News & Events

Having a Bad, Bad Day:
Music of Despicable Me

In the past several years, Grammy Award-winning artist Pharrell Williams of The Neptunes and N.E.R.D. has written and produced for such blockbuster global musicians as Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Madonna, Kanye West and Shakira. In 2009, Billboard magazine named The Neptunes producers of the decade, and Williams and his collaborators have played an enormous role in shaping the culture of the music landscape. Naturally, the next step for the artist was to explore the interplay between music and movies.
Williams has been interested in scoring music for feature films for some time, and he became more eager to work in this realm after observing Jack Johnson’s musical involvement in creating the best-selling soundtrack to Universal’s animated Curious George. Williams expressed his interest to friend and music supervisor KATHY NELSON. He remembers: “I told Kathy that the very next time something comes your way, you call me and let me know what it is. She said, ‘Pharrell, I really like you, but I’m not going to just give you anything. I’m going call you when it’s the right thing.’ And I got the call for Despicable Me.”
A longtime animation fan, Williams was eager to take on the challenge of crafting original songs and themes for his first film. “What I like about the philosophy on Despicable Me is that the filmmakers don’t make children’s films. They make films for humans that use some of the tricks and treats of youthful entertainment, but at the same time, there’s an amazing storyline.”
Though the task of scoring his first feature seemed daunting, Williams was grateful that he was surrounded by Academy Award® winner Hans Zimmer as the film’s music producer and skilled guitarist Heitor Pereira as fellow composer. Says producer Meledandri: “The moment that we showed Pharrell the imagery, it took him about 30 minutes to say, ‘I’ll work on this film in any way possible.’ He was immediately struck by the character designs, the notion of the story and his enthusiasm never waned.
“Pharrell, like our directors, took on the challenge of doing something that he had never done before; this is the first time he’s scored a feature film,” Meledandri continues. “We knew that there was going to be an opportunity in the film for a number of songs that would be used as song score. What’s resulted from his songs is a group of musical themes that he’s worked on with the talented Heitor Pereira and legendary Hans Zimmer.”
Williams’ collaboration with Pereira began as Williams watched preliminary footage of the film and then created musical ideas he thought would fit into each sequence. Pereira would then expand upon some of Williams’ ideas and come up with additional creative works. On working with Pereira, Williams says: “Heitor took those pieces and songs, and he connected the dots. He is the glue in this house of cards. He scored some incredible scenes and embellished some of the scenes that I scored and took those to the next level.”
Williams composed several original songs for the film, including the title track, “Despicable Me.” The artist was inspired by the whimsical narrative of the lyrics from Annie, and he wanted to write lyrics that were as kid-friendly as that musical, but also as moody as Gru’s character. He elaborates: “I’ve never made a song about having a bad day and being in a super bad mood. So I thought I would make it really fun but, at the same time, if you were to hear it without the lyrics, it would sound like this track that you’d want to hear coming out of someone’s truck.”
Music producer Hans Zimmer’s storied career in film has resulted in his composing unforgettable scores for live-action blockbusters such as Rain Man, Twister and Thelma & Louise, as well as the worldwide hits Sherlock Holmes and films from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. But it was his instantly classic composition for 1994’s The Lion King that brought Zimmer an Oscar® for Best Original Score and ignited his passion to craft the music behind such modern animated classics as Shark Tale, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda. His frequent music partner and world famous guitarist, Heitor Pereira, has collaborated with him on many a project. Despicable Me is their latest effort.
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Universal Pictures Presents A Chris Meledandri Production: Steve Carell in Despicable Me, starring Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Will Arnett, Danny McBride, Jack McBrayer and Julie Andrews. The original songs and themes are by Pharrell Williams; the score is by Pharrell Williams and Heitor Pereira. Despicable Me’s editors are Pamela Ziegenhagen-Shefland and Gregory Perler; the production designer is Yarrow Cheney. The 3-D CGI film’s executive producers are Nina Rowan and Sergio Pablos. It is based on story by Sergio Pablos and from a screenplay by Cinco Paul & Ken Daurio. The film is produced by Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy, John Cohen, and it is directed by Chris Renaud & Pierre Coffin. © 2010 Universal Studios. www.despicable.me

