INTERVIEW: PACIFIC RIM’s Guillermo del Toro on Remaking Classic Japanese Monster Movies (Cinemovie)

GDT: I’ve been doing special effects since I was a kid. I did them professionally for over a decade. I know every tool… The tragedy is to use them as a shortcut creatively and as an end all, like “the solution has to be a digital effect,” no. We use miniatures. We use incredibly elaborate physical effects in the movie. Not only are there pilots shaking, but the boat is in a gigantic gimbal. The street where Mana is was rigged with hydraulics. The whole street: the pavement, the lampposts; the cars, the sidewalk, everything. Every time the kaiju took a step, the whole street jumped every time and she reacted to that because the whole set jumped… We built one hundred physical sets in this movie, and completely overtook Pinewood Studios in Toronto and spilled over into two more studios.

-from the interview

Damn, Pacific Rim is just sounding better and better! Click on the big red link below to read an awesome and very entertaining new interview on Cinemovie.com with Guillermo del Toro on a bunch of cool shit, including what kind of monster scares him (we agree with his answer), digital VS. practical effects in big budget movies, and his favorite monster flicks.