Photos: © Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
"PAUL McCARTNEY: THE MUSIC AND ANIMATION COLLECTION"
CLICK PHOTO TO ORDER DVD
Go to the Macca Report for current Paul News!!!
Exclusive Interview with Filmographer/Director Geoff Dunbar CLICK HERE
Paul's MSN Chat Transcript about the animation collection
See video of the DVD Paul interview here: http://video.movies.go.com/animationcollection/flash.html
Interview with Paul McCartney about the new DVD
Q: WHEN DID
YOU FIRST BECOME INTERESTED IN ANIMATION?
PAUL: I've loved animation for so long, since I was a little kid, and I've always wanted to get involved in making it.
Q: WHAT IS IT THAT YOU LIKE ABOUT ANIMATION?
PAUL: You can watch it on a few levels. You
can just be spellbound at the story and the characters and the
way it works. Or - as I've become more interested - I start to
get interested in how they do it and how cleverly it's written,
how amazingly well it's drawn. And for someone like myself who
likes art and likes writing and the music - it's all so beautifully
put together that it's a huge skill to do it. They make it seem
very easy, but it's actually a very skillful process.
In the end you've got to convince the sternest critics - which are kids. If it's not funny, if it's not interesting, if it hasn't got charm, kids will just go "Eh!" and go watch something else. So it's a great thing. That's one of the reasons that I love to do it.
Q: WHAT PLEASURE DO YOU GET FROM MAKING ANIMATED FILMS?
PAUL: It's a bit of a childlike thing to want to do - but I do love all that kind of stuff. Especially when you've had children when you've got children. It's like reading kids a bedtime story. You enter into it yourself. You enter into the fun of it.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE QUALITIES YOU NEED TO MAKE ANIMATED FILMS?
PAUL: In animation I think it is good to have a bit of a child-like quality about yourself. And I certainly have. It's just something that's in me. I'm still fascinated by things I was fascinated by as a kid humor, romance, passion. All the things you like as a kid.
Sometimes you grow out of them. I don't really think many people DO grow out of them. They sort of force themselves out of them.
I've been lucky to not lose those qualities - because I've been in music and I've been involved in things like this.
I think you have to have this sense of wonder and this childlike quality a bit of an innocent take on life - to make up these characters. That's one of the reasons I like to be involved.
Q: HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE CHARACTER OF "WIRRAL THE SQUIRREL"?
PAUL: We were looking for a character who wouldn't be
Mickey Mouse wouldn't be Donald Duck wouldn't be a bear like
Winnie-the-Pooh wouldn't be all the famous animals. And we thought
of a squirrel.
And in Liverpool there's a nearby place called The Wirral. And so I thought "Wirral the Squirrel!" So we got the idea that his name is William the Squirrel - but his friends have paraphrased it and they call him Wirral. He says: "My name's William the Squirrel but my friends call me Wirral."
"Tropic Island Hum" is about how he gets shot at in his home in the forest and he escapes through the help of a frog called Froggo in a hot air balloon. He takes him to a special island sanctuary and they have a great time there.
Q: WHAT INSPIRED "TUESDAY" - AND HOW DOES THE FILM DIFFER FROM YOUR OTHER TWO FILMS?
PAUL: It is based on a best-selling children's book by a guy called David Wiesner. Somebody gave me the book as a birthday present. It was beautifully drawn and it was a silly little story about frogs, one Tuesday evening, lifting off on their lily pads from the pond, and magically flying into town, having fun and all sorts of adventures while the people in the town were asleep.
I thought it was such a silly little idea, but a NICE SURREALIST little idea that I started to talk to the author of the book about would he mind us making a film of it - and he said he wouldn't.
I started talking about this to Geoff Dunbar. I said this is going to be a bit different from our normal films because there is not much dialogue. It's basically just the fun these frogs all have. It's a little bit more surreal Not so cartoon-y. It's got a sort of live-action look to it - even though it's animation.
Q: TALK ABOUT YOUR HANDS-ON INVOLVEMENT IN CREATING THE FILMS
PAUL: I always wanted to do these cartoons and then the fun for me is I get to do the music. I get to make up these children's songs in the same way we wrote "Yellow Submarine." So I get to do the songs and then get involved in the animation. And because I'm such an enthusiast and I love all that kind of thing is I get involved in the voices and other things too.
I work very closely with the
director, Geoff Dunbar. He and I have been friends for a long
time. So I talk to the director about how a character is and
we dream it all up together.
Q: WHAT INSPIRED
YOUR FIRST ANIMATED FILM - "RUPERT AND THE FROG SONG"?
