erlainment
Moses At The Movies
DreamWorks assembled a crack team devoted to making
an animated feature about Moses and the Exodus.
SERENA DONADONI
Special to The Jewish Neths
-1-
:P.- - -
arching
tht:::amaiing
opening sOlcitience2of The
Prince ofAgypt, where
scores of Hebrew slaves
are toiling under the b ng desert
sun building the great ramids,
not difficult to see para . els with the
making of this animated epic.
Hundreds of people worked for four
years to realize a dream project that, to
many outsiders, seemed quixotic at
best: an animated biblical musical.
But this particular film — which
follows Moses from infancy through
the Exodus — was in the hands of
Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg
and David Geffen, the powerful trio
who founded the aptly named studio
SKG DreamWorks.
While Antz, a clever, computer-ani-
mated insect comedy, was released
Serena Donadoni, a freelance writer
based in Detroit, traveled to New York City
to meet the people behind Dream Works'
production of "The Prince of Egypt."
first, The Prince of Egypt, opening
mation and painting [with animators]
today, represents the studio's ambi-
using digital tools to actually bring it
tious leap forward in traditional (i.e.,
to life with three-dimensional real-
drawn and painted) animation.
ism.
"The idea is to take this technique
And it's not just for kids. "For many
of storytelling," explained Katzenberg
years, animation has been somewhat
in New York, and apply it to a wide
synonymous with films for young chil-
range of styles and subject matter. Live
dren," said Brenda Chapman, the first
action films run the gamut, he said.
woman director of an animated fea-
"Why can't animation be as diverse?"
ture. "What I'm hoping this film can
The PG-rated The Prince of Egypt is
do is open
a deliberate break from the "70 year
up the audi-
tradition in which animation has real-
ence's mind
ly been used to tell one kind of story
to what ani-
— fairy tales — in one style — car-
mation can
tooning," he said. "And I [use those
be: another
words] as terms of endearment. I love
form of film-
those movies and I loved
making them for the 10 years
Jeff Goldblum (Aaron):
that I was at Disney."
A story of principle,
But with this film, the ani-
- conscience and vision."
mation team aimed for a new
level of aesthetic sophistica-
Sandra Bullock
tion. "We've tried to take
(Miriam):
painting — the look of a
"Generations change.
painting — and bring it to
This is a story that
life, as opposed to a cartoon,"
needs to be retold"
Katzenberg explained. "It is
traditional hand drawn ani-
-
-
12/18
19'98
70 Detroit Jewish News
making that happens to be drawn and
painted."
That The Prince of Egypt has three
directors reflects the massive scale of
the project. "We split up departments
after we got the story up and going,"
Chapman explained. "I headed up
effects and background painting;