Legend Looks like a film that should not be present today. This is an original story, not already a popular book or comic adaptation. It is full of complex puppet and practical effects, some many movies survive as it is simply easy to deal with CG. And it develops some scary children’s films of the ’80 and ’90s, such as Rodal Dahl’s nightmare-rational adaptation Witches.
According to Isaiah Saxon, the author and director of the film, there was a struggle to achieve this Legend Made. "Trying to make a film took longer than the production of the film," He said in an interview on Engadget Podcast. " I think it is very difficult to reach children with your first film because children are now behind such corporate IP World. But I really wanted to reach the children with my first film, and so it took so much time."
Whenever he got a little funding for the film, Sexon says that he used it for prototype beings with London. John Nolan StudioWhich has produced animatronics for films like Jurassic World DominionAlso, scouts in Romania. "And so, before three and a half years of this work, before the green light (to make a film), I had earned this scene package which was undisputed, in a way," He said. "When A24 finally said, okay, we are going to be bold and risky and this is not what anyone does in general, but we are going to believe in you here."
The result is a film that feels incredibly individual and special. It focuses on a young girl, Yuri (Helena Zengel), growing up in a small village on the island of Carpethia. There people are afraid of Ochi, mysterious primets that live in the forests and attack farm animals. His father Maxim (Wilm Daffo in another unwanted A24 film performance) is a conservative, a highly-to-man man who leads a band of boys to hunt Ochi. Oh yes, and he sometimes wears a viking armor.
The film begins with Ochi, which looks like monkeys from a distance. Yuri was picked up to fear him, but after facing a young Ochi, she begins to reject everything that her father taught her. It also helps that the creature looks attractive, with big eyes and ears, it likes a little CircleGruge (aka baby yoda), but with fur. The infant Ochi is also a complex puppet created by John Nolan Studio, and it looks supernatural at first, because these days we hope that this computer will be generated. But it is clearly a physical object, with real facial movements that can react to the yuri.
"Puppet is an ancient art form," Saxon said, when I asked why he pushed Ochi to make a puppet, not a purely CG creature. "We have been making shadows on the wall of the cave for thousands of years, and our brain as we see that the human hand is giving life to a character, just accepting it completely."
"And then the failure of the puppet is also the attraction of the location. Even when you are not correct it, it feels alive. And especially for this baby primet, we immediately found that we were testing the puppet, that the small flaws that came through rod puppets were really really the same way that a small child would be looking for a monkey how to move his body."
Creating a reliable puppet is just a problem, however, the other is an orchestrating it effectively on the film set. "(John Nolan Studio) pushed the boundaries of what could actually do with animatronics on small scale," Saxon said. "We were able to prototype for years for the manufacture of these creatures. And then on the set, we have rehearsed each scene on a large scale with all these puppets. There are five on the body under the leadership of Rob Tugner, who are heading, and that animal’s inner monotonity – all its thinking, all its vocalizations – so that everyone can sink."
One and two people stare at the monitor and control the face of the puppet, so they all have a challenge to act as an entity, says Sexon. The sets of the film are also designed to catch all those who control the Ochi puppet, and often need to hide from the scene. And then there are suits artists. "We have small people in the APE suit, with hand extensions with heavy animatronic heads, which they can barely see out. They are hot and they are out in the Carpethian forest in the mountains of Transylvania," Saxon said.
After seeing what he completed LegendIt is not difficult to see Disney Tapping Saxon for anything in Marvel Universe, as it is with so many independent filmmakers. But this will not be possible. "I have already said no," Saxon commented on making a Marvel film, and has no desire to make anything based on the current IP.
Saxon is not perfectly against using a digital tool, despite its clear love for Papatri. Legend Still uses CG for distant shots of Ochi, and to create a virtual set. "I have also learned CG for years, and I have made purely animated 3D movies. And I myself know the software and I know that it is a Bispok craft art that is teduned and full of love and attracts attention in detail."
"This is not an honor he deserves," He said. "And this is partially because CG has a type of corporateization and extreme use. Saxon says that he knew well that a CG character could not take the film, but he also knew that it was the best way to build a 3D river that was not present in Romania.
"You have to look at each opportunity and come to the technique systematically for work. You cannot have a vision about this."
This article originally appeared on Engadget
