Christopher Meledandri Quotes

Everybody has a wicked side, whether they are six or sixty, and yet so often storytelling draws a sharp line between good and evil.

Christopher Meledandri

Evil, Wicked, Lines

"Collider Watches 15 Minutes of DESPICABLE ME (Video Blog Recap) Plus Interview With Producer Chris Meledandri". Group interview, collider.com. February 10, 2010.

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I grew up with probably three different authors having a seminal influence on my childhood, Dr. Seuss being one and Maurice Sendak being another. That was my parents, who exposed me to their stories. That's how I was introduced to the whole idea of not just reading, but storytelling in general.

Christopher Meledandri

Reading, Ideas, Childhood

Source: collider.com

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We in Illumination Entertainment tend not to put ideas through a brand funnel. We've collected a group of people who share a certain taste, and that is connected to our aspirations for our brand. We pride ourselves on making character-centric movies. If I had to say what's the most important thing this company does, it's creating characters that stay with the audience long after they leave the theater.

Christopher Meledandri

Character, Pride, Long

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Being branded to some subset of your fans is important when it comes to creating films and characters they're not familiar with. It's enormously difficult to market to a global audience, and it's becoming more difficult. A brand matters to parents, whereas kids are largely driven by their urgent reaction to the product. In the future, where there are going to be choices that have to be made by parents because it will be prohibitively expensive to access everything, those will be driven partially by brand.

Christopher Meledandri

Character, Kids, Choices

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No matter what happens with technology or whether you're in traditional animation or stop-motion or CG, the biggest challenge always is story. The flow of making the movie is usually determined by how your story is coming together, and when your story is straining and you can't quite get your hands around it, your entire production is straining.

Christopher Meledandri

Technology, Challenges, Together

Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

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What I've found is there is no barometer that allows you to chart when you're oversaturating a desire. You're left really trying to respond on a gut level, because by the time you might do research, it's already too late. There's also a healthy tension between what are very sound business objectives and a very amorphous desire to preserve what's special.

Christopher Meledandri

Healthy, Special, Desire

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There will be increasing temptation to watch movies where you want to when you want to, and so I'm very focused on how we innovate Illumination Entertainment to keep the in-theater experience vibrant and urgent. In part I think it's what movies you're choosing to make and why those are films we feel are best enjoyed surrounded by a group of people. I also think it's continuing to look at things technologically.

Christopher Meledandri

Thinking, People, Temptation

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What I find in a creative company is while there is a desire to build a management foundation that can feel clear and consistent, the unique product we're in Illumination Entertainment making doesn't always allow for that. So rather than following management strategy that talks about building your structure and then staffing that structure, I tend to build the structure around the strengths of the individual people we have.

Christopher Meledandri

Unique, People, Creative

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Songs give you incredible opportunity to convey a tremendous amount in a relatively short period of time. The first thing that John Powell, our composer, says is, "Is the song engaging you to tap your toe?" If you're not tapping your toe, it doesn't matter what you're doing in the song, it's not going to work. But, if you can get the audience to be engaged by the song, then it gives you the opportunity to accomplish so much, in a very concise way.

Christopher Meledandri

Song, Opportunity, Giving

Source: collider.com

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It's not fair to use movies that weren't creatively successful as a reason why something won't work.

Christopher Meledandri

Successful, Use, Reason Why

"Collider Watches 15 Minutes of DESPICABLE ME (Video Blog Recap) Plus Interview With Producer Chris Meledandri". Group interview, collider.com. February 10, 2010.

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Where I think that 3D will fall apart is going to be as audiences now get treated to incredibly artistic utilizations of space. I think the films that are just sort of done as 3D transfer type films, the audience will perceive the difference in that.

Christopher Meledandri

Fall, Thinking, Differences

"Collider Watches 15 Minutes of DESPICABLE ME (Video Blog Recap) Plus Interview With Producer Chris Meledandri". Group interview, collider.com. February 10, 2010.

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I take his [Theodore Geisel] legacy very, very seriously. I know others may disagree because he's made such an impact on so many people that response to work becomes very personal, so people will have different points of view. But, at the core of this, I take the protection and the extension of his legacy very, very seriously. It's a very important part of my life.

