Wes Anderson, Fantastic Mr.Fox: Stopmotion animation

http://www.fastcompany.com/most-creative-people/2012/wes-anderson

WES ANDERSON

Director, Moonrise Kingdom

• PROFILE

DIRECTOR OF MOONRISE KINGDOM, WES ANDERSON

• WEBSITEfocusfeatures.com/moonrise_kingdom
• FACEBOOKWes Anderson

HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT WHEN IT DOESN'T EXIST

BY ARI KARPEL

Setting has always been a living character in Wes Anderson's films--from the school in Rushmore to the tree houses of Fantastic Mr. Fox--and his new movie, out May 25, lives just as strongly inside its own world. "We were looking for a sort of naked wildlife," he says. Moonrise Kingdom is about two 12-year-olds who fall in love and run away in the summer of 1965, and Anderson didn't have the time to send scouts to every wilderness in America. So he did what everyone else does: "We literally used Google Earth," he says. It took months to settle on a location.

GOOGLE FOR SETTING

PRUDENCE ISLAND

That's in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, which turned out to be the perfect spot to shoot the film--the coastline, ravines, and unusually adjacent forests and beaches provide every setting he needed. Except, his characters aren't Narragansett Bay types.

GOOGLE FOR INSPIRATION

COMFORT ISLAND

That's in northern New York, home of the sort of remote comforts Anderson wanted to imbue his fictional setting with. He sent set decorators and a coproducer there to scout it. "Then we actually borrowed and rented their paintings and furniture and things," he says.

CREATE

NEW PENZANCE

That's Anderson's fictional, sparsely inhabited island off the coast of New England--inspired by reality, but just off-kilter enough to take on its own life. "In the editing room, I am always surprised when I see dailies for the first time on any movie. I always think, This is not really what I expected," he says. And that's good.

TIMELINE

• 1996

  Writes and directs first feature, Bottle Rocket, based on a short of the same name

• 1996

  Wins MTV Movie Award for best new filmmaker

• 2001

  Nominated for Academy Award for best original screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums

• 2009

  Plays the voice of the Weasel in his stop-motion animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox

• 2009

  Nominated for Academy Award for best animated feature for Fantastic Mr. Fox
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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