TOM BERENGER (Browning) is a veteran actor with a career spanning 30 years, encompassing over 70 film and television projects.
He won a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe Award, and received an Academy Award® nomination, for his role in Oliver Stone’s Oscar®-winning Best Picture “Platoon.” Berenger later reunited with Stone on another award-winning Vietnam-era film, “Born on the Fourth of July,” with Tom Cruise. Earlier, he appeared in Lawrence Kasdan’s seminal ensemble film “The Big Chill,” with Glenn Close, Kevin Kline and William Hurt.
Berenger will next be seen in the action drama “Faster,” starring Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton, which is slated for a fall release. Among his many other features are the successful “Major League” baseball comedies, with Charlie Sheen; Antoine Fuqua’s award-winning drama “Training Day,” with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke; Robert Mandel’s “The Substitute”; “Gettysburg,” with Jeff Daniels and Martin Sheen; Phillip Noyce’s “Sliver”; the critically acclaimed “At Play in the Fields of the Lord”; Wolfgang Petersen’s “Shattered”; Jim Sheridan’s “The Field”; Roger Spottisewood’s “Shoot to Kill,” with Sidney Poitier; and Ridley Scott’s romantic drama “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
On the small screen, Berenger received acclaim early on, garnering an Emmy nomination in 1982 for his recurring role on the hit series “Cheers.” His other television guest appearances include “Ally McBeal,” “Law & Order,” “Dream On,” and a recurring part on “Third Watch.”
In addition, he starred in, and served as writer and producer on, the USA series “Peacemakers,” which won a Western Heritage Award in 2004. He more recently had a regular role on the ABC series “October Road.” Berenger has also starred in many longform projects, including the TNT miniseries “Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King,” and John Milius’ TNT movie “Rough Riders,” on which he also served as a producer.

DILEEP RAO (Yusuf) was most recently seen in James Cameron’s record-breaking blockbuster “Avatar,” the top-grossing film of all time. Earlier in 2009, Rao made his feature film debut with a lead role in Sam Raimi’s horror hit “Drag Me to Hell.”
Rao was born in Los Angeles, but his parents’ jobs—his mother is a physicist, his father an engineer—took the family all over the world. In fact, Rao had traveled to more than 20 countries by the time he was eight years old and lived in Saudi Arabia for a time as a child.
His lifelong fascination with the natural sciences led him originally to become a pre-med student at the University of California at San Diego, with the serious intention of becoming a surgeon. While in college, however, he enrolled in an acting class, which sparked his interest in the theatre. That led to his participation in the La Jolla Playhouse Summer Conservatory, where he was trained by Tony Award-winning director Anna Shapiro. He gained his Equity card doing a variety of theatre roles and ultimately decided that his continuing education would be in the arts instead of medical school.
The following year, Rao was accepted into the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Upon graduation, he landed a role in Tom Stoppard’s “Indian Ink.” His subsequent stage work includes touring with the Manhattan Theatre Club, and plays at the South Coast Rep, Berkeley Rep, and the opening of the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles. He has collaborated with such noted stage directors as Les Waters, Gordon Davidson, David Emmes and Carey Perloff, and playwrights such as Joe Hortua, Charles Busch, and Charles L. Mee, the last on two world premieres.
Apart from his acting, Rao’s international upbringing and broad range of knowledge and experiences enabled him to become a “Jeopardy” champion, scoring one of the game show’s largest single-day winnings.

