Seth MacFarlane will host the 85th Academy Awards, telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced ealier this week. This will be MacFarlane’s first appearance on Oscar’s stage. The 85th Academy Awards will be broadcast live on Oscar Sunday, February 24, on the ABC Television Network.

“We are thrilled to have Seth MacFarlane host the Oscars. His performing skills blend perfectly with our ideas for making the show entertaining and fresh,” said Zadan and Meron. “He will be the consummate host, and we are so happy to be working with him.”

“It’s truly an overwhelming privilege to be asked to host the Oscars,” said MacFarlane. “My thoughts upon hearing the news were, one, I will do my utmost to live up to the high standards set forth by my predecessors; and two, I hope they don’t find out I hosted the Charlie Sheen Roast.”

“Seth is unbelievably talented,” said Academy President Hawk Koch. “We couldn’t be happier with the creative team we’ve assembled. With Craig, Neil, and now Seth, we’re off to a great start.”

MacFarlane made his feature directorial debut this summer with the box office success “Ted.” He also co-wrote and produced the film, and voiced the title character. “Ted” has brought in over $420 million worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing films of the year.

MacFarlane is the creative force behind the television series “Family Guy” and co-creator of “American Dad!” and “The Cleveland Show. “In September he hosted “Saturday Night Live” for the first time, for the show’s 38th season premiere. An accomplished live performer, MacFarlane has played to sold-out audiences at London’s Royal Albert Hall and New York’s Carnegie Hall.In 2011 he released his debut album, “Music Is Better Than Words,” which earned two Grammy nominations. He also has earned 13 Emmy nominations and won two for his work on “Family Guy.”

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2013, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center. Don Mischer will direct the telecast for the third consecutive time. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

Image Courtesy of  Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

The article Seth MacFarlane ‘Overwhelmed’ to be Hosting the Oscars appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

For more than a decade, Seth MacFarlane has stretched the envelope of comedy about as far as it can go as the visionary behind the hit television shows “Family Guy,” “American Dad!” and “The Cleveland Show.” Now he brings his boundary-pushing brand of humor to the big screen for the first time as writer, director, producer and voice star of ‘Ted’.

In the live-action/CG-animated comedy, MacFarlane tells the story of John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg of ‘The Other Guys’, ‘Contraband’), a grown man whose simple childhood wish brought his cherished teddy bear to life. Almost 30 years later, the fairy tale is very much over. Ted is reluctant to leave John’s side…to the increasing annoyance of John’s only-so-patient girlfriend, Lori Collins (Mila Kunis of ‘Friends With Benefits’, ‘Black Swan’).

Though Lori’s displeasure with John is exacerbated by his dead-end career and days spent smoking weed and drinking beers with Ted, she’s not the one who is the most frustrated with him. As John struggles to figure out a way to navigate this thing called adulthood, it will take the unexpected help of his boyhood toy to make the leap from man-child to a grown-ass man.

Shooting in Boston

‘Ted’ is told in the Boston, Massachusetts, of today. The filmmakers agree that you provide realism to a completely unrealistic story when you set the tale in an actual place. MacFarlane asserts: ““Family Guy” is set in Rhode Island because that’s one more thing that helps lend reality to something that’s out there, and with this movie we took the same tact and set it in Boston. Despite the fact that we’re dealing with a talking teddy bear, this is, in effect, the real world. In this universe, Ted’s presence is completely normal, which means that everything else about it had to be completely real.”

Producer Jason Clark continues that the team did not want to overstate the level of fantasy already inherent in the story. He says: “We didn’t want to create an inauthentic, unnamed urban locale. We wanted it to play out in a very specific location, which is what we delivered with Boston.”

Production designer Stephen Lineweaver was charged with creating a real world in which a talking teddy bear shares the streets with regular humans. “We created an array of interesting environments, including Donny the obsessed stalker’s wonderful and creepy house. We also designed our spaces to allow us to see things from a small bear’s eye level, which brings a whole new perspective and look to the movie.”

One of the filmmakers’ goals was to find an iconic location to shoot the final moments of the film’s climactic chase sequence through Boston. To their excitement, the Boston Red Sox organization agreed to allow them to film in Fenway Park, the venerable baseball stadium that opened in 1912. However, the giant lighting tower that Ted and Donny climb was reproduced on a stage.

During one of the nights lensing at Fenway, the production was graced with the presence of the Stanley Cup, the ice hockey trophy then recently won by the Boston Bruins. As filming continued atop the park’s Green Monster above left field, cast and crew raced to the field’s first-base line field to be photographed with the great silver trophy.

Donny and his awkward, aggressive 10-year-old son, Robert (played by ‘The Hangover Part II’’s Aedin Mincks), live in a house that oozes menace. According to Lineweaver: “We wanted to create a place that was incredibly creepy and weird, and we used a sense of falling-down architecture. Donny has never left the house, but his father has died or gone away. Since Donny is a different kind of creepy from his father, we updated the badly worn ’80s green leather couch and some of the chrome but kept the disparate pieces made of cheap laminated wood that were his father’s.”

