I made a film that was impossible to make, but I didn't know it was impossible, and that's how I was able to do it.
Napravio sam film koji je bilo nemoguće napraviti iako ja to nisam znao i zato sam ga i uspio napraviti.
"Mars et Avril" is a science fiction film. It's set in Montreal some 50 years in the future. No one had done that kind of movie in Quebec before because it's expensive, it's set in the future, and it's got tons of visual effects, and it's shot on green screen. Yet this is the kind of movie that I wanted to make ever since I was a kid, really, back when I was reading some comic books and dreaming about what the future might be.
"Ožujak i travanj" je film znanstvene fantastike. Smješten je u Montrealu kojih 50 godina u budućnost. Nitko prije u Quebecu nije napravio takav film, jer je skup, smješten u budućnosti, ima tone vizualnih efekata, i sniman je na zelenom platnu. Ipak, htio sam napraviti ovakav film otkad sam bio klinac, još dok sam čitao stripove i maštao o tome kako bi budućnost mogla izgledati.
When American producers see my film, they think that I had a big budget to do it, like 23 million. But in fact I had 10 percent of that budget. I did "Mars et Avril" for only 2.3 million.
Kad američki producenti vide moj film, misle da sam imao velik budžet za to, oko 23 milijuna. Ustvari, imao sam 10% tog budžeta. Napravio sam "Ožujak i travanj" za samo 2,3 milijuna.
So you might wonder, what's the deal here? How did I do this? Well, it's two things. First, it's time. When you don't have money, you must take time, and it took me seven years to do "Mars et Avril." The second aspect is love. I got tons and tons of generosity from everyone involved. And it seems like every department had nothing, so they had to rely on our creativity and turn every problem into an opportunity.
Možete se pitati, u čemu je stvar? Kako sam to napravio? Dvije stvari su u igri. Prva je vrijeme. Kada nemate novaca, morate uzeti vremena, a meni je trebalo 7 godina za "Ožujak i travanj". Drugi aspekt je ljubav. Dobio sam na tone velikodušnosti od svih koji su bili uključeni. Činilo se kao da niti jedan odjel nema ništa, pa su se morali oslanjati na kreativnost i pretvoriti svaki problem u priliku.
And that brings me to the point of my talk, actually, how constraints, big creative constraints, can boost creativity.
To me, zapravo, dovodi do cilja mog govora kako ograničenja, velika kreativna ograničenja, mogu pojačati kreativnost.
But let me go back in time a bit. In my early 20s, I did some graphic novels, but they weren't your usual graphic novels. They were books telling a science fiction story through images and text, and most of the actors who are now starring in the movie adaptation, they were already involved in these books portraying characters into a sort of experimental, theatrical, simplistic way.
No, vratit ću se kratko unatrag. U mojim ranim 20-ima, napravio sam nekolicinu grafičkih romana, no nisu bili uobičajeni. Bili su knjige koje pričaju znanstveno fantastičnu priču kroz slike i tekst, i većina glumaca koji su uključeni u filmsku adaptaciju, su već bili uključeni portretirajući u knjigama likove na neki eksperimentalni, teatralni, jednostavni način.
And one of these actors is the great stage director and actor Robert Lepage. And I just love this guy. I've been in love with this guy since I was a kid. His career I admire a lot. And I wanted this guy to be involved in my crazy project, and he was kind enough to lend his image to the character of Eugène Spaak, who is a cosmologist and artist who seeks relation in between time, space, love, music and women. And he was a perfect fit for the part, and Robert is actually the one who gave me my first chance. He was the one who believed in me and encouraged me to do an adaptation of my books into a film, and to write, direct, and produce the film myself.
Jedan od tih glumaca je sjajan redatelj i glumac Robert Lepage. Volim tog tipa. Volim ga otkad sam bio klinac. Jako se divim njegovoj karijeri. I htio sam ga uključiti u moj suludi projekt, i bio je dovoljno drag da svoju priliku posudi liku Eugena Spaaka, koji je kozmolog i umjetnik koji traži vezu između vremena, svemira, ljubavi, glazbe i žena. Bio je savršen za ulogu, i Robert je ustvari onaj koji mi je dao prvu priliku. Bio je onaj koji je vjerovao u mene i ohrabrio me da radim adaptacije svojih knjiga u filmove, da pišem, režiram, i produciram film samostalno.
