This one covers alot of ground, so get a coffee, have a seat, and read on...
PEGNEWS: What was it like working with Ray Harryhausen, a king of stop-motion animation?
MARC LOUGEE: Working with Ray Harryhausen on anything would be the dream of a lifetime for me. In that, having Ray Harryhausen as Executive Producer on ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ was an incredible experience, from numerous perspectives.
I first experienced Ray’s influence as a kid glued to the television watching creature double features on Saturday afternoons. Watching his films— Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, 20 million miles to Earth, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, and later, Clash of the Titans— inspired me to get off the floor, and do something, anything, that would be as fun as those films. I guess it was the combination of animated creatures, live action, and visual effects that got me fired-up, and really interested in understanding how Ray accomplished what he had in those films.
The experience of working with Ray Harryhausen was like ‘coming around full circle’ for me, from being a huge fan, to getting involved in the lunacy that is professional animation production, to working on ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ with Ray Harryhausen at the helm.
I nearly broke my arm pinching myself!
And Ray Harryhausen is the consummate gentleman, proving this repeatedly as my producer, Susan Ma, and I struggled to get the film off the ground.
We were in contact with Ray’s producer, when we’d started our initial conversations over which of Poe’s stories we could commit to production. I had a previous commitment to direct animation and visual effects on the BBC/ Discovery show ‘Dinosapien', so we had only a few months to get the film in the can, or at the least, into post-production. Producer Susan Ma and I had to act fast and furiously to secure the proper grants necessary to get things going. Once Ray OK’d my pitch to shoot ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, we hit the ground running.
PEGNEWS: Was Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” the first choice?
LOUGEE: Initially, Ray had his heart set on seeing E.A. Poe’s ‘Fall of the House of Usher’ come to fruition as the first film under his “Ray Harryhausen Presents” banner. After a few passes at the budget and schedules, Susan concluded it would not be feasible for us to pull it together in light of our previous commitments (and our bank accounts), so we optioned to pitch ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ to Ray in place of “Fall of the House of Usher”.
We knew it would be less involved logistically; it was a guy in a dank, dark, rat-infested room. How could we go wrong?
Ray was awesome in that he actually agreed with us on The Pit and the Pendulum. Susan and I were thrilled to think we were going to see this thing happen, and that Ray was keen to see the Pit and the Pendulum happen.
Once we had a minute of the film ready for a look, we scheduled a meet with Ray in Montreal. We were nervous and excited about showing him the test footage, but Ray was just the best, and I wound up spending a few hours talking about the film, the puppets and footage, which he thoroughly enjoyed.
I had met with Ray on numerous other occasions, all of them social, but I’d not had to actually show up with work that he would need to approve, so I was just a mess when I got there. Ray proved so encouraging, patient and above all, really inspiring to be around. We had a blast, and later went out for a steak dinner. Turned out the waiter was pretty nervous as well; he recognized Ray, was a huge fan of his work (the waiter was also training to be an animator), and couldn’t believe he was waiting Ray's table! What a blast that was for everyone. A brilliant end to a very interesting day.
PEGNEWS: What is your background in animation?
LOUGEE: I attended Wellesley Senior High School, in Wellesley, Mass. I was interested in studying photography and film, as well as aviation, as I thought I would pursue a pilot’s license to make the dough I’d need to live on while I made my own films! How practical. I wound up in the Army for a few years, saving money for college.
I got my hands wet (literally) in photography and film making courses in high school. I had a wonderful teacher, Jack Rutledge, who inspired me to keep making little animated films over the summer breaks. Jack allowed me to sneak the Super 8 cameras out for the summer, so I could continue making films when I wasn’t working.
Making the most of the time and equipment, I made over 30 x 3 minute epics, all of them stop motion animated films. This collection of filmic wonders (using animated GI Joe's and Micronauts as puppets and Super 8 cameras) helped me land a seat at the Massachusetts College of Art, to study film. While attending Mass Art, I landed an internship at an independent animation studio in Boston. The folks there were very supportive, and I learned a lot as I got more involved in commercial production.