The very wealthy Rex lives in a house described by Lineweaver as “over the top.” He shares of this home that serves as a setting for the film’s extravagant party: “In New England, you don’t see many 10,000-square-foot modernist houses on the beach.” The actual house sits in a suburb north of Boston called Swampscott.

The climax at Fenway was just one of the many sequences filmed in key Boston locations. Norah Jones’ concert takes place at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River, home of the Boston Pops’ July 4th extravaganzas; John and Ted get high and run into Donny for the first time at the beautifully manicured Boston Public Garden, home of the famous swan boats; and John tells Ted that Ted has to move out while standing amidst the great tanks in the New England Aquarium. These beautiful locations helped the production set the stage properly for the Boston setting.

Image Courtesy of  Ted

The article Location Boston: Seth MacFarlane’s ‘Ted’ in the Real World appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Seth MacFarlane’s new comedy ‘Ted’ is out in cinemas on June 29 and tells the tale of a boy and his friendship with a toy. From the moment they find each other, young John Bennett and the cuddly bear Ted vow to be best friends, forever and ever. Their shared childhood joys include time go-karting, making snow angels, watching ‘Flash Gordon’, dressing in costumes for the local opening of ‘Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace’ (as Darth Maul and Yoda), getting high…and watching ‘Flash Gordon’. As kids, their shared fear of thunder bonds them as “Thunder Buddies,” and the phobia follows them into adulthood. Nothing scares away thunder more than a shared song to embolden their spirits.

MacFarlane discusses casting the role of the man who just can’t grow up: “Mark Wahlberg was the perfect fit because he can be hysterically funny, yet he’s also able to deliver genuine emotion and realism. When he talks to the bear, you believe that bear is sitting there. The way he could sit there and show such genuine emotion over the prostrate body of an inanimate stuffed animal was pretty impressive, and that is going to be a very big reason why the audience is invested in this.”

While Wahlberg has only appeared in a handful of comedies, his skills wowed the director. “His ability to do physical comedy is incredible,” continues MacFarlane. “That loveable, gullible character he plays in ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘I Heart Huckabees’ was something we saw as a jumping-off point for John: the sweet and funny guy who is susceptible to Ted’s urgings.”

Wahlberg admits that he usually selects the role opposite in character from the one he last filmed. He says: “I went from doing ‘The Fighter’ press to shooting ‘Contraband’ in New Orleans during award season and going back and forth. Then I got a copy of the script, and when I read it, 30 minutes into it I completely forgot about the bear, and I thought, ‘Wow, what a great buddy movie with this dilemma in the middle of it with the girlfriend.’ Then I met Seth, and I was campaigning to get the part.”

As he read the screenplay, Wahlberg says he was quite impressed by the comedy: “People will not be disappointed. It’s Seth on steroids. When I first saw “Family Guy,” I couldn’t believe that he was getting away with some of that stuff in a cartoon. But now with this rated-R feature film, he really pushes the envelope. There’s nobody that he doesn’t offend, either. Across the board, everybody’s fair game.”

Wahlberg introduces us to his character: “John works at a rent-a-car place and has a beautiful girlfriend, Lori. He doesn’t want to let go of his adolescence, but his girlfriend wants him to step up and be a man. He’s enjoying life and couldn’t be happier with his girlfriend and his best friend; they make the most of every moment together. But that becomes a problem because Lori wants a bigger commitment.”

His first blended animation film, the actor wanted to make sure that he did the part justice. He says: “My only concern was that I wanted to play everything as real as possible. I wanted to play it completely straight and let the laughs come from the craziness of the situation. That was exactly what Seth was looking for.” So intense was his preparation to ready himself for the scene in which John rattles off a number of potential names to Ted, Wahlberg wrote out each girl’s name hundreds of times.

Producer Scott Stuber knew that the man they cast had to implicitly believe that his director wouldn’t lead him astray. He explains: “Trust is a big word, and Mark had to go there with Seth. He had to sit on a couch next to a kickstand and hope that the animation and the personality of that bear would feel like two guys on a couch having fun and having real camaraderie. Mark was unbelievable; he gives such a great performance.” The producer acknowledges that their lead gave them his all: “The irony is that if you watch the dailies of the movie, there’s nobody playing against him. If you watch the movie just from Mark’s perspective, he’s getting his bare ass whipped, has to get up and sing poorly and is beat up by a bear—all kinds of indignation for his character. He just never complained, and he did everything we asked of him.”

Cast opposite Wahlberg was Mila Kunis as Lori Collins, John’s formerly patient girlfriend and a rising public relations executive. The actress, who has voiced the role of “Family Guy”’s Meg for almost 13 years, grew up with her director. Says MacFarlane: “It was a logical choice to bring her on board, given my relationship with her combined with the fact that she is just blowing up right now, and deservedly so.”

Discussing Lori’s part in the comedy, MacFarlane shares: “As with Mark, we had the same set of needs.

