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MAKING OF...(page one) |
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GETTING OUR FEET WET "Shark Tale" is an undersea comedy that gives new meaning to the phrase "sleeping with the fishes."  Executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg remarks, "'Shark Tale' shares the same
kind of sensibility as 'Shrek' in that it's a little irreverent, a little subversive,
and very much a play on a genre. Just as 'Shrek' was a send-up of fairy tales,
this film takes on the classic mob film genre, turning it upside down and inside
out and just having a lot of fun with it."
Director Vicky Jenson came to "Shark Tale" with more than a passing familiarity with "Shrek's" sensibilities, having been a director on the franchise's first Oscar®-winning blockbuster. She observes, "In much the same way as 'Shrek,' 'Shark Tale' had both great comedic possibilities and great heart. I thought it would be fun to do a mob comedy spoof with an urban backdrop, but put it under the sea." Director Rob Letterman, who also co-wrote the "Shark Tale" screenplay with Michael J. Wilson, acknowledges, "It has elements of a pop-culture parody, but it's also a romantic comedy and an action comedy and also has moments in which we root for the characters and believe in them. I think it has something in it for everybody." "'Shark Tale' is the story of a little fish who tells a big lie so he can get what he thinks he wants in life--fame and fortune and respect...and even love," director Bibo Bergeron offers. "But all he has to do is open his eyes and see that everything he wants was there all along. The good life is right in front of him; he just doesn't see it. I think that's something anyone could relate to in some way." Jenson, Bergeron and Letterman teamed to helm the computer-animated project, with each spearheading a different facet of the production. Producer Bill Damaschke expounds, "Vicky has a remarkable ability for directing actors, and brings her unique sense of humor and point of view to the story. Bibo has a tremendous animation background and had his own animation studio, so he was the one out there every day directing the lighters, animators and effects artists. He has tremendous vision where those departments are concerned. Rob, who co-wrote the screenplay, was part of our brain trust of people crafting the story, and we discovered early on that his sensibilities about the movie were very much in line with what we wanted to achieve. We were very fortunate to have three such passionate people with different specialties, so even though there was a lot of collaboration, they each had a different focus."  The production of "Shark Tale" marks a milestone for DreamWorks Animation, in
that it is the first computer-animated feature to be produced entirely through
a new state-of-the-art CG pipeline at the studio's Glendale, California campus.
In fact, it is the first high-end, all-CG feature film to be produced entirely
in southern California, as northern California had been the predominant base
for computer animation for more than a decade. "We set out to build the first new CG pipeline of the 21st century from scratch, and we picked HP to help us achieve it because there is no one better," Katzenberg says, referring to DreamWorks' ongoing technology partnership with Hewlett-Packard. "We had enormous technological hurdles to overcome and, together, we solved those problems. It's been an invaluable collaboration." Producer Janet Healy notes, "Looking back, putting together a brand new CG pipeline in Los Angeles while assembling an entire crew for the movie was rather daunting. We ended up with a remarkable group of people from all types of disciplines--from people with PhDs and computer science degrees to those with fine arts degrees...and sometimes both. There are physicists and artists, and people who understand how light works in a physical world teamed with people who understand lighting and camera movement. Finding ways to have those people work together to their, and our, best advantage was one of the most satisfying things about producing 'Shark Tale.'" Working on her first animated feature, producer Allison Lyon Segan observes, "Animation involves an ever-widening collaboration. It starts with a small group of people in a room throwing story ideas around, and it becomes more and more collaborative as it goes from storyboards, to a camera pass, to the animators and so on. Each step morphs into something else and adds to the teamwork. We were very lucky to have people who elevated our game with every step." CASTING LINES Unquestionably, "Shark Tale's" all-star cast was among the film's most important collaborations. "This is certainly one of the most extraordinary casts ever assembled for any kind of movie--animated or live action," Jenson attests. "It was hard to imagine a cast like that coming together for any movie, and it was even more wild to imagine getting to work with them," Letterman adds. "I'll admit there was a moment of complete fright, especially when I saw Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese coming in, but they were all great and generous and couldn't have been nicer." Will Smith voices the central role of Oscar, who, Jenson says, "is a small-fry fish at the bottom of the food chain. He has a job at the local Whale Wash where he works the tongue shift, which you can imagine is a pretty disgusting job." Oscar may despise working in mouths, but his own mouth rarely stops working. Damaschke reveals that Smith's own energy and rapid wit were among the reasons the role was created with him in mind right from the start. "The story evolved over the years, but the one thing that never changed was that Oscar was always imagined with Will Smith playing him. The role was designed around him and everything that he could bring to the story," he states. "In many ways, Will is just a big kid," Jenson observes. "He loves to play, which was just perfect for Oscar. Will is endlessly inventive, so we had a lot of fun with improv in the recording sessions. We got to explore a variety of options for every scene, and Will came up with so many of what became pure 'Oscar-isms.'"  "I love the process of doing animation," Smith says. "I found a real freedom
in it because you can do almost anything with the character, especially with
a character like this. I got in there and didn't allow myself to hold back anything.
