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MillimeterA Seussian Logic
Nov 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Michael Goldman
Ron Howard calls his latest project, Universal's Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, nothing less than "a huge responsibility, a major emotional investment."
Howard feels that way because of the Grinch's pedigree. Theodore Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) published the children's story about the fun-hating Grinch in 1957, and famed animator Chuck Jones turned it into a beloved TV cartoon special in 1966. Howard's film, starring Jim Carrey in Rick Baker-designed makeup and body costume, represents the first attempt to bring Seuss to the big-screen in a live-action format. Howard says his movie was secondarily influenced by Jones' cartoon, in terms of the Grinch's greenish hue and the licensing of songs. But, he insists, Seuss' illustrations were the primary visual reference for the feature.
"Dr. Seuss' books had the most impact on the production design," Howard explains. "Our challenge was to create a flesh-and-blood reality out of his sketches. Since the original Grinch book was limited in terms of drawings, we did go beyond the book. But mainly, we went to his other books, sketches, and drawings, as well as designs from Geisel's influences ... such as the Spanish architect [Antoni] Gaudi. The big thing we had to do was create the town of Whoville, give it scope and scale, and hint at the kinds of cracked physical laws that Seuss books have. Because this story was coming from such a well-loved body of work, that was a huge responsibility. We definitely tried to think Seussian as we designed the film."
Whoville
Filmmakers relied little on digital sets and effects, and so production and costume design carried much of the responsibility of defining the film. In an effort to "think Seussian," production designer Michael Corenblith developed what he calls "a vocabulary of forms" for Whoville, the Grinch's cave, and other locations.
"Theodore Geisel is not as well known as an illustrator and a layout artist as he is for his stories, but those skills were the basis for how we approached this film," says Corenblith. "I pitched the idea of celebrating Seuss' entire career as an illustrator, including pieces of different styles that he used. We went through books of his work, and I showed Ron how Geisel worked in the vocabulary of forms, like a painter. He was attracted to particular shapes, some very abstract. A form that would show up in one application and in one scale - like a huge piece of architecture - would reappear in a smaller scale, like the back of a throne. So I proposed a reductionist point of view - working with shapes to build up the sets, using them as building blocks. I also wanted to create sets that would let Ron compose shots with the same kind of dynamic composition that Dr. Seuss used to lay out his books."
Filmmakers built a massive steel and Styrofoam Whoville, devoid of straight lines, on Universal's Stage 12. (Grinch was shot entirely on 12 sound stages at the Universal lot in Los Angeles.) Its 30,000 square feet comprised the largest set that either Howard or Corenblith had ever been associated with. A team that consisted, at one point, of 250 people constructed Whoville "like a wedding cake," says Corenblith, with Styrofoam elements built on top of the gigantic steel armature.
"We had our people sculpt the pieces at an old warehouse, and then we brought them to the Universal stage and married them to the armature," Corenblith explains. "We would get one floor built, construct a deck on top of that with standard joists and trusses, and then build another. All of that on top of a steel skeleton - about 30 tons of steel and two-million linear feet of Styrofoam. It's easily the most elaborate set I've ever worked on."
While the film's Whoville is based on Geisel's vision, it is much larger and more detailed than anything the artist drew or described in the original Grinch book. "I wanted to give each portion of the town an iconographic foundation," says Corenblith. "Therefore, I leaned toward different architectural styles among the styles that influenced Geisel. The Town Hall, for instance, was laid out as a Greek-Roman neo-classical building. The department stores, on the other hand, were made to resemble the art nouveau department stores of Paris in the `20s and `30s. I also wanted to make sure that the big grocery store in the film paid a nod of respect to Seuss' love for Moroccan and Islamic architecture."
Howard adds that the production relied on CG "extensions" of Whoville, created by Digital Domain, simply to make the town appear to have the dimensions of "Telluride or a big mountain town in Switzerland." But other than that, he notes, the film mainly utilizes production design and costume design.
The Grinch's Cave
Whoville wasn't the project's only design challenge. The smaller, but equally complex "Grinch's cave" took shape on another Universal stage. It was designed, in large part, to take advantage of Jim Carrey's physical skills.