This role had to be played with believability, despite the outrageousness. Her relationship is hampered by the fact that this guy’s teddy bear is hanging around and keeping him from evolving and allowing their relationship to evolve. To play that real is asking a lot of an actor, and she pulled it off with flying colors. You believe that she’s genuinely distraught that this stuffed animal is dominating their life. In many ways, that was the key to the recipe for the comedy. Since the premise brings its own comedy, the trick for mining it is to play it straight at the core.”

How did Kunis feel about tackling the project? “I’ve known Seth since I was 15,” she says. “If you can work with your friends all the time, you can’t ask for a better work environment.” Plus, she deadpans, “It’s a movie about a talking teddy bear, and I would expect nothing less from Seth, Alec and Wellesley. It all made sense to me, and I didn’t question it at all. I’m on a cartoon with a talking dog. Like I’m going to question a bear?”

Nonetheless, Kunis still found the experience working with MacFarlane directing “a little strange.” She offers: “On “Family Guy”, I’m in one booth. He’s in another booth, and normally he has to explain to me what’s happening because you record “Family Guy” a year before anything’s drawn. Seeing him as the director explaining scenarios and characters and visually setting up shots has been great. Seth gets so giddy when he gets a take that he likes.”

Kunis explains that Lori is none too happy with the odd triangle in which she finds herself embedded. The actress says: “Ted is a roommate who gets in the way a lot. Lori is a hard-working girl who loves John for being a child at heart, but she also wants to settle down and have a sense of security that he’s not capable of giving her. He is a sweet, beautiful soul, but he’s like a stunted 15-year-old boy who means well but doesn’t have the drive to go past a certain point. All he does all day long is smoke weed and get high with his teddy bear. Lori tries to get John to get Ted to move into his own place so that the two of them can start their life together.”

‘Ted’ isn’t the first time the two actors have performed with one another. Kunis shares: “Mark’s very present, and he’s a comforting actor to work with. Just knowing that there’s somebody who is looking out for your best interests and that you can trust is very rare.”

Though the crux of the comedy is Ted, John and Lori, it was crucial to the filmmakers not to support the main characters with stock ones. Stuber offers: “We wanted to fill out our characters’ lives. One of the mistakes we sometimes make in filmmaking—whether it’s a comedy or a romantic comedy—is that we tend to never show that our main characters have diverse lives. It was important to dimensionalize Ted, Lori and John’s work lives and make sure that you knew these characters. Plus, across the board, we were able to get the kind of supporting actors that we wanted.”

Image Courtesy of  Ted

The article Mark Wahlberg in ‘Ted’ – ‘It’s “Family Guy” on Steroids’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The first actor cast for ‘Ted’, coming to theaters on June 29, was the same one helming the film. Doing quadruple duty on set, director Seth MacFarlane realized the character of Ted through the combination of the vocal and physical performance. This was coordinated by MacFarlane wearing a motion-capture suit and the postproduction work of the visual effects team headed by VFX producer Jenny Fulle of The Creative-Cartel and VFX supervisor Blair Clark.

MacFarlane explains the process: “It was necessary to have the suit there every day and for me to do a lot of the directing work with it on. So it had to be something that was comfortable. [Producer] Jason Clark found this company that had a unique technology called Moven, and there are straps that go over your everyday clothes. There were days when I had to have it on the entire day, so it had to be something that was going to capture the data that we needed but wasn’t going to be constrictive or distracting.”

The filmmakers’ primary focus was to give each scene the feel of two live actors working in the same environment. Often the voices for CG characters have to be done weeks before or weeks after the scene is shot, and the result is that it doesn’t quite connect with the actors who are on screen. “To get spontaneity, Seth was on the set in his suit working directly with the actors so it’s not dubbed over later,” explains producer John Jacobs. “It’s like a live performance between him and the other actors. He was able to trade riffs with Mark [Wahlberg] or Mila [Kunis] or Joel [McHale]. It makes a big difference, especially for comedy and for the improv that occurs during filming.”

“In a perfect world, the performance of Ted is the same as everyone else’s performance,” states MacFarlane. “It’s the same level of reality. ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ is a great film and many of the techniques utilized in that movie are utilized in this one, but we didn’t want to create the scenario in which there are the people and there are the cartoons. We wanted them all to be people, one of whom happens to have the body of a teddy bear. The trick was to treat Ted the same way as we treated everyone else. We avoided anything that would remind you that he’s just not another person, like having anyone have to lift him up to get to a high place.

“The guy I look to as the epitome of doing that right was Jim Henson,” continues the director. “The Muppets were real people; in that world it was normal for Muppets to be walking around. In ‘The Great Muppet Caper’, Kermit and Fozzie work at a newspaper and Jack Warden is their boss. They have the same relationship that newspapermen and their boss have in any movie, they just happen to be puppets. That was what we wanted.”

Producer Scott Stuber agrees with his director. He says: “The movie doesn’t work if you don’t believe that bear is real and has a personality and dimension next to John. That was the big overcome. So once that worked, we knew that movie would work. Seth spent a lot of time on the animation, on the reality of the voice and on the reality of the movements. That helped all of the actors who worked against Ted.”