And Robert is actually the very first example of how constraints can boost creativity. Because this guy is the busiest man on the planet. I mean, his agenda is booked until 2042, and he's really hard to get, and I wanted him to be in the movie, to reprise his role in the movie. But the thing is, had I waited for him until 2042, my film wouldn't be a futuristic film anymore, so I just couldn't do that. Right? But that's kind of a big problem. How do you get somebody who is too busy to star in a movie?
Robert je ustvari prvi primjer kako ograničenja povećavaju kreativnost. Jer ovaj tip je najzauzetiji čovjek na planeti. Njegov raspored je popunjen do 2042., vrlo ga je teško dobiti, i htio sam da bude u mom filmu, da ponovi svoju ulogu u filmu. No stvar je u tome, da sam čekao na njega do 2042., moj film ne bi bio film budućnosti više, pa nisam to mogao napraviti, zar ne? To je velik problem. Kako postići da netko tko je prezauzet glumi u filmu?
Well, I said as a joke in a production meeting -- and this is a true story, by the way — I said, "Why don't we turn this guy into a hologram? Because, you know, he is everywhere and nowhere on the planet at the same time, and he's an illuminated being in my mind, and he's in between reality and virtual reality, so it would make perfect sense to turn this guy into a hologram."
Kao šalu sam izrekao na sastanku produkcije -- ovo je istinita priča, usput -- rekao sam: "Zašto ga ne pretvorimo u hologram? Jer, znate, posvuda je i nigdje na planeti u isto vrijeme, i prosvjetljeno biće u mojoj glavi je, između stvarnosti i virtualne stvarnosti, pa ima savršenog smisla da ga pretvorimo u hologram."
Everybody around the table laughed, but the joke was kind of a good solution, so that's what we ended up doing.
Svi oko stola su se nasmijali, no ta šala je bila dobro rješenje, pa smo to i napravili.
Here's how we did it. We shot Robert with six cameras. He was dressed in green and he was like in a green aquarium. Each camera was covering 60 degrees of his head, so that in post-production we could use pretty much any angle we needed, and we shot only his head. Six months later there was a guy on set, a mime portraying the body, the vehicle for the head. And he was wearing a green hood so that we could erase the green hood in postproduction and replace it with Robert Lepage's head. So he became like a renaissance man, and here's what it looks like in the movie.
Ovako smo to napravili. Snimali smo Roberta sa šest kamera. Bio je obučen u zeleno i bio je u svojevrsnom zelenom akvariju. Svaka kamera je pokrivala 60% njegove glave, kako bismo u post produkciji mogli koristiti bilo koji kut koji smo trebali, i snimali smo samo njegovu glavu. 6 mjeseci kasnije, imali smo tipa na setu, mimičara koji predstavlja tijelo, vozilo za glavu. Nosio je zelenu kapu kako bismo ju mogli izbrisati u post produkciji i zamijeniti ju s onom Roberta Lepagea. Postao je renesansni čovjek, a ovo je kako to izgleda u filmu.
(Music)
(Glazba)
(Video) Robert Lepage: [As usual, Arthur's drawing didn't account for the technical challenges. I welded the breech, but the valve is still gaping. I tried to lift the pallets to lower the pressure in the sound box, but I might have hit a heartstring. It still sounds too low.] Jacques Languirand: [That's normal. The instrument always ends up resembling its model.] (Music)
(Video) Robert Lepage: [Kao i obično, Arthurov crtež nije računao na tehničke izazove. Zavario sam stražnji dio, no ventil još pušta. Pokušao sam dignuti palete da bih smanjio pritisak u rezonantnoj kutiji, no možda sam pogodio samo srce. Još uvijek zvuči prenisko.] Jacques Languirand: [To je normalno. Instrument uvijek na kraju nalikuje na svoj model.] (Glazba)
Martin Villeneuve: Now these musical instruments that you see in this excerpt, they're my second example of how constraints can boost creativity, because I desperately needed these objects in my movie. They are objects of desire. They are imaginary musical instruments. And they carry a nice story with them. Actually, I knew what these things would look like in my mind for many, many years. But my problem was, I didn't have the money to pay for them. I couldn't afford them. So that's kind of a big problem too. How do you get something that you can't afford?
