If Luke Carroll were to consider giving up his day job, he’d make a great long-distance runner.
The British animation producer has earned a reputation as someone who can efficiently race to the finish line, as he recently did with Escape From Planet Earth.
“We were relatively small and didn’t have that much money or time, but we had this team that decided to live it and make it happen. We absolutely went for it,” said Carroll, recalling his three-year stint as producer of the 3-D sci-fi animated comedy.
The family-friendly film, now on DVD and Blu-ray, centres on the adventures of Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser), a buff, blue alien astronaut, and Gary (Rob Corddry), his nerdy brother who travels to Earth on a rescue mission when his reckless sibling runs afoul of a megalomaniac voiced to hammy perfection by William Shatner.
Carroll’s responsibilities included overseeing the production budget; and hiring and managing a 120-plus team of artists at Vancouver’s Rainmaker Entertainment.
His career began 20 years ago in London, where he worked on 35-millimetre stop-frame animated commercials, as a production assistant for his brother Charlie Paul at his animation studio, and ran the animation festival at the Everyman Theatre, the historic repertory cinema run by his mother.
Other credits include projects for MTV and BBC, directing animation for Beast Machines: Transformers, producing several successful Barbie DVDs for Mattel, and directing Love Is, a live-action dramatic short about an 11-year-old boy who tries to save his parents’ marriage by coping with his beloved father’s alcoholism.
“I’ve decided that pace of life is what’s important now,” says Carroll, who recently moved with his wife and two children to Cowichan Valley. “There are a lot of lovely people on this island, and very ego-free.”
Armed with an MFA in creative writing and film production at UBC, Carroll also decided the timing was right for teaching here. He begins Monday at the Victoria College of Art, using Escape From Planet Earth as a case study for Producing an Animated Blockbuster, his interactive week-long program, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., about the process “from one-line pitch to première.”
Carroll, 42, says his “primer” also gives him the opportunity to work with the non-profit college’s president Peter Such and vice-president Nancy Ruffolo.
“I like their sensibility,” he said. “They’re out to support the artist. It was just up my street.”
Through lectures and workshops, Carroll will illustrate why it took six years to make the $40-million film, financed and distributed by The Weinstein Company. It has earned $70 million worldwide since it opened in February.
Development of animated features takes years, requiring “dogged determination” and “a certain mentality,” Carroll says.
“We liken it to the rate of a tanker rather than a speedboat,” he says. “Live-action is a speedboat. By the end of a weekend, you’ve got a new scene and you can turn around on a dime. With animation, it’s about giving everyone lots of notice. You’re watching for hours as this tanker goes around the corner.”
The day-to-day process is “more whippy,” he says, requiring quick decisions on projects that constantly change direction.
“The days feel fast but the overall arc of production is very long,” says Carroll, who was brought in when executive producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein hired director Cal Brunker to replace Tony Leech, co-creator of their 2005 hit Hoodwinked. “I was well-versed in making a little go a long way. In animation, that’s challenging. It’s very labour intensive.”
Expanding on the story credited to Leech and Cory Edwards, Brunker and co-writer Bob Barlen punched up the original concept with sight gags and pop-culture jokes.
“It’s the ‘funny’ that puts bums in the seats,” says Carroll, whose film even pokes fun at Pixar.
While someone might suddenly have a brilliant idea, it takes time to realize and won’t necessarily even work, he cautions.
“It has to be storyboarded out, edited to see if it all works. You’re trying to add at every stage. Animators will take what previous guys have done, add character nuances and timing beats, those little moments that put a smile on your face.”
Carroll says the film’s all-star vocal cast is an essential asset. It includes Jessica Alba, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sofia Vergara, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson and Ricky Gervais, whose droll wisecracks as the voice of a HAL-like computer are a highlight.
Even when Rainmaker’s job was done, gags were still being added once the British comic came onboard, riffing like mad.
“That’s what the Weinsteins do so well, working their connections to get people like Ricky to do his ad libs and getting his best ideas cut in,” says Carroll, who isn’t the only family member with a hit on his hands.
Sony Picture Classics has acquired North American rights to For No Good Reason, his brother’s documentary, featuring Johnny Depp, about Ralph Steadman, the British illustrator best known for his collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson.
“It took Charlie 10 years to make, but they got it done,” Carroll said proudly. “He got me into animation.”
Online: vca.ca
