I don't think Wes Anderson is known for being difficult to work for, but that is exactly what the crew on his new animated fable The Fantastic Mr. Fox are say saying in a piece from the LA Times.
[When asked about Anderson's decision to direct remotely via e-mail] "It's not in the least bit normal," director of photography Tristan Oliver observed at the production's East London set last spring, when production on "Mr. Fox" was about three-quarters complete. "I've never worked on a picture where the director has been anywhere other than the studio floor!"
...
"Honestly? Yeah. He has made our lives miserable," the film's director of animation, Mark Gustafson, said during a break in shooting. He gave a weary chuckle. "I probably shouldn't say that."
When asked about this attitude from his crew Anderson shot back with:
"It's not the most pleasant thing to force somebody to do it the way they don't want to do it," Anderson said. "In Tristan's case, what I was telling him was, 'You can't use the techniques that you've learned to use. I'm going to make your life more difficult by demanding a certain approach.'
"The simple reality is," Anderson continued, "the movie would not be the way I wanted it if I just did it the way people were accustomed to doing it. I realized this is an opportunity to do something nobody's ever seen before. I want to see it. I don't want afterward to say, 'I could have gone further with this.' "
Personally I'm with Anderson on this one. He's the director. On his film, what he says goes. And given what we have seen of the film so far, it certainly seems unique, though the low-tech look has divided critics.
Source:
LA Times
November 07, 2007, 06:23:47 PM
