Interviewing Bobs Ganaway and Ferrell Barron
*Disclosure: I received an all expenses paid trip to Los Angeles for the coverage of several press events for Disney. All opinions are 100% my own.
Interviewing Bobs Ganaway and Ferrell Barron was very informative as well as educational and something that I will also look back on and remember. They wanted to pay homage to firefighters in the movie Planes Fire and Rescue and they have successfully succeeded in my opinion. At the beginning of the film they even played a tribute to what these hero’s do everyday to recognize them.
Do Your Research!
Bobs, Ferrell and John Lassiter (executive producer) believes that there should be truth in materials. Which means there has to work done for each part of the puzzle to come into play. For example, they have to find each character, the story, do the research to make it true to life and then make everything grounded in reality. Because they do their research Disney and the animation team gets to pull you into the movie you are watching. So much in fact that many times I forget that I’m watching a cartoon!
New Smokey the Bear
Many of us grew up with Smokey the Bear being our “fire” expert and with Planes Fire and Rescue flying into children’s lives, Smokey the Bear may just be replaced. Scorchy is an important piece of the Planes Fire and Rescue movie because they worked closely with the Park Service and Cal Fire to make this movie. They started out as consultants on Planes Fire and Rescue but all of them still are friends to this day.
Because there are over 50,000 wild fires (most caused by lightening) a year in the US, it’s crazy, and these firefighters are out there, putting them out all of the time. But some of them are caused by humans, and if you listen carefully, on the dialogue, on the very first, right before the thunderstruck sequence. You hear that the fire was caused by an unattended campfire. We want everyone to “Be Careful, Put Your Fire Out.”
Honoring Firefighters
Honoring firefighters didn’t stop with the credits at the beginning, in fact it lasted throughout the whole movie. One of the coolest things that they did was honor aircraft that were actual Cal Fire airplanes. They put the numbers on planes in the movie to honor those brave men and women that actually lost their lives while protecting people like us.
Voice Actors
Voice Actors are cast by characters that they feel embody the spirit of the character. They create the character, and then we go out and find an actor or actress who we feel like embodies the spirit of that character already. There’s a couple of times when you do have someone in mind already, when maybe you sort of already know you have a character.
The two Winnebagos (Harvey and Winnie) who are on their 50th wedding anniversary, coming back to Piston Peak to celebrate that. And you want to have instant chemistry between them, and then, from a filmmaking standpoint, it’s a plant, because they are gonna be used later. They got Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller who are the perfect pair for these characters!
Dale Dye is a veteran, so he’s playing the major ex-military aircraft named Cabbie. He said, “We call ’em gravel crunchers.” Say that, you know? “Ya buncha gravel crunchers!”
Wes Studi is obviously American Indian, and so he’s playing our, American Indian helicopter, Windlifter, Because he’s a Cherokee Indian, he had a phrase in Cherokee that he ad-libbed into the film.
Ed Harris as a tough guy Blade Ranger. He’s used to being in front of a camera with another actor, and like, working a scene, like in theatre, and having another great actor with him which isn’t the case in animation.
Julie Bowen for Little Dipper because they wanted to have Dusty’s biggest fan. Someone who’s just on the verge of being a little crazy, um, hopeful is a better word, and so Julie was fantastic for that. One of the ad-libbs that made it into the final movie was said by Julie Bowen, when her pontoons go down. “Yeah, they’re real.”
Curtis Armstrong is the voice of Maru and his spirit shows because the more he shouts, the funnier he gets.
They also even got to ad-lib a little and some of those made it into the final movie. But it is a long process to hire the actors, because they have to elevate the movie and have a great voice quality.
Planes 3
When we asked if there would be a third movie in the Plane series, we received this answer.
Bobs: Well, you know, what’s interesting about Disney Toon Studios, again, John Lassiter is such a wonderful, creative leader. He’s a filmmaker, you know, which is great, to have a filmmaker, a fantastic filmmaker, sort of heading the studios that he oversees. Disney Animation Studios. And Pixar. Disney Toons. And, what we films we do take so long to make. You know, it’s five years of your life, you know, to make. And that’s one of those things we’re always like — insights — even though this came out a year later, still, we didn’t make it in a year.
BG : And so, they can’t feel like assignments, because they are something that you’re going to basically pour yourself into. So he really waits for his filmmakers to be inspired by something, and to go out there, and research it, and meet the people, ride in the vehicles, and come back and tell him and everyone, uh, on the team, like, what you’d discovered that was cool.
And did you know, and can you believe it, and I’ll bet you didn’t realize, all of these sort of things. And, so it takes a long time, so, um, yeah. We hope to make more stories in this world, but we won’t until we find the right thing. That everybody kind of sort of wants to commit to, for five years. Because it’s a huge commitment, and it has to be a passion, not an assignment. So, yeah. Ultimately I hope to make more. Like I said, I’m still here.
We finished the movie, I’m still coming in every day, and no one’s said stop. So I think we probably will do some more.
*Disclosure: I received an all expenses paid trip to Los Angeles for the coverage of several press events for Disney. All opinions are 100% my own.
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