"As the character of the Grinch was developing, we realized we needed a location for him that was suited to Jim Carrey's abilities," says Howard. "Corenblith created platforms and little bridges and hand-holds - things that play to Jim's strengths. We refined the set in rehearsals, working with Jim to develop set pieces that fit with the things he wanted to do with the character."
Corenblith points out that, since the original Seuss book never showed the interior of the cave, filmmakers had to extrapolate what a Seussian cave might look like.
"Ron Howard kept emphasizing that the Grinch was a loner," says Corenblith. "That evoked the image of the scene in Citizen Kane where Kane is sitting alone in a giant room. We wanted to do something similar to show the character's isolation. That, combined with the fact that Jim Carrey is a kinetic performer, led us to create a multi-space cave, connected by a spiraling ramp, along with swings, ropes, and ladders, so he could move around a lot. Ron also came up with the idea that the Grinch is an inventor and tinkerer, so there are odd little gadgets lying around the cave. The cave is sort of like a giant cathedral combined with the Guggenheim Museum, stood on its head."
The color scheme for the various sets was also crucial. "In terms of palette, other than making the Grinch green, which came from the Chuck Jones cartoon, the idea was to again stick with what Dr. Seuss had done in his books," Corenblith explains. "For Whoville, we wanted a sort of polychromatic look, strictly using only colors that have a direct precedent in Dr. Seuss' illustrations. Geisel mixed his own inks for the plates that printed most of his books, so we stuck with his palette. Then, for the cave, we decided to be more monochromatic, specifically to contrast the Grinch's world with Whoville."
Overall, director Howard says the movie, which took nearly seven months to shoot, remains true to what he calls "Seussian logic" in both story and production design.
"It's really a performance movie, in terms of Jim Carrey's portrayal of the Grinch and what makes him so lonely," Howard concludes. "But the Seuss look is so well known to fans that we really needed to nail it in terms of a flavor. That's why the stylistic choice to shoot everything on sets was such an important decision. When working on a stage, it's much harder in terms of having to build everything yourself. But on the other hand, you are limited only by your imagination and how much money you have. In this case, we had a good amount of money for production design, and so we were able to build a world that evokes the whimsy and edge and fun that Dr. Seuss is known for."
SIDEBAR
Rick Baker Faces the Grinch
by Michael Goldman
One of the most difficult choices for Grinch filmmakers involved developing the right face to turn Jim Carrey into the Grinch. Director Ron Howard brought in veteran makeup guru Rick Baker to build a face that would resemble the familiar book and cartoon drawings, while still permitting Carrey to use his trademark facial expressions. "Jim Carrey can do impressive Grinch expressions without any makeup at all, and we didn't want to lose that," says Howard.
Baker eventually developed a four-appliance, foam-rubber face to glue onto Carrey each shooting day. He calls that development process "a long and sometimes frustrating experience."
"We couldn't do a literal translation of the book design of the character, because that was a simple line drawing with huge eyes and a long neck," says Baker. "There are limits to what we can do practically, and Ron didn't think a CG face could work."
Baker built an initial sculpture of the face himself and incorporated designs from other artists in the testing process. "Eventually, I realized I had one major problem: the Grinch has a tiny nose, located very close to his eyes. That meant we would have to cover Jim Carrey's real nose, making breathing difficult. I did a test on my own face, but with my face under it instead of Jim's, it didn't look quite right, and Ron Howard asked us to try other designs. We did dozens of tests, but finally went back to my original design just weeks before production started."
Baker solved the breathing issue with tiny dots on the face, the equivalent of whisker holes in Theodore Geisel's original drawings. "It wasn't normal breathing," Baker says, "but at least Jim could function with the face on."
The Grinch makeup took approximately three hours each day. Baker says Carrey had to have new appliances attached each shooting day - about 80 Grinch appliances total were used on Carrey during production. Baker added an original body suit of his own design to the ensemble, consisting of individually sewn together Yak hairs, dyed green and sewn into a Lycra Spandex suit.
Baker's company, Cinovation, also created 220 other makeup configurations for the many citizens of Whoville, applying makeup an average of 110 times a day to various actors in what Baker calls "easily the biggest appliance job I've ever seen in Hollywood."
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.