SPN - Spielberg loves Tintin

Steven Spielberg has told Sky News how much he loves Tintin as his film of the Belgian character is finally premiered. The director, at the world premiere in Brussels, says he never gave up on the project despite it taking 28 years to complete.

Tintin's creator Herge said 30 years ago that Spielberg was the only man to bring it to the big screen. And now, with the help of Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and £82m of special effects, he has done exactly that.

Spielberg told Sky News: "A lot of my movies have taken a long time for me to get around to making them but I have never done a project that has taken 28 years between a time that I first optioned the story and the time the movie finally came to the screen.

"It is only because I loved it so much that I wasn't willing to give up on it. It just took a long time to find the right medium to tell this story in." Asked why he was so found of Tintin, he said: "He is a tenacious adventurer and he's a reporter that puts himself in his own stories. "It's not that he comes from any place of ego, it's just that he gets accidentally involved in the crimes he's solving and the mysteries he's trying to uncover. "He gets in trouble and he's got all these crazy exotic characters that get him into even more trouble."

The Adventures of Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn aims to create new fans of the boy reporter with the trademark quiff and Snowy the dog. It tries to bridge the gap between the comic and the big screen by using a similar technique to that used in Avatar.

Billy Elliot star Jamie Bell portrays Tintin in the film, which also stars Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis. They had to adapt to acting in a studio and wearing special suits which registered their movements. This data was then transformed into a computer-generated, three dimensional image of the character. "It actually becomes like a rehearsal stage, like you are rehearsing for a play you will never put on stage," Bell said.

Spielberg told how he spoke to Herge shortly before his death in 1983 about adapting his creation. "He was a big fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark and actually on the telephone said he wanted me to adapt his books into movies," he recalled. "It was one of the most exciting phone calls in my life."

Asked what drives him to keep making films, the director said: "I just love movies, I love telling stories. "When I'm not making movies, I'm telling my kids stories. I'm going to do it one way or the other."

Source:skynews

SPN - Spielberg Tintin Interview

New Steven Spielberg Interview by Martyn Palmer

'I was struck by Hergé's illustrations. Without knowing one word of the language, I understood the whole story,' said Steven Spielberg of Tintin. I don’t speak or read French. In 1981, when I saw a review of Raiders of the Lost Ark in a French magazine, I didn’t understand what any of it meant. But I could see one word all over the place: Tintin. So I got the review translated into English, and in a very nice way it said that Raiders was a homage to Tintin’s creator, Hergé.

It suggested that I must have read all of the Belgian artist and writer’s books. In fact, I’d never even seen a Tintin book in my life. So I asked my assistant to go out and buy me a Tintin story, and she chose The Seven Crystal Balls. It was in French – they weren’t translated in the U.S. then – but even though I couldn’t read the text, I was struck by Hergé’s illustrations. They were so evocative of storytelling, plot and character relationships that by the end, without knowing one word of the language, I understood the whole story. I bought all the Tintin books.

I discovered that Tintin is a tenacious young discoverer and investigative reporter. His passion to achieve or uncover a mystery inspired me. I admired how nothing will stop him, and how he has this amazing relationship with the most unlikely partner, Captain Archibald Haddock.
Together they’re the yin and the yang: Tintin is the straight man, Haddock the fall guy – he’s the one who gets cold and drunk and lights a fire in a lifeboat, not realising it’s going to burn a hole in the boat and they’re going to sink. Hergé’s sense of humour was very close to slapstick and the silent movies. The detectives Thomson and Thompson are comedic characters, a double act like Laurel and Hardy.

I said to Kathy (Kennedy), my fellow producer, ‘We’ve got to make this into a movie. Where do we start?’ Kathy said, ‘We start by meeting Hergé.’ So I called him, and we had a wonderful conversation. He told me that he loved Raiders, he said I was the only person who could turn his adventures into a motion picture, and he invited us to meet him. Only a few weeks later he passed away, and I was absolutely devastated. That was in the early Eighties. At the time I was intending to make Tintin as live action – perhaps with Jack Nicholson as Captain Haddock. Roman Polanski, an old friend of mine, was going to come on board and direct one of the films. But I always say, if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage. I just couldn’t get the screenplay right. So I let the rights expire. It wasn’t until 2001 that I suddenly had an epiphany about how to make Tintin the movie and the whole process started again.