So what was the inspiration for Ted’s voice? “I’m from New England,” MacFarlane notes, “and a lot of my family is from the Boston area so I grew up with plenty of Bostonians and Rhode Islanders. Ted’s voice is a melting pot of voices, but deliberately more real sounding than, say, Peter’s, Brian’s or Stewie’s in “Family Guy.””

When Ted is a young talking cub, he is played by actor Zane Cowans, who also plays the chief bully that gives young John such a hard time early in the film. What was good for MacFarlane was good for the young actor, and Cowans also performed the dialogue live while strapped into the Moven suit.

Image Courtesy of  Ted

The article Seth MacFarlane Gets ‘Moven’, Suits Up for ‘Ted’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Joel McHale, familiar to audiences for his comedic roles on “Community” and “The Soup,” was cast as the lecherous Rex, Lori’s boss at Plymouth PR in the upcoming comedy ‘Ted’. “Joel was an obvious choice for me,” says director Seth MacFarlane. “I had tested him for a pilot for FOX. With Joel it was about an old-fashioned swagger. There’s almost nobody in Hollywood who can do that now because it seems that everyone has a much more informal style. Joel was the only guy that I could think of who could pull that off.”

Not used to being turned down, Rex mounts a merciless pursuit of his unresponsive employee. It’s one that proves futile until she and John separate after a final Ted-precipitated disaster. Producer Jason Clark explains: “Joel, as Lori’s boss, works a destructive wedge in her relationship with John, yet he is such an incredible comedic actor who brings so much humor and charm to the role that you just love to hate him.”

McHale is the first to admit: “Rex is not the greatest guy in the world. Almost every time you see him, he is Olympic in his success; consider the amount of purple he wears. He is incredibly rich, drives a Bugatti, runs a PR firm and is living the good life, or he believes he’s living the good life. He’s nailed everything in the office, and Rex gets what he wants.”

The actor appreciated the style of his director. “Seth is a rare combination in that he has talent and creativity pouring out of his ears,” commends McHale. “He can do anything. I have seen him heal people, and he can lift large objects by just thinking about it. He has all that talent, and yet he’s the most humble, self-deprecating person you’ve ever met. He is also open to messing around. After we did the lines, he would let us improvise and throw in jokes.”

Giovanni Ribisi, recently seen opposite Wahlberg in the action-thriller ‘Contraband’ and Emmy nominated for his role on “My Name Is Earl,” plays Donny, a man whose boyhood need for a friend like Ted has grown into a dangerous adult obsession. “I think Donny had a tough upbringing. He was the boy who never got a teddy bear, so there is a hole in his life,” states Ribisi. “He wants Ted. When he gets older, he becomes a stalker who takes it upon himself to get what he never had. His life has been so destitute and downtrodden; he’s looking for an opportunity to realize his dream himself.”

The actor remembers “getting a phone call about doing the table reading of the script. The material was definitely off the beaten path for me. Seth called me up a couple days after the reading and said, ‘I want you to be involved when we make the movie.’ I was over the moon because I’m a huge “Family Guy” fan.”

“Giovanni brought so much to this role that we weren’t expecting,” praises MacFarlane. “He’s a great actor, but the form that greatness takes always remains to be seen. We don’t see as much of Donny in the script. He was a little less fleshed out, and Giovanni came in and completely dimensionalized the role in ways that make the character a more memorable villain.”

Along with the film’s co-writers and Kunis, there are a number of other MacFarlane favorites in ‘Ted’. ““Family Guy” fans will be familiar with cast members Patrick Warburton, Alex Borstein [the inimitable Lois Griffin], Ralph Garman and John Viener, who play multiple characters on the show,” notes Jacobs. “They all have a shorthand with Seth; some of them have worked with him for a decade, and they are his family. It ups the comedy when they get together on the set. It’s magic to see.”

Borstein, who plays young John’s mom, reveals: “They were nice enough to say, ‘Let’s have a lot of our friends we’ve worked with for years do something,’ so this was a gift.” She dryly adds, “As far as a teddy bear coming to life? I’m a Jew, so there’s no such thing as a Christmas miracle. In my house, I’d cut the bear open and throw it out. Hanukah bears don’t talk, and they don’t come to life. They sit and complain.”

Rounding out the cast are Bill Smitrovich (‘Iron Man’) as Frank, Ted’s demented supervisor at the grocery store; Matt Walsh (‘Bad Santa’) as Thomas, John’s Tom Skerritt-loving boss at Liberty Rent-a-Car; and Laura Vandervoort (TV’s “V”) as Tanya, John’s oddly empathetic co-worker. Lori’s catty PR colleagues at Rex’s firm include Jessica Stroup (‘Prom Night’) as Tracy, Ginger Gonzaga (TV’s “The Morning After”) as Gina and Melissa Ordway (‘A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas’) as Michelle.

