I had the opportunity to sit down and interview the director and creator of the film “Epic”, which comes out in theaters this Friday 5/24. Chris Wedge is an Oscar winning film director, producer, and co-founder of Blue Sky Studios. We only had 15 minutes to interview him but I would imagine that we could have learned a whole lot from him if we had the time.  But don’t worry, we got what we could from Chris Wedge and learned more about “Epic”

Epic Director Chris Wedge

It has been said that Epic was inspired by artwork you saw and thought had a story to be told. Can you elaborate?

Chris Wedge: When I start an animated movie I begin with a world that is distinctive enough so that it feels fresh and hopefully a world you can only explore in animation.

William Joyce and I, a children’s book author, started putting ideas together for a movie in 1998 and we thought about a world in the woods. There are these Old Victorian Fairy paintings that depicted whole civilizations in there having weddings, coronations, funerals and so I thought “wow, there is a world to go to” so we said let’s start with the children’s book “The Leaf Men’ but let’s amp them up like samurai warriors riding on hummingbirds fighting for the life of the forest. Then you ask “well who are they fighting?” And that’s how you start putting a story together.

How did you choose the actors who play the characters in Epic?

Chris Wedge: You sometimes start off with an archetype in mind when you’re writing, you have a character in mind when your designing it. Sometimes you think of movie stars, sometimes they’re contemporary, sometimes they’re from the fifties or maybe a neighbor be you remember how specific there mannerisms are. You can always model the character after some combination of things your familiar with but the voice is the last thing you choose. It comes in at a point during the process where the story is pretty tight and the character designs are done. So when it’s time to cast you start thinking about who can make this character come to life and that’s where you start.

How is this movie put together?

Chris Wedge: There’s a lot to animation that’s interesting. Our studio is comprised of over 500 people and some of them are visual artists, some are designers that can paint or draw or they’re good with cameras. Some are sculptors and others have some computer chops that can use the programs we were talking about to model things in 3D or animate. Some are programmers that program some of the things we use, others are physicists or mathematicians. Some are good with managing, so maybe there producers. Others work with film and edit or sound. Just about anything that you can think of you can apply to all we do. It takes all those people to make these movies.

How long does it take to create an animation film?

Chris Wedge: From one idea, to script, to storyboards, to designs and building and animating…it’s a process that takes almost 4 years per movie.

How did you do research of the forest?

Chris Wedge: We didn’t have to go too far…we walked outside our studio. We live in upper New York State and that’s what the world looks like outside. We didn’t take any exotic trips but we did get chased by mosquito’s.

Do you have a favorite character that you relate to more?

Chris Wedge: Yeah, the human character Bomba is the character I enjoyed creating the most. He was a great challenge, one that I enjoyed. His character is complete and quirky and I loved his story. There’s more to him than you think there is.

Are you already working on a part 2 story?

Chris Wedge: Let’s see what the box office has to say.