Martin Villeneuve: Ovi instrumenti koje vidite u ovom isječku, su moj drugi primjer kako ograničenja mogu povećavati kreativnost, jer sam očajnički trebao te objekte u svom filmu. Oni su predmeti požude. Oni su izmišljeni glazbeni instrumenti. I nose lijepu priču sa sobom. Zapravo, znao sam kako će te stvari izgledati u svojoj glavi, već mnogo, mnogo godina. Moj problem je bio taj što nisam imao novaca da ih platim. Nisam si ih mogao priuštiti. To je također velik problem. Kako dobijete nešto što si ne možete priuštiti?
And, you know, I woke up one morning with a pretty good idea. I said, "What if I have somebody else pay for them?" (Laughter)
I, jednog dana sam se probudio s poprilično dobrom idejom. Rekao sam: "Što ako netko drugi plati za njih?" (Smijeh)
But who on Earth would be interested by seven not-yet-built musical instruments inspired by women's bodies? And I thought of Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, because who better to understand the kind of crazy poetry that I wanted to put on screen? So I found my way to Guy Laliberté, Cirque du Soleil's CEO, and I presented my crazy idea to him with sketches like this and visual references, and something pretty amazing happened. Guy was interested by this idea not because I was asking for his money, but because I came to him with a good idea in which everybody was happy. It was kind of a perfect triangle in which the art buyer was happy because he got the instruments at a cheaper price, because they weren't even made. He took a leap of faith. And the artist, Dominique Engel, brilliant guy, he was happy too because he had a dream project to work on for a year. And obviously I was happy because I got the instruments in my film for free, which was kind of what I tried to do. So here they are.
No, tko bi na svijetu bio zainteresiran za sedam instrumenata koji nisu napravljeni i koji su inspirirani ženskim tijelima? Sjetio sam se Cirque du Soleil u Montrealu, jer tko će bolje razumjeti vrstu lude poezije koju sam htio staviti na platno? Našao sam svoj put do Guya Lalibertea, direktora Cirque du Soleila, i iznio mu svoju ludu ideju s crtežima poput ovoga i vizualnim referencama, i nešto porilično čudesno se dogodilo. Guy je bio zainteresiran za ideju ne jer sam tražio njegov novac, nego jer sam mu došao s dobrom idejom u kojoj su svi bili sretni. Bio je to savršen trokut u kojem je kupac umjetnina bio sretan, jer je dobio instrumente povoljno, jer nisu niti napravljeni. Napravio je skok vjere. Umjetnik, Dominique Engel, briljantan tip, bio je sretan također jer je dobio projekt iz snova na kojem može raditi godinu dana. I očito, ja sam bio sretan jer sam dobio instrumente za svoj film besplatno, što je otprilike bilo ono što sam pokušavao napraviti. Dakle, ovdje su.
And my last example of how constraints can boost creativity comes from the green, because this is a weird color, a crazy color, and you need to replace the green screens eventually and you must figure that out sooner rather than later. And I had, again, pretty much, ideas in my mind as to what the world would be, but then again I turned to my childhood imagination and went to the work of Belgian comic book master François Schuiten in Belgium. And this guy is another guy I admire a lot, and I wanted him to be involved in the movie as a production designer. But people told me, you know, Martin, it's impossible, the guy is too busy and he will say no. Well, I said, you know what, instead of mimicking his style, I might as well call the real guy and ask him, and I sent him my books, and he answered that he was interested in working on the film with me because he could be a big fish in a small aquarium. In other words, there was space for him to dream with me. So here I was with one of my childhood heroes, drawing every single frame that's in the film to turn that into Montreal in the future. And it was an amazing collaboration to work with this great artist whom I admire.
