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| Cover 'Time' magazine (31.11.2011) |
Like Dr Hook who wanted to get their picture
On the cover of the "Rolling Stone", being on the cover of "Time" magazine is a big thing. And the film version of
The adventure of Tintin has just achieved that milestone. While I might consider the Goscinny "Asterix" books superior to Herge's "Tintin", the books have been loved by generations and are still popular.
The film is motion-capture animation, to capture the look, the colour and the visual style of the original books. Taken mainly from the book
The secret of the unicorn, Tintin buys a a model ship, the "Unicorn", at a market but a couple of sinister characters are so
eager to buy it from him, they are willing to resort to kidnap and murder. Tintin and his dog Snowy sail to Morocco on an old cargo ship, mastered by the drunken Captain Haddock, to find the real "Unicorn". Haddock tells Tintin that three hundred years earlier his ancestor Sir Francis Haddock was
forced to scuttle the original Unicorn, but he managed to save his treasure and provide
clues to its location in three separate scrolls
(secreted in models of the Unicorn). With aid from
bumbling Interpol agents the Thompson Twins our boy hero,his dog and the Captain obtain the scrolls to
fulfil the prophecy that only the last of the Haddocks can discover the
treasure's whereabouts.
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| Conceptual film images inspired by the books |
Much of the film's success would lie with the artists at the Weta workshops in New Zealand, and there is a book which explores their achievements -
The art of 'The adventures of Tintin'. The artists got the opportunity to work with Steven Spielberg to bring the characters to the big screen (Spielberg first decided to turn the stories into film back in 1983 - just as well he spent over 20 years pondering the idea, as the digital visual effects used weren't in existence back then). The Weta people spent 5 years working on the movie. The book shows how the film makers started with the original Herge artwork; features early concept drawings; sequences, models, costume designs; and final stills from the film. It focuses on the creative process, showing the many designs that made it into the movie and others that didn't. It highlights the attention to detail. We gain an insight into the creative thinking behind the film.
