The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary: The Next Chapter (Diary of a Wimpy Kid)

Home > Other > The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary: The Next Chapter (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) > Page 4
The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary: The Next Chapter (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) Page 4

by Jeff Kinney


  people. The truck is followed by a caravan of

  vehicles that carry the rest of the team.

  The vehicles are spray-painted completely black so

  that they don’t cast a reflection in the windows

  of passing cars.

  77

  That’s especially important when shooting a close-up

  like this one.

  The more action

  there is in a

  scene, the more

  challenging it

  is to film. The

  most complex road

  scene in the movie is when Greg’s father takes a

  work call, and chaos breaks out inside the van.

  The whole scene went off without a hitch, and no

  people, or pigs, were harmed in the process.

  78

  A Sticky Situation

  The script for “The Long Haul” called for the

  Heffley family to get really messy on their journey

  to Meemaw’s. Mud, bird poop, feathers, toiletries,

  cinnamon bun goo — you name it, and the Heffleys

  were covered in it.

  Most of the time, it’s the hair and makeup

  department’s job to make actors look good

  on-screen. But for “The Long Haul,” more often

  than not they needed to look BAD.

  The actors playing the Heffleys weren’t the

  ONLY ones who had to get messy, though.

  In most films, lighting doubles or stand-ins are

  used so that the filmmakers can get everything

  set up just right before the real actors are

  brought in. For “The Long Haul,” each member

  of the Heffley family had a double who was the

  same height. And like the actors who played the

  Heffleys, the stand-ins enjoyed getting to know

  one another during filming.

  80

  Everything the actors who played the Heffley

  family went through in the film, the lighting

  doubles had to go through, too. And they had to

  go through it FIRST.

  So every time Greg and his family were sprayed

  with shampoo, attacked

  by seagulls, or

  splattered with mud,

  remember that they

  weren’t the only ones

  who had to suffer.

  In one of the first

  messy scenes that was

  filmed, the Beardo

  family’s van runs over

  a bag of toiletries,

  which explodes and covers the Heffleys in a mix of

  shampoo, conditioner, and makeup. The filmmakers

  tried different combinations of liquids in different

  colors and amounts until they got the mixture

  just right.

  81

  Then the liquid was loaded into air-powered cannons

  that were designed to safely splatter people.

  82

  When the effect looked right, the actors playing

  the Heffleys were brought in for their turn in

  front of the cameras.

  Everyone seemed to be a good sport about

  getting covered in slop, but some days were

  tougher than others. Usually everyone could get

  cleaned up right after their messy moment, but

  sometimes that wasn’t possible.

  At one point in the film, the Heffleys get

  covered head to toe in mud.

  83

  It wasn’t REAL mud, thankfully — it was

  actually a mixture of cornstarch and food coloring.

  But still, nobody

  found it pleasant to

  be caked in it.

  Of course, the

  actors could take

  showers at night,

  but during filming it

  was all mud, all the time. And you really couldn’t

  blame anyone if they got a little grouchy.

  84

  Ani-Manny and Robo-Pig

  One of the big questions at the start of filming

  was how the twins playing Manny would behave

  once the cameras were rolling. Moviemaking is

  time-consuming, hard work, and there was no

  telling how Dylan and Wyatt would feel about it.

  In the first three movies, Manny appeared in

  just a handful of scenes. But in “The Long Haul,”

  Manny would need to be in almost every single

  shot. So the filmmakers had to come up with some

  creative solutions to make sure everything went

  smoothly on set.

  One of the simplest solutions was the pacifier

  that Manny has in his mouth for a big chunk of

  the movie.

  85

  The filmmakers knew from experience that toddlers

  can be chatty when other actors are saying their

  lines. So giving the actors who played Manny a

  pacifier was a simple way to keep them occupied.

  The other solutions were a little more complex. For

  parts of the movie, Manny is sitting in his car

  seat, and sometimes he’s napping. The filmmakers

  decided to put a realistic mannequin in place of the

  twins for the scenes where Manny was asleep.

  But this was no ordinary doll. Inside the

  mannequin were complex robotics that allowed

  “Manny” to suck on his pacifier, turn his head

  to the side, and even kick his legs in his sleep.

  86

  This would help

  create the illusion

  that Manny was

  really “alive,” even

  if he was napping.