I moj zadnji primjer kako ograničenja mogu povećati kreativnost dolazi iz zelene, jer ovo je čudna, luda boja, i morate u neko doba zamijeniti zeleno platno i to morate shvatiti prije, bolje nego kasnije. I imao sam, opet, ideje u glavi kakav bi svijet trebao biti, no opet sam se vratio mašti iz djetinjstva i otišao do radova belgijskog majstora stripova, Francoisa Schuitena u Belgiju. Ovo je još jedan tip kojemu se mnogo divim, i htio sam da bude uključen u film kao produkcijski dizajner. No ljudi su mi rekli, Martine, nemoguće je, čovjek je prezauzet i reći će ne. Rekao sam, znate što, umjesto da oponašam njegov stil, mogao bih nazvati stvarnog tipa i pitati ga, i poslao sam mu svoje knjige, i odgovorio je da je zainteresiran za rad na filmu sa mnom jer može biti velika riba u malom akvariju. Drugim riječima, postojao je prostor za njega da sanja sa mnom. Dakle, s jednim od svojih heroja iz djetinjstva sam crtao svaki kadar iz filma kako bismo stvorili Montreal iz budućnosti. To je bila čudesna suradnja raditi s ovim sjajnim umjetnikom kojemu se divim.
But then, you know, eventually you have to turn all these drawings into reality. So, again, my solution was to aim for the best possible artist that I could think of. And there's this guy in Montreal, another Quebecois called Carlos Monzon, and he's a very good VFX artist. This guy had been lead compositor on such films as "Avatar" and "Star Trek" and "Transformers," and other unknown projects like this, and I knew he was the perfect fit for the job, and I had to convince him, and, instead of working on the next Spielberg movie, he accepted to work on mine. Why? Because I offered him a space to dream. So if you don't have money to offer to people, you must strike their imagination with something as nice as you can think of.
No, znate, na kraju morate sve te crteže pretvoriti u stvarnost. Dakle, opet, moje rješenje je bilo ciljati na najboljeg mogućeg umjetnika kojeg sam se mogao sjetiti. Postoji tip u Montrealu, još jedan iz Quebeca, zvan Carlos Monzon, koji je iznimno dobar umjetnik vizualnih efekata. Bio je glavni kompozitor na filmovima kao što su "Avatar", "Star Trek", "Transformers", i ostalim nepoznatim projektima poput ovih, i znao sam da je savršen za posao; morao sam ga uvjeriti, i, umjesto da radi na sljedećem Spielbergovom filmu, prihvatio je raditi na mojem. Zašto? Jer sam mu dao prostora da sanja. Ako nemate novaca da ponudite ljudima, morate potaknuti njihovu maštu nečime najljepšim što možete zamisliti.
So this is what happened on this movie, and that's how it got made, and we went to this very nice postproduction company in Montreal called Vision Globale, and they lent their 60 artists to work full time for six months to do this crazy film.
To je što se dogodilo na ovom filmu, i tako sam ga napravio. Otišli smo u odličnu agenciju za post produkciju u Montrealu zvanoj Vision Globale, i posudili su nam 60 umjetnika da rade cijelo vrijeme 6 mjeseci, kako bi napravili ovaj ludi film.
So I want to tell you that, if you have some crazy ideas in your mind, and that people tell you that it's impossible to make, well, that's an even better reason to want to do it, because people have a tendency to see the problems rather than the final result, whereas if you start to deal with problems as being your allies rather than your opponents, life will start to dance with you in the most amazing way. I have experienced it. And you might end up doing some crazy projects, and who knows, you might even end up going to Mars.
Dakle, htio sam vam reći da ako imate lude ideje u svojoj glavi i ako vam ljudi kažu da ih je nemoguće ostvariti, to je samo razlog više da želite to napraviti, jer ljudi imaju tendenciju vidjeti probleme radije nego krajnji rezultat, no ako se počnete suočavati s problemima kao da su vam saveznici, a ne protivnici, život će početi plesati oko vas na najčudesniji način. Iskusio sam to. Možete završiti radeći neke lude projekte, i tko zna, možda čak završite na putu za Mars.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)