{"id":62450,"date":"2012-01-27T17:28:28","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T17:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/0de2709a84.nxcli.net\/0-kjasnb\/2012\/01\/27\/peter-lord-talks-about-the-pirates-band-of-misfits\/"},"modified":"2018-12-18T13:33:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T13:33:31","slug":"peter-lord-talks-about-the-pirates-band-of-misfits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackfilm.com\/read\/peter-lord-talks-about-the-pirates-band-of-misfits\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Lord Talks About The Pirates! Band of Misfits"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Chat With Director Peter Lord About ‘The Pirates! Band of Misfits’<\/strong>By Max Evry<\/p>\n

January 27, 2012<\/p>\n

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Blackfilm.com<\/strong> recently got the opportunity to sit down at the Sony screening room in New York to get an exciting first look at “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.”<\/strong> It’s the latest in a long string of delightful stop-motion animated features from Bristol, England’s Aardman Animation Studios, creators of “Wallace & Gromit,” “Chicken Run,”<\/strong> and the recent computer-animated comedy “Arthur Christmas.” <\/strong><\/p>\n

The presentation was heavy on great characters and hilarious gags rendered with handmade puppets one frame at a time. It concerns The Pirate Captain (that’s his name) played by Hugh Grant<\/strong>, whose quest to win the Pirate of the Year award puts him in direct competition with much craftier pirates such as Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven<\/strong>) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek<\/strong>). Along the way on this gleefully historically in-accurate adventure The Pirate Captain and his ragtag crew of misfits cross paths with both Charles Darwin and Queen Victoria.<\/p>\n

Making the presentation was one of the founders of Aardman, Peter Lord<\/strong>, who co-directed “Band of Misfits” with Jeff Newlitt<\/strong> and was enthusiastic about describing the painstaking process its been over the five-years it took to make this animated comedy.<\/p>\n

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“The ship was the first thing, and Blood Island was the second thing, and there were drawings before that,” said Lord. “Probably the ship was 6-months in the making, same with Blood Island. The guys are so brilliant. I love it! You just tell them, “I want a London street,” and they know what to do, everything from all the Inn signs to street furnature, tiny things no one would ever see.<\/p>\n

“Towards the end of the shoot we had 40 units, all shooting in parallel. One might be a huge set as big as this room, and another might just be a tiny corner, two walls.”<\/p>\n

There is lots of cheeky British humor spiced throughout the footage, which is combined with delightful slapstick to make it palatable for just about any audience.<\/p>\n

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“I’m grateful to Sony because they’ve been so supportive,” Lord continued. “It is British, but I put in stuff for everybody for some extent, but we didn’t hold back with the Britishness. I was lucky to have Jeremy Piven in it, which was great because it’s a different style of humor, the contrast between him and Hugh on screen together.<\/p>\n

“We had a story artist that had the idea of the monkey playing the ‘2001’ theme, then we put in the crescendo of the symbol crash at the end. For ourselves is who we make it for. If you start calculating and making a film for audiences that’s stupid, it doesn’t end well. We know parents will bring children who are too young, three-year-olds who are not interested in Charles Darwin, but might be interested in the monkey. I love slapstick.”<\/p>\n

Lord was particularly pleased to have procured the voice acting talents of Salma Hayek, giving Penelope Cruz a run for her money in the female captain department as the diamond-obsessed femme fatale.<\/p>\n

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Stated Lord, “I think Salma was our dream from the start. We made the puppet first, that’s the way we’ve always worked. We don’t do that thing of basing the puppet on the actor. As soon as we got on the idea of making her a Latin woman then Salma was first on the list, and a great pleasure. Was fantastic to work with, really lovely and easy-going, but she did have trouble with the word ‘lubber.’<\/p>\n

Aardman had a famously strained relationship with their previous studio partner Dreamworks, whose tendency to run films through the test screening ringer was legendary. Thankfully, Lord experienced a great deal more autonomy on this new voyage.<\/p>\n

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“Sony doesn’t like to test in that dramatic way Dreamworks do, which is good. Of course we get notes direct from the studio head, very intelligent notes that we’re very attentive to. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but you get the best results if you’re allowed to follow your instincts, really. Occasionally you need a reality check.”<\/p>\n

That reality check came mere days after the screening when Lepra, the World Health Organisation and The Society For Leprosy Affected People, launched an outcry against one of the scenes in the trailer of a leper boat in which an afflicted man’s arm comically falls off. Lord immediately announced that he would change the scene in sensitivity to the group’s demands. This actually falls into line with something he told us only a few days before about the importance of listening to the audience.<\/p>\n

“If you’re doing something and people are not getting it then you should know that,” he said. “That’s important. So far people have got it, at test screenings on both sides of the Atlantic, people find it funny. There are all sorts of gags in there, they come thick and fast. Some are really broad and some are really subtle. No one’s going to be bored by it.”<\/p>\n

“The Pirates! Band of Misfits” will set sail in U.S. theaters on April 27th.<\/strong>
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