No Place for the Chicken-Hearted

By AMY WALLACE

June 11, 2000 12 AM PT

Amy Wallace is a Times staff writer

BRISTOL, England — Fifteen hours (and just one short nap) after taking off from Burbank in DreamWorks SKG’s eight-seat jet, Jeffrey Katzenberg sat in a renovated warehouse here one morning and talked animatedly about chickens.

It was the beginning of the workday at Aardman Animations Ltd., the Bristol-based company that was making DreamWorks SKG’s clay-animated feature film “Chicken Run,” and Aardman’s top brass had gathered to kick the movie around with their primary conduit to Hollywood: the indefatigable Katzenberg. Much of the discussion centered--as it often had during Katzenberg’s 15 previous visits from across the Atlantic--on a simple question: How to make the film’s Yorkshire and Cockney accents, wry English humor and other Britishisms fly in America?

Sitting in a hard chair beside a wall displaying head shots of Mel Gibson, Miranda Richardson and the movie’s other voice talents, Katzenberg focused on the dialogue in the tongue-in-cheek prisoner-of-war saga, set on a bleak chicken farm in Northern England, about a hen named Ginger who believes there’s more to life than laying eggs and dying. The DreamWorks executive flagged unfamiliar English phrases he found confusing and questioned the sound mix in one sequence. (“I love the scene,” he said pleasantly, “but I literally couldn’t understand one line of dialogue.”)

Still, Katzenberg voted to keep most of the Brit flavor--phrases like “Quit your nellypodging!” and “Chocks away!”--intact, reasoning at one point, “Do you literally know what it means? No. Do you understand what it means? Yes.” But better than anyone in the room, he knew that putting such faith in moviegoers’ intuition was a big gamble.

“That has been the great question: Is the Bristol English provincial-ness of the movie--which I keep working to protect--going to hinder the movie or make it so wildly different that it is a must-see?” Katzenberg said later. “Not only have people never seen a movie that looks like this, they’ve never seen a movie that talks like this. But that’s its charm.”

Dressed in chinos, a long-sleeve T-shirt and running shoes, Katzenberg had flown 5,637 miles to get just eight hours of face time with the directors of “Chicken Run,” Peter Lord and Nick Park. It was just over three months before the film’s release, and Katzenberg and his crew had made this trek every three or four weeks for more than a year.

At DreamWorks, this frenetic kind of scheduling is called “Jeffrey time,” because Katzenberg has been known to visit eight countries in seven days to promote a film. At the understated Aardman headquarters, where the breakneck pace of production is belied by an almost sleepy-feeling torpor, Katzenberg’s relentlessness seemed to inspire a mix of fond amusement and quiet respect. He was, undeniably, another species. But without him and the DreamWorks team, Aardman folks offered, they would have felt they were flying blind.

“In Bristol, if I meet someone in the film industry, chances are I’ve employed them. There’s no one in Britain with the kind of knowledge and experience they have producing animated features. They can tell you what’s wrong and what’s right,” Lord said, admitting that he was surprised by how easy the collaboration had been. “I thought it’d be much worse working with a Hollywood studio. I thought it’d be hell, actually.”

Asked to explain the arrangement, Lord said: “Technically, I believe ‘joint creative control’ is the expression. But we don’t do anything we don’t want to do.”

Exactly how successful that collaboration has been will become clear June 23, when DreamWorks releases “Chicken Run” nationwide (Los Angeles and New York will see it starting two days earlier). Like the previous three animated films--”Antz,” “The Prince of Egypt” and “The Road to El Dorado”--released by Hollywood’s youngest movie studio, this one is risky. Its makers are undeniably brilliant--their three short films about an inventor named Wallace and his faithful dog Gromit have not only won two Oscars but also have sparked a cult following. But with the full-length “Chicken Run,” they will be asking American moviegoers to make a cultural leap they haven’t made before with an animated feature.

“It’s been an interesting discussion since very early on,” said Lord, a co-founder of Aardman who is producing and directing “Chicken Run” with Park. For example, when Katzenberg first heard one of the film’s chicken farmers call a flashlight a “torch,” Lord said, “he was worried that people would think of a flaming firebrand.”

Given the overwhelming box-office and critical failure of DreamWorks’ last animated offering, “The Road to El Dorado,” Katzenberg’s worry is not misplaced.

For one thing, Aardman’s unusual sensibility could prove as challenging to American audiences as the accents. Their humor is subtle and ironic--not broad, like in much animated fare. The laughs in the Wallace & Gromit shorts, for example, come partly because the resourceful dog Gromit, who never speaks, is still more expressive than his chatty owner, Wallace. With that as a backdrop, Gromit prompts smiles with an arch of his eyebrow. It’s not gimmicky, it’s sophisticated.

