Tag : bolt
By George 'El Guapo' Roush on September 18, 2008
If you missed my previous articles on the Bolt set visit, justclick HERE for my overall impressions and HERE for an interview with lighting supervisor Adolph Lusinsky.


Continuing on with this week's Bolt coverage, we talk to NathanGreno, the head of the story department on Bolt. When we walkedinto the brainstorming room (The actual room where the idea of Boltwas conceived), there were pictures of the Bolt film on all fourwalls. One wall had all three acts laid out in storyboard form.Another wall had an entire sequence that Nathan would act out infront of his co-workers so they got an idea of how the scene shouldbe animated and its tone. This was when feedback would be provided.The other two walls were sketches, artwork and ideas. It wasactually really, really cool to be able to sit in the room whereideas for the cartoons are shaped and born.


Check out our interview with Nathan to learn more about thestoryboard process and how a guy like Nathan gets to the positionhe's in today working for the top animation studio in the world.


Greno: I'm head of story on 'Bolt' and so I was going to talk through,this is the actual room where we did the complete story process forthe movie. It's much cleaner now than it was then, but we had agroup of seven or eight guys at one time as a crew. We worked inthis room everyday. We came in and shut the door and worked all dayon the thing. On this movie Chris Williams came in to direct thefilm. He had a vision of what he wanted to do and a sort of basickind of alignment that he wanted. So as the story team we wouldcome in and work out the structure of the film and develop all thecharacters, the world, the tone – we kind of do all thatstuff. So we'd work out the structure of the movie and try tofigure who these characters are and so on. An example of how thingsconstantly evolve and change, Rhino who stands right over therestarted off as a rat. He wasn't named Rhino. We had a board thathad all these named tacked to it and no one ever seemed to like anyof them and no one sort of seemed like to Rat Thing either. So wejust kept pushing ahead and constantly tried to figure out whatthis thing should be. Our job is to bring the director's vision tothe screen, but at the same time we're not robots and we're here tochallenge the director. Like we can try to make the movie evenbetter than what the director wants or whatever, and in this casewe had this rat and we kept working and working on this andeventually the idea of a hamster evolved and so everyone reallytook a shine to that and all got pretty excited about that. Thename Rhino, there's actually a big cat named Rhino, a twenty fivepound cat. Then finally it was like, 'Well, that worked out.' Solike I said things kind of evolve and change as we go. It's thesame thing with the structure. We would record temporary scratchdialogue and we'd do screenings for the studio. It's the first timethat they're seeing and it's great because you gage what's workingand what's not working, things that we thought would be hilariousand would kill and then just lays there flat. It's like, 'Okay. Iguess that doesn't work.' Then we'd come back up to this room andtry to make it work. So we'd do that for chunks of the film and didthat overall for the movie. We'd be writing things up andoccasionally someone would have a funny idea and be like, 'We coulddo it like this –' and the story artists kind of wear twohats. We have our writers cap and our artists caps at the same timetoo. So there would be drawings. We kind of work out the movie andin the beginning we didn't have a writer and so we'd sit around theroom and beat out what the sequence should be, what should be inthere. Really, what we're trying to do is entertain ourselves andeach other in that room, something that we'd think was fun towatch. If we don't like then why show it to anyone else. So we'dtry to figure out who Rhino was. We kept talking him about the kidthat watches 'Superman' and ties a towel around his neck and jumpsoff the roof of his house and we kind of liked that, something pureand innocent, an excited character. For a while he was this lackey,Bolt's lackey and that wasn't really working either. So at somepoint we cast the sequences. We figure out a chunk of the movie andthen I'll go in and I'll think of the crew and it's like in'Ocean's Eleven' where you've got your guy who's super good ataction stuff and a really funny guy and someone who's great withdrama, that kind of thing, and Chris who boarded the sequence isgreat with character. He's great at a lot of different things, butis really good at crafting characters. This is the final version ofthe thing, but we'd work on this for months and months and monthsand then six months later we might go back into because we figureout something that happens at the end of the movie, and you'relike, 'Whoa, but we need to set that up here.' So you're constantlygoing back into things especially if you're not into production.It's easier to dive back into things and rework them. But Chris wasgiven the assignment and he did a great job of figuring out whoRhino is and he got pretty close. Again, this has probably beenthrough fifty passes, but he got really close right up front. Theidea is to really sell the movie. [doing the voices]. So from thispoint everyone would give their notes and talk about what's workingand what's not working. Maybe Rhino is working well in areas andit's just a really collaborative thing where everyone is throwingout ideas and trying to figure out what's best and then we go downto editorial and go through that whole process. There are thingsthat change, like in the final movie, even when he gets out of theapartment the layout will be different and that kind of thing.Another example of things that change when you get to animation arelike the knuckle crack that he does there. In the final movie hekind of cracks his neck and that's funnier. As you get every stepalong the hope is that everyone is going to out-plus what you did.In the writing there was a lot of changes that happened. There wasa point where Mitten's, from the get go thought Bolt was delusionaland knew that he didn't have superpowers. So when you figure thatout you have to go back in the sequence and say, 'Okay, Mittensdoesn't understand what's going on. She's just as confused aseveryone else.' So then you take another pass at it. So we mightget to a point where this is working really well. If the othersequences change though then this one can change as well. This justkeeps going and going until someone tells you stop it because it'sin production and you can touch it anymore.






