The Jungle Book Q&A with Producer Brigham Taylor and Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato
During my Pete’s Dragon press trip, we had the pleasure of interviewing two key members of The Jungle Book team, Producer Brigham Taylor and Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato about the making of the movie. Between the two men, there is a lot of movie making experience. Producer Brigham Taylor has been with Disney since 1994 starting as a production assistant. He has helped oversee a wide range of films including the “Pirates of the Caribean”, “Chronicles of Narnia” and “Oz: The Great and Powerful.” Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato career work has crossed a variety of movie genres in addition to his Disney career.
Getting the scoop from Producer Brigham Taylor and Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato on the making of the movie that was filmed entirely on a California set was a delight for this movie fanatic.
As you can imagine making a movie on the scale of The Jungle Book that used up to minute technology to tell the story in a contemporary and immersive way blending live action, stunning CG work and incorporating photo real animals is definitely a long process. Both filmmakers noted that the pre-production alone took about a year of sketching out the story, prepping the film before moving onto the making of the film which took about 2 and ½ years.
THE JUNGLE BOOK – (L-R) MOWGLI and BAGHEERA. ©2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
With a movie that is predominately CGI with just one actor, they were very conscious of limiting what a computer can do versus a camera. Legato discussed how he wanted the movie goer to forget that this is a CGI movie and that the movie should be as realistic as possible. It was fascinating to hear Legato discuss ” how they are seeing can the finished piece, what the art direction is going to look like, what the lighting is going to look like.” All that pre-production work has to be completed because the blue screen stage is really difficult to come up with ideas because there is nothing there. “You need to have in your head a very clear idea so you can actually direct the shot and even judge it if it’s working out.”
It goes without saying that CGI movies means that actors are acting with nothing but a blue screen or a tennis ball on a stick that represents another actor or car, or whatever. Experienced actors can do it but imagine a first time child actor like Neel Sethi. The Jungle Book was Sethi’s first movie, first acting gig period and all of a sudden is in a studio all alone with no actors, animals or sets, just blue screen. They discussed how Director Jon Favreau used variety of prompts to elicit responses from Sethi. According to Producer Brigham Taylor, it was decided to bring in puppeteers to bring in a human element onstage to interact with the young actor. In addition, they brought in a large scale puppets to cast shadows of the animals. And of course, they turned to the Henson company to build the puppets.
So what were the most difficult scenes to film? Taylor brought up the Neel’s emotional scene where he says goodbye to his wolf mother ” Raksha” (voiced by Academy Award winner Lupita N’yongo). They actually used an off screen performer to give emotion to the mother. For Legato, a much discussed scene was the watering hole where the animals gather at The Peace Rock. There were many different size animals, different shots, and Neel’s interactions with all the animals that need to be worked through.
About The Jungle Book
“The Jungle Book” is a live-action epic adventure based on Rudyard Kipling’s timeless stories, inspired by Disney’s classic 1967 animated film and centered on Mowgli (Neel Sethi), a man-cub who’s been raised by a family of wolves. But Mowgli finds he is no longer welcome in the jungle when fearsome tiger Shere Khan (voice of Idris Elba), who bears the scars of Man, promises to eliminate what he sees as a threat.
The Jungle Book Interviews with stars of the movie
Neel Sethi (Mowgli); Sir Ben Kingsley (voice of Bagheera); Lupita Nyong’o (voice of Raksha); Giancarlo Esposito (voice of Akela) and Director Jon Favreau.
Disney The Jungle Book will be on Digital HD August 23 and on Blu-ray August 30, complete with bonus features.
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Disclosure: NYC Single Mom’s travel and accommodations to attend the the Pete’s Dragon event is being covered by Disney. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.
