Taking "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in the Right Direction

Just before the lights dimmed and the film began playing, two young men who looked like they were teenagers stepped in front of the audience and introduced themselves as the directors of Sony Animated Pictures' latest film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have worked as a team for 12 years, progressing from Clone High, an animated series for HBO to television's How I Met Your Mother, then talking development executives into letting them create a 3-D animated movie from a best-selling children's book. Which, by the way, was something they had never tackled before.

The day the film premiered in Hollywood, I got to sit down with Chris and Phil and talk with them about their careers and the challenge of coordinating the work of 500 artists.

I know you have a background in TV. What process did you go through to convince the studio to hire you?

Phil: I don't know that it's so much that we convinced them, but that the studio was grossly negligent in hiring us. They just kept taking shots at us, trying to find a script we could write.

Chris: We found out that Sony had the rights to this book and it was our favorite book growing up. They happened to like Clone High and brought us in to pitch some other things, but we basically commandeered the meeting and did whatever we could to convince them to let us make Cloudy into a movie. It was our enthusiasm for the project that convinced them.

So we wrote the script. It's gone through many many changes, but the tone of the script remained the same, and everybody was really on board with the sensibility of the way we wanted to make the movie. They were crazy enough to give us a shot to make it.

How did you find out about it?

Chris: We just found out they had the rights and went for it.

Why is it your favorite book? What still resonates with you today as adults?

Chris: I think for both of us as kids, that book and Steve Martin helped develop our absurdist sense of humor. The book is filled with lots of little details and ironic inside jokes.  The whole concept is so absurb and whimsical; that's what really stuck. Scales of things are totally wrong, and things aren't where they're supposed to be. It's a very visceral type of comedy.

Has your other work been digital or did you do live action as well?

Phil: Clone High was animated traditionally overseas. After that we worked on How I Met Your Mother (live action television series) and some other sitcoms.

Chris: In many ways it's very similar. You're still trying to execute jokes in the best way and using a lot of the same tools. You're composing shots in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Phil: You're still working the storyboards. And the common thread between the animated series and movie is that we were way in over our heads. That's sort of been a common thread in our whole career. We've sort of developed a comfort level with being uncomfortably underqualified for what we're doing.

Chris: In fact, by the time we were on How I Met Your Mother, we were thinking we knew how to do this, and that we could make a sitcom. But we thought, "This isn't going to do." So when we got the chance to do this movie, we thought "Perfect! We've never done a 3-D CGI big Hollywood movie. That would be something we don't know how to do."

Phil: We also had 500 incredibly talented technicians who are at the top of their field working with us. It's all a huge collaboration.

You said the script changed some, but this doesn't feel like a script that producers came in and changed.

Chris: Producers did pounce all over us, but together we made a pretty good movie. Early on in the process, we realized that unlike TV, where you can have a simple coathanger of a story and put in a lot of jokes and silly stuff, in order to hold someone's attention for almost 90 minutes, we had to have a story. We had to have characters you would care about and a lot more of an emotional throughline.We had to be sincere and have a lot more heart than anything we'd ever done.

What we learned most from this movie was how to tell a story where it's not all just sassy jokes but real emotion in there.

Phil: Those executive producers had made a ton of movies and we learned a lot from them. Once we embraced that part of the process, it made things a lot better.

Is there a sense or burden of responsibility that goes with bringing a book this loved to the screen?

Chris: Absolutely. We were extra nervous when we finally got a chance to show the almost-finished cut of the movie to Ron and Judi Barrett, the illustrator and author of the book. We had been talking to them throughout and showed them the artwork. They were really supportive of us and let us find the whole movie from the source. Still, we were extra nervous. They loved it, and it was a huge sigh of relief for us that they loved and appreciate it.

At the beginning of movie there's a line about this being a film by a lot of people. Animation requires lots of collaboration. What did you learn  from that experience?

Phil: There were so many people that contributed to the film, from storyboard artists to the production design team, to the folks that executed the shots. We tried to have an open door policy so anyone could contribute any ideas. The animators, obviously, created a ton of charm.

Chris: It's such a long process that you're constantly re-evaluating everything and people are constantly throwing out new ideas. Our policy was that if there was a great idea and it fit with the story, you've got to go with it.

The Jello scene, for example, was a signature image from the book. There was a sunset with a big giant Jello mold in the field. We had the scene between Flint and Sam there, and they were originally sitting on a log looking at the sunset through the Jello. It was a very sweet scene.

After the scene was put up in storyboards, our editor said, "Why don't you go inside the Jello mold? It would be so much more interesting." We thought, "Of course! It would make the scene!" So we had to completely remake the scene.