Image Courtesy of  Ted

The article New Comedy ‘Ted’ Boosted by “Community,” “Family Guy” Cast appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Directed by Seth MacFarlane from a screenplay he wrote with Alec Sulkin (“Family Guy”, “The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn”) and Wellesley Wild (“Family Guy”, “The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn”), the new comedy ‘Ted’ about John (Mark Wahlberg) and his friendship with a bear, opening on June 29, co-stars an impressive comedic lineup that includes Joel McHale (TV’s “Community”, ‘What’s Your Number?’) as Rex, the very rich and even more lecherous boss of John’s girlfriend Lori; Donny (Giovanni Ribisi of ‘Contraband’, ‘Avatar’), a guy who wants to fulfill his childhood dream and have a Ted of his very own; and Patrick Warburton (‘Rules of Engagement’, “Family Guy”) as Guy, John’s fight-club-loving co-worker at the rental-car counter.

The cast of ‘Ted’ is supported by a number of “Family Guy” regulars that include Jessica Barth as Tami-Lynn, Ted’s fellow cashier and non-ursine girlfriend; John Viener as Alix, John’s clueless co-worker; and Alex Borstein and Ralph Garman as young John’s loving-yet-befuddled mother and father. Joining them is newcomer Brett Manley, who portrays 8-year-old John, whose Christmas wish starts this whole friendship.

Multi-Grammy-Award-winning recording artist Norah Jones (My Blueberry Nights) appears as one of Ted’s exes, while Sam Jones (‘Flash Gordon’) cameos as the living embodiment of all that John and Ted hold great and true, their hero Flash Gordon. Acclaimed performer Patrick Stewart (‘X-Men’ series, ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, “Family Guy”) serves as the film’s narrator.

The right settings

Production of ‘Ted’ took the team around Boston. The exterior of John and Lori’s apartment was shot on Chandler Street, a picturesque block in Boston’s Back Bay. “Lori might live with a guy and his teddy bear, but she’s not going to live in a frat house,” says production designer Stephen Lineweaver. “She wants the place to look nice, while John’s just happy to be smoking pot with his teddy bear. The apartment is a nice, big, open space that we built on the stage—a place that hasn’t been renovated, one that you could rent in a good area. The real building that we used to shoot the exterior is on a gorgeous block in Boston’s Back Bay and has actually been chopped up into little apartments.”

Ted cajoles Lori to meet John at Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe, also in the Back Bay, just down Columbus Avenue from the site where the Union United Methodist Church, a cornerstone of Boston’s African-American community, also plays a key role.

John takes Lori to Sorellina restaurant for their anniversary dinner, and their disastrous double date with Ted and Tami-Lynn blows up at the Gaslight Brasserie. As well, John and Ted wait in a line of costumed fans at the Somerville Theatre for the opening night of Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace.

Just north of the city, John and Lori play miniature golf in the Route 1 Miniature Golf Course, with its dinosaur that is oh-so visible from the highway, and Rex’s modern seaside mansion is set in the North Shore suburb of Swampscott, Massachusetts.

Less picturesque, but just as authentic, are the sites used for the exteriors of Ted’s apartment building (after John kicks him out) and Donny’s home in Chelsea, just over the looming Tobin Bridge. Notably, the opening scenes were filmed in Norwood, Massachusetts, a suburb south of Boston.

Design extended from production to costume. “When you’re doing a story that is so funny, raunchy and out there, keeping the characters grounded in reality is the most important thing,” says costumer Debra McGuire, who has designed on several Judd Apatow movies, including ‘Knocked Up’ and ‘Superbad’, as well as on the iconic television series “Friends.” She notes: “Seth loved ‘Freaks and Geeks’, which was altogether reality based, so he knew that we would accomplish that with ‘Ted’. But even so, in a few instances Seth had to bring me down a bit with some of the characters, as with Rex, who we might have taken a little bit further.”

Giovanni Ribisi’s early take on his role was not as subtle as what ultimately appears on screen. “I started out with this insane concept,” says the actor, “and we did some experimentation in wardrobe. I wanted to have a wig and a headband, as well as glasses and dolphin shorts with rainbow suspenders. It was so out there that Seth said, ‘Let’s rein it back in.’ However, the mustache was part of that original concept and is the one thing that stubbornly refused to go.”

Though not a creepy dresser, John still sports a distinct look. McGuire describes him as a complicated guy. “From the first scene, when we see John as an adult on the couch, smoking a bong with Ted, you know that he’s a bit of a slacker, so he wears T-shirts, jeans, sweatshirts and things that are in that youthful, adolescent mode but without the look being too dead-on. He also has to be attractive and interesting enough for Mila’s more sophisticated character to find him attractive. So there’s a fine line there: You can’t grunge him up too much because you have to maintain that chemistry between them.”

Lori’s sense of style informed both the way she dressed and how the apartment the couple shares was designed and decorated. The costumer notes: “Lori works in a PR firm where the dress is a little upscale; her clothes are not super expensive but definitely in the designer realm, and the fit is perfect. Her wardrobe is hip and trendy but not over-the-top. Everything is believable, and Mila is so beautiful you can put almost anything on her and she looks fantastic.”

Every self-respecting bear is suitably dressed for the right occasion. So, what would Ted wear? McGuire concludes: “Blair Clark and I communicated early on about whether or not Ted was going to wear clothes. My feeling was that going minimal would take us a long way, and I was happy when everyone agreed to only the little jacket Ted wears to his job interview and his Star Wars costume.”