There were no rules for Oscar; I just got to play."
Smith describes Oscar as "a small fish in a really big pond, but he sees big things for himself, so there's a clash of reality and perception. He's willing to do just about anything to be rich and famous and live at the top of the Reef because that's where the 'somebodies' live...and Oscar wants to be somebody. He's so busy looking up to the top of the Reef that he can't see the beauty that's right in front of him." The beauty right in front of Oscar is an angelfish--appropriately named Angie--who works with Oscar at the Whale Wash. Oscar thinks of Angie as a friend, but Angie has long been pining for more. Segan explains, "Angie is desperately in love with Oscar. She is the one who believes most in him, who has always believed in him, even with all his harebrained schemes. When other fish are rolling their eyes at Oscar, Angie thinks he is wonderful, and she is waiting for the day when Oscar wakes up and realizes that his life is truly fabulous and everything he wants is within his reach." Renée Zellweger is the voice of Angie and Segan says, "The minute Renée started recording Angie, she came alive. Renée would give us lines 25 different ways and we could have used any one of them; she just nailed it every single time. She brought tremendous compassion and charm to a character who could have come off like more of a doormat to Oscar." "Renée made Angie into someone who was very together, sometimes a little bossy in demanding the best from Oscar, but always completely lovable," Damaschke agrees. "I think Angie is, in many ways, ultimately the heart of the movie...and she becomes the thing Oscar is most at risk of losing when he tells his big lie." Oscar's big lie is that he took on a shark, single-finned. In truth, the shark was about to make Oscar a hot lunch when fate dropped anchor...on the shark's head. Seizing the opportunity, Oscar takes credit for killing the shark and is immediately hailed as a "sharkslayer." Showered with fame and fortune and finally living on top of the Reef, Oscar thinks he has found the good life, until he has to live up to his new title. When a shark is spotted swimming a little too close for comfort, Oscar's neighbors dispatch their new "sharkslayer" to take care of the problem. Now Oscar finds himself patrolling the Reef pretending to be hunting for the shark, while actually doing more hiding than seeking. But as it turns out, Oscar has something in common with the shark, whose name is Lenny. Letterman notes, "Oscar has a secret that he took credit for something he didn't do, and Lenny has his own deep, dark secret--he's a vegetarian, which is not a good thing to be when you're a shark. Together they realize they can help each other out, and they form an unlikely bond." Jack Black, who stars as the voice of Lenny, says, "Lenny is a vegetarian shark, not because he doesn't like the taste of meat, but because he's a humanitarian--a 'fishitarian' in this case. He just doesn't believe any living thing should be killed. Lenny is a tender soul, which makes him a fish out of water in his world. He doesn't fit in with the other sharks because he's sweet and kind, but in the end, he may turn out to be the most powerful shark of all because of his brains and his heart." A self-proclaimed "animation junkie," Black reveals that, had his life taken a different turn, he might actually have been on the other side of the microphone for "Shark Tale." "I was really into animation from early on. Back in high school, I wanted to be an animator for a while. I've always wanted to do cartoons, and I think it's amazing what they've done with computer animation today. It's a whole new world." Jenson says that Black gave the character a dimension that went beyond what was on the page. "The fun-loving side of Jack and, of course, his humor come across in Lenny. But underneath the humor, there is a sweetness and a kind of teddy bearishness to Jack Black that he brought to the character of Lenny, a big, gentle shark who just wants to please his dad." Lenny's dad is no ordinary great white shark; he is the powerful Don Lino, the Godfather of the Reef. Robert De Niro gives voice to Don Lino, which allowed him to spoof one of his own most famous movie roles. "Robert De Niro was a great sport," Jenson says. "He had absolutely no problem teasing his image to play a classic mobster character. I think he had a lot of fun playing Don Lino as our Godfather and it was a great honor for us just to be on the stage with him, let alone work with him."  Making his animation debut, De Niro admits, "I wasn't sure about doing animation,
but I was curious to see what it was about. I thought it would be interesting,
and it turned out to be fun. Obviously, 'Shark Tale' is a take-off of certain
movies... I play the head of the underwater underworld. He basically runs the
whole deal down there. He has two sons, but he finds out that one of them doesn't
want to go into the 'family business.'"
