Conversations at the Cinematheque: Will Ryan for THE LAND BEFORE TIME, 4/14/11
by Aero Theatre on Monday, November 7, 2011 at 4:43pm
Text by Ward Porrill
Photos by Elissa Braitman
On Saturday April 14th, 2011, the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre hosted a matinee screening of Don Bluth’s 1988 animated Jurassic classic The Land Before Time. The all-ages audience laughed and cheered as they revisited (or visited for the first time) such dino-mite characters as Lucky, Littlefoot, Daddy Topps, Cera, and the crowd favorite, Petrie.
As an added treat, the actor who supplied the mischievous and lovable Petrie’s voice, Will Ryan, stopped by afterwards for a lively Q&A concerning his experience working for producer Steven Spielberg, who was still years away from bringing the dinosaurs from Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel Jurassic Park to the screen, albeit in a non-animated form.
Moderator Grant Moninger began by asking Ryan, who previously had supplied voices for Disney favorites Goofy and Tigger as well as Willie the Giant in Mickey’s Christmas Carol and Winnie the Pooh for the hit TV show “Family Guy, ” if his TLBT scenes were animated prior to the voice actors coming in to the studio. Ryan replied that normally the actors read the script beforehand and then take a look at the artwork of their characters so they can get a sense of what their characters might sound like. For TLBT, however, Ryan lamented that no artwork was presented to the actors ahead of time, only paragraphs of character descriptions, which made the task of creating a unique, distinctive, voice even more daunting.
Ryan related how he auditioned for TLBT 3-4 times even though he had previously supplied the voice of Digit for Bluth’s previous feature, the 1986 hit movie An American Tail. However, Ryan had an ace up his sleeve: Spielberg’s son Max was a huge fan of Digit so, after auditioning for Spielberg, Bluth, and fellow executive producer George Lucas, Ryan ended up getting the part of Petrie for TLBT.
Asked if he recorded his voice with the other voice actors, many of whom were child actors, Ryan replied no, the cast did all their voice work separately, so that director Bluth could “hone in on” each character one at a time to make sure each one got the attention they deserved.
Asked if he has a favorite scene from the film, Ryan replied no, that the entire film is like a “tone poem” to him. An audience member then asked if the actors from TLBT got a percentage of the merchandising from the film. Ryan wearily replied no, but said he did get royalties when he played Grubby from the “Teddy Ruxpin” cartoon in 1987. He also made a nice income by writing songs for Disney network specials.
Another audience member asked if he had any advice for any aspiring actors, voiceover or otherwise. Ryan thoughtfully replied, “If you want voice work, be a good actor. If you want to be a good actor, be a good writer so you can write for yourself. If you want to be a writer, be a good producer.”
Ryan was then asked if has stayed in contact with Don Bluth since TLBT. Ryan said no, but to illustrate (no pun intended) what kind of person Bluth was, Ryan related that he had done a lot of uncredited voice work for Bluth’s 1982 feature The Secret of N.I.M.H. and the writer-director promised to use him for his next project, which just so happened to be An American Tail. As we now know, the veteran animator was true to his word.
Will Ryan with moderator & Cinematheque programmer Grant MoningerAnother audience member asked if Ryan could sense a definite change in tempo with the animated extravaganzas of today. The actors responded with a resounding “yes,” and went on to compare a laconically-paced cartoon like “Popeye” with the typical fare of today’s animation which almost always employs a much more faster-cutting style. Ryan went on to explain that the easiest way to create excitement with any type of low-budget feature is to use “fast cuts in a short amount of time.”
Asked what Bluth’s inspiration was for TLBT, Ryan said that it was largely inspired from the Stravinsky scene in Walt Disney’s Fantasia. He went on to say that at one point, Bluth even considered having no dialogue at all in the movie. Even with the dialogue included, the film’s “more intense” action scenes were trimmed down to be more palatable for younger viewers.
When he was finally asked if any of the trimmed footage would ever be available on a DVD, Ryan gave a rueful smile and replied,” Maybe someone from Universal will include it on an anniversary edition.”
Source:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150216171464828
