John Orloff: The Man Behind the Owls (of Ga'Hoole)
The screenwriter of Legend of the Guardians gives a hoot about fantasy animation, as he should.
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By Matt Patches September 23, 2010 |
Living Like an Owl
Matt Patches: OK, enough soft balls - hard-hitting
question: how much time did you spend at owleries in order to become one with
the owls?
John Orloff: [laughs] I did not at all. No, no, no,
no, no, I knew the books and I read some books on owls. I watched a couple documentaries, and it became a
good story. I would call up
Simon, the art director, especially before Zack was on board, and say. 'I want
the owls to do this in this scene...I'm not sure how physically we can block it
for them to use that in a way that makes sense to you.' So we talked about
that...because you know Kathy,
in her books, could do
whatever she wanted, but showing something is quite different. You want to make sure it doesn't
look ridiculous. We would have these conversations like, 'Well, what would an
owl do with X,Y or Z?'
They're not going to use their wings like hands, like we see in cartoons; their
wings are for flight...so that means that they only have two feet. It becomes a
whole process of trying to figure out the physical blocking of imaginary owls.
Matt Patches: And that's why your job is awesome.
John Orloff: Mmm,
yeah I never thought of it. It's pretty cool that when my daughter was talking
about her play, she said,"
Daddy we don't have live owls like you do,
so we're going to have to be in costume."
I said, 'Honey we
didn't have live owls.'
She said, 'No? Those
were costumes?'
Matt Patches: Ha!
John Orloff: In the movie! She's talking about the movie. I
thought it was pretty cool.
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