Aug 31, 2023

"Inventor" director Jim Capobianco explains why stop motion was the perfect medium for his Da Vinci films.

The Inventor, the directorial feature debut of Oscar・nominated Ratatouille writer Jim Capobianco, will be released in US theaters on 9/15.

The film is a stop-motion musical of Leonardo da Vinci's late years as a member of a French court after he left Italy. In France, the inventor found greater freedom to experiment with his timeless inventions and spend time in the company of the bold Princess Marguerite.

The inventor was written and directed by Capobianco, who produced along with Robert Lipburger. Stop-motion specialist Pierre-Luc Granjon (Four Seasons of Leon's life) and stop-motion vet Kim Keukler (Fantastic Mr. Fox, My life as a zucchini, Chicken Run) were animation directors. Don Hearn, whose producer credits include the Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, is an executive producer. The film is a co-production in 3 countries: Curiosity Studio in Ireland, Foliascope in France, Aerial Contrivance Studios and SIE Films in the United States.

We caught up with Capobianco ahead of the release of the film, the challenge of directing his first feature, Stop Motion by Leonardo da Vinci

Comic Brew: You have an incredible resume, but this is your first feature as a director. This was the right time to make a feature debut and why it became a film-

Jim Capobianco: I just wanted to make a longer form of film. Everything I've done so far has helped other people make movies and it's been a great career. I've worked with some great people on some great movies, and I was happy to help everyone. But I directed a few short projects and enjoyed working with all the different artists, so moved on to a longer format I also wanted to challenge myself. I made a short film for Leonardo (2009) and I wanted to explore the characters further. The feature gives you more room to play and more territory to cover, so I had some ideas when I decided to make the feature

When did you start working on the film, and when did production begin?-

It was developing for a long time behind the scenes. I would tinker with it at night and on weekends. Around 2012, I met my co・producer, Robert Lipburger. At the time, he was producing and trying to do his own directing. We beat it up and said he might be able to help me find money for my project. He had this energy to him, so we started to team up and look for money. We started in Los Angeles and finally started talking to people in Europe. We almost did a film in Ireland, and then we had a producer in Italy who almost worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us, and we had a producer in Italy who worked with us. But every time we felt like we put together a plan, it turned into a dead end. But the whole time we were building relationships. Finding the right partner and funding took the most time. It took 12 years from "I'm going to make this film" to start actual production.

When did you decide you wanted to do this movie using stop motion - and why-

When I started thinking about doing a feature, the original short was done using hand-drawn animation, but back then I was like, "Well, 2d animation is a bit far away."This was when Disney sold off their desks and turned to computer animation," he said. If you threw a 2d animated movie at that time, the executives would think you were crazy. It would have to be cg. Another thing that happened around the same time was the revival of stop-motion animation. Wes Anderson played the great Mr. Fox, Leica appeared, and Ardman was still making great movies. Henry Selick launched Synderbitter. With all this happening, I thought stop motion would be the way to go and when I was pitching, I pointed to all these other movies stylistically, when I think about Leonardo da Vinci, I think that movies have to be made in a handmade animation style. I felt it. It was designed, built and painted with armature, so the stop motion felt right. I love to combine techniques, so it makes sense to put in some hand-drawn scenes. Doing so will allow you to go beyond the limits of stop motion and do some antics animation.

How did Pierre-Luc Granjon become co-director-

He worked in stop-motion for about 20 years before this film, but one of my biggest stop-motion influences was his film Four Seasons in Leon's life. I saw it while developing this film and was very inspired. I didn't expect to see him, but Ilan Urroz of the Foliascope asked him if he wanted to be my co-director. We had so many of the same influences like Ji.Lee Torunka and Karel Zeman. We were able to communicate that way across language and cultural barriers.

What was the production of the 2d animation sequence like - how did you deal with both renditions-

It was all done under one roof in the Foliascope. About 1 or 2 months after starting the stop motion, I started the 2d animation and ran 2 at the same time. It was hard for me to manage. I still feel bad on this day because I felt that stop motion was very time consuming and often ignored the 2d team. I think it was really important that we were all under the roof because the way it was integrated into the film became important to allow it to communicate with each other quickly. We were able to bring 2d art director Hefang Wei to the set and show her what we were thinking. Next, the animator can make useful suggestions when animating the relevant scene in the future. Also, seeing each other's works is good for morale. The 2 teams were always inspiring each other.

What was the process of writing and storyboarding like - you adjusted your traditional routine for stop motion-

I got into this movie like I got into everything else. I tried to get the story down and worry about other things later. So I script it, make it a storyboard, and go back to the script, like in a Pixar movie. It followed the same trajectory, and eventually, I made a story reel out of it. The original version got a bit bogged down when I shared it with my little brain trust. So, I went back and removed it and reworked it the same way I would do with Pixar.

What were some of the visual influences that were used when refining the look of the film-

Rankin/Bass had a huge impact as I grew up with those films, and I knew my animations wouldn't be as sophisticated or complex as Leica. I wanted to land somewhere in the middle. I can see that in a lot of modern stop-motion animations, there is a lot of detail in the background. There are also a variety of costumes and props that make it difficult to read the performance. I really wanted to reduce the background, but it had the added benefit of helping us economically. It also helps the puppet acting get through, especially if you have a doll that looks simpler. I'm also a big fan of Elves: Buddy's Musical Christmas; we watch it every year and I really wanted to do it in my movies because those guys have their stop motion almost 2d I come from 2d and have an affinity for it. The Cg came and turned my world upside down, but fortunately, I was in the story so I could keep doing the same thing. Over time, I've come to appreciate cg a lot, especially working at Pixar and seeing what the best people in the industry can do with it, but my love has always been handmade work.