Interview: Mark Andrews, Katherine Sarafian Find Ways to be ‘Brave’

Submitted by BrianTT on June 18, 2012 - 10:52am

CHICAGO – Director Mark Andrews is a part of the one of the most important creative brain trusts of the last twenty years — the men and women at Pixar. He was one of the story supervisors for Brad Bird’s “The Incredibles” and took over the directorial reins from Brenda Chapman on this week’s “Brave.” He sat down with Producer Katherine Sarafian to discuss his new film, a Scottish fable about a headstrong young woman named Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) and the problems she faces when she asks a witch (Julie Walters) to change her mom (Emma Thompson). I’ve been lucky enough to speak a number of Pixar pioneers and they are all engaging, passionate people — just what you’d expect from such a landmark studio.

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: A few of my friends who knew that I had seen “Brave” asked me an interesting question — Which Pixar film is it like? The last two films — “Cars 2” and “Toy Story 3” — had a known quantity but this is the company’s first original property in a few years and people still like a benchmark for what to expect. So how would you answer that?

KATHERINE SARAFIAN: I think of them all as quite different from each other. It’s hard to draw…

MARK ANDREWS: Intensity-wise, it would be “The Incredibles” because it’s the only other PG.

SARAFIAN: And centered on a family.

ANDREWS: Not that it’s LIKE that but with the intensity of the story and the stakes that are involved — people are actually going to get hurt or killed.

SARAFIAN: [There’s] big adventure like “Up” and “WALL-E.” I think that the thing that we think of the most about “Brave” is that it’s a whole other thing.

ANDREWS: We [at Pixar] are trying to make each unique in its own way. And special. The only constant connecting thread through all Pixar film is quality of story. You never know what to expect with the story.

Mark Andrews (center), co-director of Brave
Photo credit: Disney

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: I’ll ask you what I asked Pete Docter on “Up” — what makes Pixar different?

ANDREWS: Attention to story. They’re not going to shirk on their duty to give an audience a great story, whatever that takes. It could be seven years to make a movie, moving a release date to make sure it’s great, making a director change — Whatever it takes to make the movie the best story it can be. At the end of the day, there are a lot of talented people who can make a movie look good. That’s easy. It’s easy compared to getting a story that’s compelling with characters you fall in love with and get inspired by. And you invest in them. And that take you on a journey and an experience. That’s really, really, really, really hard. Story is hard.

Brave
Photo credit: Disney

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: Let’s talk about where THIS story came from.

SARAFIAN: We’re a filmmaker-driven studio. All of them were in development at one point and Mark’s fellow director, Brenda Chapman, came up with the idea in development. She was considering the relationship she had with her daughter. She was six years old and quite feisty and opinionated. Out of that came the idea of the relationship. And then the Scottish ancestry and legend and myth grew out of that. The original idea came from the filmmaker’s true life experience, once again.

ANDREWS: It’s that aspect of write what you know. That’s IT. If you’re going to be on any project, you’ve got to have a passion for it. You could be on it SEVEN YEARS.

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: So you brought the Scottish mythology aspect to it?

ANDREWS: I built upon it. I was an outside consultant on Scottish mythology from the get-go. Brenda had been in development for six months or so and I saw guys with kilts and talked to her about her story — “I know all this stuff. If you need anything.” Then I started bringing in books. Scottish folk tales, Celtic mythology — to give her and her crew fertile fields of story to grab elements from. That’s what I’m looking for. Details to help me understand the setting or that I may be able to draw from and be inspired from. And then when I came on board as director 18 months ago, I knew all about it. I had sat in every meeting. Pixar asked me to take the baton and I said “Absolutely” because I knew it.

SARAFIAN: Mark’s a member of our brain trust and so he consults on every film.

ANDREWS: Except this was my playground. I KNEW this stuff. I think I was a natural choice. “We’re in trouble here. We need to make a change. Who are we going to go?”

SARAFIAN: The dude in the kilt. (Laughs.)

Brave
Photo credit: Disney

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: You’ve got these books of legends. Are there any specific legends or folk tales that inspired “Brave”? Or specific works of fiction at all?