Image Courtesy of  Ted

The article Production of ‘Ted’: Set Design and Costumes to Match appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Most first-time director’s efforts are not complicated by performing in their film or coordinating the appearance of a character that would be computer generated and layered in during postproduction. But director of new comedy ‘Ted’, Seth MacFarlane, did not find the added tasks especially daunting. “I come from 15 years of animation, so there was a preexisting comfort level,” he notes. “Yes, the CG-3D animation is a little different from my background in 2D animation, so there was a bit of a learning curve at first, but it was pleasantly surprising how easy it was to turn the dial and adapt my brain to that kind of thinking.

“I’ve got a phenomenal team that was unbelievably innovative and continued to be innovative into postproduction,” he continues. “We’ve asked them to do something that in a comedy is relatively untried: Forget everything you know about Pixar or DreamWorks-style animation, and make this character move with human gestures the same as everyone else—not a lot of squash and stretch, not a lot of cartoony stylizing in the actions.”

Strapped into his Moven suit (motion capture technology) just off set, MacFarlane performed Ted’s dialogue and gesticulations in scenes between the bear and the other main characters. “But there are many cases that the gestures were not and could not be mine,” the director notes, “because when all the big action is taking place, it’s impractical to do that on a mo-cap stage; you have to animate it. Since a lot of Ted is mo-cap that incorporates my gestures, the challenge for the VFX team was to make everything seem just as realistic. It’s the hardest thing in the world for animators to play it subtle and play it real. I’ve spent years trying to get my guys at “Family Guy” to get there, and when you add the 3D element, it’s a whole other animal. I was very comfortable with their talent and their ability to pull this off, and they were enthusiastic about it.”

Producer Jason Clark describes how the bear was filmed and ultimately created for the screen: “Since Ted doesn’t actually show up until postproduction when we rendered him, we had to create a series of ‘passes’ as we filmed each scene to record the information. First, we did a ‘stuffy pass,’ which required placing a stuffed bear in Ted’s position in a scene to give the actors an indication of where the bear would be. This helped them to understand what their characters are seeing and where their eye line should be.

“After that, we recorded our ‘eyeline pass,’ placing into the scene an eyeline reference tool [basically a stick with two dots representing Ted’s eyes] so the actors would look at the correct place where Ted would eventually be rendered,” the producer continues. “At that time, Seth was off camera in a Moven suit that tracked his body movements by transmitting, via radio frequencies, the location of each of the sensors placed on him, instead of requiring a volume of cameras to film it. He was miked traditionally, and his voice was recorded in the same space and time as the actors so that the result was authentic and immediate and dialogue could overlap.”

Clark describes how a third on-set “pass” was filmed with Creative-Cartel’s Civetta camera. He shares: “It’s a new technology that allows you to take 360-degree photographs of the set and create a digital reference of the lighting scheme and 3D geography around you. We used that intensely on every shot in which the bear appears. It’s a two-minute recording of the actorless set that allowed us to obtain a record for the teams of animators creating the bear’s performance to have as a reference of the lighting in the scene. This allowed them to create seamless lighting on the bear.”

This allowed Ted to “physically” interact with the environment. For example, if MacFarlane needed Ted to sit on the couch, the pillows were depressed. If he needed the bear to run across a bed, they created depressions in the bedclothes where his footsteps would go. This interactive environment created less separation between the CG character and the live-action role.

Production designer Stephen Lineweaver was also tasked with reinforcing the notion that Ted is just like everybody else in his world. He emphasizes that carried over into the set design: “One thing that we were conscious of was organically building different levels for Ted to be able to appear at others’ heights at any given point—unless he’s supposed to be imposed upon by somebody, then he was on the floor. In order for him to appear on the same level, should Seth want to film a two-shot with another character, there were nooks and crannies in the apartment to which he can climb. That was an interesting design problem that I hadn’t dealt with before.”

Naturally, MacFarlane’s actors found sharing the screen with a bear that wasn’t there to be a challenge. Shares Mark Wahlberg, who had to train for weeks with a stuntman to capture the moves needed in his motel fight with Ted: “It took a little while to get used to, but once we got into the swing of things, I started feeling very comfortable with the idea of just acting opposite the stuffed bear or the little stick with the eyes on it. Of course, having Seth in the room doing the voice was also very helpful.”

“You act against nothing,” echoes Mila Kunis. “If you’re lucky, the first take you get a stuffy ‘pass,’ but then they pull the stuffy away and you’re literally acting against air.”

“It’s just you with a stand,” adds Giovanni Ribisi. “There is a fascination with the idea of making a movie almost in the way of doing theater, where it’s just you using your imagination.”

Image Courtesy of  Ted

The article ‘Acting Against Nothing’ – Making ‘Ted’ Come Alive appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Although Seth MacFarlane originally conceived of the upcoming movie ‘Ted’ as an animated series, he soon realized the story would lend itself better to a motion picture, especially with enormous advances that have been made in CG imaging and VFX technology over the past several years. He enlisted fellow “Family Guy” writers Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild to help develop the story of the magical stuffed teddy bear and the owner whose development has been officially arrested.