MICHAEL CAINE (Miles) is one of the film industry’s most esteemed actors, with a career spanning over half a century and encompassing more than 100 films and a myriad of acting honors. A two-time Academy Award® winner, Caine won his first Oscar®, for Best Supporting Actor, for his work in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,” for which he also received Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations. He took home his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar® for his role in Lasse Hallström’s “The Cider House Rules,” also winning a Screen Actors Guild Award® and earning Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations.
In addition, Caine has garnered four Oscar® nominations for Best Actor, the first coming in 1966 for the title role in “Alfie,” for which he also received a Golden Globe nomination and a New York Film Critics Award. He earned his second Oscar® nod, as well as a Golden Globe nomination and an Evening Standard Award, for the part of Milo Tindle in 1972’s “Sleuth,” opposite Laurence Olivier. His role in “Educating Rita” brought him his third Oscar® nomination, as well as Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards. He gained his latest Oscar®, Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations for his work in 2002’s “The Quiet American,” for which he also won a London Film Critics Circle Award. Caine previously won Golden Globe and London Film Critics Circle Awards and received a BAFTA Award nomination, all for Best Supporting Actor, for “Little Voice.”
He won his latest London Film Critics Circle Award for his performance in Christopher Nolan’s period drama “The Prestige.” It was his second film for the director following their collaboration on the 2005 hit “Batman Begins,” in which Caine played Bruce Wayne’s butler and confidant, Alfred. In 2008, he reprised the role of Alfred in Nolan’s blockbuster “The Dark Knight.”
Caine was born Maurice Micklewhite in South London in 1933 and developed an interest in acting at an early age. Upon his discharge from the Queen’s Royal Regiment and Royal Fusiliers in 1953, he began pursuing his career. Taking his stage name from the title “The Caine Mutiny,” he toured Britain in a variety of plays, and began appearing in British films and television shows.
In 1964, Caine landed his first major film role as Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead in “Zulu.” The following year, he starred in the hit thriller “The Ipcress File,” earning his first BAFTA Award nomination for his portrayal of secret agent Harry Palmer. However, it was his Oscar®-nominated performance in the seminal sixties film “Alfie” that catapulted Caine to international stardom. During the late 1960s, he went on to star in 11 films, including “The Ipcress File” sequels, “Funeral in Berlin” and “Billion Dollar Brain”; “Gambit,” earning a Golden Globe nomination; “Hurry Sundown”; “Woman Times Seven”; “Deadfall”; “The Magus”; “The Italian Job”; and “Battle of Britain.”
Over the next two decades, Caine starred in more than 40 films, including Robert Aldrich’s “Too Late the Hero”; “X, Y and Zee,” opposite Elizabeth Taylor; John Huston’s “The Man Who Would Be King”; “Harry and Walter Go to New York”; Richard Attenborough’s “A Bridge Too Far”; the Neil Simon comedy “California Suite”; Brian De Palma’s “Dressed to Kill”; John Huston’s “Victory”; Sidney Lumet’s “Deathtrap”; Stanley Donen’s “Blame It on Rio”; John Frankenheimer’s “The Holcroft Covenant”; Neil Jordan’s “Mona Lisa”; and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” for which he received a Golden Globe nomination.
Since then, Caine has starred in such films as the ensemble comedy “Noises Off…”; “Blood and Wine”; “Quills”; “Miss Congeniality”; “Austin Powers: Goldmember”; and Lasse Hallström’s “Secondhand Lions.” His more recent film work includes Gore Verbinski’s “The Weather Man”; Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men”; the 2007 remake of “Sleuth”; and the title role in the independent film “Harry Brown.”
On the small screen, Caine earned both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the dual title role in the telefilm “Jekyll & Hyde” as well as for his portrayal of South African President F.W. de Klerk in the historical drama “Mandela and de Klerk.” He also gained a Golden Globe nomination for his work in the telefilm “Jack the Ripper” and an Emmy nomination for the docudrama “World War II: When Lions Roared.”
Also an author, Caine wrote an autobiography entitled What’s It All About?, as well as Acting on Film, a book based on a series of lectures he gave on BBC Television.
In the 1992 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Caine was awarded the CBE, and eight years later received a knighthood.

Tx Date : 21st July 2010
Time slot : Wednesday 9:30pm
Genre : Travel-reality, Infotainment
Duration : 30 minutes
Episodes : 10
For Immediate release

KUALA LUMPUR, 8 July 2010 – Beautiful beaches, colourful culture, amazing sceneries and mouth watering delicacies are just a meek account of the spectacular experiences you get as the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia and 8TV WELCOME ‘s you TO THE RAIL WORLD – A charismatic travel diary that takes you on a train ride to amazing destinations around Malaysia.

Beginning 21st, July 2010, at 9.30pm exclusively on 8TV, WELCOME TO THE RAIL WORLD will take you on an unforgettable journey, as you explore the sights and sounds with Henry Golding, who is a lone traveler with a round trip ticket on board Malaysia’s national train service – the Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM). He ventures deep into the heart of Malaysia and not only sees but experiences the daily lives of its people, the captivating sceneries as well as the history and culture that lies behind this tropical wonderland we call – MALAYSIA.

Besides the dazzling discoveries, Henry will also capture the hearts of viewers with his energetic and bubbly personality. The 23-year-old has audacious spelt as his middle name! Always up for anything plus eager to discover Malaysia and himself in the process, he will definitely have you glued to your screens as he injects a very interesting and refreshing perspective of Malaysia and its cultures.