PAUL: When I was a kid I used to read the "Rupert"
annuals. I used to get them for Christmas presents. At the beginning
of the book and in the end papers - instead of little drawings,
there used to be big, full drawings that the artist would do.
There was one of these in particular where there was a choir
of frogs being conducted by a lead frog. And there were little
details in the drawing there was a frog with a violin
For years I always thought: "I wonder what music they're doing." So that's what I did for "Rupert and the Frog Song." I thought: "we've got a flute, we've got a violin, we've got a choir, there's someone conducting them. Let me make some music with that in mind." So I took the drawing and tried to imagine how it might sound. And then once I'd done that - we started making the animation.
Q: WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT HAND-DRAWN ANIMATION VS COMPUTER-GENERATED ANIMATION?
PAUL: These days people who make animation tend to go for computer-generated images. I like a lot of work that people like Pixar do "Toy Story" and things. It's very good, but that 3-D sort of squeaky clean, very shiny look, isn't actually my favorite look. I don't find it as charming as hand-drawn and hand-painted stuff.
I have always been in love with the hand-drawn thing. These days it gets a bit expensive for people to make. To have to draw every single cell turn it over, paint it.
But that was the process we set up and it was a process I loved since I was a kid. I still love it. I think it's a very artistic look a very soft look and I prefer it to the completely computer look.
When we did "Tropic Island Hum" it was just on the edge of the change-over to the digital process and using computers. That was probably one of the last pieces of animation to be made that way. So we're proud of it because of that.
When you've got computer technology - it is obviously much easier to just draw an outline and flood it with red. So what we do nowadays is actually combine computer technology - in the coloring for instance. We use computers to color things.
Q: HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT WRITING THE MUSIC FOR THE FILMS?
PAUL: With "Tropic Island Hum" -
the story we'd made up - we knew that Wirral the Squirrel was
going to be saved in the hot air balloon by Froggo. And he was
going to take him to the island. And then there was going to
be a celebration on this special island to welcome him. So I
just thought what might a bunch of animals have as their celebration
song? I just made that up with that in mind.
With "Tuesday" I just wrote a tune after reading the book after looking at illustrations that I knew were going to be the basis for the film. And I just made up a tune that seemed to suit the mood.
Q: HAS THE WORK OF WALT DISNEY BEEN AN INSPIRATION TO YOU?
PAUL: I always admired Walt Disney as a kid. I really admired his work. I would sit and watch it. I always thought he was a great character. I think somebody like Walt Disney, when he made some of the great classics like "Snow White," "Bambi" and "Cinderella" had some sort of a childlike quality in himself. He's kind of a guy that loves to draw loves to invent characters like a little mouse, a little duck, all these characters. I think you have to have a sense of wonder. You have to like children. You have to like children's stories to do all of that. I think that for a grownup to work in that kind of field I think they're kind of lucky.
Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT PUTTING MESSAGES IN YOUR FILMS?
PAUL: If you look at Disney's work - there are lots of messages in it. He's one of the great filmmakers who always had some animal welfare message. If you look at "Bambi" - it's basically saying "don't shoot Bambi's mum." Look at "Fox and the Hound" there's messages about fox hunting. And we do that. "Tropic Island Hum" is about a squirrel that gets shot at. Obviously we're on the side of saving him giving him a sanctuary.
Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BONUS MATERIALS INCLUDED ON THE DVD?
PAUL: We were also able to include what they call "line drawings." When you do these characters you start off with pencil sketches and drawings. They are the very first things that move. You can see through them and you can see all the marks and the smudges on the paper and everything. It looks great, particularly if you are into animation and you like to see how things are made.
Q: DO YOU HAVE FURTHER AMBITIONS IN ANIMATION?
PAUL: It's been my ambition for a long time - since the sixties - to do a feature. And Geoff Dunbar the director and I have really been making these short films because we really want to make a feature.
It's not an easy thing to get together.
It's like writing a short poem or a lyric and then writing a
novel. The structure is completely different. We've got the characters.
We've been working on them for years. Even though it would be
huge hard work, it is something I've dreamed of doing.
In a way, we've been practicing. We've got a story now and we're working on a book that features Wirral and his girlfriend Wilhelmina, Froggo and a lot of the characters out of "Tropic Island Hum." It will be available toward the end of this year. And then we really hope to make a film of that. That's our dream.
Q: WHY ARE FROGS SO PROMINENT IN ALL THREE FILMS?
PAUL: Why frogs? I don't know. I suppose we must like frogs.
Q: HOW WILL YOUR DISCOVERY "WIRRAL THE SQUIRREL" FARE AS A STAR?
PAUL: I think he'll make it in show business.
He's a good lad. Works hard. Got all the right qualities. Got
his feet on the ground - and his tail in the air...
Jorie Gracen