When producer John Davis first started making movies in the 1980s, editors still physically cut pieces of film and worked in cavernous rooms with thousands of film strips hanging off the wall — a far cry from today’s digital shooting and editing systems. Despite the improved efficiency and bottom line provided by technology, he still, however, prefers the romance of shooting movies on film.
“There’s an intangible quality to film, which is not as clear and as stark. It’s got that dreaminess to it,” he says. “But digital cameras today are really kind of interesting and cool and you can zoom in now electronically because they capture so much data. You can zoom in 10 to 15 times and be still clear. So you can do all these things in post-production if you want to and they require less lighting. Technology is definitely going to make the business more interesting.”
Davis’ latest film, “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” straddles the line between digital effects and traditional film. Based on the 1938 children’s book by Richard and Florence Atwater, the family comedy stars Jim Carrey as a busy New York City businessman and a waddle of real-life penguins.
Speakeasy recently spoke to Davis about the film and how the film business has changed since he started his production company 25 years ago.
How did Jim Carrey come to the film? Did you pitch him, or did he come to you?
Literally almost a year ago, I approached Jim Carrey. Actually, his manager had gotten his hands on the script. We had been talking to a number of different actors about doing this. It was one of those scripts that comedians responded to because everybody loves penguins. And it was an opportunity to be fairly physical and it was kind of a charming role and a charming character… So Jim Carrey’s manager had got his hands on the script and said to me, “Look, I think he would really respond to this.” And I said, “What do you mean, ‘you think?’” He goes, “Okay. I slipped him the script, he loves it. He’d love to do it.” And I said, “That’s actually a kind of funny way of doing this. Let me go back and talk to my guys.” So I went back and chatted with the studio and everybody said, “Yeah, that would be a really kind of interesting and fun way to do this.” We made a deal and by September [2010] we were shooting. How’s that for fast?
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