Special Report From Rhett Wickham: Honing the Range (Part Two)
Page 5 of 6
RW
You can hear her with the sound down!
SANFORD
And then Will came up with the idea that well, if Rosanne is Maggie, Maggie doesnt
really belong on that farm. She doesnt even really sound like she comes from there.
So what if this animal..we were theorizing that Pearl at the beginning of the movie one of
the animals comes to the farm so that we get to see how Pearl takes people in and it makes
Pearl and the farm sympathetic. And so Will said "What if Maggie is that animal? What
if Maggies an outsider? Caloway and Grace
Caloway is the leader of the farm,
and theyve always been there and here comes this outside cow that just shakes things
up!" And it was like perfect!
FINN (laughing)|
Those are two really big ideas right there!
SANFORD
It required re-animating most of Maggies footage!
FINN
We knew that wed be in trouble for about the
uhh
the first
ten
fifteen minutes of the movie wed have to reanimate a lot of stuff. The farm
song was almost all in color, the Patch of Heaven song.
SANFORD
With Maggie in it.
FINN
We sat down with Dennis Blakey who was the Artistic Coordinator and said
"Maggies in six scenes in this scene montage. Can we just re-comp them with her
out?" He said "Thats easy." And he sat down and reworked them and
sort of moved things around and Maggies disappeared. Shes not on the farm,
shes coming to the farm
shell be there.
SANFORD
If you look real close ...and we mention this on the DVD commentary
if you look real
close you can kind of see where she used to be. (Laughter)
FINN
You know we sat down with David Steinberg whos the Associate Producer and said
"Okay, we know this sounds like a lot of money but
" and we had to do this
really, really fast and I remember as I was sort of spitballing the idea "Well if
were going to
. And were going to re-conceive the character
and
shes from the outside
." And I could see the wheels in Johns head
were turning exactly as fast as I could say it and its like "Oh this is going
to cost a lot of money..and were going to have to rework a lot of stuff and
oh
uh..yeah, lets do it." And we proposed it to them. We came back
with a scene count with what wed have to remove, what wed have to re-do. The
middle of the movie was still kind of an open book, but I think the thing that gave us the
strength to do that was that about six months prior to this they had forced us in to
seclusion to write the last third of the move and that had really succeeded, and I think
that because we conceived and outline and we scripted all the end of the movie it remained
unchanged to this day. So I think on the strength of that they said "Well if you can
do that with the last third, by re-writing the first third you can earn that last third
better, so go do it." Again they got right behind us.
RW
When was this?
FINN
April of 2002.
RW
Wow!
SANFOR
Yeah, it was fast. It had to go fast.
FINN
I often think that we got that idea just in the nick of time. Not too late and not too
early. Because
well picture this, if you pitched the movie, "Heres the
idea - three cows save the farm. The three cows are Judy Dench, Jennifer Tilly
..and
Rosanne Barr!" (deadpan look) "Get out of my office!"
SANFORD
Theyd think you were crazy.
FINN
The spontaneity of that relationship, and how we worked it out on the fly and how Rosanne
contributed and how all the actors and animators and artists contributed to it at that
point it was like that last penny and everybody got it and got everybody on the same page
and everybody was contributing to it in the same way. And the other thing was that we
always had a plot, but now we had a story. Because even if they save the farm, is this cow
- Maggie - ever going to fit in with Mrs. Caloway who clearly has resentment because they
both want to be the boss? So now you have a story and youre at the beginning of the
relationship. With the original concept of them all being from the same place what we had
was more like a sitcom relationship.
SANFORD
It never changed. They began friends, they ended friends. Nothing changed. Nothing was
added to the farm.
FINN
Theres the quote about how story telling is primarily about transformation. And we
had a story that started with three cows on a happy farm and ended with three cows on a
happy farm, and we kept thinking like "Can we give Pearl a new wagon?"
RW
(laughing) Anything for change.
FINN
But the idea was that she was different, and that she was an outsider and that she was
going to struggle to fit in - even if they save the farm maybe she wont. It sounds
so quid pro quo but if you want to really see something transform theres nothing
like watching the beginning of a relationship. Again an established relationship - and
GOLDEN GIRLS is a wonderful model - is great for a sit-com, nothing is ever going to
change youre basically going to get the same format from week to week.
RW
But in a movie you have to have change. And you have to raise the stakes for characters.
FINN/SANFORD
Absolutely
RW
It has to be a special day. Even in the most existential movie where you may watch a
character in bed for 59 minutes doing nothing, so long as in the 60th minute he gets up
out of bed youve been there for the one day, the most special day, in which
something special and extraordinary happened and he made a decision that changed his life
forever.
FINN
Yes, yes. Thats an excellent point. And when its done correctly you take it
for granted, which you should. One of the great models for that, going back to Disney
animation, is 101 DALMATIANS which opens with this incredibly passive and seemingly casual
opening. But what is happening is its the day that Pongo decides that theyre
going to go out and find mates. Thats huge! Even though hes very blasé about
the consideration, this is a big, big day.
RW
That also launches you. Its the notion that out of this seemingly ordinary day
suddenly their worlds begin to spin out of control. In fact they try and try and try to
get back to the comfort of that "every day" and it is the reward they get.
Its not so easy to figure that out, however. So many good story ideas fool you into
thinking that youre making something happen when all youre really doing is
treading water - or dancing. Right? Dancing isnt walking - in that it isnt
getting you anywhere. Youre not moving down the road.
FINN
We were getting that criticism a lot until we hit on this. But even people who needed some
persuading on what the actual plan was agreed that it was time to do something. It was
very, very fortunate and they were very, very generous about allowing us find a way to do
it. Nobody ever gave us a mandate for the move like "this is what we decide you need
for the movie, because we feel youre not delivering it." They were very, very
open and said go talk to people, go listen.
SANFORD
That was what was great. They didnt prescribe it they said "You guys are smart.
Heres the problem, go solve it."
RW
And when you say "they" youre talking about
.?
FINN
Pam mostly.
FINN
Weve both known Pam (Coats) a really long time and worked with her. She was really
effective.
You know its interesting. Because its such a deceptive thing, and I dont know who said this on the TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE disc it might have been Leonard Maltin but basically the idea has always been that you cant make a great movie by committee, but here was movie made by committee - SIERRA MADRE. TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE is an example of a great movie made by committee, and so is CASABLANCA, so are a lot of terrific old studio movies. The point is whos on the committee and whats the committee there to do?
SANFORD
Its not really a committee, its a collaboration.
FINN
It is. The thing is that keeping variety in the mix is the heart of keeping something
fresh and original. And we both gravitated to this idea because it was the first plot line
for a Disney cartoon that sounded original and gettable in a long, long time. Now
GROOVE was a very, very original story and a very very funny movie, but it
wasnt immediately gettable. You had Peru and llamas and a lot of things that people
cant really digest and they get discouraged and they dont go. If they go they
have a terrific time, because its a wonderful movie.
SANFORD
How do you sell it?
FINN
But everybody has an attitude about cows. And even though we kept getting "What can
you do with cows? They dont do anything but stand around and burp and pass
gas." Ours dont pass gas but they burp in the movie. Rosanne did all her own
burping.
SANFORD
But that premise pitches in one sentence. And then you talk about who the cows are and who
is playing the cows and people go "Oh, Im there. Im so there."
Ive never pitched the story to anyone and not had them smile. Its just
inherently comedic and inherently winning.
FINN
We both love Gary Larson, and hes mined so much off of cows. It was funny that cows
are going to be the heroes of the western!