Together, they created Ted the movie a tale of a lonely boy whose 1985 Christmas wish is miraculously granted and whose beloved bear creates a worldwide sensation when he comes to life. Young John’s headline-grabbing teddy is famous across the planet and routinely takes bookings such as “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” But as the decades pass, a grown-up John finds that his once cherished toy has become his worse-for-the-wear, foul-mouthed, cynical companion. And as much as John loves Ted, John’s starting to feel the effects of spending the majority of his time with him.

MacFarlane walks us through the screenplay’s genesis: “Alec, Wellesley and I have worked together for years. I met them when “Family Guy” got canceled in 2002. They were working on a FOX sitcom called “The Pitts,” and I got hired to consult. We found that our comedic voices were very similar and that we worked well together, so I hired them on “Family Guy” when the show was brought back. They’ve been writing superstars since then and seemed an eminently logical choice. They have a great sense of the blend of story backbone, heart and, of course, jokes. They are two of the best joke writers that I know.”

“Seth had the idea for ‘Ted’ for a long time,” recalls Wild. “I remember him saying that he was waiting for the technology to get to the point where he could make it look like a real teddy bear.” He laughs, “It was Seth’s concept, but he didn’t have time to write it with his 20 shows on television, so he sent us off to write a rough draft. We continued to work with him on weekends, changing it and punching it up.”

“Seth said he wanted it to be a very R-rated comedy,” adds Sulkin. “The bear comes to life with a little child’s wish, and then you cut to almost 30 years later and it’s the roommate who won’t leave. They have a sweet beginning; then Ted becomes this national sensation and ultimately turns into something like a former child star. He’s somebody who was famous, is still alive, but not famous anymore. People continue to recognize Ted when they see him walking around with John, like when the pair is on their way to smoke pot in the park and run into some girl fans who recognize him and want to be photographed with the cuddly guy.”

MacFarlane agrees that he was most interested in the humor that occurs after the boy and bear grow up and Ted is no longer considered to be special. “A big part of the comedy comes from the fact that years after the bear came to life, people have gotten used to it and nobody cares anymore,” the director says, “a point it would naturally get to in real life. So once that big moment has passed, what’s the other 95 percent of your life going to be like? That was part of the comedy in ‘Ted’.”

The project came over to Bluegrass Films and had producer Scott Stuber and executive producer Jonathan Mone laughing within the first several pages of the script. They were not only impressed with how clever and unique the screenplay was, but also that it still contained classic storytelling elements.

Stuber reflects that it was the writers’ ability to blend their voices into a singular one that interested him: “Alec, Wellesley and Seth have a great shorthand and feed off of each other. In comedy, that’s important because not every great joke starts as a great joke. They protect each other and are on each other’s side, so they give each other the creative freedom to try different things and then find the right answer. They do this continually in their work.”

While it was critical to the filmmakers to bring bawdy comedy to the R-rated ‘Ted’, they knew the film would never work without a good deal of honest emotion. Explains Stuber: “Seth’s point is that he tries to offend everyone and not single out any group.

However, he brings heart and comedy and absurdity to this story that’s ultimately about growing up and leaving an icon of your childhood behind. He was able to mix in so many things. There’s some crazy stuff in this movie that makes you drop your jaw in the best of ways and say, ‘I can’t believe they just did that.’ But at the end of the day, he never lost sight of the heart, and the best comedies have that.”

Producer Jason Clark, a motion-capture veteran, was brought on to help oversee the production. “I had done ‘Stuart Little’ and had worked before with a CG character in a live-action world,” he relays. “I’d also done ‘Monster House’, which is one of the first movies to employ the motion capture of a performance. With ‘Ted’, we move to the next level, creating a leading performance in a comedy, which requires great immediacy to capture the humor and repartee between the performers. It was not something that could be recorded in a booth outside of the production experience; it needed to be recorded live on the set. On top of that, we added another level of complexity, since the director is playing that lead character.”

Having compiled a long list of credits over the years creating and overseeing the production of many projects (including three shows currently running on FOX), MacFarlane brings experience and maturity to his debut as a feature-film director. “Seth understands the process and is such an incredible leader,” commends Clark. “He has a way of giving clear indication of what he’s going for and, at the same time, allowing everybody to bring their expertise.”

Adds fellow producer John Jacobs, who has worked with MacFarlane for years: “First-time directors often need 20 different choices for everything and can be indecisive, but because of Seth’s incredible instincts and experience in animation, he’s amazingly tuned in to what he wants and has been able to command three challenging roles: directing, acting and overseeing the VFX work for Ted. As well, his comedic timing, irreverent attitude and keen visual sense are like no one else’s, as “Family Guy” fans know.”

Jacobs credits MacFarlane with “being able to play animated characters in a completely real way. This is as far away as you could get from the Walt Disney style. This bear could just as easily be the guy sitting next to you at a bar or driving down the road with you to a bachelor party. I can guarantee that people have never seen a character like this and they are going to love this bear!”

