From STUDIO
BRIEFING
Copyright
Studio Briefing 1999
[Copied
with Permission]
August 5, 1999
THE
ANIMALS TALK
Jim
Henson's Creature Shop in London has developed an advanced
form
of Muppet puppet for its current production of George
Orwell's
Animal Farm which allows operators to program the lip
movements
of each anamatronic animal in advance of every scene
to
achieve perfect synchronization with the recorded sound
track,
the London Times reported today (Thursday). Verner
Gresty,
creative projects supervisor on the movie, told the
Times
that even subtle facial movements can now be achieved. One
character,
he said, has some 60 motors working every conceivable
facial
muscle. Producer Robert Halmi, chairman of Hallmark
Entertainment
(which is producing the film for Turner cable
network
TNT), commented, "We can now make these animals sound
and
act real. You forget they are animals speaking words.
They're
the characters of Orwell." A number of top stars are
providing
the voices of the animated animals, including Peter
Ustinov,
Patrick Stewart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julia Ormond, Ian
Holm
and Kelsey Grammer. Pete Postlethwaite plays the principal
human,
Farmer Jones.
Lew
Irwin
STUDIO
BRIEFING
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Copyright
1999, All Rights Reserved
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