Director KELLY ASBURY talks about his latest movie GNOMEO & JULIET, a 3D animated version of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet which features the music of Elton John.
**GNOMEO & JULIET is in cinemas from 11 February
MMM: How did you become involved with Gnomeo & Juliet?
Asbury: Baker Bloodworth [producer] rang me and said, ‘Kelly, we’ve got this great movie and we’d love you to direct. It’s using the music of Elton John and Bernie Taupin.’ I said, ‘That sounds great!’ Then he said it was going to be about garden gnomes and I thought, “wow, we’ve never done that before! It’s a really good ingredient.’ Then he said it was going to be the story of Romeo & Juliet and there was a nice long pause. I realised that it would be a pretty interesting combination to try and put together, to see if we could make something fun and interesting, and somehow keep it from being too much of a tragedy… if at all. So, it was a challenge I couldn’t turn down.
MMM: Tell me about the Friends of Gnomeo?
Asbury: Those were a group of people that Baker and I had known for years in the animation industry and about every three months we’d gather them together… some were directors, producers, story artists that we’d worked with. We just showed the movie in its current state at different times and got their opinions. They were honest with us and if it sucked they told us it sucked, and what they didn’t like. But that’s really how you develop this group of people, or brain trust if you will, to help you make the movie and make it better.
MMM: How did working on Gnomeo & Juliet compare to other films you’ve worked on like Shrek 2?
Asbury: On every animated film – but this one more than any I’ve experienced – there were times when you don’t really know exactly what you’re going to do with the characters and with Juliet and Benny and Nanette we really got into the recording sessions and said to the actors: ‘Look, here’s the idea. Here’s what we want the character to kind of be like. Can you play with that? Can you give us something and help us?’
I can say very truthfully that everyone really came in and brought something to it that made a light bulb go off in all of our heads in making the movie. So there really was an evolution and an organic process. When you do this, you hope it comes off spontaneously and that’s what I love about how their voices sound. They made it seem easy and they made my job easy.
MMM: What kind of involvement did Elton John have during the production?
Asbury: From the very beginning we would always run the story by him, talk about it and the music. We wanted the music to really be in the fabric of the film. We didn’t want to just throw Elton John music on top of the story; we wanted it to be a part of the story. We’ve used it the way, I hope, that they used it in The Graduate with Simon & Garfunkel’s music, where it’s an emotional cue for what’s going on on-screen. It gives you an idea of the character’s emotional journey at that time – the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows. So Elton was integral to that process, as was Bernie Taupin, and James Newton Howard and Chris Bacon, who composed the score for us. It was very important that the movie be glued together by this suite of Elton John classics and the new songs.
MMM: It was inevitable, I suppose, that Elton would make an appearance in the film. Was there much conjecture about what that role would be? And did you feel any trepidation about showing him his caricature?
Asbury: We knew we wanted him to appear somehow. There were a lot of different discussions and then we got this idea for Nanette to sort of have this Ally McBeal moment: when Paris [Stephen Merchant] is wooing her, she envisions him romantically singing his version of Your Song. So that was the perfect time.
And of course, whenever you do a caricature of anyone you want to show it to them first and get their approval before it goes on screen. I was a little scared but he loved it and he said, ‘Do it!’ So we enhanced it with more jewels and more shininess! It all worked out great.
MMM: How did you approach the 3D and what do you think it adds to a movie?
Asbury: From my perspective I wanted it to be 3D early on because the scale of the world we’re in, down at the gnome cam, with all the giant leaves and flower pots… I think it really enhanced the world. It took a little convincing the studio to let us to do it. Fortunately, thanks to Avatar, we were able to convince them in time to not have to do this in post-production. We were able to go in and plan the movie as 3D and make it 3D about halfway through the process.
I think it was appropriate for this movie. Now, there are other animated features like Rango, which is coming out about a month after us, which aren’t 3D. I think it depends on the subject matter; it really should depend on the world you’re creating and is 3D appropriate to the world that’s being portrayed on film?
To just do it as a gimmick… I think that will get old sooner rather than later. I think 3D will become much more specific to the subject matter when the novelty of it starts to even out. Right now it’s still a big novelty to a lot of films. I say that hopefully.
MMM: What was it like directing Ozzy Osbourne?
Asbury: All I know is that when Ozzy walked into the studio I really didn’t know what to expect. I mean, the prince of darkness was about to arrive. But he’s been in recording studios all his life and he knew exactly how to do it and he knew exactly what I wanted. He gave me a thousand choices and he was great – a dream to work with. Ozzy’s perfect for the character.
Q. How did Lady Gaga come on board for the soundtrack?
Asbury: Well, we had the song written by Bernie Taupin and Elton had performed it. It was the love at first sight song. We had it as an Elton solo for some time but it just seemed like it was a time when we needed a female voice to come in there and we wanted something… we didn’t want something that you’d expect. We didn’t want something that would be a typical duet between a male and a female. We wanted something that might kind of wake you up a little bit, and also… Juliet’s character has a lot of edge in a lot of ways. We didn’t want her to be a typical princess.
So who do you go to but Lady Gaga for that? Elton was actually having dinner with her and just told her the story and she was taken by it and agreed to do it. She recorded it separately, it was put together and we loved it. And that was that. It just sounded great and really told you a lot about Juliet’s character and that moment in the movie. It informed the emotion.
MMM: Did you have any doubts that gnomes and Shakespeare’s words would mix?
Asbury: I would say it was a challenge. It wasn’t quite clear exactly how we were going to do it. But what we all arrived at was that Shakespeare has been interpreted in many different ways, and Romeo & Juliet has been interpreted in many different ways. The spine of the story is there in West Side Story, it’s in Bonnie & Clyde, it’s in Grease, it’s in the Twilight series and it’s in Brokeback Mountain. It’s been done a million times. So it was time for gnomes!
By Jan Gilbert
