Being able to dig into the minds of creative geniuses Mark Andrews and Katherine Sarafian, the brilliant director and producer of the movie Brave, was an amazing experience! From the moment these two walked into the room you knew that they were people that worked well together sort of like Yin and Yang. We were only able to speak with them for a brief amount of time but just in that short amount of time I could tell that this was a collaboration that made the movie work. I was very surprised to learn that from start to finish Brave took about 8 years to get from a idea onto the Big screen. Here are a few of my favorite questions from the interview.
Question #1 : What kind of age group are you seeing for this? Is six a good age?
MARK : I think it’s everybody. I mean I think that’s, you know, that’s the parents’ prerogative, I mean. As parents know our children so we would know whether it would be good for them or not. I mean I have my five year old. He can watch, you know, Lord of the Rings PG13 movies, Ghost Rider. The face is melting off.
KATHERINE : You took him to Ghost Rider?
MARK : Oh, yeah, that’s what they want to see so, so, you know, now they’re talking to me about seeing, you know, Friday the 13 movies and all this stuff. I’m all okay. So, they can definitely take it. I don’t know about some, uh, you know, other children but I think it’s up to the parents.
KATHERINE : You know, I think it’s a good question. There’s no specific age we would say start it, but, I would say it’s a real PG movie. It’s a PG movie for a reason. We’re advertising it as PG because this is, you know, I mean even in the classic G rated like Disney tales they’re usually killing off a parent or shooting somebody in the woods or whatever. So this, you know, those had some dark elements. This one though it is a PG for a reason for that kind of scary action that’s in there and every, I think every parent will have to make the choice. I’ve got a three year old and a three month old. They’re not gonna see it for a while. They’ll see it when they’re ready but you know, the three year old can’t even sit through a movie yet. He’s twitchy.
Question #2: Was it always going to be a Scottish princess?
MARK : Yes, no it was from the get go, from the original pitch. The three things that John Lasseter and Pixar look for is they look for, uh, you know, a great character, a great story and a great setting. And so Brenda Chapman who, uh, my fellow director on the project, her original pitch was about that parent child relationship based off of her own experiences with her own at the time six year old daughter who’s very precocious and independent and talked back. And she kind of projected ahead going oh, oh, what kind of teenager is this little girl gonna be if she’s already a teenager at six, you know. And then she has a love for Scotland. It’s just a land that’s rich with legends and stories and stuff so why not put it there in back in the past to, you know, call from that environment, you know, a story and, and that’s what she pitched to John Lasseter at Pixar and they said, yeah, that sounds great, let’s do it. And then the details of how it worked out, you know, those are things that we were hammering out for the next, you know, five to six years.
Question #3 : Did you want to talk about the stereotypes and roles of girls and fathers in the film?
MARK : Yeah, the biggest action sewing scene in movie history. [HUM] Easy Angus. I’m doing the woman’s job or riding a horseback at night going a hundred miles an hour.
KATHERINE : Well, and, you know, yes okay so first we had to create the character. we had to kind of blinders on about gender and just try to create a heroic character because if we focus on she’s a girl character, she’s a girl, she’s a girl then we will get caught up, you know, the stereotypes of just the conventions of like telling a girl story particularly if a real girl, a princess has all these rules to go with it. We had to blow that up and just stay away with it and just focus on hero who could have been a man or a woman, a girl or a boy and try to create an appealing character arc there. Then, you know, then the awareness around as quickly as we talk about the film is this, you know, there’s so much being said about the first girl, the first girl. Uh, and it was important to us that we cast this character to be not a tomboy at all.
You know, she’s not ashamed. Your point of sewing. She’s not ashamed to be a girl. She wears a dress. She’s happy to wear a dress. She just doesn’t want one that’s too restrictive and tight and I think that kind of girl I was. I loved wearing dresses but I played like 50 thousand sports and I had so many activities at age 16 that getting married was the last thing on my married. Yeah, I couldn’t even get a date and actually at 16 I didn’t want one. I was worried about my, you know, my term paper that was due and, you know, these high cheating kids today. That’s not on their mind. So we wanted to create a character who was relatable in that way to audiences of both genders, of just like you want to do your own thing. You’re not focused on getting married and you’re comfortable in your skin of either gender and yes, that means yeah, you — maybe you sew and maybe you climb waterfalls in a dress and it doesn’t make you want to be a boy.
Question #4 : Did you spend time in Scotland?
MARK : Yeah, absolutely. We spend a lot of times in Scotland. We had two different research troops there I mean ‘cause we can get a lot of stuff on line and pictures and things like that and I’m very read about the histories and stuff. So but that only takes you so far. The things that you discover when you’re actually in the place is invaluable and I know a lot of writers, you know, who write historical fictions and stuff. They go and visit these places to get to know them on an intimate level because there may be a bit of detail that they can pull from there, you know. Uh, we talked to the people. You know, we were talking to gypsies and we were talking to, uh, they were these girls. Our waitresses at this one restaurant on the isle of Harris and Lewis who were singing Gaelic songs a cappella to us and making us cry.
KATHERINE : While serving us dessert.
MARK : While serving us dessert. I mean other people were eating going what the hell is going on?
KATHERINE : We were able to experience how open everybody was there. Like will you tell us a story? Oh, I’ll tell you a great story. Or sing a song. Oh, I got five songs. You know, just whereas here in the United States, will you sing me a song? Oh, I couldn’t do that, you know, I don’t wanna. You know, it’s very, very open storytelling culture and we tried to use every bit of that in the film.
MARK : Yeah, and that’s one thing that you discover as being there is not only how varied the landscape is, how unique it is, uh, there’s all the science that’s going on there right now in Scotland because of its unique ecosystem that doesn’t take place anywhere else in the world. You know, it was buried by eyes for millions of years and the way it looks is because when the ice were treated, the glaciers took all the soft rock with it and that’s why you have this very, you know, rounded shapes and deep rocks and trenches and, you know, on the forest and stuff. But it’s, it’s the stories that come out of there as well. It just, it just springs forth. It’s so fertile field of story time. You can understand why fairies and the King Arthur legends and all these things come out of this landscape.
Question #5: How long did the entire process take?
MARK : Principle photography? Two years. The entire process?
KATHERINE : The entire process? Eight years because the first pitch, because the process includes early development and pitch when there’s only two people on the movie, you know, a writer and a director. So 2004 Brenda Chapman pitched this story about her six year old daughter and the relationship that they were having. And it didn’t really get a green light until later in 2006 because she sort of works it and starts developing the Scottish setting. And I came on in the end of 2006 and Mark and Brenda and I and the team went to Scotland in August of 2006 and that was when production started so six years from there. Yeah, it’s, you know, what? It’s a family. I think that’s why it’s good to start with a research trip because you better get a bond and you better love each other ‘cause you’re in it together the whole time and it gets hard, really, really hard. But there’s a lot of love and trust and a lot of collaboration so to see you through.
A BIG thank you to Mark Andrews and Katherine Sarafian for giving all of us the chance to ask them a few questions about the movie! Be sure follow along with all of the other interviews and events for Brave on Twitter using the Hashtag #BraveCarsLandEvent and Liking Brave on Facebook. Brave is now open in theaters everywhere!
Disclosure: Disney/Pixar provided my travel and accommodations while on this event. All opinions expressed are 100% honest and my own.