Beijing News (Reporter Teng Chao) The 22nd animated feature film "1/2 Magic" produced by Pixar has been released in North America on March 6, but due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the film has opened for digital on-demand at 8 pm EASTERN Time on March 20, and will land on Disney's streaming platform Disney+on April 3. The film's director, Dan Scanlon, director and co-writer of Monsters University, said it was wonderful to have people in quarantine at home see the film and provide some entertainment in this situation, "It's great to see the audience watching the film on social media." They've been messaging me about how much they love this movie and how important it is to them during this time. ">>> Pixar's "1/2 Magic" opened digital on-demand and landed on Disney+in April
Voiced by "Spider-Man" Tom Holland and Star-Lord Chris Pratt, director Scanlon said Pixar has always encouraged original stories, while the film's story is rather personal, with the director constructing a fantasy world of elves, dwarves and trolls.
"Spider-Man", "Star-Lord" and director Dan Scanlon are promoting "1/2 of magic".
Whether it's the talking toys in Toy Story, the talking rodent chef in Ratatouille, or the personified emotions in Mind Agents, Pixar Animation Studios has always been able to construct a fantasy world for the audience, where everything seems possible. Scanlon reveals the inspiration for the story of 1/2 magic and the fantasy elements in it.
Creation: The story is inspired by the director's experience of losing his father at an early age
The film revolves around the story of the introverted, clumsy teen elf Ian (voiced by Tom Holland), whose father died before he was born. He has an older brother named Barry (voiced by Chris Pratt) who has a wild personality. On Ian's 16th birthday, he learned that his father had left a spell on the brothers to reunite them with him for a day. But when the spell was interrupted, Ian and Barry found that they had brought back only half of their father's body—the lower half of his body wearing pants and shoes. They only had 24 hours to figure out how to summon the rest of their father's body.
Like other Pixar stories, 1/2 of Magic is a bizarre, brain-opening story that director Scanlon says was inspired by personal experience. When his father died, he was only 1 year old and his brother was 3 years old, so throughout his upbringing, apart from seeing his father's photos and listening to his mother tell his father's story, the brothers did not know anything about their father. As a child, Dan Scanlon was like his younger brother Ian in the film, very shy and introverted, sitting in his room all day to draw, "we always want to know who he is, whether we are very much like him, what kind of person we will grow into".
Voiced: "Spider-Man" continues to be shy, and "Star-Lord" is still dumb
This is the second collaboration between "Spider-Man" Tom Holland and "Star-Lord" Chris Pratt after Avengers 4. The younger brother of the film, Ian, is 16 years old, and the director wants to find someone who is both shy and sensitive and sincere, but also can show embarrassment in a funny way, and Tom Holland, who has played "Spider-Man" before, is undoubtedly the best candidate, he is very good at awkward and clumsy speech, and the shy voice and expression are charming. While dubbing the film, he was also dubbing another animated film, "Becoming a Secret Agent," which was tricky to switch between the two characters, but this time "my voice was more grounded and deeper." ”
"Spider-Man" Tom Holland and "Star-Lord" Chris Palat voiced the brothers in 1/2 Of Magic.
In the film, the personality of the older brother Barry is completely opposite to that of the younger brother, like a tornado, lively and outgoing, and very noisy. Chris Pratt, who played the "Star Lord" in Guardians of the Galaxy, is fully qualified for the role, believing that the character has the characteristics of death metal rock, and tried many times to find this voice, making the fantasy elf character more human. >>> the first trailer of Pixar's "1/2 Magic", star-lord Dutch brothers teamed up to find their father
Behind the scenes: Create a unique spell, and the father's legs must be emotional in the film
In the story, after the two brothers get a real magic wand, they use a spell to meet their deceased father. Director and screenwriter Scanlon said that he and other screenwriters are not the most fanatical fans of fantasy, but there are many fantasy fans in Pixar, so when the whole team got together, they created their own spells for the characters in the story, which had some logic, "to judge what spells are going to be said based on the root of a word and its connection to what is actually happening, and there must be a unique fantasy element." When Tom Holland was voiced alongside Chris Pratt, he always said to Pratt, "I like to chant mantras, they sound cool."
When the brothers Ian and Barry began to bring their father back, the spell was interrupted and greeted only with a pair of pants and a pair of shoes. From a production level, Scanlon said that this is a big challenge for animators, because the lower body "character" with only one pair of legs can sometimes make the audience feel very embarrassed and weird, and how to make these legs have strong emotions is the focus of the animators.
In the actual production, the animators actually let the actors wear green T-shirts and hoods on the upper body, and the lower body wear khaki pants and men's shoes to perform in front of the green screen, they either tilt their bodies to the side, or gently tap with their feet, with some small movements to convey more information. The director himself tried this kind of performance, and accidentally strained the muscles due to some large movements, "I sympathized with the father in the movie and found a way to establish an emotional relationship between the feet and the children."
Beijing News reporter Teng Chao
Edited by Huang Jialing Proofreader Wang Xin