Boxoffice-April.2000

What does
the coming
for this comedy drama about
human (sorry, chicken) rights.
Merlin Crossingham and
Will Hodge take a few
moments away from their
third day of shooting 25
chickens lined up for a roll
call scene—at about 30
frames a day—to talk about
gestures all require the same
amount of painstaking alteration
and attention. At
Aardman there always seems
to be time for the craft to
become art.
Across the room. Price, a
chief animator who worked
with Park on "A Close Shave."
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their love for animation's
"unique form of expression."
It's an art form that
Crossingham relates to circus
performing and Hodge enjoys
for its humor and attention to
detail. They listen to the
soundtrack over and over and
over in order to perfectly synchronize
the chickens' lib
movements.
"Cracking
Animation"
describes the lip sync technique
"perfected by Nick":
"An editor marks all the syllables
on the magnetic tape of
the dialogue recording. Then
he or she transfers all this to a
bar chart, in which each bar
covers a second of film (or one
foot for 35mm), so the animator
can see exactly where each
syllable starts and finishes."
With this detailed map of the
sounds, the animator then listens
"over and over again,
repeating it, copying the
accent and intonation, trying
to sense the right moment for
the character to react." To
marry sound to lip movement,
a character needs replacement
mouths or ideally face resculpturing
after each frame.
Even when just a replacement
mouth is used the face must be
remodeled to a certain extent
so it fits perfectly.
Despite all this Lord
believes that mouth movement
supplies only five to 10
percent of a character's performance.
Eye. eyebrow, chin.
nose, cheek, hand and arm
is in the midst of a 13.5-second
shot that is taking seven
days to shoot. "This is a very
dialogue-driven movie that
takes a lot of rehearsal," he
says, explaining how he and
Nick acted out these
sequences in the video booth
before rigging up the model of
Mrs. Tweedy, wielding her
cleaver on a cold-hearted
tirade. He moves her "a fraction
of a tooth" again and
again to capture the exact
emotion and synchronization.
"1 think the basic premise of
this is brilliant." says Price. "It's
a good story, and a lot of time
has been put in to developing
the script. The scenes are difficult
to create because of their
depth and mood. The feelings
are intense and held down, and
that's a hell of a lot harder to
do than big action and spectacle.
It's not about making [the
characters] move, it's about
making them act. giving them
the illusion of life. It's about
pumping life and feeling into
things." And giving them teeth,
so to speak.
m
"Chicken Run." Slurring
the voices of Mel Gibson, Julia
Sawalha. Miranda Richardson
and Jane Horrocks. Directed I
by Peter Lord and Nick Park.
\
Written by Karey Kirkpatrickl
and Jack Rosenthal. ProducedX
by David Sproxton. Al
DreamWorks release. AnimaA
lion. Not vet rated. Opens JuneM
23.
48 BOXOFFICE