December 19th, 2010
Here are some of the horrible things we had to do to Harald’s beautiful drawings further down the road (click to enlarge). Modelsheet for Owl by Jakob Schuh.
December 17th, 2010
Above: Colourconcept for the lake by Neil Ross.
Below: An early sketch Manu Arenas had originally done for the film’s framestory (see Mother Squirrel in the background) ended up serving as the layout for Mouse’s lilypad-passage over the lake. See the German version of “The Gruffalo” premiere on Dec 24th 10.40 am on ZDF.
December 16th, 2010
Here’s a fun piece of preproduction (for Gruffalo completists): Before they started working on the music for “The Gruffalo” Jakob sent composer René Aubry drawings detailing how he imagined the music would span the film. A blithely un-musical piece of music writing, but quite close to how the different themes worked in the end. Below this, a repost from June 2010: René at his 30 year stage-anniversary concert at Peter Brooks’ legendary “Bouffes du Nord”, playing a sweet version of what he made of the green bar in Jakob’s drawing, the film’s “Mouse Theme”.
December 13th, 2010
In earlier versions of Mouse’s very first encounter with his imaginary “friend”, the Gruffalo’s hands were treated almost like characters of their own: They walked about, teasing Mouse, bullying him, and eventually chasing him down, all without much effort on the Gruffalo’s part. Sketches by Max Lang.