FILM INSIGHT
Pinocchio Reborn
News and views from around the international CG community
Trevor Hogg learns the truth behind the wooden boy who came to life in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
For most people, Guillermo del Toro is viewed as a live-action filmmaker, but F this misperception is being corrected with the Netflix release of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. In fact, it was stop-motion that set him on the path to become an acclaimed director responsible for The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Pacific Rim. “The funny thing is that I made the transition from stop-motion to live action,” he reveals. “I started learning [how to be a filmmaker] by making animated shorts and still have the stop-motion camera that I bought in my hometown [of Guadalajara, Mexico].
“I have been producing and co-directing animation for the last 10 years, beginning at DreamWorks with Trollhunters, Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda 3, Megamind and Rise of the Guardians. Even Pacific Rim is 45 minutes of animation directed by me.
“It wasn’t a decision but an affirmation of the fact that I wanted and intend to continue with animation. It was finding the right moment to develop a movie that was sufficiently close to my heart, and having a partner like Mark Gustafson. Those were key things for me.”
It was important to create the feeling that everything from the characters to the environments were handmade, with effects simulations such as lightning being used to complement the stopmotion aesthetic
The Pinocchio puppet is adjusted by senior stop-motion animator Jan-Erik Maas
Numerous adaptations have been made of The Adventures of Pinocchio, the fabled story by Italian writer Carlo Collodi about a wooden marionette desiring to become human. Particularly so in recent times with Matteo Garrone and Robert Zemeckis also tackling the subject matter.
A major difference in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is that Del Toro wanted to break away from the theme that obedience is essential to being a good boy, and celebrate individualism as well as retain the wooden construct of the title character. “I like a Pinocchio where everybody changes but him, and people learn to see him for who he is,” says the filmmaker. “Spoilers. Geppetto loses a child, that child comes back in the form of Pinocchio. Geppetto is so blind that he cannot recognise him and learns to recognise him. It was vital that Pinocchio didn’t change.”