I went to a special screening of "Ratatouille" sponsored by SAG last night that was held at the
ArcLight Cinema in Hollywood. It was really cool because after the movie there was a question and answer session with
Brad Bird and
Patton Oswalt.
One thing I learned, that I didn't know about animated movies is that most of the time the actors don't meet the rest of the cast until the screening parties because everyone goes in and records their part when they have time in between other projects, and then it all gets edited together even though it was recorded separately. Also I didn't know that actors record the script and then the animators listen to it over and over and over so that they capture every expression in their animation. Since it is called voice-over, I always assumed it was animated first and then the actors tried to match the animation but it is actually the other way around. Bird wrote/directed/acted in this movie and he was a wealth of information.
Oswalt played Remy, the main rat, and he is clearly a stand-up comic. All of his comments were really funny.
The question and answer session was moderated by the lovely
Bonnie Gillespie,who is one of the most
accessible casting directors and speaks at many seminars in Los Angeles. She also writes a column called The Actors Voice on Actors Access and has written many books for actors.
The picture above was taken on my cell phone over the balcony of the marquee at the
ArcLight. The theater is said to have the best sound of any theater in Los Angeles. It is very bright and everything is state-of-the-art. Tickets to movies are about $14.00. There is a gift shop and a bar in the lobby and instead of just plain old movie posters they actually have costumes from up coming movies displayed in glass cases and walls of photos from sets of movies.