Bibo Bergeron comments, "Don Lino wants his two sons, Frankie and Lenny, to take over the business, but I think he's in denial about Lenny. He loves both of his sons, and has big plans for them, so he doesn't want to hear about anything that might put a crimp in those plans." There is more than a crimp put in Don Lino's plans for his sons because his eldest, Frankie, was the shark who was "anchored away," so to speak. Frankie is voiced by Michael Imperioli, who remarks, "Frankie is the rough, hot-headed son who wants to follow in his father's footsteps. His younger brother, Lenny, is not really predatory, which is kind of an embarrassment to the family. Frankie cares about his brother, but he wants to toughen him up. He's trying to get Lenny to sink his teeth into being a shark, so he takes him out to show him the ropes...to, as he says, 'make pop happy.'" "Frankie is a perfect eating machine, but he's a little thick in the head," Letterman concedes. "Michael Imperioli brought a great wise-guy voice to the part. He was very funny." When Frankie meets his untimely demise trying to show Lenny how to eat a fish--specifically Oscar--Lenny feels responsible for his brother's death. Unable to face his father, he figures "if you can't eat 'em, join 'em," and runs away to the Reef, where he teams up with Oscar. Together they come up with an elaborate scheme to get them both off the hook. Unfortunately for Oscar, Angie finds out that he is hiding a shark, and worse yet, Lenny bursts Angie's bubble by revealing the truth about Oscar's heroics. "When Angie discovers Lenny, I think she instantly realizes he is a gentle, sweet soul, and they forge an immediate friendship," Jenson offers. "But then Oscar swims in, and that's when trouble is going to start and Angie knows it. She sees right away that Oscar is not going to fess up to the truth. She tries to get him to do the right thing, but Oscar's job seems to be to ignore Angie's good advice, and he ends up doing exactly the opposite." If Angie is the angelfish on Oscar's shoulder, he also has a devil on the other one in the form of Lola. "Angie is the best thing that could ever happen to Oscar, but he can't see that because his view is being obstructed by Lola. She's our femme fatale; she's the most gorgeous fish on the Reef, but also the most dangerous, which Oscar learns the hard way," Letterman says. Lola is voiced by Angelina Jolie, who admits, "Lola is a bit of a gold digger. She paid no attention to Oscar when she thought he was a nobody, but when he becomes a somebody in her eyes, she tries to distract him from the real love of his life. She is quite shallow. I don't know if I would have wanted to play her if she weren't a fish, but as a fish, I love her," she laughs. "Watching the men watch Angelina record her part was amazing," Jenson recalls. "Everyone around her falls under her spell. They couldn't help but become as mesmerized by Angelina as Oscar is by the alluring Lola." Jolie says she was pleased to be asked to do her first animated role, noting, "I just love animated films and I always thought it would be cool to work on one, especially now that I have a little boy of my own. It made me really happy, and I am so excited for him to see this movie." Lola isn't the only one who sees an opportunity to capitalize on Oscar's newfound wealth and fame. Sykes, the owner of the Whale Wash where Oscar and Angie work, immediately surfaces to claim a percentage as Oscar's new manager. In a rare acting turn, famed director Martin Scorsese voices the role of Sykes, a puffer fish with a rather distinctive pair of "eyebrows." "Hey, others may criticize, but Sykes sees Oscar's good fortune as an opportunity," says Scorsese, defending his character's questionable motives. "He wants to take Oscar under his wing, or under his fin in this case, which is a little hard because he's a puffer fish, and when he gets upset he inflates and his voice gets very high and he talks very fast. I can't imagine where they got that from or why Jeffrey Katzenberg thought of me for that role..." Katzenberg relates, "I've known Marty for 25-plus years, and I'm always amazed by the unique way he talks. He talks very, very fast--he can say almost anything in just a few seconds. His mind goes so fast and he's actually able to speak things as fast as he can think them. So I went to him one day and said, 'Marty, you have probably never realized this, but you speak in this incredibly unique way, and it's actually pretty funny--funny in a good way...' I finally showed him this picture of Sykes, the puffer fish, and he fell over laughing." "Jeffrey said he wanted a meeting with me. He came in and started explaining the story to me, but at first I didn't know where he was going with it all," Scorsese remembers. "I thought maybe he wanted me to consult on the film or something. Basically, he ended up saying, 'Marty, you have a little girl now. Why don't you make a movie you could actually show to her?' So, with that heartrending plea, I found myself embroiled in this project," he laughs. "But it was a really great experience, and I think it turned out to be a great movie for kids and adults. Going in, I didn't really understand how animation worked. It's a daunting process; it's not one or two recording sessions; you have to keep