  Manny’s movements

  were controlled by

  a special effects

  technician standing a

  few feet offscreen.

  The “Ani-Manny,” as

  it came to be called

  by the crew, was so convincing that when people

  came across it on set, they thought it was a real

  human being.

  Even Dylan

  and Wyatt

  seemed a

  little confused

  when they

  first saw it.

  87

  Manny wasn’t the only one who got the robotic

  treatment. An animatronic version of the pig was

  created as well. That was the purpose of the clay

  model from the preproduction phase.

  Animals can be difficult to work with, and there

  was no telling what a live pig might do when the

  cameras were rolling. So the filmmakers decided to

  use a live, trained pig most of the time, and then

  use a remote-controlled robot in special situations.

  Juliana pigs don’t love to be held, but in two of

  the scenes the script called for Manny to cradle

  the pig in his arms.

  88

  For those scenes, the animatronic pig needed to be

  convincing enough in its close-ups that moviegoers

  wouldn’t notice it wasn’t a real animal.

  The robot pig could do it all — blink, wag its tail,

  wiggle its rear end, and open and close its mouth.

  It really was a marvel of technology.

  The animatronic pig had its big moment on the

  day Manny and his pet reunite at the L’il Critters

  Petting Zoo, which is a scene that happens at

  the end of the “Long Haul” book but was filmed

  early on for the movie.

  For the first part of the scene, the real-life Manny

  and the real-life pig sprint toward each other.

  One of the pig’s

  traine
rs used snacks

  to get it to run

  toward the camera.

  When Manny

  and the pig come

  together, Manny holds the pig in his arms as it

  wags its tail with joy. By then, the real pig had

  been swapped out for the animatronic one. And

  the whole scene is so convincing, no one would hold

  it against you for getting a little misty-eyed.

  90

  Winging It

  One of the most memorable scenes in the book is

  when a flock of seagulls invades the Heffleys’ van

  to gobble up Greg’s Cheez Curlz.

  Of all the scenes in the movie, this was the one

  that most closely matched what happens in the

  book. The director planned all the action in advance

  with rough drawings, and then a storyboard artist,

  Dawud Anyabwile, sketched out each scene.

  There’s an amazing level of artistry and detail

  that goes into planning a scene like this one.

  SLAM

  91

  Feeling miserable, Greg reaches for a bag of Cheez Curlz to comfort-eat.

  A SEAGULL lands on the edge of the broken sunroof and looks in.

  It’s kinda cute.

  Greg shows it his bag of Cheez Curlz. The seagull cocks its head. Greg

  tosses up a Cheez Curl. The seagull catches it and looks to Greg for more.

  Susan: Oh Greg, I wouldn’t encourage them.

  Greg: There’s only one.

  But when Greg looks up …

  … there are TWO seagulls.

  Greg tosses them another.

  Frank: Seriously, Greg, that’s enough.

  Greg looks up again and the sunroof is surrounded by seagulls. This

  is creepy.

  Greg: Yeah. Er, guys, can you close the sunroof?

  Frank: Rodrick gummed it up, remember?

  Zoom in on seagull.

  Close up on Greg’s face.

  Suddenly, one of the seagulls jumps in the car and grabs Greg’s bag of

  Cheez Curlz.

  Greg tries to hold on to the bag.

  The seagull flies away with the bag …

  … spilling Cheez Curlz into the van as it flies away.

  The Heffleys are covered with Cheez Curlz.

  Greedy seagulls swarm in through the sunroof. Everybody screams.

  Frank panics …

  … and accidentally stomps on the gas pedal.

  The minivan full of seagulls accelerates a few feet …

  … then rolls down a grassy median …

  … slamming into the bottom, and then finally coming to a stop.

  The doors burst open and the seagulls swarm out …

  …followed by the Heffleys. They are freaked out, roughed up, and covered

  in feathers and poop.

  Greg breathes a sigh of relief …

  … until one last seagull swoops in …

  … and grabs a Cheez Curl from his hair.

  The minivan hisses as smoke exhales from under the hood.

  Everyone looks at Greg like everything is his fault, again.

  If you thought real birds — or animatronic ones —

  were used for this scene, you’d be mistaken. The

  seagulls in the movie were all created on computers.

  And when it came time to film on set, the digital

  seagulls hadn’t even been created yet.

