January 22, 2015

Elijah Kelley Shares the Love in Strange Magic

January 22, 2015/ Marta M. Darby

I told you I couldn't stop talking about my visit to Skywalker Ranch and everything to do with Strange Magic and today is no exception.

To recap, I was invited by Disney and Touchstone Pictures (along with 24 other fabulous bloggers) for a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the famous ranch and for a screening of the new animated film, from the mind of George Lucas, Strange Magic.

Here's my interview with George Lucas.

And here's my oversharing about our visit to Skywalker Ranch.

Today I want to share the time that we bloggers got to spend chatting with Elijah Kelley.

Elijah Kelley is probably best recognized from his performance as Seaweed in Hairspray (2007). Also, he's absolutely adorable in person.

When we arrived at Skywalker Ranch, I recognized Elijah right away and greeted him like an old friend. He was lovely. Very personable and willingly posed for photos with all of us bloggers. Every. Single. One of us.

And, as you can imagine, every single one of us fell in love with him.

"Elijah, kissy face!"

Elijah is the voice of Sunny the Elf in Strange Magic.

He's the central character in the film, who, much like Elijah himself, has a heart of gold. I can see why Elijah was chosen by George Lucas to play Sunny.

photo credit: MerlotMommy.com

Before he sat down to talk with us, we were treated to his wonderful performance of a mash-up of "3 Little Birds"/"Say Hey! (I love you.)"

Here's his "Elf-Sized Serenade" from Strange Magic that is just one of the many songs in the movie.

After all the impromptu concert, he sat down and talked to us about what it was like for him to be the voice of Sunny.

First of all, I’ve never done a voice-over before in my life, so it was a little bit of a challenge because see he’s (Sunny), hyper and super into everything that he always does.

I thought that it was gonna be so easy. I thought it was gonna be a piece of cake, but I would go in there and guarantee you, I would leave, lightheaded and sweaty from all the running and everything.

It was like P90X. Bringing it to life and understanding the world that Sunny lives in, and understanding that he’s kind of like, you know, I see him sort of the nucleus of trying to get everything together, and pulling everybody together, and trying to save the day, and messing up the day, it’s a lot like me.

Elijah-kelley-interview-my-big-fat-cuban-family

photo credit: MerlotMommy.com

The theme of the movie is about finding true love. Did he think people could connect to that through this film?

I think that people will connect for fighting for what you love because as you can see that everybody goes through a lot of trouble to be able to grasp the love of their life, and I think that love is so complicated.

I think that the wiring of love is just so weird, you know, and the fact that people can go to the ends of the Earth to capture something like that is very, very inspirational.

I think in a time like this where we are in the world, it’s an animation, but the subject matter is universal and it’s timeless, you know?

Was it weird seeing your facial expressions and such on a character that doesn’t look like you?

The whole process is weird. Honestly, I’m not over it yet. Being that this is only the second time I’ve seen the movie. On film you get used to yourself. You can see yourself in a different character. They literally bring your voice to life. And so all you do is talk and sing, and they do everything else. It’s really amazing.

He's also a philanthropist. Who knew?

I have a foundation; the Elijah Kelley Foundation. And basically what we do is I try to be a liaison between underprivileged kids back from where I’m from and their dreams in arts and entertainment.

And so during the tenure that we’ve had the non-profit, I’ve given out, four scholarships over the last five years, with students from low-income housing that are going on to pursue careers in performing arts. From the Savannah College of Art and Design to, there’s a very small, great art school in Georgia called Gordon College.

I was deeply impressed by Elijah Kelley. Not just that he is so warm and personable or that he's a "quadruple threat," but that he is so dedicated to giving back.

His performance in Strange Magic will make you love him all that much more.

Elijah Kelley @oneelijahkelley loves me. He said so. #strangemagicevent #ontheblog #ElijahKelley #video

A video posted by Marta Darby (@smrtqbn) on Jan 22, 2015 at 11:54am PST

"Every little thing is gonna be alright."

Strange Magic opens in theaters everywhere tomorrow, Friday, January 23rd, 2015.

January 20, 2015

About Love and Strange Magic with George Lucas

January 20, 2015/ Marta M. Darby

Last week (as you know because I can't stop talking about it) I visited Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California.

I was invited by Disney and Touchstone Pictures (along with 24 other fabulous bloggers) for a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the famous ranch and for a screening of the new animated film, from the mind of George Lucas, Strange Magic.

What you don't know is that we bloggers were treated to an up-close-and-personal interview with George Lucas himself.

I wrote all about our tour of Skywalker Ranch here. Today I'm going to give you a peek into, well, the mind of George Lucas and his impetus for making Strange Magic.

Before the trip, I think we had all sort of fantasized about Wouldn't it be so great if we could see George Lucas himself when we visited Skywalker Ranch?, but again, that was still in the realm of fantasy.

Then, just before the movie was about to start, George Lucas walked into the theater and sat down (right behind us!) to watch the entire film all the way through for the first time.

