'A Monster Calls' Director J.A. Bayona Branched Out Into Practical Effects
The debut of A Monster Calls at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival left few dry eyes in the audience, thanks to its emotional story (based on Patrick Ness’ 2011 novel) about a young boy who, while coping with his mother’s (Felicity Jones) deterioration due to cancer, is visited by a gigantic tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) who helps him vent his frustrations. It’s a fantastical saga that blends the real and the unreal, and in a new interview, director J.A. Bayona explains how he similarly blended practical and digital effects to construct the larger-than-life sights we see on screen, as well as the challenge of creating something unique in this cinematic age of everything-is-possible CGI.
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Speaking to Inverse’s Jordan Zakarin at the Toronto fest, Bayona stated that one of the trickiest things about bringing Ness’ tale to the screen was figuring out a novel way to envision the giant anthropomorphic tree creature central to the story.
“You go on the internet, and everything about tree monsters has been done already. It was very difficult, after doing 200 designs, to the book’s illustrations by Jim Kay.”
One trick the director hit upon was using hand-crafted props to go along with the computerized visuals you’d expect, echoing in a way how the main character Conor (Lewis MacDougall) retreats from real-world tragedy into fantasy as a coping mechanism.
Related: Toronto Film Review: ‘A Monster Calls’
“Because it’s a movie that mixes very different tones, we had to keep the fantasy very grounded. The ultimate meaning of the story is how we need fantasy to cope with reality… I didn’t want a lot of CGI to distract from the more dramatic stuff… The animatronic was huge, life-sized. We had a big head that was able to move and talk, and had movement in his eyes.”
Given its largely positive reviews at Toronto, A Monster Calls is set to be a big draw for both family audiences and genre aficionados alike when it arrives in theaters on Dec. 23. Read Bayona’s entire chat at Inverse.
‘A Monster Calls’: Watch a trailer:
