Paddington 2 – Interviews & Review
At A Glance
Paddington 2 will take you on a journey that will make you laugh, cry and laugh some more. The tightly scripted, acutely choreographed film is a joy to watch. The filmmakers have definitely looked after this bear, Paddington.
By Claire Bueno
Paddington Bear 2 will take you on a journey that will make you laugh, cry and laugh some more. This tightly scripted, acutely choreographed film, is a joy to watch.
If you have seen Paddington 2 already, I hope you will agree, that not only is it a magical film, but the animation is a work of art.
“This is some of the best animation that has ever been done,” says Paddington director Paul King, retuning to helm the sequel; and I couldn’t agree more.
His comment made me wonder, what is involved in combining live action and animation? How do the actors adapt? And what techniques do they use to accomplish the task?
Be it rudimentary in comparison to today’s standards, but combined live action and animation dates back as far as 1900, with a short film called The Enchanted Drawing.
If you have seen Paddington 2 already, I hope you will agree, that not only is it a magical film, but the animation is a work of art.
“This is some of the best animation that has ever been done,” says Paddington director Paul King, retuning to helm the sequel; and I couldn’t agree more.
His comment made me wonder, what is involved in combining live action and animation? How do the actors adapt? And what techniques do they use to accomplish the task?
Be it rudimentary in comparison to today’s standards, but combined live action and animation dates back as far as 1900, with a short film called The Enchanted Drawing.
But watching Paddington 2, I marvelled at the way the animators captured the nuances and expressions not only of Paddington, but also how they captured the actor Ben Whishaw, who voices our loveable bear.
So much of Whishaw is in Paddington that I wondered if they had adopted the performance capture method, made famous by Andy Serkis with his portrayals of Golem in Lord of the Rings and Caesar in Planet of the Apes; but not so, it seems.
“The whole time I’m recording the voice there’s a camera; several cameras filming my face, my mouth, and my eyes and everything.” Says Wishaw.
“And then we would do sessions where we would act things out, to help them, you know, because it is very hard. It’s extraordinary the work they do to build that bear from nothing,” the actor continues.
King also adds: “We owe a huge amount of gratitude to Ben Wishaw of course, who is the basis of the performance and we spent 100s of hours with him, not just recording his voice, but also watching his performance; working on the performance with him.”
Once our leading man’s performance is captured, then it’s over to the animation team, to painstakingly take the bear on to the next part of his journey.
And Paddington is in safe hands as the people behind Harry Potter and Gravity; the Oscar winning Framestore, are the team behind the exquisite animation.
And if you think in this day and age of computer generated imagery (CGI) it’s a case of pressing a button on a keyboard, and off you go, then you’d be very much mistaken.
“The hundreds of amazing animators at Framestore who really bring him to life. And every frame is hand crafted and worked on. And the difference between a raised eyebrow, expressing excitement, joy and nervousness and fear and self-doubt is so minute, and it’s only through their attention to detail, that it comes to life,” reveals the director.
And what is the experience like for the other cast members that have to act against Paddington? What can we learn from them? Do they act against a tennis ball? Toy? Or fresh air?
Julie Walters returns a second time in the role of Mrs. Bird: “The time it’s difficult of course is when the bear isn’t there, (and) is when you have to do something with him.”
Walters continues: “I had to take a coin from behind his ear, trying to time it, you know, place it. So it was on a metal pole and a little old blue tack coin. So you have to know where the coin is, and look into his eyes. So you have to work out where they are, see the mark on the wall,” she points: “his eyes are about there, the top of his head (there).”
Julie confesses: “We did it a few times, I can tell you!”
Jim Broadbent also returns as antique shop owner Mr. Gruber: “The same rules apply, really for all jobs, just make it sound real. And very often with live action things, you can’t see the person you’re talking to because they are behind the camera, so you’re talking to basically a cameraman and pretending he’s a beautiful woman, which is sometimes hard to do,” he laughs.
Ben Miller joining the cast as the solitary Colonel, confesses “It wasn’t as difficult as you’d imagine.”
“There were a couple of actors, they are in costume as Paddington, who you are playing the scene with.”
But that wasn’t always the case, as Miller continues: “Depending on the shot, they’ve sort of got a Paddington’s head on a stick, and sort of hover in shot with Paddington’s shoulder, they’ll sort of put in, so you do feel that Paddington is there really. There’s people playing him, and someone doing his voice on set.”
So as you can see, with the time, love, care and craft at every stage of the process we can safely say that the filmmakers have definitely looked after this bear, Paddington.