Christopher Meledandri

Impact, Views, People

Source: collider.com

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It is incredibly daunting to take on a live-action story. I think that it adds a level of complexity to the responsibility that goes beyond what I've experienced on these two films (The Lorax and Horton Hears a Who).

Christopher Meledandri

Responsibility, Thinking, Two

Source: collider.com

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When you take that to the next level of guiding a group of filmmakers to actually depict him, it's even more challenging. The one that that I think everybody involved believes is that we won't move forward with this until we believe it's right. There's no deadline that a movie has to be made by. We have to believe that we have served the responsibility, however long it takes us to get to that point.

Christopher Meledandri

Believe, Moving, Responsibility

Source: collider.com

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I think that every enduring story that has expressions over multiple periods, that role of being the keeper of the integrity of the vision is a very important role.

Christopher Meledandri

Integrity, Thinking, Expression

Source: collider.com

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Tone is an interesting question because part of the inspiration of looking to song is that Geisel himself - when you think about his animated version of The Grinch - embraced the idea of using songs in unconventional ways, as part of conveying a narrative. The use of music, in this film, is very unconventional, which I love.

Christopher Meledandri

Song, Inspiration, Thinking

Source: collider.com

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I've carried on, in that same tradition, with my kids. Aside from just his brilliance, in my estimation, I think he had one of the great imaginations of the 20th century. One of the reasons why the tradition carries on, all these years later, is because, as a parent, those are the books that you go to and pull off the shelf because they never stop delighting you.

Christopher Meledandri

Book, Kids, Thinking

Source: collider.com

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Anytime you adapt work of somebody who you respect, as much as I respect him, it's an enormous responsibility. In honoring that responsibility, what we try to do is to continually use his work, and the writing that he did about his life and his work, as our guide. That starts with his intent for what he was trying to express when he wrote it, and it extends to his intent overall.

Christopher Meledandri

Writing, Responsibility, Trying

Source: collider.com

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Why did Ted Geisel end up writing and illustrating for young minds? He has specific imagery in the book, and we never would have moved beyond the discussion phase, if we couldn't have found an expression for The Lorax, dimensionally, that was true to the soul of what comes through in his simple line drawings, on the page.

Christopher Meledandri

Book, Writing, Simple

Source: collider.com

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We have a process that continually looks back to him for guidance, but it also combines that with a tremendous amount of discovery and invention, as well, because of the demands of the medium and the opportunities of the medium.

Christopher Meledandri

Opportunity, Discovery, Looks

Source: collider.com

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Absolutely, you rise and fall based on your creative team. I have continuity across different films that I've done. I was even fortunate enough to reach back and include people that had worked on Horton with me, as well.

Christopher Meledandri

Team, Fall, People

Source: collider.com

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When you listen to the music in this film [Despicable Me], it's working on the level of melody, but the other key element is lyrics. There are a number of songs in the film where the lyrics themselves are very much speaking to the essence of what Ted Geisel was setting out to do.

Christopher Meledandri

Song, Keys, Essence

Source: collider.com

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There are countless times where you're trying to channel somebody who's not there, but that's what you have to do. But Audrey Geisel, who has executive produced this film and Horton, and who works remarkably close with me, is a great source of information. (The Simpsons creator) Matt Groening once told me that one of the most important roles that he fulfills on The Simpsons is being the keeper of the integrity of the original vision.

Christopher Meledandri

Integrity, Vision, Important

Source: collider.com

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The idea right now - and it may evolve - would be a live-action movie where some of his characters would be animated. To me, this movie is very much about the creative process.

Christopher Meledandri

Character, Ideas, Creative

Source: collider.com

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I think that it's important for a film that's in 3D that the filmmakers create the movie from a staging and scene planning standpoint with the dimensional space as one of their storytelling components.

Christopher Meledandri

Thinking, Space, Important

"Collider Watches 15 Minutes of DESPICABLE ME (Video Blog Recap) Plus Interview With Producer Chris Meledandri". Group interview, collider.com. February 10, 2010.

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Latest quotes from interviews

"What I've found is there is no barometer that allows you to chart when you're oversaturating a desire. You're left really trying to respond on a gut level, because by the time you might do research, it's already too late. There's also a healthy tension between what are very sound business objectives and a very amorphous desire to preserve what's special."

- Christopher Meledandri,

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