How far in advance do you usually start this process beforeanimation kicks in, what's the timeline of all of it?


Greno: I suppose it's different for each movie. On this movie we started,there was that shift that happened. I'm sure you guys heard aboutthe American Dog and the Bolt thing, all that kind of stuff, but Iwas brought on the movie at the beginning of the last year. Thenthe shift happened and we only had from January '07. We didn't havemuch time. Usually you have a couple of years to kind of piecethings together and we were on a really hectic schedule. Everyonepulled together on this though to make it work. What you usuallyhave you get a sequence done, you first get a sequence and thenhave like a week to take your first pass and then a week or a weekand a half for a second pass. It's like week to week to week. Thiswas really aggressive, but all the guys lived up to it and gotthrough.


Tell us about your background, how you got started and what elseyou've worked on?


Greno: I started twelve years ago. I worked in Florida at the MGMFlorida. I worked there and went to the school in Columbus, Ohio. Ihad always wanted to work at Disney. That was my goal. For threeyears I sent my portfolio to Disney and after a few years of schoolDisney offered me a job. I did clean-up animation, 2-D. I wasworking on 'Brother Bear'. So that was fine. I was happy that I wasat Disney, but I felt that I wasn't being challenged enough forwhat I would do. I would draw on this dry erase board in thebackroom with one of my friend. I was always drying these cartoonsand he said, 'You should get into story.' I took a story class incollege and I hated it and then I realized that was the instructorand nothing to do with story itself. I said, 'Nah, no. I don't wantto get into story.' I don't think that I would care about that, buthe kept pushing and pushing. I was like, 'I'll come up with an ideafor a test.' I said, 'If I like the test I'll turn it in.' I likedmy little test and I turned it in and I started training. There wasa short that I worked on for them for a few months and I came outto California and did eight months of training. Then I went back toFlorida and I worked on 'Brother Bear' for four years, four plusyears. Then I worked on 'Meet the Robinsons' for a long while. Iworked on 'Chicken Little'. I worked on 'Rapunzel' and now Princessand the Frog and I'm not sure how long I'll be on that.


How is that coming along?


Greno: Great. I know I'm not supposed to talk about that, but it's areally good group and I've only been on that for like a month orso. I've had a lot of fun in there so far. It's good.


How have things changed at Disney in the post Pixar world for youguys?


Greno: It's a completely different studio. For the longest time we'd behere saying, 'Did you see what's going on at Pixar. Why can't wehave someone like John Lasseter.' Then all of a sudden one day itwas like, 'John Lasseter is running –' and we were like,'What?!' Really, when John came in and slashed down all the kind ofmiddle management positions that were gumming up the works, the waythat it was setup around here was crazy. Now the idea is that thedirectors come in with their own vision. Before there were allthese steps, all these creative executive levels, they weredeveloping the movies, but then they'd give them to someone tomake. John's great because he doesn't come in and say you have todo this and you have to do that, but comes in and really works withyou. He just wants what everyone else wants and it feels like he'spart of the crew and not like your boss coming in and saying thathe wants to do something different. So things got better.


Stay tuned this week for an interview with Mark Walton, layoutsupervisor and the voice of Rhino, one of the main characters inBolt!


E-mail: george@latinoreview.com