That internship widened my horizons considerably, and inside of a year, I was directing and animating my first professional first commercial gig for ABC. I was paid six dollars an hour for that job, and completed the first shoot in about four hours. Imagine! I think I might have been the lowest paid director in the industry, working on nationally-aired spots. That was 1985. From there, I continued to learn as I went along, always making my own films while working for various studios in New York, Los Angeles, and Frankfurt, Germany. Filmmaking still proves to be a constant learning experience.
PEGNEWS: For people not too knowledgeable on stop-motion animation (me), how long did this project take to complete, and is this typical?
LOUGEE: The Pit and the Pendulum short film, all-in, spanned the better part of a year in production. This was a not a full-time, 24/7 schedule for all of us, though. We pre-visualized the animation for two months, the shooting script took about three months to write, actual animation shooting time was six weeks (full time). The post-production phase was about six months with visual effects, editing, sound mixing, et al.
This is a normal amount of time for a short film like this, as everybody involved is being paid little, if at all, and we worked in spurts, when all the folks needed for each stage of the production were available. Animation can be very time intensive, and that can equate to a lot of time and money. I made the effort to be as efficient as possible by pre-visualizing every shot, story boarding everything closely, then cutting what’s called an ‘animatic', to the recorded audio track. This is essentially the digitally scanned story board panels dropped onto a timeline in editing, with a soundtrack, to determine the timing of the film.
Here, we get the real ‘feel’ of the film, and determine if it’s telling the story. This is a key phase, especially in animation production, as there isn’t room for wasted shots, or stuff ending up on the cutting room floor. With so much control in animation production, there’s lots of room to squeeze the most out of the resources you have. This ‘proves’ the film prior to actually shooting a single frame of animation, so the director (and Executive Producers, Producer, et al) have a chance to see the film before any animation is recorded.
PEGNEWS: Is it true that The Pit and the Pendulum is the first of what will be a series of animated shorts based on Poe’s works? Can you spill any info on what's next? (I’m crossing my fingers for “The Cask of Amontillado.”)
LOUGEE: We’re looking forward to making more shorts for the series, of which I hope to have at least a trilogy completed. I’m currently developing E.A. Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ as the next of the three (keep those fingers crossed, man!). We hope to finish up with either The Raven, The Masque of Red Death or the ambitious Hop Frog. One of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems I’m developing is the “The Haunted Palace.” I love the poem, and plan to utilize a combination of stop motion, cut-out animation, and CGI effects to create a visually compelling adaptation.
We’ll keep moving along, slowly, as we finance the films ourselves, as we seeking distribution for an educational market, as these are really films for a younger generation to visualize the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, as a way to help students connect with literature.
PEGNEWS: If Poe were alive today and went to the movies, do you think he would want to stab himself after watching our manufactured, spiritless horror flicks?
LOUGEE: I think Poe would have as hard a time as the rest of us in finding horror films that are worth seeing. Personally, I feel there’s a gaping hole in the genre, reflected in the current offerings at the theatre. There are some cool horror films being produced and released independently, under the radar of the studio system, that may have been of interest to Poe.
I’m sure Poe would relate to independent filmmakers, especially those making films with little or no money, bucking the ‘manufactured and spiritless’. Poe himself suffered constant poverty but remained a prolific writer, despite his circumstances, lack of funding, and early on in his career, obscurity and relentless rejection of his work. It was his passion for writing that drove him, fueling his desire to carry on and produce work despite dreadful circumstances.
PEGNEWS: Having read that you worked on MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch, I can’t help but ask what your favorite match was.
LOUGEE: For me, it’s a draw; there’s an early episode of the Rat Pack; Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin in the ring, which was absolutely hilarious. The other episode is Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper. That episode had an unusual aesthetic, based in 19th century London, complete with fog, gas lamps, and cobblestone streets. That episode looked great and was a fun episode to shoot. A bit gory, but fun to direct.
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