When I’m interviewing someone there’s one thing I love. Passion. When someone is passionate about their film, show, music, etc it just comes through their pores. They get excited about every detail and want to share it with you. In turn it makes me excited. I thirst for MORE knowledge or scream to the hilltops that everyone should be just as excited. The Director of BRAVE Mark Andres does that. He’s passionate. He’s dedicated. He genuinely loves this film. Check out some of the interview with him below! Remember BRAVE hits theaters June 22!
Q : The actual storyline, where did it come from?
MA : Well, Brenda Chapman, uh, she came up with the storyline, and the characters. And wanting to set it in Scotland. And it came out of her being, uh, a parent and her trials and tribulations with her, her daughter. You know, raising her daughter. So she approached John and said, “Hey, I want to do this movie about, you know, this mother-daughter relationship. And I want to set it in Scotland.” And he said, “Great, go.” And then she started developing that more. And what was that going to be.
And you know, wha- where in Scotland, is she part of a clan? So, you know, and her, you know, father and mother being the king and queen of this clan. That her being a princess, you know, and then what’s the beef? You know, so all that stuff was worked out and developed, it came out of that — her being a parent, you know.
I mean, as a, as a storyteller, I mean, I’ve been telling stories for 20 years. You know, live action and animation. I’ve been here at Pixar for, for 10. You know, working on INCREDIBLES, and RATATOUILLE, and I’ve been development, uh, myself. Getting my own films up off the ground. So, uh, for me as a storyteller, it’s always about the, uh, universal relateability of the story. Right? I don’t, I don’t want to alienate anybody, right? I don’t want anybody to go, “Oh, that’s not a movie for me,” right?
They want — I want people to come and see the movie. And go, “Oh yeah, it’s a fish. I’m not a fish. But I know exactly what that fish was going through.” Or, I’m a robot and I felt like that in my relationships. You know, with my significant other. You know, uh, so it’s gotta have something for [STAMMERING] everybody. And I think, you know, I get asked, you know, [STAMMERING] are you afraid that your being a girl’s gonna get rid of the boys? I’m, “No, I’m, I’m a father of four.” Right? I’ve got a girl and three boys, just like King Fergus.
And, you know, my boys — you know, saw the trailer and they’re all, “What’s that, I want to go see it!” And it was just a girl and a bear, right? So they see a girl with a ball in her hands, they’re all, “That could be me.” They, they have no- they don’t have that. You know, they see a strong character, is what they see, right? And what that character goes through, right? And so I think that’s — it’s for everybody, you know, it becomes genderless. I mean, I’m glad I have a strong female character, you know, in this movie. Uh, a, a couple of them. And for my daughter, that she can go into a movie and see, uh, hey, here’s a, another strong female character. But that’s, that’s coming up so much more often, uh, you know, these days. That they’re just popping up. And I think it’s great. Yeah.
Q : Was it always gonna be a mother and daughter relationship?
MA : Yes, yes. Yes, absolutely. I think that’s one thing that we, you know, I don’t think, uh, it’s not, you know, was in the Pixar conscious that, you know, Ed and John were all sitting around going, “What are we gonna do next? You know, we haven’t done a, uh, mother and daughter story. You know, we haven’t set anything in Scotland yet.” You know, it’s not like there’s a big board of stuff, you know, they’re doing tactical with pie charts, you know, asking, you know, people what, what they want to see. It comes from the directors here, right?
It comes from their passions and their experiences. And, and NEMO came out of Andrew being a father for the first time and his worries about raising his son. Uh, uh, Pete has an affinity to, to old folks and we call him “the ageless one,” you know, here. Because he just kinda has that affinity of growing old, ’cause at the end you can still have this vibrant life. Uh, I went to school with him at Cal Arts and his — all of his films at Cal Arts, his student films were all about old people, right?
So, so when I saw this is nothing new for Pete, you know, but it came out of him. And the great thing about Pixar is, you can’t put us in a box of what’s going to come out next. Right? Well, we got sequels coming, that’s fine. But we still have original content that you can’t guess. We don’t poll or anything, it just, it just comes out from the directors.
We have to go through that process, we have to make the movie, stick it up, look at it and go, [MAKES RASPBERRY]. Take it down, and everybody throws in their suggestions of how it should have been better and what they shoulda done. And you didn’t need this scene and this thing was, uh, bogus. And you know, you missed this theme entirely. And then we try to put those things in and stick it back up. So, uh, when we’re all — when I was working with Brad Bird on IRON GIANT, Brad Bird would come into — and you’re all my story artists, I will be Brad Bird. He comes in, he’s, “All right, ladies, this is what we need to do. I need to get from A to B. A, I start here where he comes in with the bag of groceries, and B, dadadada, there’s no groceries left. What happens in the middle?”
We can be all sitting there. And everybody starts throwing in ideas, and he’s all, “No, no, no. Maybe, no, yes, no,” dadada. And then somebody will take — starts taking these pearls and is trying to string them together. And we know it’s working when everybody who’s around the table goes — ’cause we can see it, as storytellers. We can see it in our minds. You know, so when everybody is nodding, you’re done. And so that’s what we’re trying to do here.
When I have John and Ed and Andrew and Pete Doctor, all nodding. I go, “That’s it, I’m done.” Right? ‘Cause it’s working, right? ‘Cause they’ve got that x-ray vision that they can peel it apart, knows when it’s weak. You know. So it’s a gut feeling, and it’s very hard. I mean, I, I teach, and my students go, “How do you know when it’s right?” It’s just right, there’s no level that is a full gas tank, you know what I mean? It could go bink, it could go uhhhhhhhhhhh, it’s 7, 8, 9, 10 years! Back to the — you know. That’s why stuff is always falling through in Hollywood and falling to pieces and stuff like that. Yes!
Q: Is the Pizza Planet Truck and all of the Pixar Easter Eggs going to be in the movie?
MA : Everything. Everything, everything’s in there. Everything’s in there, and I’ll give you a little secret. It’s all in one scene. All the inside jokes and stuff that’s in every Pixar movie, yeah, yeah.
***Disclosure: I attended #DisneyPixarEvent . My flight, lodgings, and expenses were covered by Disney. All opinions are 100% mine. Pictures above provided by Disney***
About Kas
I’m telling EVERYONE to go see this movie. I loved it, it is amazing that an animated movie could make me laugh and cry at the same time. I mean TEARS people, big mama tears!
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This movie looks so coo! I also love Gretchen Mol’s voice.
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We’re yet to watch the movie but have heard such rave reviews. (esp about Merida’s hair! ;>)