Tristan Oliver interview, The Upcoming
You never know where Wes Anderson is going to take you. He’s hopped from a school to a fox burrow to a scout troop to an eccentric hotel, and never loses his crazy personal touch. His environments are always constructed with great attention and detail, so much so that each shot could be the subject of an essay.
In Anderson’s latest film Isle of Dogs, he takes us to Trash Island in Japan – near the fictional city of Megasaki – where dogs are exiled because of the widespread Snout Fever. A boy hijacks a small plane to travel to the island, in the hope of finding his dog Spots.
We had a brief chat with cinematographer Tristan Oliver, who worked previously with Anderson on Fantastic Mr Fox, about the production of the movie. We discussed the efforts required to create a stop-motion animation film, the Japanese influence on the visuals, and working with Anderson’s personal style.
How long did it take to shoot and animate the entire film?
Typically, these stop-frame movies take about 18 months to shoot, and that’s from the first camera turning over to the last camera turning over. In that period, we would ramp up from three to four sets up to 40-50. We’ve got 40-50 of these sets all running at the same time, 40-50 cameras, maybe 35-40 animators working across that, and a crew of up to 200.
Prior to that process, there are at least six months to a year of pre-production – during which, what all this stuff is going to look like is sorted out. So puppet-design, set-design, camera-testing, testing the sets against the cameras: is the finish right? is the colour right? do the costumes on the puppet look right? The whole thing, from start to finish, probably takes about three years.