This time, Tintin was to be animated with the aid of motion capture (recording actors’ movements via sensors and using them to animate 3D models on a computer), combining live action and animation. With this method, I was confident that after four minutes of the audience wondering what genre this was, they would forget the medium. It would be like when I saw War Horse on the London stage. There were four puppeteers around each horse and the horses weren’t even realistic – they were impressionistic. Five minutes into War Horse, I stopped watching the puppeteers and I only watched the horses. Six minutes into War Horse, I saw real horses; there were no puppets.

It all comes back to the story and how you involve an audience in your storytelling, how you get them to forget where they are, who’s sitting next to them, they’re in a movie theatre or even that there’s a special effect. They’re simply transported by the experience. I am very nostalgic. I can’t help myself – it’s a wistful moment we all experience where we yearn for a return to our childhoods. If you’re not nostalgic, I don’t think there’s a pill you can take. You are or you aren’t.

For Tintin, 3D was right, but I have strong feelings about the medium. It isn’t right for every film. I would love to see David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia in 3D. But not Brief Encounter 3D! There are certain movies where 3D gives depth and breadth to the experience. There are other films where 3D removes the intimacy.

When it came to producing Tintin, I wanted Peter Jackson on board. I’m a big fan of his; he has invented some brave new worlds. The first time we met was in front of 800 million people – I opened up an envelope, took out a card and said, ‘And the Oscar goes to…’ And I presented Peter with Best Picture for his third Lord Of The Rings movie. The second time, I didn’t take the most honest route. I didn’t know if Peter had any interest in Tintin, but I commissioned his company, Weta, to do the original motion-capture test to show what Tintin and Snowy would look like. When the film came back I saw a perfect Snowy dressed up in a Captain Haddock costume! I guessed that I had got Peter at least halfway pregnant, so I called and popped the question. Would he be interested in producing the first Tintin movie with me, and, if successful, directing the second? He said, ‘You should see what’s behind me right now. I’m sitting in front of the entire Hergé library containing every single Tintin book.’

Ours was collaboration unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before – except perhaps with George Lucas. It was a real brotherhood. I had no ego. Peter and I shared all major creative decisions, starting with the scripts through to the 31 days on the motion- capture stage and beyond.
Peter is based in Wellington, New Zealand, so we had a live feed between us, and there he was on the television screen in front of me every day. It was usually 3am New Zealand time, so he would be in his pyjamas – him and Hugh Hefner! – mug of tea in hand. I wish there could have been a fly on the wall listening in on the conversations going back and forth between our offices, with us trying to get an exact match for the colours that Hergé used on his palate, trying to pick out minute details that the audience would never even know about, not just to honour Hergé but to represent his world in a photorealistic way. We were sensitive to the diehard fans from the very beginning of this entire endeavor, and throughout every day of the shoot.

For the movie, the Hergé estate gave permission to combine several stories – Red Rackham’s Treasure and The Secret of The Unicorn, already companion pieces, and The Crab with the Golden Claws – so I could show audiences how Tintin and Captain Haddock first met.

Now it’s down to the public to say what they think of Tintin. Who knew anybody would like Jaws? I was 27 years old, I went 100 days over schedule, massively over-budget and I was roasted by the studios, who called me an irresponsible young film-maker. It was a debacle. Who could have guessed the public would embrace Jaws the way they did?

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SPN - Tintin Trailer

The latest trailer for the new Tintin movie "The Secret of the Unicorn".

