April 6th, 2000 - Interview by Cliff Stephenson

He's clever, enthusiastic, a 'can do' kinda guy...and he's a mouse! Based on the best-selling E.B. White book that has been a family favorite for over 50 years, STUART LITTLE finally arrived on the big screen in the fall of 1999 to worldwide box office success. Although designed to appeal to a younger audience, STUART LITTLE is thankfully one of the few family films that also manages to find an appealing balance between childlike and adult sensibilities. In production for nearly two years, STUART LITTLE was brought to life via the combination of live action and computer-generated imagery, a talented cast and a filmmaking team lead by THE LION KING Director Rob Minkoff, Screenwriters Greg Brooker and M. Night Shlymalan (of THE SIXTH SENSE fame) and Producer Douglas Wick.

Since finding a two-inch mouse to fill the fictional Stuart's shoes wouldn't exactly be probably, the filmmakers married the live action footage with state-of-the-art computer generated imagery supplied by one of the industry's leading special effects houses, Imageworks. While many fantasy and action films rely on computer-generated imagery and characters, the success of STUART LITTLE is the first full-length motion picture whose success rested entirely on the small shoulders of the titular mouse, so the effect had to be absolutely believable and engaging. Animation Supervisor Henry Anderson and Visual Effects Supervisor Jerome Chen, worked with a team of animators to bring Stuart to life, right down to the tiniest CGI hairs on his head. But the creation of Stuart was just one component of the complex effort that took two years to bring to the screen. Once the concepts and CGI modeling of the mouse was completed, Stuart's image had to be carefully added to the live action scenes, which were even trickier as they often involved interaction with pre-shot live humans and animals.

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The physical production was also a large undertaking, with numerous sets built to different "scales" and made entirely from scratch to provide the amount of detail needed to properly portray Stuart's world. While based in an idealized reality only possible on film, the decor, colors and costumes all reflected a timeless feel designed to pay homage to the spirit of E.B. White's book while still appealing to contemporary audiences.

But even with the most advanced computer-generated effects just will not work without a strong human element, which in STUART LITTLE is ably provided by the cast. Michael J. Fox brings Stuart to life with an engaging vocal performance that manages to convey the little mouse's childlike qualities, his fears and plucky spirit. Child actor Jonathan Lipnicki, who first made a strong impression in JERRY MAGUIRE, plays Stuart's new friend and cohort George Little, while Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie star as the parents who take Stuart into their home. Rounding out the cast are the voice talents of Julia Sweeney, Chazz Palminteri, Jennifer Tilly, Nathan Lane and Bruno Kirby.

ABOUT THE DVD

Unlike most DVDs that are produced a long time after a film's theatrical release or very shortly thereafter, Columbia-TriStar's DVD production department was already hard at work on the STUART LITTLE DVD during the film's production. But still, with only a short theatrical-to-video release window to work with Columbia's DVD creative team faced the daunting task of putting together separate widescreen and pan & scan versions of the film (a first for the studio ) as well as the their largest array of supplemental features to date, all in just a few short weeks.

By utilizing the participation of Director Minkoff, the filmmakers and the voice of Stuart himself, Michael J. Fox, Columbia was able to equip the STUART LITTLE DVD with an array of features that appeal to both the adult enthusiast as well as young children. In addition to such DVD extras as an audio commentary with Director Minkoff, deleted scenes and a series of behind-the-scenes special effects featurettes, more advanced and interactive features were also created especially for the DVD. Viewers can access multi-angle representations of Stuart in various conceptual incarnations, as well as early concept models and even some of the CGI artist's audition reels. Also included are a specially-created outtake "gag" reel and a storyboard-to-screen comparison of the Boat Race sequence.

But more than just being aimed adult collectors. a number of interactive features were included to appeal to families. Michael J. Fox lent his voice especially for the DVD for the STUART LITTLE Read-A-Along, and children will also enjoy Stuart's Central Park Adventure game, which while seemingly simple on the surface, was one of the most complex parts of the DVD to "author." The interactive elements and complex navigation took hours to achieve. And in order to provide even more options, the disc comes complete with some DVD-ROM accessible functions including more games, links to the Stuart Little web site and other surprises. Arriving on April 18th, the STUART LITTLE DVD may just be Columbia-TriStar's finest effort yet on DVD.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Rob Minkoff made his feature animation directorial debut with Disney's biggest blockbuster hit THE LION KING and has then made his live action feature directorial debut with the CGI-laden STUART LITTLE. Born and raised in Palo Alto, California (the heart of silicon Valley, incidentally), Rob attended Cal-Arts' character animation program from 1980 to 1983 and was subsequently hired as an animator at Walt Disney Studios. After having developed story, characters and animation for such pictures as THE LITTLE MERMAID and BEAUTY & THE BEAST, Rob moved into the director's chair for two Roger Rabbits hots, TUMMY TROUBLE and ROLLER COASTER RABBIT. He also went on to co-produce the third installment. After the success of STUART LITTLE, Rob is currently developing new projects as well as the planned sequel to STUART LITTLE.

THE INTERVIEW

DVDFILE: First, thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. I'm glad we got the chance to talk about STUART LITTLE because it's a great movie and a great disc.

ROB MINKOFF: And the list price is only $27.95! (Laughs)

DF: The first I want to ask you about STUART LITTLE as a movie is how essential to the film's success and credibility was Michael J. Fox?

RM: Well, huge. The animation performance is only as good as the voice is in some ways because it's usually based around the vocal performance. So unless you have a really great thing to start with, it's hard to overcome certainly and then the better the voice is and the performance is, you can just build and build and build on that.

DF: It seemed to me when I started watching, and I didn't really know what to expect when I started, I thought "OK, this could go either way. This could go really good or really bad."

RM: (Laughs)

DF: And from the second that he started talking, I knew it would be great. And I don't know if that's something you dealt with in traditional animation as well?

RM: Not in the same way because, as you pointed out the basic dilemma of the movie, we have this kind of outlandish premise which is this mouse is adopted and he talks, and he's a "mouse person." He has to fit into the world and the world accepts him ostensibly for what he is without questioning him. So there's so many complicated issues because it all speaks to the style and the tone of the movie, which had to be created to make that believable, because it's so completely lunatic. (Laughs)

DF: It really is. At one point I was just sitting there and I had to stop myself and think, "I'm watching a talking mouse. He's walking around and he's talking." And at some point you just accept it. The other thing about the film that I really liked is that it truly is a storybook on film. The art direction, costume design and photography was truly amazing. It's almost the truest you can get to being a moving storybook.

RM: And that was the intention. I guess that's obvious. (Laughs) It was actually a big mistake. I don't know what you're talking about. You completely don't understand my work. (Laughs more)

DF: Columbia/TriStar just a few months ago released a special edition DVD of JUMANJI that was really effects heavy as far as the supplements were concerned. Somewhat similar to what they've done with STUART LITTLE. They discuss how, with JUMANJI, they were pioneering software and effects to make the animals look photorealistic. And it seems as though, between JUMANJI and STUART LITTLE, they made a lot of advancements. There are shots in STUART LITTLE where I was just amazed at how real certain effects looked. Would STUART LITTLE have been a movie that you would have wanted to make five years ago before the technology had advanced to where it is now or is it just that it came at the right time?

RM: Yeah, definitely. I guess I had seen all those bad attempts, which kind of made me nervous about doing Stuart because the truth is I don't think we'd seen it done successfully when we started. So it felt like leaping off a cliff because there was no guarantee that it was going to work just technologically, whether the effect would work.

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