The stronger the weather and the geographic location were in combination, the happier we were. I can imagine how people would get lost in the Sahara. It was pretty powerful to be down in the dunes. It’s another spot with volatile weather, where the continent turns north a spit of land where the sea comes right up to it and pushes the dunes inland for 10 to 15 miles. It was maybe six hours from Melbourne, right on the border with South Australia and Victoria. Where was that scene shot?īarrett: That was in Discovery Bay Coastal Park. It was already semi-accessible to the public, so we didn't feel like we were treading on new growth so much. We didn't want to upset the nature that way, so we found a Boy Scout camp that had been burned more recently. It was in a national park and the rangers were very excited about the germination of these seeds that had been dormant for so long. The first forest from our scouting trip the year before had come back to life too quickly. That was an eucalyptus forest that had burned. One was Gembrook Forest, also on the the southeastern side of Melbourne bay. We wanted to bring this to the film.īarrett: There were two forests. But, the black trunks also had new sprouts coming out it was definitely a land in upheaval and emotional imbalance. The fire had gone through very quickly-the trees were blackened, and the leaves that fell from up above had dried out and made a silver ground cover. It enticed us to play around and throw dirt clots at each other. When we were scouting, we saw an area of forest that had burned that we got really excited about. But Australia does a lot of controlled burns to limit large forest fires. Is that just a coincidence?īarrett: We finished our filming long before the recent fires happened. Some of trees do look charred in the film. We heard a lot about Victoria during the devastating bush fires last year. It was important to be really enveloped in nature. So most of the film is shot from Max’s point of view, at a nine-year-old’s height, so he’s looking up at their imposing size. Vincent Landay: Spike always wanted it to be like a nature film, as if we were filming the creatures in the wild and stalking them, rather than setting them up directly in front of us. To us, having the feel of a real environment-both for the actors as well as through the camera-was an important element. Most movies like this are shot in a sound stage to avoid the challenges of a real location. Why bother?īarrett: Being in these remote locations was like camping out-but with giant creatures and a film crew. So each location needed to represent that.Ĭertainly shooting in forests, on sand dunes, and in choppy open water is harder than in a studio. He’s constantly taken aback by them and then accepts them and makes them his own. Max’s imagination drives the story as he's changing and inventing new worlds. Australia seemed to have the greatest diversity in a tight distance: Most of the locations were about 45 minutes to an hour and a half from Melbourne, and they were all so extreme. And a world that Max could invent on his own and that the audience could absorb as new. Barrett: We wanted to create a world that would be relevant to the story and a child’s imagination. You considered many destinations-Argentina, Hawaii, New Zealand. Barrett and producer Vincent Landay, both longtime Jonze collaborators, to learn more about where the action happened, close calls, and how nature called the shots. We caught up with production designer K.K. Here they found the rain, hail, whipping winds, and even rogue waves to be welcome, if daunting, challenges (particularly for the actors in the Wild Things costumes, which weighed up to a hundred pounds each). But where? To capture a stunning mix of extreme landscapes, Jonze’s team spent five months on location along the southernmost edge of Australia in Victoria. As King Max he runs a wondrous realm of gigantic fuzzy monsters – but being king may not be as carefree as it looks! Interesting children’s book to film fact: Jonze came to make Where the Wild Things Are after meeting Maurice Sendak while trying to realize another classic kids book, Harold and the Purple Crayon, into a film.Director Spike Jonze’s new live action movie, Where the Wild Things Are takes on the ambitious task of bringing a boy’s boundless adventure fantasy to life in the real world. After a fight with his sister and feeling his neglected by his mom, nine year old Max, dressed as a wolf, runs away from home into a world of his own imagination… he sails across the sea to become king of the land Where the Wild Things Are. Spike Jonze directs a magical, visually astonishing film version of Maurice Sendak’s celebrated children’s classic. Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, Benicio Del Toro, Mark Ruffalo, Steve Mouzakis, Pepita Emmerichs
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