ANDREWS: Nope. Nope. The wisps are pulled directly from folk lore. We got to mold it to our needs. Witches — Scottish lore. Transformation into animals — throughout Europe and the isles. Rings of stones. There are a lot of elements that create the tapestry. What I really like about this movie is that we made our own myth that seems totally authentic and real. You could say it was a Scottish legend. I also like the aspect of legends built upon legends built upon legends. You find that a lot in Scottish lore. The same story told by a different person. There’s a lot of stuff to draw from.

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: Let’s talk about the design of Merida. Was she already designed?

SARAFIAN: Mark made some adjustments but her core look was very much in place.

ANDREWS: Not to change them. I didn’t come in going “I don’t like Scotland. I don’t like Merida.” It’s a long process and there are continuing mooments of self-improvement. “Is this as much as we can do with her hair or can we do more? We can do more? OK, let’s do more. More scraggly, curly, frizz.” It was all there but you flesh it out. We changed her face a little bit but it was really building on what was already there. I remember when Brad came on “Ratatouille,” they just said “a rat that cooks” and he took it and came up with his own movie. I knew coming into this that there was all of this work done on it. The issues were just in the story.

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: Let’s talk about the hairstyle that little girls will want this summer. From a design standpoint, why is it important to have such a defining characteristic for her? Something so strong?

ANDREWS: Everything supports the story. Even design. The camera. Every element.

SARAFIAN: We had to make it untameable. Mom’s hair is bound. It’s not just straight. It’s bound. And then she tries to bind Merida’s hair. It needs to be a bit reckless. Hard to control. And the color of it. It’s rare and unique. I’ve heard red hair is becoming extinct. It’s fiery red. Her posture. The way she walks and she comes in the room and says nothing and you know something.

Brave
Photo credit: Disney

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: You talk about how Merida controls the room and I think that’s not just design but keyed to Kelly Macdonald’s spectacular voice performance.

SARAFIAN: God bless Kelly Macdonald.

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: What does she bring that other actresses wouldn’t?

ANDREWS: She’s fantastic. The first thing that caught my eye about her was her quietness. She internalizes everything. You can feel it. She can cry on demand. She can access these wells of emotion. And I knew Merida had to go through that. I knew she could nail that. She had great fun with the role. She’s quirky. She has a great lilt in her voice. She asked about accents and I just told her to “be you.” She has great timing.

SARAFIAN: She and we were all surprised at how well she could access the teenage-ness in herself. She doesn’t have a bad relationship with her mom but she still has a mom and she could get into all of that. She’s never done animation. She’s not used to going big. It’s all new to her. And I think she had a ramp up of an hour and half. She’s extremely talented.

ANDREWS: We were behind the eight ball. I came on and we still had Reese Witherspoon in the role and she couldn’t continue on.

SARAFIAN: We had a short list and then we heard Kelly’s voice. Are you kidding me? Right from the opening narration.

Brave
Photo credit: Disney

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: I loved the use of the natural world, the setting, you don’t see use of nature this well in a lot of animation. Did you use any actual settings for inspiration?

ANDREWS: There’s no locations in “Brave” that you can actually go visit. But there’s a lot of locations that…

SARAFIAN: Come close. You can do the “Brave” tour of Scotland.

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: How does 3D change the storytelling?

ANDREWS: It’s a tool. It’s a gimmick. I don’t know if it’s where everything will be going because what we’ve done with film already has a depth but the audience wants 3D. As a storyteller, I’m thinking what I can do with it. I was really inspired by what Cameron did on “Avatar.” He used it as another tool like you would use color or lighting or movement of the camera to support the story. So I did the same thing. Working with our 3D stereographer, I told him I want to use this throughout the film on and off, deeper or less deep, depending on the scene and the intensity level. It became a storytelling tool and I was very hands on with the choices.

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: “Toy Story,” “Cars,” “Monsters, Inc.” — Pixar is in the sequel business lately. Have you thought about “Brave 2”?

ANDREWS: We never, ever think about franchise. Get in line. “Incredibles 2” has to be first. We’d love to see it but the story has got to be right.

HOLLYWOODCHICAGO.COM: What’s next?

ANDREWS: Vacation.

SARAFIAN: Spending time with our families.

ANDREWS: And then get right back to work with more movies, more ideas.

See this movie before they start working on the next one when “Brave” opens nationwide on June 22, 2012.