David Silverman on The Simpsons Movie
Animator Worked With Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Pete Docter
Nov 12, 2009
In Part #2 of our exclusive interview, The Simpsons director/producer David Silverman shared his memories of working on Monsters, Inc. alongside Pete Docter and Bob Peterson. In this installment, he talks to Suite 101 about making The Simpsons Movie.
S101: What eventually lured you back to The Simpsons?
Silverman: “The thought of doing a feature.”
S101: The idea of doing a Simpsons film had been around for a long time–
Silverman: “They had banged that about for a while. I had come down to a party in Malibu, I saw my old friends: all the people I’d liked working with, Matt Groening and Hank Azaria were there and I was saying, ‘I miss working with you guys in LA. It’s warmer down here than it is up north.’ We were talking very seriously about the feature, and I decided to go back to The Simpsons.”
S101: One thing I noticed about the feature was this concerted effort to bring back all the minor characters–
Silverman: “Yeah, we wanted to bring them all back for a little curtain call.”
S101: Did you feel that put a bit of a strain on the story? Because there seemed like these points: ‘Where do we show Bumblebee Guy?’
Silverman: “I don’t think so. We found that we couldn’t have people just drop in, tell a joke and take a bow. So we started throwing out a lot of material; a lot of things that were written with that in mind, and we got rid of it. It came down to what fit the story, what motivated the story.
“It made sense to me that we had a crowd shot: put everyone in there instead of having generic people. So, for the Town Hall, we had a floor plan, this is where everybody was sitting. If you watch it, there are a few times where people shift their seats.
“But we had that great crowd scene where everybody’s saying, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’ We had a master T in the crowd, we had a front line and then we had this path where the camera would move through, and that was all populated by regulars. The peripheral was also populated by regular; but some things were duplicated. But you can’t really tell because we had all those torches in the way. That was a great shot: I really loved it. And it was fun putting all these weird characters in there.”
S101: What was the overriding idea behind the feature? It felt like you were trying to do a 90-minute episode.
Silverman: “That was it. We were just wracking our heads trying to make a good film. Journalists have been constantly asking (puts on pompous voice), ‘What was your thought–‘
"No, we were just trying to get the job done! (laughs) We had a deadline. We were under a lot of pressure: will this work? We didn’t know.”
S101: How would you compare working on a feature instead of an episode?
Silverman: “The feature film is a longer format, so you can’t get away with a lot of the things you can do in the shorter format. The Simpsons’ format is pretty much a 3-act structure. But, in a film, you have to have longer scenes, longer emotional scenes than the show. Or at least you have the luxury of longer emotional scenes.
“I remember it was really hard doing the scene where Julie Kavner does the good-bye to Homer. It took a lot of recordings; I remember Jim Brooks was asking, ‘Why is this so hard to do?’
“And I said, ‘Jim, we haven’t done this before.’ We’d never had an emotional moment this long before, so it’s hard to figure out.”
S101: Looking back, are there things you would have done differently? No temptation to do a George Lucas?
Silverman: “No. There’s one thing that would have been nice if we had included, but I won’t say what it is. So I’ll let it go at that (laughs).”
S101: If there’s one story you could tell about Matt Groening to give us an idea of what he’s like as a person, what would you say?
Silverman: “I don’t know. (pauses) I’ve never been asked that question so I couldn’t really tell you! (laughs) He’s a great guy to work with.
“I remember working on one specific thing, and I showed him the drawing and he said, ‘Well, that’s great!’ When he sees something that looks good, he’s very happy about it.”
S101: How long do you think you’ll stay with The Simpsons? Do you think you’ll ride it out to the end, or leave again?
Silverman: “As Yogi Berra once said, ‘It’s very hard to make predictions, especially about the future.’ I think I’ll be associated with The Simpsons for a long time to come. We’ll see where my career goes, and where The Simpsons goes.”
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