“Memoir of a Snail” مذكرات حلزون كما لم تسمعوها من قبل… حوار حصري مع مخرج الأوسكار آدم إيليوت #ten_hollywood اشترك في القناة الرسمية #TeNTV ليصلك كل جديد http://bit.ly/TeNTV تابعوا قناة Ten TV على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي: Twitter: https://goo.gl/w6aF3o tik tok: https://shorturl.at/LH8Pc Facebook : https://goo.gl/HwSu9L Youtube: https://goo.gl/XCWepB Instagram: https://goo.gl/hN7c7N
00:49فخلونا انا أدور على الكوكع وانتوا تفرجوا على المقابلة
00:52يا كوكع
00:54شكرا لك
01:10أشكرا لديهم
01:16أشكرا لديهم
01:17أشكرا لديهم
01:19أحيانك
01:22كيف حالك؟
01:23شكرا لك
01:29كيف حقا لديك
01:30قررارة
01:35شكرا للمشاهدة
01:37لأجب المرحلة
01:38بشكل جيد
01:39بإمكان لديك
01:41كيف حقا لديك
01:42كيف حقا لديك
01:45رحلتي
01:46لديك
01:47جيد
01:48أحيانا
01:49So you're always like kind of have a unique perspective on universal issues and stuff like this.
01:57And you're always trying to kind of present it through a different character.
02:01I want to know why the approach this time was through a snail.
02:06Oh, good question.
02:07Well, you know, snails I find really fascinating, first of all.
02:12But the originally the screenplay when I first I did 16 drafts of the script.
02:16And the first draft was called Memoir of a Ladybird.
02:19And it was about ladybirds and she collected ladybirds.
02:22But then that film Ladybird came out with Greta Gerwig.
02:26And I thought, well, it was getting a bit cutesy and twee and a bit saccharine.
02:32And I thought there must be a better animal, better creature that is more metaphorical and symbolic of what Grace is going through.
02:40So I thought of pigs and ducks and frogs and cats.
02:44But I settled on snails because I thought, you know, you touch a snail's antennas and the snail retracts into its shell.
02:52And that's what Grace is doing her whole life.
02:54She's retracting from the world.
02:56She's retracting into the safety of her horde.
02:59So I love that sort of metaphor.
03:01But also, too, I love the swirl on a snail's shell, which I thought that would be a lovely visual motif to have through the film.
03:09And that's the swirl is symbolic of life going full circle.
03:13It's very cyclic.
03:14And then I discovered that snails can't reverse.
03:18They can only move forward.
03:20They can go around in circles, but they can't actually go backwards.
03:23And that linked really well to my favorite quote that I wanted to use by Soren Kierkegaard, that life can only be understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards.
03:33And so there was all these links that started to happen.
03:36And I thought, yeah, I think it's going to be snails.
03:39Love it.
03:40Love it.
03:41So snails like planes.
03:43Planes, they cannot go backwards.
03:45They can only fly up or forward.
03:48They cannot go back.
03:50Exactly.
03:50That's a great metaphor, too.
03:51Yeah.
03:52Which, you know, as well, like since we're having a great conversation about animals and, you know, like the only bird on the planet that can fly stationary without moving anywhere like a helicopter
04:04is the hummingbird and it's the only bird that can go backwards, front, up, like it's crazy.
04:12Right, right.
04:13Yeah, I saw a hummingbird and they're so little, too, hummingbirds.
04:16Yeah.
04:16Yeah, they're fascinating.
04:18One of my favorite birds.
04:19So I hope next one will be about hummingbirds.
04:23So, Adam, like the look of your animation is beautiful.
04:29and I want to know, like animation and stop motion in general, they are, there's so many different style and texture of how the project is going to look at the end.
04:40I want to know why did you choose that theme?
04:42It looks great.
04:42I love it.
04:43I'm not saying anything.
04:44And I want to, like, I want to know, like, did you have any challenges bringing this to life?
04:52And do you know this name?
04:54That's it.
04:54Yeah, well, look, this film, first of all, I wanted it to be brown.
05:01And there's no blue or green in the film.
05:04Everything's autumnal, you know, everything.
05:07And there's a lot of reasons brown.
05:08Brown because the 70s, I was brought up in the 1970s, and people painted their houses brown.
05:15Brown was a very popular color for some reason.
05:17But also brown sort of suited the psychological state of grace, particularly when she's in Canberra.
05:24She is very beige, bland, dehydrated, desaturated.
05:30And it's a very boring existence she has in Canberra.
05:34In Melbourne, it's a blackier brown, more bohemian.
05:37And in Perth, where Gilbert lives, it's a much more, you know, rich, dense, you know, brown that's more, you know, representative of the state he's in.
05:47So the brown was used as a device.
05:50And also the aesthetic is what I call chunky wonky.
05:55So every prop set and character has to look slightly, you know, bent or asymmetrical or deformed.
06:06I don't like things looking too refined or slick.
06:10And again, that's because everything in the characters is imperfect, in their lives is imperfect, but the aesthetic is also imperfect.
06:19Also, the use of the kintsugi bowls that Ken collects, that's, it's a real Japanese art form that's about the appreciation of imperfection.
06:29So weirdly, what my team of artists and I are looking for is, is it, we are not aiming for perfection, we're aiming for imperfection.
06:38So sometimes an artist would make a little prop and I'd say to them, oh, it's too good.
06:43Can you make it worse?
06:45Can you drop it on the ground a few times and add a few bumps and fingerprints?
06:51And so that, and also too, stop motion is, it's great because audiences know that what they're looking at is handmade.
