Louis Leterrier Talks Clash of the Titans
"That full CG doesn’t work for me. I need interactivity. I need to feel the goo."
It is almost time for Clash of the Titans to hit the big screen. The director is in full media blitz mode. The movie had its own press day and Louis had plenty to say.
He touched base on his process and being aware of the original:
"Early on. In the beginning, I watched the movie a couple of times, and then I was like, “Okay, I know the movie.” I have the DVD, but I never watched it again, after that. It’s on the shelf. I knew the movie was existing, but if I always kept the movie in my back pocket, that would have stopped me, like a big ball and chain. I said, “I’ll leave the DVD in Los Angeles and go shoot the movie in London, and I won’t watch it again.” I’ll watch it again next week, when it’s all said and done and the movie is out. I’ll sit down and watch the original Clash of the Titans and say, “Yeah, I did the same thing. Oh, that’s very different.”
"You always have three movies that you have to reduce into one. You have the screenplay. And then, you do a workshop and you add more scenes. And then, on the day you shoot, there’s more action and interaction. It’s like a souffle. It has a tendency to just grow and explode, and it’s just too long. Yes, I could make a four-hour version of Clash of the Titans, but you wouldn’t want to see that. There’s a ticking clock. He has to go. The movie starts and, 10 minutes into it, Hades comes down and says, “You’ve got 10 days, or we’ll unleash the Kraken.” So, if you actually take 10 days to tell the story, people will be bored.
Leterrier is old school when it comes to animatronics. He wanted to make sure to properly blend that with CGI:
"That was the only way I could have done it. I’m a Clash of the Titans/Star Wars baby. I’m not a new Star Wars baby. I’m not an Avatar baby. That full CG doesn’t work for me. I need interactivity. I need to feel the goo. I need to feel people coming out of animatronics and just interacting with props. I tweaked the prop afterwards, but I need that stuff, and it’s good for the actors and their performances. It just helps everybody. I was hitting them. It helps."
When converting to 3D, he used the new technology, View-D by Prime Focus.
"I really was skeptical, but I tested it and it was unbelievable. It looked like exactly what it looked like on set. I like the interactivity of it. It’s not like you press a button and then it’s done and you cannot do anything. I was giving them actual measurements. It was interactive. It’s fantastic. My fear in converting it to 3-D is that people will say, “Oh, it’s the 3-D Clash of the Titans.” No, it’s Clash of the Titans, the movie, and then, on top of that, you have the 3-D conversion. The 2-D movie works as well as the 3-D movie. I want to make sure that people like the 2-D version. It’s not a gimmick. It actually improves the viewing experience, but the movie stands on its own. "
Many thanks to Collider. For the full interview, click the link.
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