Phil: Of course, the storyboard artist who had already done six iterations of that scene had to do at least six more. As a result of that, he was a little ticked at the editor.

What about directing James Caan and Bruce Campbell? Was that intimidating?

Chris: It was difficult, especially Caan. He was Sonny Corleone, after all! (at right, James Caan as the voice of Flint's father and Neil Patrick Harris as the voice of the monkey)

Phil: It was incredible. We played young and naïve.

Chris: We were a little bit afraid of him, but he was amazing. He came with a full character in mind and a crafted performance. He was like, "This is how I see the character. These are the mannerisms I think he has."

Phil: The good news is that he had a bunch of great ideas and put a lot of creativity into it. On the rare occasions we wanted him to do something differently, we asked him pretty timidly to change. "I know I'm not Bobby Duvall or Michael Mann, or any of these amazing people that you've worked with, but could you do this a little faster?"

What was it like working with Mr. T?

Phil: He is the most wonderful person in the world.

Chris: He is such a hero. He always showed up early. "The T stands for Time!" He'd do a million takes, and say, "The T stands for Takes!"

Phil: He taught me so many things that start with T. I had no idea.

Chris: He always had such a great attitude and was always spouting out wisdom about life and how to be a good person. You just wanted to be around this guy. Part of the fun we had making the film is due to how awesome Mr. T is.

Did your connection to "How I Met Your Mother" help you get Neil Patrick Harris on board?

Phil: That's the reason we wanted him. He's an incredibly talented guy. He's an actor, a stand-up comic, a stage and film actor, a full-on magician.

Chris: We told him that we had a part for him as a monkey that said six words. We were trying to think who could make one word funny, and immediately thought of Neil. So we called him up and he was very gracious to do the part.

Can you talk about working as a team? How does that work?

Chris: We are the least efficient team ever. Some teams split up and do different things, but we both have a lot of strong opinions.

Phil: There's a lot of redundancy.

Chris: It's a very slow process. That's why we were so happy to have so many collaborators, because sometimes we needed to have a tiebreaker, and we had 500.

Phil: It's great to have somebody in the foxhole with you, and somebody to tell you when you're crazy and when you're not, to validate you. The material always gets better because you're always applying a lot more rigor to it than if you were just doing it yourself. Basically only your "A" material gets through. You're forced to get better.

Chris:  We have different ideas of what's A and what's B. I might say, "I don't like this but I do like that, and I do like you as a person.

Phil: And we're both very sensitive; not thick-skinned people at all. But we've worked together for 12 years and developed a sort of shorthand. We've gotten better at working together over these 12 years.

Chris: It's kind of like a marriage. I have two wives basically.

Phil: I don't know if we ever specifically laid out any rules for our working relationship.

Chris: Right. It evolved as our working relationship did.

Phil: You discover what works and what doesn't. The first few years of our career we argued a lot more. Then there was a period of being extremely passive-aggressive to one another. Now it's a lot easier.

Were you trying to focus more on the kids' side of things with this film?

Chris: We tried to make it something we'd enjoy when we went to see it. The only way you make something good is if you make it appealing to yourself. The second you start thinking, "Well, I don't like it, but kids will,"…

Phil: You're doomed.

Chris: it's always our policy not to talk down to kids. The concept is a very kid-friendly concept.

What will be on the DVD that we're not seeing in theaters?

Phil: A director's cut of the tornado sequence with a lot more action.

Chris: A food fight between Flint and the mayor. There's  a whole crazy giant food fight we ended up cutting out.

Did you lose anything you couldn't do for budget and effects?

Chris: No. It was amazing that we were writing this film with all these ridiculously crazy things: A giant food avalanche, a food spaghetti tornado, a Jello room that bounces and reflects light while it wobbles, which almost blew up the computers, it was so complicated to render. But they were able to get it all and get it all on the screen. It was pretty amazing.

You talked about giving 4 years of your life to this. In the beginning, did you expect it to be that long, and what kept you going?

Phil: We thought we were signing up for a two and a half year ride that became three and a half years, as often happens. Sometimes you find a way to make the movie better when you take more time. You're trying to make the best movie you can, so you embrace that.

Chris: The good part is that you have all this time to make it richer with more details and make the story as good as you can. The down side is that the jokes that were funny three years ago, you've heard 400 times, so you can't tell if they're funny anymore. That's when you bring in some fresh people and see if it still works.

Do you know what's next for you?

Chris: No, we don't know. We'd be glad to do TV. It's awesome! But we definitely want something with a good story.

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