From Kuala Kubu Baru, Taiping, Penang, Gemas, Langkawi, Arau, Melaka and many other interesting stops, catch Henry living with the indigenous tribe, Jakun, stopping by at various delightful Malaysian homestays, exploring the rainforest, learning about the Creole-Portuguese descent, white water rafting, absailing and taking you on countless other fun-filled escapades.

Viewers will get the chance to discover the diverse races, tales, multicultural traditions, gastronomic experiences and lots more, taking the “1Malaysia” concept to brand new heights.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia and Canon, WELCOME TO THE RAIL WORLD offers a 10-episode bilingual travelogue that caters to a vast audience, as it enlightens in particular the urbanites, on the rich natural resources and traditions we embrace in this country.

Speaking at the launch, YB Dato’ Sri Dr. Ng Yen Yen said, “We believe by supporting a programme such as WELCOME TO THE RAIL WORLD , it will help us in promoting differentiated strategies to cater for unique and distinctive travel pattern and need such as for nature adventure that includes eco tourism, cultural diversity, family fun, affordable luxury and MICE”.

“It will help us to focus in achieving the call by the Honorable Prime Minister of Malaysia, YAB Dato’ Seri Mohamad Najib Tun Razak in the tabling of the 10th Malaysia Plan, where the government aims to improve tourism industry in Malaysia as one of the top 10 countries, in terms of global receipt by 2015. The target is to increase the sector’s contribution by 2.1 times, contributing RM115 billion receipts and providing two million jobs in the industry in 2015,” added YB Dato’ Sri Dr. Ng Yen Yen.

“This is a fantastic travel show that reminds me of how important the simple things in life are! There is so much we have to be thankful for; the beauty that surrounds us as well as the peace and unity we have in this country that a lot of us take for granted.” said 8TV’s General Manager, Ms. Lam Swee Kim. Kim adds, “Malaysia has so much to offer. I guarantee viewers will have so much to look forward to, have lots of fun and lots to discover in WELCOME TO THE RAIL WORLD .“

To make things more exciting, there will also be a contest for the viewers where a very simple question will be revealed at the end of the show. Viewers will have to spot codes/clues that will appear throughout the show to find the correct answer. Contestants that answer correctly, stand a chance at winning fantastic prizes from KTM and Canon.

Discover and be captivated by what this land has to offer as you make a date to experience the wonders of Malaysia, beginning 21st July, every Wednesday at 9.30pm exclusively on 8TV. 8TV is also available on Astro’s channel 708. You can also catch the repeats every Saturday at 11.30am, or on 8TV’s Catch Up TV on www.8tv.com.my/railworld, or m.8tv.com if you are using your mobile phone.

Thomas Muller has taken the world by storm but not many people know that an Asian, and to be precise, a Malaysian, is instrumental in his rapid rise to stardom.
Master and pupil- Lim Teong Kim (L) and Thomas Muller

Bayern Munich Academy product Muller, 20, wreaked havoc in his first major tournament for Germany scoring four goals and helping the three-time champions reach the FIFA World Cup semi-finals in South Africa.

Former Malaysian international Lim Teong Kim, who is working with German Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich since 2000, was the witness of this young hotshot’s development process.

“Muller was not a gifted footballer but he is very dedicated and determined,” said Lim, who is now an assistant coach of Bayern’s U-19 squad.

Lim, who was the first Malaysian footballer to ply his trade in Europe when he turned out for Hertha Berlin, a then third division team in 1987, has worked together with Muller and another rising star of the formidable German side in South Africa, centre-back Holger Badstuber, when he was coaching the Bayern U-13 and U-14 teams.

Lim Teong Kim (2nd row, extreme right) with his Bayern Munich U-19 team

Eight of his trainees then, have graduated to the Bayern U-19 team with Muller and Badstuber the most outstanding among all.

Lim, who was part of Malaysia’s SEA Games winning side in 1989, said in an interview: “Muller was not as gifted as some of his teammates in the youth teams but he made it big because of his dedication to training and matches. This is the same case with Badstuber.”

Muller, who is suspended for the semi-final against European champions Spain on Wednesday, is joint top scorer with his club and national team senior Miroslav Klose and is also in line for the Best Young Player award and Golden Boot in this year’s World Cup.

