From "Back to the Future" (1985) to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988) to "Beowulf" (2007), Robert Zemeckis has been bringing audiences fantastic stories and colorful characters for almost 40 years. With his latest movie, "A Christmas Carol" (2009), Zemeckis dabbles in cutting-edge motion capture technology yet again, giving new life to Charles Dickens' classic story. The Daily got the chance to speak to Zemeckis about his new film.
Question: What inspired you to adapt Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" (1843)?
RobertZemeckis: When I was doing "Beowulf," I realized that [motion capture filmmaking] is a great form to re-introduce classic stories in a new way to a new generation of moviegoers. So with the case of "A Christmas Carol," you get a chance to realize the story in a visually modern way to capture the very spectacular and surreal way that Dickens wrote it. It's obviously a very familiar title, and it's a great story to be told in cinema, so I thought, why not?
Q: "A Christmas Carol" is a timeless story. How do you balance ... the dual problem of adhering to a very traditional story but also creating a piece that is fresh, new and exciting?
RZ: Well that of course is the challenge, and this is part of the reason we did it. We just attacked that problem head on. We said we're going to be extremely true to the underlying material, we're really going to extract all the elements that make it a timeless story, which are rooted in Scrooge's change and character development and in his story of redemption. The other thing, which made everyone very nervous at the studio, is I have everyone speaking in the language of the time, so we basically kept the tone that Dickens wrote in the original piece.
Q: Is there anything in the Dickens' story that [has been] overlooked by past filmmakers that you highlight in your version?
RZ: Past versions have not, for some reason, delved into the idea that Dickens' had great tension and great suspense, that feeling of foreboding and feeling of dread that you have in the first half of that story has been missing a lot. You have to realize that Scrooge is having this terrible nightmare, and I feel very strongly that you have to have the dark before you have the light.
Q: How do you see the 3-D aspect as aiding in the telling of the story?
RZ: Obviously the images don't aid in telling the story from an intellectual standpoint, but it aids in the telling of the story from an emotional standpoint. 3-D is a storytelling element just like the music is. You have the underlying intellectual material, and then you embellish it with music, with performance, and now with immersive 3-D image. It gives the audience another emotional handle on the story by immersing them in Dickensonian London.
Q: As a director, when working with your actors, how do you get them comfortable using the 3-D technology?
RZ: First of all, you walk them through it very thoroughly. But no matter how much I try explain to them what it's going to be like, it's impossible to imagine until they do it. But then what happens, and why they all immediately fall in love with it, is that they very quickly understand it's all about performance. The revelation that happens is, ‘My performance is everything here. I don't have [to] fumble with a costume. I don't hide behind a costume or make-up.'
Q: How exactly do the actors' motions translate to the screen?
RZ: The actors work in a volume of infrared light, about the size of a theatrical stage, surrounded by receptors that record digital information that comes off their sensors, which are strategically placed on all [the actors'] joints. A new rig of actual hi-def cameras captures their facial movements, so every pore and every crease becomes a marker. So there are no cameras in the traditional sense; they are all virtual. The actors perform in this volume, going through the whole scene from beginning to end without worrying about camera marks or lighting marks. When we feel like we got that scene, then we take that information, that digital performance, and we wrap a digital skin, hair and costume around that performance. We then take that character and place [him] in a virtual environment, and the last thing we do is place our virtual cameras in to create the traditional shot from a movie.
Q: What advice to you have [for] aspiring filmmakers?
RZ: Write. That's what I tell everyone who asks. Write. Because to be a really great filmmaker you have to be able to do that anyway. And really, it's your ticket in, because everyone is receptive to a good idea. And go to USC film school. They are the first and only right now in the nation to have a motion capture curriculum.
