my first Christian book, which was Inside the Minds of Unchurched Harry and Mary, in the early 1990s. That was the first thingmesss I had written in a long time. I found out that what I really love about writing books is that people in China could be reading them while you are asleep. They can have a worldwide impact, and by God’s grace “The Case” series of books is approaching 10 million copies. That’s a ministry I don’t think I could ever have accomplished had I not written.

So now my passion is writing and speaking. I find that these films are a new way to communicate. These documentaries are a way to reach people who may not want to wade through a120,000 word book.

Was the series your idea, or did someone approach you about the rights?

Lee: A guy named Lad Allen with Illustra Media interviewed me for some documentaries they were doing and we got to know each other. They proposed doing some films based on The Case for Christ, The Case for a Creator and The Case for Faith.

They are a non-profit group that does excellent work. Because I trusted him and his team and they promised to be faithful to the book and let me be involved in the production, I said, “OK, let’s try it,” and we did.

The amazing thing was that after the first one came out (The Case for a Creator), Lionsgate Films, which is a major Hollywood distributor and had never done a faith-based film before, saw it and loved it. They wanted to do all three films, and it was the first time Lionsgate ventured into the faith market.

We were thrilled with that because it meant that the film would be available everywhere and hopefully reach people who would otherwise never have heard of the book, let alone be motivated to read it.

It’s always interesting to hear how satisfied the author is with a film. How were you able to translate the book into a film to your satisfaction?

Lee: We tried to be careful that we didn’t bite off more than we could chew. For instance, in The Case for Faith, the book deals with eight major objections to Christianity. We knew we couldn’t do justice to all eight objections in an 80-minute film. People would say it was too superficial, and it would be irresponsible to raise those issues and not adequately answer them.

So we decided to go with the two biggest, which are the ones that are the obstacles in most people’s spiritual journeys. I think it’s a good thing because we could deal with those two topics in great death.

As a print person, I’ve been amazed at the ways in which film has been able to add an emotional undercurrent to these films by communicating at a very powerful level. When I first saw The Case for Faith film after it was done, I cried three times when I watched it. It’s so moving when it talks about real-life cases of people who have suffered greatly and yet found God in the midst of it. It’s so affirming and so moving that I was emotionally hit by it.

It’s difficult to do that in a book. The Bible balances truth in love, and I find books to be really good on the truth side, but a film often reaches a balance of love and truth. It has the possibility of communicating the emotion of both at once. It balances those two values very well. I’ve been extremely happy with the way these films came out.

One of the things we’re doing that I think is very exciting is we’re creating curriculum from these films. We’ve finished The Case for Christ and The Case for a Creator and have published those recently. The Case for Faith curriculum will come out a little later.

These are available for small groups or Sunday School classes, even for families. There’s a participant’s guide and all this new material we shot in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois and Michigan. It’s new material where I introduce and set up the issue for the day. Then you watch a scene from the film and there’s a series of discussion questions. You watch a second scene from the film and there are more discussion questions. Then I wrap it up at the end with some new material.

I’m really thrilled with the way this has come out. It can be used as outreach also to invite your spiritually curious friends to sit down and watch it together and go through that guided experience.

As someone who came to faith as an adult, how important is it that you became spiritually curious, and not just that your wife tried to convert you?

Lee: She admits going overboard a few times and leaving Bible verses around the house, or books open to certain pages on the coffee table and things like that. That wasn’t particularly helpful.

My curiosity was fostered and generated by her authentic walk with Christ and how it changed her values and character. I was impressed by that and wanted to get to the bottom of it and understand it. That’s what really got me curious about whether or not God was really real. She said that He was and He was changing her life.

I saw her life changing but I didn’t believe in God, so there was a disconnect there. That’s what made me curious.

There’s an additional resource mentioned in the films called “Off My Case for Kids.” Can you describe that?

Lee: We produced four books for children: “The Case for Christ for Kids,” “The Case for a Creator for Kids,” “The Case for Faith for Kids,” and “Off My Case for Kids.” It’s a fun book. It’s a series of stories for kids in which kids go through a variety of situations involving faith, their friends, and people who may challenge their faith in God.

It helps them think through how they would react and what they would say if they got into a conversation with a friend. So it’s very child-friendly. It’s done in their world and with their experiences. It’s almost like a little evangelism book for kids, helping them see situations and recognize how they can reach out with the love of Christ to their playmates. It was a fun little book.

Are there any current projects you’re working on?

Lee: I’m working on a novel. My daughter is a novelist and she has two books she’s published. It sort of encouraged me to say that novels can reach people who won’t read a non-fiction book or watch a DVD. So I’m trying to take the Christian message and communicate it to different audiences.

I’m in the middle of it, and it’s kind of a John Grisham novel and I’m having the time of my life! I’m having a blast writing this thing, and I’m a little disappointed that I’m 56 years old and just finding out that I love to write fiction. But it’s a lot of fun and hopefully God willing it will come out some time next year from Zondervan.

It’s been fun to discover something late in life that I really enjoy doing.

©2008 ChristianCinema.com

Angela Walker is Executive Editor for ChristianCinema.com, your source for faith-affirming and family-approved entertainment. She gets to know the person behind the cameras while gaining an inside look at the process of movie-making. More news and exclusive interviews with today's top filmmakers and Christians in Cinema can be found at http://www.christiancinema.com/catalog/newsdesk.php.

Cloud Ten Pictures Coming on Strong

By Angela Walker

Founded by brothers Peter and Paul Lalonde, Cloud Ten Pictures is best known for their development and production of the Left Behind film series. Called “one of the most successful indie-studios in the English speaking world,” Cloud Ten has consistently produced successful films for the faith-affirming and family-friendly market, including their initial offering the Apocalypse series.

Due to a legal dispute that began in 2000, the company has had limited development and production of any original films until this year. In August of this year, the lawsuit was settled, and Cloud Ten was able to re-focus their energies on production and acquisition of new films.

“A huge burden has been lifted,” says CEO Andre Van Heerden, “and we can now get back to the great commission: reaching, challenging and inspiring others through the universal and dramatic medium of film.”

Van Heerden has been with Cloud Ten since its beginning, and has written, directed or produced seven of Cloud Ten’s features. “Those films have collectively sold more than 12 million copies and van Heerden is well-known and respected within the Christian film community,” said Chairman and co-founder Paul Lalonde.

As part of the company’s restructuring, Cloud Ten created a new arm called “Cloud Ten Church Cinemas,” through which they will release all of their upcoming films to churches before going out to the general public. Based on their past success with this model, they plan to premiere one new film in churches every three to four months.

This year, Cloud Ten released three new films: Smuggler’s Ransom and The Genius Club, which they acquired from other production entities, and their own Saving God.

Currently in development for Cloud Ten are the films “Dirk and the Devil,” Camp Eden,” and “Apocalypse V: Redemption.”

©2008 ChristianCinema.com

Angela Walker is Executive Editor for ChristianCinema.com, your source for faith-affirming and family-approved entertainment. She gets to know the person behind the cameras while gaining an inside look at the process of movie-making. More news and exclusive interviews with today's top filmmakers and Christians in Cinema can be found at http://www.christiancinema.com/catalog/newsdesk.php.