Malacca-born Lim, 47, also had a brief stint with Austrian second division outfit, Gak Graz in 1990.
Fluent in German, Lim is a holder of both Malaysia Football Association (FAM) Advanced Coaching Certificate and German Football Association (DFB) Master Coaching Licence.

Lim, who was capped 75 times for Malaysia and played for Malacca, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur and Kedah, is born in a sporting family.

Lim (2nd from right) in his Malaysia national team’s days.His elder brothers, Kim Chon, Chuan Chin and Hong Guan, are all coaches at different levels. Kim Chon was former AFC Technical Director while Chuan Chin and Hong Guan both specialise in coaching goalkeepers for the national teams.

These three and another elder brother, Seng Koon, have played at the state level at one time or another. Seng Koon represented Johor and Armed Forces, Kim Chon played for Malacca and KL, Chuan Chin for Malacca, Perak, Pahang, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur and Hong Guan as goalkeeper for Malacca and Selangor.

Lim, who married a German, has three children – who are all involved in sports.

“My son, who is now 16, was in the Under-12 Bayern Munich team but he now represents his school. As for my two daughters, the older one is into rock climbing while the other is involved in athletics,” said Lim.

Lim’s experience could be of some help for Asian players who are looking for their adventure in Europe.

“When I went there (Germany) in the late 1980s, I faced many challenges including language barrier, weather, food and competition from teammates. These factors may affect the player’s mentally and confidence.

“The European leagues are very challenging and a person on trial with a club normally gets a cold shoulder from other players. You have no friends in the club as your teammates are thinking about their own importance in the team. They feel you are a threat to them.

“It was like that when I attended trials with Hertha Berlin,” he said.

Space for Comedy:
Shooting in 3-D

Not only is Despicable Me Illumination’s first film, it is also the first project that the Meledandri team has produced in 3-D. Before the layout began, the producers and directors knew that Gru’s world would be further embraced by audiences if an extra dimension was added. They requested that Paul and Daurio look for opportunities to utilize 3-D as they crafted their script, but only when it made logical sense. The screenwriters were guided in their decision making to insert 3-D suggestions in such scenes as when Gru and Vector fire their array of missiles, when airships fly past or when smoke trails from a vehicle float out across the audience.
Whether it be during the death-defying shrink-ray heist, explosions in midair from errant missiles or on the rollercoaster ride on which Gru takes the three girls, the animators aimed to bring the audience into the journey with the characters of the movie. The filmmakers also discovered that they could use the space as an opportunity to create comedic effect. Since this was a relatively new domain for them, it gave them the chance to deliver laughs that come at very unexpected times.
Meledandri was adamant that the team consciously used the space appropriately, as opposed to a simple 3-D transfer of a 2-D look. He reflects: “The utilization of the dimensional space helps to define the visual look of the film. There are many sequences in the film where we simply take advantage of the dimensional space in subtle ways. Our goal is always to immerse the audience in the film and to make them feel like the film’s environment is expanding around them. We also use the action to put the audience right smack in the middle of it. Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin had tremendous fun in staging and boarding these sequences.”
“From the beginning, we envisioned this as a 3-D movie,” adds Cohen. “We needed to find someone who understood how to make a 3-D movie and how to tell a story from shot to shot and scene to scene. We found a fantastic stereographer in JOHN BENSON, who was 3-D specialist on Coraline. He moved to Paris and worked on this movie from the very beginning.”
From the start, the filmmakers knew that they wanted Despicable Me to be in 3-D. They explored different scenarios in which to utilize the extra space, and then began to layer the story with more and more 3D-friendly sequences. The filmmakers even built a model of the entire rollercoaster at Super Silly Fun Land to enhance the way it appears on screen in 3-D. Renaud offers: “We layered 3-D in more and more as the movie went along. We were all seeing the importance of 3-D and how the audiences embraced it. Having an element that is completely built creates a cool experience. The thing with designing in this media is that you can’t trick the camera, so everything has got to be there for it to feel like a true experience.”

A Global Production:
From France to the U.S.