Image Courtesy of  Ted

The article Ted Movie: Seth MacFarlane ‘How ‘Ted’ Came to Be’ appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has revealed that over half of its television schedule is comprised of repeat programming, sparking concerns over the efforts made by the Corporation to develop new and original material.

The Daily Mail first reported on this topic and showed that while the percentage of repeat programming is less on the BBC’s main television channel, BBC One, there is still data which proves that the percentage is growing during peak viewing hours. At present, 61% of the BBC television schedule consists of repeats, encompassing such classic shows as ‘Only Fools and Horses’ and ‘Dad’s Army’ as well as nightly repeats of the cult animated series ‘Family Guy’ and ‘American Dad.’

These figures were commissioned by Freedom of Information who made a claim suggesting that the BBC is failing in its duty to provide ‘original programming,’ an obligation which is a clear part of the Corportation’s Royal Charter – an agreement which establishes its duties in detail.

It is thought that increasing budget cuts are a part the reason for the number of repeats currently offered on any one of the BBC’s networks (at present this consists of: BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC HD and BBC CBeebies). However, with recent additions to the corporation’s broadcasting services, namely BBC iPlayer, it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of viewers who have taken issue with this ‘repeat’ situation.

Regardless, this is not the first time that the BBC has come under fire for its failure to focus on developing new comedies and dramas. David Jason, the star of the long-running and frequently-repeated BBC sitcom ‘Only Fools & Horses’ publicly lambasted the BBC back in 2005 over its constant showings of past programmes:

“If I were in charge I’d not allow Only Fools and Horses to be repeated so often … British TV is too safe and too cheap these days. We’ve got to be careful not to dumb down for the audience. They shouldn’t be sitting at home on the sofa vegetating.”

In the seven years since Jason first made his feelings known, it would appear that the problem has only become more severe. According to the BBC’s figures released to Freedom of Information, “just 15.8 per cent of programming on BBC3 and only 21.2 per cent on BBC4 was new” over the last 12 months. While these two networks have significantly shorter broadcasting hours than the two main BBC networks, the fact remains that there is a clear imbalance at work in the way that the BBC creates its schedule.

Rival network ITV has already made one move towards addressing similar scheduling concerns by removing the Saturday omnibus edition of its flagship series ‘Coronation Street.’ Such a move has surprised audiences and those involved with the series, according to The Sun, but it is possible that the move towards digital viewing services has eliminated ITV’s need to re-broadcast an entire week’s work of episodes on its schedule.

The article BBC Schedule is 61% Repeats appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Some actors play it cool; some simply are. Seth Green has the ability to make awkward awesome and geek great. But his talent in acting is being challenged by talent in writing and in directing, each earning him awards and nominations. This year alone, he has nine projects to his credit, so far. Among them are two films, a major video-game, and two very successful TV series, ‘Family Guy’ and ‘Robot Chicken.’

Green got an early start in acting. At eight years old, he appeared in three productions including, ‘The Hotel New Hampshire’ (1984), with Rob Lowe and Jodie Foster. Three years later, he starred in Woody Allen’s ‘Radio Days.’ He has appeared in many TV shows and films, including such hits as the ‘Austin Powers’ trilogy, as Scott Evil; TV’s ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ as Oz; in ‘The Italian Job’ as Lyle.

Lately, it is Green’s voice acting that has been keeping him busy. He has played ‘Joker’ in the successful ‘Mass Effect’ video-game trilogy, and has appeared in a large number of animated TV-shows and films. Most animation fans will be most familiar with his voice-work in ‘Family Guy,’ as Chris Griffin, and as the talent behind 30 to 60 voices per week in ‘Robot Chicken.’

This television series can be regarded as the culmination of his careers, it presents each of his major talents, and includes others. Green created the stop-motion animation with his friend, Matthew Senreich. The parody has hosted a staggering number of celebrities, older and younger, and has given new life to the toy industry.

It is here, too, that Green has been recognized for his writing and directing. He won the Annie Award in 2008 and 2009 for directing and writing, respectively. These accompany his 1989 Young Artist Award for ‘Best Young Actor Guest Starring in a Syndicated Comedy, Drama or Special.’ In ‘Robot Chicken,’ which he co-created, he voice-acts, writes, directs, and produces. It is suspected he has help.

Seth Green is widely considered as cool. Some, such as Ryan Gosling, are perceived as cool in the style of suits and sunglasses; Green is cool (arguably anti-cool) because he appears to have fun, he attends comic conventions, and he makes a TV series revolving around toys. He and another friend, Hugh Sterbakov, created the popular ‘Freshman’ comic in 2005, which sold out in its début week.

But, despite all the toys, comics and animation, he is far from puerile, and he is far from evil (though he can mix the two traits very cleverly in his series). Moreover, his interviews present him as a gracious and humble young man. ‘Robot Chicken’ continues to air, and, next year, he will appear in the film ‘Sexy Evil Genius,’ although, perhaps surprisingly for some, not as the titular character.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/cabbit/

The article Seth Green: Not-So-Evil Genius appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.