DEFINITION April 2019

DRAMA | DUMBO/CAPTA I N MARVEL

We took the biggest stages we could get to build our travelling circus environment and did set extension work

I looked and recognised this was exactly what Tim had sketched out. He chose great actors: Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton and Colin Farrell, and encouraged them to elevate their performances even further. It was an extraordinary process to watch how he brought all that together.” SKETCH IT Burton has a traditional way of working, according to Davis, where “we would go in every morning and watch yesterday’s rushes”. Burton would then explain what they’d do that day and where he’d like to start. “He sketched it, then brought in the actors. It was a more organic process, whereby he would allow it to evolve. Once he had shaped the scene, he would be very precise. He had a very precise and concise idea of what he wanted to achieve,” explains Davis. “Tim also has a fantastic operator, Des Whelan, and the two of them discussed where to place the crane and how the camera would move. Des suggested ideas to Tim that he either liked or didn’t, so it was a more collaborative way of working than just telling us exactly how it was going to be. “What was interesting with Dumbo was that we shot it in story order, which was great. We started at the beginning of the story and it developed until the end. That made it easier. The film itself is a simple

subtly guided everyone into the vision he had. I look at it now and see it all come together into one unified whole.” Davis is enthusiastic about Burton, describing him as “courageous, enigmatic, and bizarrely eccentric in the most wonderful way”. He explains: “It was a joy working with him. He’ll give you more information in five minutes than some directors give you during an entire film. His brain is working much faster, his thought process much quicker, so you have to pay attention when he tells you what he wants. “When we first talked about film, Tim said, ‘Dumbo can’t be real. He flies. He has these enormous ears. He is not a photoreal baby elephant’. He showed me his early concept and it was clearly not going to work putting him in a hyperreal environment. We had to create an entirely new world to place him in – and Tim shaped this world. “We had no strong reference as such, it was completely unique. Tim would draw sketches – that was one of his favourite ways of communicating. He drew this beautiful little sketch of baby Dumbo creeping under the tent when Dumbo’s mother is locked in a cage, and Tim said, ‘This is the scene’. He’d come into the art department and he’d draw these shapes. I have an image of these shapes in my head and in the digital intermediate (DI),

story to tell: one of the shortest Disney films they had ever made. “Most of our work was creating the world of this travelling circus. We decided in pre-production we would shoot it all on stages, which is controllable, and not on a backlot or location exteriors in winter in England, where the weather would dictate the look of the film.” Davis explains it wasn’t all visual effects, even though the VFX company list includes many hundreds of technicians. Of course, Dumbo himself is a computer-generated elephant. “We took the biggest stages we could get to build our travelling circus environment and did set extension work. I had great control over that, lighting- wise,” says Davis. “In those days, travelling circuses would travel overnight, set up at sunrise, rehearse in the morning and do the show in the evening. On the stage, I had full control and could decide what time it was and dictate the weather during the scene – the atmosphere of the light reflected what was happening. Tim and I discussed the times of day and the skies we wanted to be extraordinary, elevated and pushed. “In the original Dumbo , the skies had colour and shape. We watched Gone with the Wind and embraced the idea of getting extraordinary skies. I took photographs of skies that were wild and dramatic. With VFX, we chose what sort of sky would be best for each scene and I keyed that sky on to the blue screen on set and then chose the light to suit it. I moved the sun to where I wanted it and then I looked at the actors to determine how to light them on the set. Normally, you have the reference of the sky and you light the set with that sky. The great advantage here was putting that up in camera. “Disney’s original Dumbo had giraffes and lots of animals – we only had horses and dogs, but no real elephants. Disney didn’t want to show cruelty to animals,

ABOVE With VFX, Davis moved the sun to where he wanted it, lighting the actors accordingly

24 DEF I N I T ION | APR I L 20 1 9

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