As the team began preproduction for Despicable Me, Meledandri searched across the world to find production houses that would be ideal partners in animating the film. As they built Illumination, they felt it was important to choose the shops that were the best fit for each production in the pipeline. After visiting a number of studios, the producer traveled to France to investigate shops from that country’s tremendous traditions in animation.
The filmmaker would find the perfect fit at the Paris-based digital visual effects studio Mac Guff. Meledandri explains: “France has one of the greatest animation schools in the world called Gobelins. They have a sense of comedy in France that has a great connection to our sense of comedy here. I visited a number of studios, and within an hour after arriving at Mac Guff, I knew that these were right partners. I had a tremendous amount of confidence in the people that I met and in the work that I saw.”
As Illumination was building its production process, it set out to create a very efficient, streamlined approach to make the first of its films. Considering the technology and artistry that was available, the crew began preproduction in Los Angeles. There, they conducted a good deal of the storyboarding and engaged in the initial editing and designs. As Illumination built up its team in France, it began to transition character animation and computer graphic work to Mac Guff.
Illumination moved about 15 people to France to live full-time. There, they would work on the production under producer Janet Healy’s leadership; together, they became a very tight group. Offers Meledandri of the process: “The technology that we use to work collaboratively is relatively simple. We used Skype and iChat because there’s such an ease of use that we preferred. These are both very low-key and casual, everyday forms of communication…rather than fancy state-of-the-art teleconferencing. We had linked editing rooms and due to the time difference, we had a production working 24 hours. It was a tremendously cohesive process.”
Renaud found Mac Guff to be “a world-class studio.” He commends: “There’s a dedication to craft that is second-to-none. What’s interesting about France is that they have an education system that supports animation and the visual arts, which is not easily found everywhere on the globe.”
Healy agrees: “We initially looked at studios all over the world, and we recognized that Mac Guff had a uniquely talented crew and a very stable, full-featured set of CG tools. They had just finished a French film that showed a lot of production value. Our instincts were right: the leadership at the studio was amazing to partner with on a daily basis, and the artists have terrific talent and remarkable technical understanding. We are still astonished at how straightforward, good-natured and productive the team is, and how well they collaborate.”
The producer explains the process of bringing this international crew together: “Seven Americans came to France as the key leadership. The group included one of the directors, me as producer, the associate producer, the editor and the assistant editor, the stereographer and the production designer. Everyone else we needed was available within the Mac Guff team. We brought decades of feature animation experience from the leading American animation studios, and that experience helped the Mac Guff team undertake more complexity in their images. We understood the paradigm of driving a production with constant story improvements, always rewriting, reboarding, trying versions and making changes—no matter how far into the process we were. This dynamic ability to strive to improve the work at every stage was the key difference between how we were used to working and how European studios have usually worked in the past.”
When it came to the process discussions—such as translating artwork to modeling in CG, how rough layouts would get in stereo, or how animation would be approved—the team had similar expectations and a mutual understanding of the workflow. There were about 14 departments that worked in CG, and the artists had unique specialties. As well, the many dependencies between departments made management of the duties complex. Initially, workflow conversations took some time, but the crew members approached the CG manufacturing work similarly and found that their ways of problem solving and past experiences shared much in common.
With the American team taking French lessons and French crew members taking English lessons, it was an education for crew on both sides of the Atlantic. Whenever Meledandri addressed the team as a whole, an interpreter was used. Of the global company, the producer adds: “We’ve got an American director and a French director. We’ve had crew working in Canada, New Jersey, Los Angeles and the Midwest. We had numerous nationalities represented on our crew, and in Paris we have people from the U.K. Our philosophy was based on the notion that if you’re going to make a movie for a global audience, the complexion of your crew should be a global one.”
The trans-Atlantic process also extended to the vocal talent, as some sessions were recorded in Paris while actors were in Los Angeles. Explains director Renaud: “We did our first few sessions with each actor in person, so that we could work out who the character is.” Once Renaud and Coffin were in Paris, the filmmakers and actors iChatted or Skyped so they could see one another and try different takes of the dialogue reads. “It was very important to us to read the actors’ body language,” Renaud notes.
The production crew connected Renaud and Coffin to a high-quality ISDN audio line so that they could hear each of the actor’s performances. The actors recorded the audio in Los Angeles, which was then delivered to the studio in Paris. With the nine-hour time difference, production ran on a 24-hour cycle, as teams worked constantly on two sides of the ocean.
Working with a director via Skype was a new experience for some of the talent. “It was pretty crazy having the director all the way in Paris…strange to work with somebody but not be in the same room with them physically,” recalls McBrayer. He laughs: “I think they were nine hours ahead, so they could tell the future.”