Which raises the question: Whom is it for? Young children love Wallace & Gromit, and many parents are grateful to find they like watching, too. But while DreamWorks execs like to say they’re pitching “Chicken Run” to 8- to 80-year-olds, it could be a hard sell--neither saucy enough for teens nor recognizable enough for kids, with live-action-loving adults staying away in droves. (DreamWorks plans to address at least part of this problem with a toy and advertising tie-in with Burger King and a raft of consumer products from toys to towels, backpacks to books).

But as gambles go, “Chicken Run” has pretty good odds. Making the movie was relatively inexpensive for an animated feature--DreamWorks says it cost about $40 million, as compared to the usual $100-million-and-up price tag for American animated features. “Chicken Run” seems destined for good critical buzz, what with “Wallace & Gromit’s” hip following and the innovative look of its clay modeling technique.

Perhaps most significantly, by enabling Aardman to make its chicken movie largely its own way, DreamWorks has succeeded in forging a long-term business relationship with some of the more reluctant and sought-after talents ever courted by Hollywood. Katzenberg began wooing the Aardman folks--Lord, his partner Dave Sproxton and creative wunderkind Park--more than 10 years ago, when he was still an executive at Disney. Now, DreamWorks has a five-picture deal with the animation studio that will include a version of the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare” and someday soon, Katzenberg hopes, a feature-length “Wallace & Gromit” movie.

More grueling than the physical journey between Burbank and Bristol, Katzenberg said, was his personal battle with the cultural differences between America and Britain. In short, he said: When in Bristol, he had to learn self-restraint. This does not come easily to him.

“Usually, I tend to say things with such force and velocity, I know I can overwhelm somebody,” he said. Early on, he said, Lord and Park “never would tell me when I hurt their feelings or when they really disagreed with me. They were English. I learned if I didn’t stop and create an opening I wouldn’t hear it. It would be a monologue. And how crazy would that be after I spent 10 years chasing these people?”

He’s still driven, of course. “Put as much pressure on Nick to get started on the Wallace & Gromit film as you feel comfortable doing,” Katzenberg jokingly told more than 100 animators, model builders and other Aardman staff who took a brief break from their ‘round-the-clock “Chicken Run” production schedule to get a pep talk from a man who has long staked his career on the success of animation.

It was March 16. Aardman had 70 1/2 minutes of “Chicken Run” completed and needed to shoot 8 1/2 more. As many as 30 animation units were toiling at once to make the deadline. They had just six weeks.

Meanwhile, Katzenberg and the rest of the crew who had flown in that day from Los Angeles--DreamWorks executives Terry Press and Penney Finkelman Cox and the screenwriter of “Chicken Run,” Karey Kirkpatrick--were feeling the crush of deadlines as well. Marketing chief Press had come up with a shrewd promotional campaign, pairing pun-filled print ads (“A Few Good Hen,” for example, or “Poultry in Motion”) with clever trailers that mimicked those of other summer movies like “Gladiator.” But she had yet to launch her publicity campaign.

Finkelman Cox was working with the L.A.-based composers, John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams, to try to develop musical themes for the movie that evoked the kind of “Great Escape” feel that many associate with P.O.W. stories, but were still distinctive. Kirkpatrick--a Louisiana boy who spent several months living in Bristol while writing the script--was still tinkering with last-minute adds and edits.

And Katzenberg, in addition to having his fingers in all of the above, was there to have a discussion with Lord and Park about trims and reedits suggested by Michael Kahn, the editor who works with DreamWorks co-founder Steven Spielberg. (Kahn had given the film a once-over, just as he did with DreamWorks’ first animated release, “Antz.”)

There was a lot to cover. Which is why, after flying all day and half of the night, Katzenberg and his crew didn’t check into a hotel. Instead, they went straight into more than seven hours of meetings that ended only when they got back on the jet to fly home.

At 11 a.m. on a Thursday, the DreamWorks jet had left Burbank, refueled in Duluth, Minn., and then headed across the Atlantic. Mostly, Katzenberg worked--revising a story summary for “The Tortoise and the Hare,” critiquing a TV promotion for the then-unreleased “Road to El Dorado.” Just after midnight in Los Angeles, the plane touched down in Bristol, and the DreamWorks team swung into action.

1:45 a.m. PST, Friday--The first meeting at the Aardman production facility got underway. Park, Lord, Katzenberg, Kirkpatrick and Finkelman Cox sat around a huge table scrutinizing the film’s remaining problem areas with the kind of meticulousness employed by munitions experts.

At one point, Kirkpatrick suggested that a touching moment between Ginger, the film’s leading lady hen (Julia Sawalha), and Rocky (Gibson), the American rooster she sees as the key to her plans for escape, needed an extra beat to show their affection for each other. Quietly, Park and Lord said they’d intended to show that all along--but subtly.

“She needs to do something that says, ‘You’re with me, and that makes it better,’ ” Kirkpatrick insisted. “Is that too schmaltzy for you guys? Do it for me--I want to cry.”

