The Incredibles Commentary

The Incredibles commentary.

Transcript

 * (music plays)
 * BRAD BIRD: This is Brad Bird, writer and director of The Incredibles.
 * JOHN WALKER: And John Walker, producer.
 * BIRD: Welcome to the audio commentary and right away I would like to comment that we had different music for the first time for the opening logos, the Disney and Pixar logo, written by Michael Giacchino. And we were concerned that if we had the usual Randy Newman music coming out of Boundin', we were not changing the mood as we wanted to. And Michael, I think, hit it right on the head.
 * WALKER: And how great to see such a wildly different short film in front, both coming out of the same studio.
 * BIRD: Right, different sensibilities, one studio.
 * WALKER: One brand name.
 * Helen: Do you have a secret identity?
 * Bob: Every superhero has one.
 * BIRD: This opening... I wanted to begin the film with something that was unexpected. And most superhero movies begin with the big "whammo-blammo" thing. And I thought it we started in this kind of strange... You know, the film's beat up and old and we're looking at them in some kind of personal documentary sense, that would put the emphasis on them being people. So, they're superheroes but you're seeing them being decidedly un-super here. They're just sitting around talking about being super. I thought that was already subverting the audience's expectations. And the interesting thing, or the thing I was going for, anyway, was the fact that they're talking about things that they think their future will involve. So, Frozone is the ladies man, even though we later see him married. Bob is talking about settling down, although later he has a problem with it. And Helen can't imagine settling down and she turns out to make the transition very well. So, that's a little comment about what we think our future is gonna be versus what it is.
 * WALKER: And at one time, we had Buddy Pine in there.
 * BIRD: That's right. We cut him because it felt like it was giving away something.
 * WALKER: Right.
 * (music playing)
 * (siren wailing)
 * BIRD: So, now we are into the "whammo-blammo". The idea here was that once everybody had settled down to this documentary thing, you hit them with a left, and launch them into outer space.
 * WALKER: The aspect ratio goes from 1.33 to 2.39.
 * BIRD: Suddenly the image clears up and the sound gets great.
 * WALKER: You don't have the sound coming out of one mono channel.
 * BIRD: This was showing the golden days. So, Janet Lucroy, who directed the lighting photography on all of this stuff, we talked about, with Lou Romano, about having this be more saturated in color and golden in hue to give the idea that everything was at its best in this time. This is more comic book-y kind of staging: Bigger and everything's kind of broader. The colors are broader and the poses are bigger and everything's... the superheroes the way we're used to seeing them.