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Marjane Satrapi’s Comic Relief
Persepolis gives awards season an animated jolt
(Page 2)
MM: What did you think it would be like to work with other people?
MS: Hell! And for the first six months it was hell. I was praying that I didn’t have to have [people] in my face every day. I didn’t like it at all in the beginning; I had to get used to it. I’m a very solitary person: I like to be alone—I love loneliness—I’m like a freak myself. So having all these people [around where] I have to be social… It was not easy for me at all.
MM: Can you talk about your crew? How many people were involved in the production and what kinds of roles did people play?
MS: We had a team of 100 people. There were 30 animators and then the people who were the animation assistants. So that means the animator—if you need 12 images, for example, for one second—the animator would make four of the [key] images, and the images in between are going to be made by the assistant. Then you had the people who made the layout… Then you have the people who were inking it, because we inked it all by hand. That is a job that has completely disappeared in France. We found the last tracer in France in Lyon. We had him come up to Paris and he created a team of tracers that didn’t exist in France anymore…Then there are the people who made the coloring, the people who made the background. Then at the end you have to use a computer to take the background, the animation—all of that—put it all together and then the movements of the camera are made on the computer with After Effects. So that was the procedure. All the time we had about 90 people. But if you count from the beginning to the end, we had about 120 people.
MM: Your title is co-writer and co-director.
MS: Absolutely.
MM: What does it mean to co-direct an animated film?
MS: You know the Coen brothers? We are like the Coen brothers. The only thing is, we are not really brother and sister. You know Vincent and I, we are very complementary. It’s extremely difficult to say who did what, because it’s a question of layers. I say something, he says something and in the end we have a product… So the co-directing was also because of the fact that we’ve been friends from the beginning and we knew each other very well. Everything was a matter of discussion. It was like two brains in one body—or two bodies with one brain. But that’s what it was.
MM: How did Sony Pictures Classics get involved?
MS: From the beginning [executive producer] Kathleen Kennedy wanted to buy the rights for the book… She said, ‘I will help you. No matter how I can, I will do it.’ So she proposed the project to Sony and they got involved [as the U.S. distributor]. They were the best people to get involved in it. For distributing foreign movies, I don’t think I could have done better than Sony Pictures Classics.
Of course, you need money to make movies… I mean, first you have to make a good movie, then the rest comes by itself… I’m proud of this movie. If I was not satisfied, I would not be able to sit here and defend it, because it wouldn’t look like me… It’s extremely exciting when you work with people who, the first love of their life is the movie, and then comes the business. Because many times it’s the business first and then the quality of the movie. The business is good, but first you have to make quality work—and it pays! I think when you work honestly, with all your heart and spirit, people are not dumb; they see it and they feel it.
MM: What challenges did you encounter along the way of making this film?
MS: We never thought the movie was finished. We made all these backgrounds and then you look at the thing and you see, ‘Oh, it doesn’t work.’ So we changed it until the last moment—we changed everything. The last dialogue that we taped, that was in February—and we finished the movie in March.
MM: Do you think there’s more film in your future? Do you want to make more movies?
MS: Oh yes, certainly yes. But not animation, because animation sucks. It’s too much work.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by travel to vienna on 3/10/08 at 9:37 am
hi , nice post
- Comment by alborz on 3/21/08 at 7:39 am
As i have an interesting suggestion for marjane satrapi could you please let me know her e.mail address or if not possible could you please send this letter for her to kindly contact me. many thanks alborz
- Comment by Persepolis on 5/21/08 at 5:13 pm
Here is a good review on Satrapi’s Persepolis in The Guardian.
This story was published in the Winter 2008 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
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