We were lucky to sit down with Arthur Bradford, the director of “6 Days to Air: Behind the Scenes of HumancentiPad.” Bradford was kind enough to give us information about the time he spent with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, producers of the show “South Park,” along with the writers and animators of the show.

Bradford was approached by Stone sometime after the release of “The Book of Mormon,” written by Stone and Parker. Stone was interested in doing a documentary on “The Book of Mormon” because he found the process of creating a show interesting. However, because of difficulties in trying to get all the necessary clearances with actor’s equity, they decided to focus the documentary on “South Park” instead.

Around this time, the show’s 15-year anniversary was coming up, a factor which helped in persuading them to actually shoot the documentary. It was also a way for Bradford to learn the processes behind creating a “South Park” episode. Bradford had previously pitched the idea to Stone after “How’s Your News?” was rejected, but Stone declined the idea.

They did not want cameras inside the writing room, thinking it would be too intense. Bradford wanted this documentary to be different. He did not want to simply go in there and ask typical questions. He wanted to earn their respect, and create a documentary that showed the talent of these two people.

Still, the idea of having cameras in the writing room was a hard one for Stone and Parker to agree to, so surveillance cameras were placed around the room to monitor everything that took place. The new season required seven new episodes of “South Park.” Bradford stayed for five out of the seven episode plannings and focused the documentary on the HumancentiPad episode.

He watched as Parker chugged lots of Red Bull while pulling all-nighters, and even until the Wednesday the show aired, Parker was still working on the script. Although Parker and Stone are known for being crazy and eccentric, they also have the ability to inspire people. They have big hearts, and the HumancentiPad episode is a great instance of this.

They were aware that Steve Jobs was ill with pancreatic cancer, and decided to change his portrayal out of respect, from a satirically negative one to a positive one. Something that Parker denies is that a lot of the show is a reflection of his life. This is visible in a new episode, in which Stan turns 10 and suddenly everything that he found amusing is no longer appealing to him.

Parker’s 40th birthday was around this time, and he felt as if he hit a tough point in his life, which is arguably the highlight of his career. The documentary aired on October 9, after the first episode of the new season on Comedy Central debuted. Bradford is continuing to film with Stone and Parker, and is expecting to have another documentary released, possibly in the next year.

This documentary will further explore the animated show, along with “The Book of Mormon,” in hopes of answering questions. It will also include shooting away from the studio and exploring Colorado, where the show is based in. To Bradford, this is a learning experience where he wants to investigate the drive that pushes Parker and Stone that allows them to continue writing and pulling all-nighters.

The shooting of the film has also helped Bradford in his writing. Parker gave him advice regarding his strategy for writing a great episode. Instead of writing a very linear sequence, he switches the “ands” to “buts,” which can help make the flow of story more interesting.

The story then sounds more like: this happened, but then this happened, therefore, this happened. That is the strategy Parker uses when he writes a story – and so far, it looks as if it has been a successful strategy.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.facebook.com/southpark

The article Behind the Scenes With the Creators of “South Park” appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Marvel’s newest film, Captain America, released on July 22, joins the list of great movies that Marvel has produced these last two decades.  With action, and a balance of humor, sadness, and romance, director Joe Johnston delivers the goods straight to the door.

Amidst all the fun, the first 30 minutes is most memorable not for Captain America’s feats of strength but rather feats of bravery and physical weakness.  That’s right, Captain America had to start somewhere.  The effects teams came up with a unique and long process of creating “skinny Steve” Rodgers out of the buff and massive Chris Evans.

At first the plan to create a skinnier Chris Evans was to film a body double and digitally paste Evan’s head on the double’s body.  This technique was primarily used in David Fincher’s films, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button when using Brad Pitt’s head on an older man’s body.  The technique was also used in The Social Network when creating one of the Winklevoss twins.

However, when the time came for the double to re-create Evans’ movements, there was a problem.  He could not seem to mimic Evan’s body movement correctly.

“Chris moves in such a unique way; he doesn’t move like anybody else,” Johnston said. “The body double could not move like him. As hard as he tried to watch Chris and duplicate the movements, it just wasn’t the same.”

This led to a conundrum of what the crew should do to create the skinny Steve Rodgers. Apart from some, Evans liked that the body double would not be used.

“The beginning part of the movie is so crucial to get the audience invested in who Steve is, I didn’t want to share that part of the performance with another actor,” Evans said.  “I talked to Joe about it and thankfully, he agreed.”

With this bump in the road the crew had to figure out a different way to “unenhance” Evans’ body.

The final plan was to digitally shrink Evans’ muscles, jaw line and body to look like the 90-pound Rodgers.  This worked but left the digital effects team with a problem.  After shrinking the body, it left empty space in the background that Evan’s body previously covered.

To fix the problem, the crew had to shoot using green screens and superimpose the background into the picture to cover the empty space.  This turned out to work well but became a long and trying process.  Taking up some of the production time and all of post-production, the effects team had to alter about 250 shots to create “skinny Steve.”  However, sometimes the artists would catch a break in scenes when Evans’ was laying or sitting down because the head replacement became possible.

Captain America: The First Avenger pulled in a lot of attention in the time leading up to its release: Joe Johnston did not disappoint.  With a movie pulling off difficult special effects as well as keeping the characters and the story in mind, Captain America blew audiences away.

Many movies get carried away with special effects but Captain America, even with the overwhelming amount of effects, stayed true to what really makes a movie great, the story and the characters.

Image Courtsey of   http://www.facebook.com/CaptainAmericaMovie

The article Chris Evans’ Body – A Digital Conundrum appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.