going back and hammering at it. It takes a long time to do--at least two years--but over that period, you really get the feeling of watching a film come alive." In one of his recording sessions for the "What's what" scene between Sykes and Don Lino, Scorsese got to work with his longtime collaborator and friend Robert De Niro, which the "Shark Tale" directors say added so much to the characters' repartee. "To have De Niro and Scorsese together, that was pure gold," Bergeron states. "That session was a lot of laughs," Scorsese says. "We had a good time doing a little improvisation, which is pretty much based on the way we talk. It was good to have some fun with bits and pieces of our own routines that we've been doing for the past 30 years or so." "When you think about it, they've made nine films together, but this was the first time they've ever acted together," Katzenberg adds. "When we put them together, they were able to spark things off each other that got both of them crazy and funny and silly...it was just magical." Jenson agrees, "We had a lot of fun watching them just react to each other, and a lot of their improv ended up in the movie. You can't script that stuff, and it would have been a nightmare to try and cut together the timing of the dialogue to feel as natural as it does. The humor that's there is in the rhythm of the moment because the two of them were in the room together. That's one of those things you don't get to experience very often in animation--really being in the moment." Filmmakers don't get to experience it too often because it is rare for actors on an animated film to record together. However, in the case of "Shark Tale," not one but three acting duos were teamed on the recording stage. In addition to De Niro and Scorsese, Will Smith and Jack Black were paired together. Damaschke notes, "These are two of the most gifted improvisational actors. You get them together and make one of them a fish and one of them a shark and you have endless comic possibilities for how they can interact. Will and Jack are so instinctual, we got amazing stuff from them." The final pairing of actors was Doug E. Doug and Ziggy Marley, who play, respectively, Bernie and Ernie, the Rastafarian jellyfish Reefers who serve as Sykes' henchmen when he needs a little added shock value. "Ernie and Bernie take care of business for Sykes," Marley says. "They speak softly but carry big locks," Doug quips. "They look a little creepy, but once you get to know them, you 'feel' them."  "Bernie and Ernie give Oscar a lot of grief in the movie, but people just love those characters," Damaschke asserts. "When
we were looking for the actors to play them, we thought it would be great if
Ziggy Marley would do it. We didn't know if he'd be interested, but he loved
it and signed on immediately. Then we were lucky to get Doug E. Doug, who is
an amazing actor, to play opposite him."
Marley recalls, "When they asked me to do this character, I wanted to make sure they wanted an authentic Jamaican voice and not that phony thing that people try to do, but it was cool. I couldn't have done it without Doug, though, because acting is not my area; I'm a musician. We had a good vibe." Doug counters, "When they told me who I'd be working with, I got very excited because I think Ziggy is a great artist. I've seen him perform many times, but I never imagined I'd have a chance to work with him because I'm not in the music world." Letterman offers, "Having those guys record together made all the difference in the world. A lot of their jokester, teasing banter happened right in the room, and it would not have had the same feel if they'd worked separately." Sykes is not the only one with henchmen. Don Lino also employs some muscle: an oily octopus named Luca, who can throw a mean sucker punch. Luca is voiced by Vincent Pastore, who, Letterman says, "has got a great, distinctive voice, which lends itself well to animation." Another distinctive and instantly recognizable voice in "Shark Tale" belongs to veteran actor Peter Falk, who plays the elder statesman of the shark families, Don Ira Feinberg. With shark sightings on the Reef and a new hero making a splash, it doesn't take long for the Reef's top anchorfish, Katie Current, to net the scoop. NBC's "Today Show" anchor Katie Couric makes a vocal cameo in a role that was made to order for her. "We needed a news reporter who could be on the level of a Katie Couric in terms of somebody everyone would listen to and trust, and we couldn't imagine anyone else who could even come close, so that's how Katie Current was born," says Damaschke. As often happens in animation, story artists who pitch a certain character become so identified with the role to the filmmakers that they wind up playing the part in the film. Story artist Dave Smith, who invented the character of the hermit crab called Crazy Joe, ended up voicing him in "Shark Tale," while the head of story, David Soren, is the voice of the shrimp who may make you think twice about your next shrimp cocktail.
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Shark Tale - Characters 23 in. x 35 in. Buy posters at AllPosters.com Framed Mounted  'Shrek 2' DVD  'Shark Tale' DVD 
Shark Tale Games  Buy Books  Buy Posters |
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