HITFIX/ROTTEN TOMATOES: CHRIS WEITZ TALKS ‘NEW MOON’

HitFix and Rotten Tomatoes were lucky enough to get a quick interview with Chris Weitz as he works on editing New Moon. First, we get some main of the main points from the interview before they go into the actual questions and answers.

•Even Weitz was surprised with how quickly Phil Tippet’s company turned around the Jacob wolf shot at the end of the first teaser trailer. The shot has gone through numerous iterations and is much more photorealistic than that version.

• He’ll be submitting a director’s cut of the film to Summit within the next two weeks.

• Alexandre Desplat is currently working on the movie’s score. It may include hints at Carter Burwell’s original “Twilight” theme, but will sound different.

• Thom Yorke and Kings of Leon are interested in contributing to the film’s soundtrack.

• A couple of new scenes from the film will be shown during the “New Moon” Comic-Con panel on Thursday, July 23.

• Shooting in Italy with all of the fans that trekked across Europe to see the production was like Beatlemania.

• His vision of the Volturi is very much like the book and unlike a number of fan inspirations that have hit the web. He also sees them as having gone slightly insane after living for 2,000 years.

• He’s met with David Slade and expects the filmmaker’s vision for “Eclipse” to be different than what he’s doing with “New Moon,” but with the same actors and visual effects team.

• He’s flattered that fans want him to direct “Breaking Dawn” without seeing “New Moon,” but thinks the fans will want Slade to do it by the time “Eclipse comes out.

• Weitz needs to turn the film in by Oct. 30 to strike prints or if not, they are in “big trouble” to make the release date.

Q: Can you talk about that then? What was your interest in coming on board a franchise that predominately been more popular with women then men?

Actually, in that regard my brother and I often end up doing movies whose audiences are predominantly women or tipping point of success relies on a female audience. Even ‘American Pie.’ I think the thing that distinguishes it more than the gross-out humor, because there is a lot of that going on. The way we tooled it was so that girls could be interested in it as well. And, in as much as the ‘Twilight’ series has a great appeal to women, I think it really concentrates on the emotions of the central character and romance and I think that unfortunately that the studio system has not been very good at getting boys to be interested in. They think and maybe incorrectly, that the male gender is interested in just thing blowing up. And I don’t think that’s true. I certainly didn’t make this movie towards only girls or women being interested in seeing it. There is a lot for diverse audiences including older audiences than the first one drew. Really, we are drawn to the cast. I thought the central cast were great and I wanted to work with them and it also employed some skills that I picked up along the way including working with special effects and working with younger actors and working on emotionally structured stories.

Q: ‘Twilight’ is very emotional at its core, but it also has a lot of CG elements. Would you say you are in a comfort zone? Is this familiar ground?

Right, I’m never really in a comfort zone making a movie which is a discomfort zone, because you’re always working under pressured circumstances, because you don’t have an unlimited amount of time or money to do these things. There were a number of things I was familiar with — familiar enough so that I could do what I think is really important which is not to foreground the special effects for the action elements, but to make those kind of settle into the story. You never really want someone to watch a movie and go, ‘Wow, those were great special effects.’ You hope they won’t notice the majority of what you are doing. Obviously, people are going to notice horse-sized wolves and realize on some level they are special effects, but they are photorealistic and they should be as expressive as a good actor if possible. So, in terms of kind of wrangling that sort of process it is something I am used to.

Q: In terms of the effects, I think everyone on this call was probably stunned after we’d been on set and we’d talked to the producer and he was like ‘We’re still working on some of the designs for the wolfpack’ and I think it was like two or three weeks later we saw the first trailer and that great shot at the end. Have you ever worked in such a quick process from beginning to end?

It is. I myself was surprised Phil Tippet’s company was able to turn out that wolf shot and I think they kind of did that as a matter of institutional pride that they could. Even that shot that was in the trailer has gone through 20-30 iterations since then, but they have done a really extraordinary job and Phil Tippet is a complete genius. He’s responsible for the walkers in ‘Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back’ and he’s kind of one of the legends of the visual effects community and it pretty amazing what they have been able to do on such short notice. We are working at kind of breakneck speed at the same time as trying to achieve something really quite elegant as well. It’s not just Tippet, it’s Frantic/CBS (LOOK UP) which is headed up by Mike Fink who is my old friend who was the visual effects supervisor on ‘Golden Compass’ which won the Oscar the year it came out. So, yeah, working very fast, but we’re also trying to work as beautifully as possible to make these effect kind of settle into the amazing cinematography that Javier Aguirresarobe brought us. We are kind of moving at light speed,but trying to deliver something that’s really elegant and beautiful.

Q: Just to follow that up, can you tell us how far along you are to completion right now?

I am about two weeks away from showing the director’s cut to the studio. I’ve got some wolves with fur. Some wolves are still invisible basically and some wolves are like — you’ve all probably seen the claymation versions. We are still in the light RD phases of what Edward looks like when he’s hit — what the vampires look like when he’s hit with light and the diamond effect. Also, the kind of hallucinatory effect Bella has when she hears Edward’s voice and she imagines him there. And then we are Alexandre Desplat has just started working on his music for the film. And we are just starting to put together what acts will be on the soundtrack, so it’s kind of like keeping ten plates spinning at once, but it’s all good because we’ve got Alexander Desplat who I think is one of the greatest film composers living and because of the kind of the strength of the franchise that I inherited, a lot of bands are really interested in working on the soundtrack and we got visual effects people. And that just leaves me hopefully not dropping the ball in terms of editing together the story.

Q: Sounds like a lot.

It is a lot, and with Comic-Con on the 24th were we are going to show a couple of scenes to whoever can get in that auditorium. And yeah, it’s a lot to be getting on with, but it’s fun at the same time.

Q: In regards to the music, will Alexander Desplat be using Carter Burwell’s theme at all?

I think, y’know, yes, because like any franchise there are certain themes that become familiar. I suspect he’s going to transpose it in some manner and most of the music will be entirely new to the franchise, because his style is somewhat different from Carter Burwell’s, but I think there is some value to having a familiar — I believe the words are ‘light motifs’ — running through the entire series.

Q: Really quickly on the music. The first movie probably made Paramore as a band. Were you surprised by the number of acts wanting to be on the sequel and have you had to turn anybody down?

Well, fortunately I’m not at the stage where I have to turn anybody down yet, because everything is still kind of up in the air, but I am surprised by some of the bands that have said they are interested. It’s kind of great. The criteria will still be what’s right for the movie at that given moment, but y’know, Thom Yorke is interested. We might, if we’re very lucky, get Kings of Leon to do something. So, it’s exciting to have access to this kind of talent.

You can read the full interview, here on HitFix or here on Rotten Tomatoes.

Stay tuned as we bring you more from HitFix from their journey to the set of The Twilight Saga: New Moon tomorrow and Saturday.

I love hearing from Chris! I think he’s going to do a phenomenal job with New Moon. I’m really excited to hear we might have a possibility of Kings of Leon on the soundtrack.

What did you think of this interview? Does anything Chris said surprise you?