SPN - Tintin Trilogía

Toda esta aventura empezó a principios de los ochenta. "No conocía nada de Tintín hasta el día en el que, en 1981, leí las críticas de Indiana Jones y el arca perdida con Harrison Ford, que comparaban a mi película con un tal Tintín...". El recuerdo es de un tal Steven Spielberg. Y es importante, porque aquel hombre intrigado por el reportero del tebeo más famoso del mundo ultima, junto al realizador Peter Jackson, la primera entrega de la trilogía sobre el personaje. Se llamará Las Aventuras de Tintín: el secreto del unicornio y será una adaptación de dos álbumes de Hergé: El secreto del unicornio y El cangrejo de las pinzas de oro.

El realizador estadounidense descubrió aquel 1981 las aventuras del intrépido periodista, poco conocido en EE UU, y se puso en contacto con su autor, el belga Hergé, para pedirle los derechos cinematográficos. "A principios de 1983, cuando me encontraba en Londres rodando mi segundo Indiana Jones, tuve el honor de entrevistarme por teléfono con Hergé y su mujer Fanny". La pareja invitó a Spielberg a visitarles en Bélgica y acordaron reunirse unas semanas más tarde. Pero la reunión nunca tuvo lugar. El dibujante murió el 3 de marzo de 1983.

Son recuerdos recogidos en una entrevista exclusiva publicada ayer en un suplemento especial del diario Le Monde sobre una película que se estrena en Europa en octubre de 2011 y en diciembre en EE UU.

Spielberg explica en el diario parisino que el proyecto quedó paralizado porque no lograba dar con el guión apropiado y que con el tiempo sus gustos fueron evolucionando. "Mis películas empezaron a ser un poco más serias, con temáticas más adultas, menos familiares". Fue pasando el tiempo hasta que un día, una conversación con su productora de siempre, Kathleen Kennedy, hizo volver a nacer el proyecto. "Empezamos a evocar los buenos recuerdos del pasado y de lo que nos habíamos divertido trabajando en los álbumes de Tintín (...). Y de repente, emocionados, ¡nos decidimos a volver a comprar los derechos!". A través de DreamWorks, el realizador volvió a hacerse con todos los derechos en 2002.

Otro aspecto que dejó el proyecto aparcado fue la falta de medios tecnológicos para dar con la estética adecuada al recrear el universo del dibujante belga. "Temía poner trajes a los actores, de estilizar los decorados y de hacer una película que describe un mundo que no existe". Ahora, el realizador cuenta con el apoyo de Peter Jackson, realizador de la trilogía de El señor de los anillos, coproductor y coguionista de la serie y que dirigirá la segunda entrega de Tintín.

Ambos directores utilizarán la tecnología del motion capture, inaugurada por Robert Zemeckis con el Expreso Polar y perfeccionada en Cuento de Navidad. Con esta técnica los actores interpretan sin ropa y con captores en el cuerpo que permiten grabar sus movimientos. A partir de ahí se reconstruyen los planos y se añade la estética de cómic, lo que permitirá "honrar el arte de Hergé, su tono, su paleta de colores, sus personajes", explica Spielberg. "Son artistas los que van a dibujar el arte"
El británico Jamie Bell, de 23 años, conocido por su interpretación en Billy Elliot, será el encargado de interpretar a Tintín. Contrariamente a lo que se ha rumoreado, el reportero lucirá su característico tupé. El último James Bond, el también británico Daniel Craig, interpretará a Rackham el Rojo. Andy Serkis, el Gollum de El señor de los anillos, se meterá en la piel del capitán Haddock.

Precisamente para poder presentar desde el comienzo a este personaje, es por lo que la primera entrega, realizada por Spielberg, combinará El secreto del unicornio y El cangrejo de las pinzas de oro. Para la segunda entrega, Jackson está considerando adaptar Las siete bolas de cristal, aunque todavía no es definitivo. "Voy a volver a leer todas las aventuras de Tintín durante Navidades y tengo que decidir antes de Año Nuevo", explica. "Para la tercera, me gustaría utilizar uno de los álbumes en los que va a la luna".

Source: El Pais España