Interviews with the cast notes...
Simon Pegg: (Graeme Willy)
Simon Pegg wanted to play a shy character, because of previous films.
he enjoys comics and science fiction so he knows what it’s like to obsess with ‘aliens’
he didn’t have to research much just not to be himself so much.
Seth Rogen is on his wave length, he’s very good at interpretation, valuable asset.
Everyone in some respect is an alien, people learning to live where they don’t belong and so on.
Simon Pegg wanted to play a shy character, because of previous films.
he enjoys comics and science fiction so he knows what it’s like to obsess with ‘aliens’
he didn’t have to research much just not to be himself so much.
Seth Rogen is on his wave length, he’s very good at interpretation, valuable asset.
Everyone in some respect is an alien, people learning to live where they don’t belong and so on.
Nick Frost: (Clive gollings)
writing it off and on for 41/2 years.
It’s important to research because of the road trip and such; day by day miles per day and where we would stay
working title gave them a brand new RV to ‘play’ with.
Seth Rogen: (PAUL)
Tried to make it casual, ‘drunk and stoned’ all the time, wanted the characters to move like him move like a human, chilled out ‘dude’
Director he worked with is a dream director, he loves how laid back he is and how he finishes on time etc.
people were given images of aliens so that is an alien encounter happened people wouldn’t be too shook up, it’s that every alien you’ve seen is PAUL, you will know he’s an alien.
PAUL would be not too obnoxious but fun, ‘cool’ funny idea of the movie, the geeks’ dream come true.
Totally different way to represent an alien
Tried to make it casual, ‘drunk and stoned’ all the time, wanted the characters to move like him move like a human, chilled out ‘dude’
Director he worked with is a dream director, he loves how laid back he is and how he finishes on time etc.
people were given images of aliens so that is an alien encounter happened people wouldn’t be too shook up, it’s that every alien you’ve seen is PAUL, you will know he’s an alien.
PAUL would be not too obnoxious but fun, ‘cool’ funny idea of the movie, the geeks’ dream come true.
Totally different way to represent an alien
Production (CGI) Notes – PAUL.When Mottola was first approached about directing Paul, he admits he was nervous to helm a project in which the main character was wholly CGI.
“Now that I’m done with the animation,” he admits candidly, “I didn’t know how scared I should be. It’s hard to pull off full-on, complete animation.
“We had to create an alien that for all intents and purposes is a human being in his behaviour and just happens to look like an alien with certain abilities,”
“But for 90 percent of the screen time, he’s just a guy in a car hanging out. We wanted to try and make a guy that the audience cared about who was still irritating at times—human, surprising, emotional and difficult.”
“We designed a CG version of Paul that was not completely satisfying, so we brought in a practical effects company that has this talented sculptor who sculpted Paul out of clay first. He created a miniature size of Paul until we got a rough design we thought was good, and then he did a life-size version.”
they built a puppet incarnation that would be used for close-ups. They knew they needed this version because every time Mottola and cinematographer Lawrence Sher would physically be shooting a scene in which the character was included, they had to have a practical double for eye line reference and movement purpose.
“We had to create an alien that for all intents and purposes is a human being in his behaviour and just happens to look like an alien with certain abilities,”
“But for 90 percent of the screen time, he’s just a guy in a car hanging out. We wanted to try and make a guy that the audience cared about who was still irritating at times—human, surprising, emotional and difficult.”
“We designed a CG version of Paul that was not completely satisfying, so we brought in a practical effects company that has this talented sculptor who sculpted Paul out of clay first. He created a miniature size of Paul until we got a rough design we thought was good, and then he did a life-size version.”
they built a puppet incarnation that would be used for close-ups. They knew they needed this version because every time Mottola and cinematographer Lawrence Sher would physically be shooting a scene in which the character was included, they had to have a practical double for eye line reference and movement purpose.
He ran each of the scenes multiple times in rehearsal to ensure the animators had all the physical references they needed to craft Paul. To ensure that the follow-up movements during production were flush, the stand-ins that were used based their actions, mannerisms and inflections on the filmed references of Rogen. Then, Rogen returned for days of ADR.
The lion’s share of Double Negative’s efforts would be the team’s translation of Paul to the screen putting this CG character in a real environment so that he would be completely convincing throughout the film. “It required lighting Paul in a very naturalistic way so he would be integrated with everyone else’s performance,” “This is a film that can’t look like a visual effects film. It has to look like a film with three guys in it and supporting cast and characters.”