  So without any real birds to react to, the actors

  had to do what they do best — make believe.

  104

  The cast had to pretend the seagulls were in

  the car, and a few of the crew members had to

  pretend to be seagulls. Here’s what it looked like

  on set when the

  seagulls drop

  the contents of

  the Cheez Curlz

  bag into the

  Heffleys’ van.

  And here’s the

  assistant director using a seagull cutout to pluck

  the last Cheez Curl out of Greg’s hair.

  Months after filming ended, a special effects

  team got to work, digitally adding seagulls to the

  shots. The renderings started off rough, then

  got better with each pass.

  Here are a few shots of each stage in the process,

  starting with the way things looked during

  filming, and at each step along the way. See if

  you can match the shots with the storyboard

  drawings on the previous pages.

  In the early days of filmmaking, special effects

  were very basic.

  But as special effects have gotten better,

  audiences have become more and more demanding

  that everything they see on-screen looks “real.”

  The seagulls in “The Long Haul” look great by

  today’s standards. But thirty years from now,

  audiences may see them very differently.

  FAAAAKKKKE!

  The Only Game in Town

  One of the biggest set pieces in the movie is for

  a scene that’s not in the book. In the film, the

  family is headed to Meemaw’s party, but Greg has

  other plans. He secretly reroutes the GPS to

  take him to Player Expo, a huge gathering of

  game enthusiasts.

  For Greg, Player Expo is like heaven. He needs to

  figure out a way to get there, no matter what.

  PLAYER

  -EXPO

  international

  110

  To film the scenes for Player Expo, the

  filmmakers rented out the Georgia International

  Convention Center. Months before they got

  there, the art department planned out every inch

  of the convention hall.

  They made a three-dimensional miniature paper

  model of every booth that would fill out the

  convention center. The model also helped the

  director plan out his shots.

  Creating Player Expo was a huge undertaking,

  because the giant hall needed to be packed with

  video-game booths, walls of monitors, and lots of

  other eye candy for moviegoers to enjoy.

  111

  Player Expo would be filled with real products as

  well as ones that were made up. The design team

  had a blast creating concepts for games that

  weren’t actually real but probably should be.

  Here are some of the games that exist only in the

  Wimpy Kid movie universe…for now.

  BIG

  FACE

  CANDY

  EATER

  113

  CHESS

  X TREME!

  Friendsville

  114

  GALACTIC

  CARNAGE

  MUSHROOM

  MAKOTO

  115

  UNCHAINED

  OCEAN’S

  BOTTOM

  REVENGE

  KRAKENS

  116

  ROCK

  DRUMMER

  ICEBREAKERS

  117

  TWISTED

  WIZARD

  Each game had its own separate area on the

  convention floor, and each area took on the

  personality of the game. Some of the booths

  were very elaborate.

  119

  When you’re making a movie, you have a budget — a

  certain amount of money you’re allowed to spend.

  It’s always a challenge to stay within the budget,

  and for a set like Player Expo, it’s easy to get

  carried away.

  But the art department found clever ways to keep

  costs down. They
were able to get their hands

  on some great stuff left over from a video-game

  convention that had recently wrapped up.

  Some of the displays you see in the film have pieces

  that were used in an entirely different way in

  other movies.

  120

  Since Atlanta is a big movie town, there are lots

  of props left over from other films and television

  shows. If you’re really paying attention, you might

  notice that the metal chairs in one of the booths

  were first used in the Hunger Games movies.

  Once the convention hall was filled with colorful

  displays, it was time to bring in the people.

  Hundreds of extras were needed for the Player

  Expo scenes.

  SLIIIIDE

  Most were dressed in ordinary clothes, but a

  number of attendees went all-out. At big

  conventions where people come together to celebrate

  movies, video games, and comics, a huge number of

  people dress up like their favorite characters.

  This is called “cosplay,” and costumes can range

  from simple homemade outfits to professional-grade

  getups that cost thousands of dollars to create.

  Some of the extras in “The Long Haul” brought

  their own cosplay outfits, and some were dressed

  up by the wardrobe department on the day of

  filming. The makeup department joined forces and

  got to show what they were really capable of.

  122

  Each booth came with its own costumed characters

  to represent that game. Buried under the Twisted

  Wizard costume was Jason Drucker’s dad, who took

 

‹ Prev