06:58It's very obvious that the film's not CGI.
07:01And there's so much CGI animation these days that I think stop motion is going through a bit of a renaissance and appreciation because particularly with AI as well,
07:11there's a, there's a real, there's a real appreciation for things that are handmade.
07:17I understand the brown because the mud and the, like the, the ground is, is brown.
07:24The mud where the snails are, is brown.
07:27So it's, it makes perfect sense for me, like to see that things are brown.
07:31And the stock mold, I like the fact that they were kind of like, as you said, imperfect because it makes them real.
07:38It makes them live, it makes them seasoned.
07:40So did you have any challenges bringing this to life?
07:46Yeah, look, I think, you know, every day on a stop motion film is challenging because, you know, we have to deal with gravity.
07:53For example, making things fly through the air, we have to work out how we're going to do that.
07:57There's a lot of trickery.
07:59We have to be very innovative, very inventive.
08:02For example, Grace, she doesn't have any legs because walking is very time consuming and therefore very expensive.
08:09So we had to work out a way to make her walk.
08:12So we use what's called the Muppet technique.
08:14So it looks like she can walk, but it's just trickery.
08:18So there's all those sorts of challenges.
08:19I think the most challenging shot of the whole film was the very first one, that opening title sequence.
08:26Yeah.
08:27That took a month.
08:29Wow.
08:29The one before the operation, before we arrived to her, like, no.
08:33Yeah, when the camera's gliding through all the horde.
08:37Yeah, that took two weeks to set up and glue all the props in and then two weeks to animate.
08:43And we had a big giant robotic arm that moved frame at a time through the horde.
08:48So, yeah, that was very expensive and very challenging.
08:52It's amazing.
08:53Like, technically, it's great because, you know, this all exists.
08:58It's not art and fiction.
09:00and you guys were dealing with stuff like this.
09:03So it's amazing.
09:03It's more alive.
09:06Yeah, everything was real.
09:08You know, the fire was yellow cellophane.
09:10The cigarette smoke was cotton wool.
09:12So it's all real.
09:13Yeah.
09:13I love this.
09:14It's very creative.
09:15And they didn't give you an Oscar for no reason.
09:18I can see that, for sure.
09:20You know what you're doing.
09:21And you're doing amazing.
09:23So my next question will be, and it won't be, like, the last question, I promise.
09:29But my next question will be, just quickly, what are you hoping for the people to take away from the film?
09:37Yeah, well, look, I always say that if you're not an emotional wreck by the end of one of my films, then I failed as a writer.
09:43So I really want the audience to be very emotional while watching the film.
09:49But I want them to leave the cinema with a smile on their face.
09:53I want them to have laughed and cried, but also feel hopeful about their own lives.
09:58And which is why Gilbert comes back at the end of the film.
10:03It's a reward for all the trauma I've inflicted upon the audience and Grace.
10:08You know, I'm quite cruel to Grace.
10:10I give her a lot of bad luck, a lot of trauma, a lot of life.
10:14But then I reward Grace with Gilbert coming back at the end.
10:17So, yeah, I want the audience to feel emotionally exhausted by the time they leave, but happy at the same time.
10:24That's awesome.
10:26So, last question now, what's next for you?
10:30Well, I've just started writing the next feature film.
10:33And this one's going to be a character similar to Pinky.
10:38Not Pinky, but someone like Pinky.
10:40I want to tell a story about an elderly woman who goes on a road trip.
10:47I've just seen the wonderful film Thelma, which is sort of similar in a way.
10:51As soon as you said this, Thelma came to my mind straight away.
10:55Yeah, yeah.
10:56And so, I mean, I had the idea before I saw Thelma.
11:00I was a bit worried when I watched Thelma, was it going to be similar?
11:03But my film's much different.
11:05Yeah, it's not going to be similar.
11:07No, no.
11:08I'm sure it's not going to be similar.
11:09Depending on the style that I see, it's never going to be similar.
11:13No, no.
11:14It won't be ready for at least five years.
11:16So, everyone will have forgotten about Thelma by then anyway.
11:18So, it's a road film.
11:22And, you know, I think it's because I'm tired of making films about characters stuck in their
11:26bedrooms in suburbia.
11:28I feel like now I want to go on a big journey.
11:31And I think that's because I'm getting older as I'm 52.
11:34I want to make films that are a bit more philosophical.
11:39I still want to make entertaining films.
11:40But I think I'm getting, you know, more existential as I'm getting older.
11:46I'm asking myself big life questions.
11:49Why are we here?
11:50What's the meaning of life?
11:51All that stuff.
11:52So, this film, yeah, more of the same, you know.
11:55Love it.
11:55Thank you, Adam.
11:56Thank you so much.
11:57That was a wonderful chat.
11:59Thank you, Mika.
12:00Yeah.
12:00And where are you?
12:01Are you in Dubai or where?
12:02No, I mean, I'm Egyptian, but I also like the show in Egypt, but I'm located here in
12:09Hollywood.
12:10So, we'll see you.
12:11Oh, you're in America right now.
12:12Ah, right.
12:13Okay.
12:14I've just left, as you probably know.
12:16And my brother lives in San Francisco.
12:19So, I'm coming back to America in about four weeks.
12:23So, yeah.
12:24Awesome.
12:25Looking forward to coming.
12:26You're in London now?
12:28I'm currently back in Melbourne, in Australia.
12:31I'm sure I'm not.
12:31But, yeah, I've just done 11 weeks.
12:33I went to Switzerland, London, and then all around America, and then back home, but only
12:39for a month, and then I'm back on the road again, promoting the film.