Lord paused, then said dryly: “We can go that far with the schmaltz.”

Later, Kirkpatrick explained, “Lord beat almost every ounce of sentimentality out of me [during the scriptwriting process]. There’s a lot of us [from Hollywood] saying, ‘Go for the big moment.’ We want to hit higher highs and lower lows. They prefer to be more understated.”

Perhaps DreamWorks was learning as much from Aardman as the other way around.

2:55 a.m.--Everyone headed for a smaller room to watch playbacks on the Avid editing machine. Dozens of scenes played and replayed on a TV-size monitor, and everyone in the room offered lively critique.

Lord had reservations about one scene that focused on the dimwitted chicken farmer, Mr. Tweedy, and his greedy, mean-spirited wife. Throughout the movie, Mr. Tweedy keeps thinking--correctly--that his chickens are up to something, but his wife mocks him for saying so. But in this particular sequence, Lord worried, “How stupid does this make Mr. Tweedy?”

“Hello?” Katzenberg said sarcastically. “That’s the whole movie. You guys are over-logic-ing this thing. Honest.”

The meeting moved on.

Later, Katzenberg zeroed in on an exchange in which the Tweedys’ chicken-pie-making machine is on the fritz. Mrs. Tweedy accuses her husband: “What have you done, you great pudding?” To which he replies, as a chicken farmer from Northern England would: “I didn’t do owt!”

“Is that an English expression, ‘I didn’t do out’?” Katzenberg asked.

Kirkpatrick, who’d written the line (which means “I didn’t do anything”), smiled and said, “Consider the film an education.”

Later, Lord predicted: “There will be kids all over Middle America saying, ‘I didn’t do owt.’ I hope it’ll become a catch phrase.”

4:20 a.m.--Cups of tea were delivered to the room. No one got up.

5:25 a.m.--It was 1:25 in the afternoon in England. Time for lunch. Katzenberg ate half a sandwich and then disappeared to be interviewed by the video crew making the electronic press kit for the film--a video reel designed to be used by TV journalists.

“What’s next?” Katzenberg asked when he returned. “I think we have a group hug.”

6 a.m.--About 100 members of Aardman’s 385-person production crew gathered in the cafeteria to hear Katzenberg thank them for their hard work. Then Press reported how she planned to ensure that millions of people around the world will come see their hard work. She hung posters on the walls (“Escape or Die Frying”), explained the “Hens” and “Roosters” placards that would be hung on the bathrooms of participating movie theaters and predicted that a “Chicken: Impossible” trailer mimicking the Tom Cruise action blockbuster “M:I-2” would “get huge response--most likely from Paramount.”

Later, Press said the 14-to-25-year-old age group was the challenge. “Any breathing boy over the age of 12 is going to want to see the Jim Carrey movie [“Me, Myself and Irene,” which opens the same weekend]. We will be focusing on being the alternative.” Besides, she said hopefully, “ ‘Stuart Little’ got adolescents. Teenage girls went to see the mouse.” She didn’t mention the film’s other direct competition, 20th Century Fox’s animated “Titan A.E.”--which opens a week before “Chicken Run” and is aimed at teens.

6:50 a.m.--Park wryly observed to all the DreamWorks visitors: “In about an hour, we’ll start getting calls from DreamWorks.”

7 a.m.--Everyone back in the AVID room. The talk turned to music. Katzenberg was visibly pleased as he played some new tracks for Lord and Park, singing along quietly and moving his hands to the beat.

“It’s a beautiful melody,” he said. “Though they can make it bigger and more robust.”

Lord said: “It sounds a little bit western.”

Park also seemed, to use an English expression, well-chuffed (pleased.) “This dismal Yorkshire farm has been lifted,” he said, “into ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’ ”

Suddenly, the musical tone changed and Katzenberg piped up again. “This middle stuff I didn’t care for,” he said. “Hitchcock! I hate it!”

Later, though, he would stress that he wanted Lord and Park to feel in control. “I’m not trying to be Mr. Humble Pie. But the truth is they’re the authors,” he said. “I’m a coach on the sidelines.”

9:21 a.m.--Katzenberg announced: “We must stay on schedule. We have 10 minutes.” Eight minutes later, he stood up. “Guys, we’re going,” he said.

Park smiled ruefully. “It’s a chance to sleep,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

‘Chicken’ Talk

Here are some British slang terms or expressions used in “Chicken Run,” translated into English--well, American anyway:

Chocks away. Let’s go.

Codswallop! An expression of disbelief, like “Nonsense!”or “Malarkey!”

I didn’t do owt! I didn’t do anything.

Nancy. A sissy, as in “What are you sobbing about, you Nancy.”

Nellypodging. Doing something incorrectly.

Old sausage. A term of endearment, as in, “You can do it, you old sausage.”

Summat. Something, as in, “Those chickens are up to summat.”