The Making of Fantastic Mr Fox: The Making of the Motion Picture

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Ben Child (July 28, 2009). "Fantastic Mr Fox to open London Film Festival". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 29, 2014 . Retrieved July 28, 2009. It provides vivid behind-the-scenes look at Wes Anderson's creative process for this movie. And tells the story of how the movie came to be. It goes through everything from what drew Wes to the story to how he came to acquire the rights to the story, the cast of main characters, the never-seen animation hands, a couple of cut scenes, etc. It shows how an already fascinating story can be jazzed up to engage the senses in every way possible. Perhaps that is a form of growing up. Having led the hipster generation into reluctant adulthood, he's now making movies they can take their children to. Despite his insistence that Mr Fox is based on Dahl himself, it's tempting to also read him as the director's corduroy-veiled alter ego. Mr Fox is a flamboyant charmer, an impulsive dreamer who doesn't accept his position in life, a risk-taker who's got some growing up to do. Like Anderson he's also approaching middle age, thinking about moving up the real estate ladder and settling down. Anderson has spent the past few years flitting between Paris and New York, but has recently bought a house in Kent, he says. He intends to live part of the year there with his British-raised girlfriend. So is that why he's making a children's movie? To show to his own kids one day? "It'd be nice to have a six-year-old and say, 'I have this film I made, you might quite like it'. Yeah, definitely that's on my mind." You can just picture him writing in his wood-panelled study like Mr Fox, looking out at the children playing in his English country garden, in identical little corduroy suits I feel a strange compulsion to pet that fuzzy fox fur". Roger Ebert. November 24, 2009. Archived from the original on April 12, 2020 . Retrieved May 9, 2020.

a b c "Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on April 21, 2022 . Retrieved June 3, 2022. Brent DiCrescenzo (July 17, 2008). "From the UK to the Magic Kingdom". Time Out. Archived from the original on July 31, 2008 . Retrieved August 8, 2008. The group encounters Badger and many other local animal residents whose homes the farmers have also destroyed. As the animals begin fearing starvation, Mr. Fox calls them together and leads them on a digging expedition to tunnel to the three farms, stealing all of their prized goods. While the animals feast, Ash and Kristofferson begin to reconcile after Kristofferson defends Ash from Beaver's son. The book itself is amazingly detailed. There are interviews with Liccy Cahl (Roald's wife), Eric Anderson (voice of Kristofferson and brother of Wes), Jason Schwartzman (voice of Ash), and even Wes Anderson himself (interviewed by Michael Specter, who also wrote the book's introduction). The book is broken into sections based on "chapters" in the film - not necessarily the chapters as they are divided on the DVD . What I find amazing to look at, though, is the concept art for the film, particularly the characters. The art by Félicie Haymoz, Huy Vu, and Chris Appelhans really stands out too, especially Félicie's.Anderson injects such charm and wit, such personality and nostalgia—evident in the old-school animation, storybook settings and pitch-perfect use of Burl Ives—that it's easy to forgive his self-conscious touches. [35] The booklet then contains a few wonderful things. Erica Wagner provides a nice analytical essay on the film and how it fits into Anderson’s filmography. We also get a reprinting of the “White Cape” comic that appears in the film along with a number of production photos and design drawings.

a b Josh Horowitz (September 26, 2007). "Wes Anderson Enlists Bill Murray For 'The Fantastic Mr. Fox' ". MTV Movies Blog. Archived from the original on October 12, 2007 . Retrieved September 26, 2007. But first a caveat:I love the [[ASIN:B003DNN0L2 Fantastic Mr. Fox]] movie and I've seen it probably more than a dozen times. Love blinds, they say. Picture-book classic mixes the familiar and the stylish with imaginative results". Weekly Alibi. Archived from the original on January 4, 2010 . Retrieved November 27, 2009.The film was shot digitally (which, as the supplements demonstrate, is a huge advantage when doing stop-motion animation) so there really isn’t much in the way of source issues. The only mild problem I noticed was a slight bit of banding in a darker scene with a lone light source. But since this is also an issue on the Fox Blu-ray I’m going to venture a guess this mild artifact is inherent to the source material. Other than this slight (and I mean slight) problem there are no other digital artifacts: no noise, no compression, no pixilation, no nothing. Just a crisp, clean presentation. After giving his acceptance speech, the audio of the speech was used in a short animation of Anderson's character (Weasel) giving the speech, animated by Payton Curtis, a key stop-motion animator on the film. [44] See also [ edit ]

Like many great works of art, the work screams of deep care and has a hand-made quality to it. The photos in the book are first-class quality and the writing invites the reader into this fantastic world of animated puppets, how they're given life and character and presence. Academy Awards nominees". AMPAS. Archived from the original on April 8, 2010 . Retrieved February 9, 2013.

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And there’s still more! Criterion includes Anderson’s stop-motion Sony Robots Commercial, which was made for the Sony Xperia, and presents a look at what goes on in those phones—allegedly. It runs about a minute. FANTASTIC MR. FOX – Wes Anderson's Animated Acceptance Speech. FoxSearchlight. January 13, 2010. Archived from the original on January 14, 2010 . Retrieved May 17, 2011– via YouTube.

In some ways (Wes Anderson's) most fully realized and satisfying film. Once you adjust to its stop-and-start rhythms and its scruffy looks, you can appreciate its wit, its beauty and the sly gravity of its emotional undercurrents. The work done by the animation director, Mark Gustafson, by the director of photography, Tristan Oliver, and by the production designer, Nelson Lowry, shows amazing ingenuity and skill, and the music (by Alexandre Desplat, with the usual shuffle of well-chosen pop tunes, famous and obscure) is both eccentric and just right. [31] Each character has its own chapter. You can see how the director's interpretation the characters' look, traits and behaviours, are all reflected in the creation of the models. There are concept art from the initial character design to the final selected design, and the different expressions, their clothings, textures — hair, fur, wrinkly skin, etc.

What would have made this edition especially fantastic would have been the inclusion of the original novel by Roald Dahl. I’m sure this would have been an expensive inclusion so I’m in no way surprised that it’s not here, but Criterion does include audio of Roald Dahl reading Fantastic Mr. Fox. I don’t remember the original story so I actually can’t say if it’s read in its entirety, but it sounds like it. This inclusion at least makes for a great way to compare the original source to the film, which expands heavily on the story. The feature runs 53-minutes. (Since this is a dual-format edition it would have been nice if they included the feature as a separate MP3 file on one of the DVDs.) The format is beautiful and works well without beating the reader over the head with tiresome details of the process. It intersperses interviews with spectacular stills and simple line sketches in an easy to follow format. I read this book cover to cover in one sitting. Stop-motion students will smile in awe reading this book. Casual readers who love the movie won't be bogged down with technical details of rigs, sets and character costumes but will find themselves drawn to the artfulness and attention to detail that went into creating this work of art (the film and the book). The director Anderson chose to record the voices outside rather than in a studio: "We went out in a forest, went in an attic, and went in a stable. We went underground for some things. There was a great spontaneity in the recordings because of that". [10] The voices were recorded before any animation was done. [15] Animation [ edit ]