This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
It wasn't deliberate that it took 17 years and 13 movies for Pixar Animation Studios to give a female character her own movie.
"These things all come on their own time — first it was toys, then bugs, then monsters and fish," said Mark Andrews on a promotional visit to Salt Lake City Friday — the day "Brave," the Disney/Pixar adventure he directed, opened in U.S. theaters.
Since Pixar's films are driven by filmmakers, Andrews said, "Brave's" genesis can be credited to its original director, Brenda Chapman, who was inspired by her relationship with her own daughter to create the character Merida, a headstrong Scottish princess who butts heads with her mother, Queen Elinor.
Chapman consulted Andrews from the beginning of the project, he said. Andrews is "a medieval buff and a Scottish buff," so Chapman would talk to him about the story's period details. "Some of the first research books were my books," he said.
But with 18 months to go before the movie's scheduled release, Pixar's brain trust — the group of directors that oversees the studio's product — decided the movie was in trouble. The official line for Chapman's departure from the film is "creative differences," and neither Andrews nor Disney's official statements have elaborated further. (Chapman still works at Pixar, and shares directing and screenwriting credit on "Brave.")
It's not the first time a Pixar project changed directors midstream — it happened both with "Toy Story 2" and "Ratatouille," each less than two years before release.
Eighteen months, Andrews said, "is the shortest amount of time that you can still animate and light a movie [before deadline]."
Replacing Pixar's first woman director on a movie about a mother-daughter relationship didn't faze Andrews. He said the parent/child dynamic "is a genderless issue," he said.
Andrews is a Pixar veteran, overseeing the story on "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille," and co-directing the Oscar-nominated short "One Man Band." He also was second-unit director on the Disney sci-fi adventure "John Carter," filming fight scenes for Pixar director Andrew Stanton.
Being director means "you're the answer guy," Andrews said. "You've got a lot more hats to wear."
There's little difference between directing an animated film or a live-action one. "Telling stories is telling stories," he said.
It's also quite collaborative, he said, adding that he told his voice cast — led by Kelly Macdonald ("Boardwalk Empire") as Merida and Emma Thompson as Elinor — to change dialogue to make it sound more authentic. "I'm not married to anything," Andrews said he told his cast. "I'm looking for the best answer. You can only find that by being open and objective."
One thing Andrews and his Pixar bosses insisted on: That the studio's marketing campaign not give away a major plot twist — and it's a doozy, about 30 minutes into the film. Disney obliged, thanks in part to the influence of John Lasseter, the longtime Pixar director who's now chief creative officer of both Pixar and Disney's animation studios.
Andrews rails against movie trailers that divulge anything after the first half-hour. "If you don't have 'em hooked by the first act, you don't have 'em," he said.
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