Stop it. That's just crazy talk!

Imagine our extreme delight and the pinch me no, seriously, Pinch me! moment when we were informed that yes indeed we would get to, not just see, but actually interview George Lucas.

Seriously? We would actually get to hear what was coming from the mind of George Lucas?

Skywalker Ranch truly lived up to its reputation for turning fantasy into reality.

So where did the concept for this film come from?

"It actually started about 15 years ago. I had the notion of making a film that was fun.

I like working with music and I like doing fairy tales and I love to do musicals especially when I can use my favorite music and so it kind of harkens back to my pre-Star Wars days.

I started working on it with a small group of people and we started designing it. Eventually we hired the director (Gary Rydstrom) and brought in Marius de Vries from Moulin Rouge to do the music because I wanted to try to tell this story through the music.”

As George began talking about the music, he really became animated (no pun intended). Every song in the soundtrack to Strange Magic is very recognizable and it's practically impossible to not sing along.

“I love music. Music’s a huge part of my life.

I love all kinds of music, and obviously I listen to music every day – on the radio, top 40 and everything in between. But with this one, one of the inspirations was, I wondered if I could tell a love story using love songs. Would it be possible to take them and string them all together so they actually told the story?

That was the original challenge and, in the beginning the movie was about twice as long as it is now. It’s like American Graffiti - I could sit and listen to it all day and that was a part of American Graffiti. I just wanted to have a movie that I could sit in the editing room and listen to and have a good time."

"I tell people I’m going to go back and do experimental films like I did in college, and this is getting myself back there. This is just a fun movie that I love to listen to. A lot of the songs were my favorite songs but a lot of them really had to do with trying to tell the story, trying to say what we needed them to say.

It was all about finding the right song that actually had the musical mood that would get us from point A to point B but also actually say the words that the actors were supposed to say to each other. That’s where Marius came in. Thanks to him, we were able to use different genres from different time periods, really different everything, but knit it all together so it sounded like it belonged together. And he’s a genius at doing that because ultimately, it had to have an evolution where some of the story was told in dialogue, some of the story was told in music and the story itself had to be tightened down and things connected which, in just using music you couldn’t do.”

We hadn't really heard much about Strange Magic until very recently.

“It really started to fall together over the last 4 or 5 years. It wasn’t involved in any studio or anything, I made it in San Francisco where I live and I have my studio there and we’re not into promoting or any of that kind of stuff – we’re into making movies.

Nobody really hears about it until it’s ready to come out. It all seems fast. We actually just finished it and 3 weeks later it’ll be in theaters”.

At this point, George started to talk about his daughters. About his family. About his wife and falling in love. He grew very tender as he spoke about his favorite song in the film.

“The song that started it is the opening song, that was the first song I picked and it’s also at the end, ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love’ by Elvis. I love that song. I grew up under the tutelage of Elvis and my wife says I still have that pompous pompadour.

It, to me, was the inspiration to say this is what this movie’s about. You know, wise men say only fools fall in love. And ultimately the only thing I can say is there’s no accounting for love, it’s just no matter how rational you think you’re being, you say well I’ll never do that, and you do it.”

"Strange Magic," he says, "is a story that needs to be told to every generation over and over again. The message is so simple and, you know it’s been around for thousands of years and yet still can always be retold.”

George Lucas waxing poetically romantic about love and the power of music?? I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this is what is coming forth from the mind of George Lucas.

*************************************************************************

Speaking of music, we also interviewed Elijah Kelley who lends his voice to Sunny the Elf in the film. I'll share that later this week.

Strange Magic opens in theaters everywhere on Friday, January 23rd, 2015.

January 05, 2015

I'm going to Skywalker Ranch and Pixar. (Don't hate me.)

January 05, 2015/ Marta M. Darby

You know that thing we Cubans do on New Year's Eve?

Not just the eating of the 12 grapes and throwing the bucket of water out into the street, but the one about carrying a suitcase out into the middle of the street at midnight if you want to travel in the coming year?

If you are confused about any of these Cuban New Year's Eve Traditions, read all about them right here.

So, back to the suitcase at midnight. I was one of the many Cuban Faithful who grabbed my bag and took it out into the street as the rest of the world was hip-hollering "Happy New Year!" Because I want to travel this coming year and that's what we do and I may or may not be a little superstitious about this stuff. (Full disclosure: I did not make my way completely around the block, seeing as we live on a hill, but that's not important right now.)

Which makes my announcement today super delicious...

I received an invitation from Disney/Pixar and Touchstone Pictures to a very special event. The invitation read like this:

We are looking to invite 25 of our top Bloggers to San Francisco from Monday, January 12th – Tuesday, January 13th to screen the new Lucasfilm and Touchstone Pictures film STRANGE MAGIC (opening in theatres on 1/23) up at Skywalker Ranch (http://lucasfilm.com/skywalker-ranch-marin) where you will receive a tour of the grounds and interview Director and 7 time Academy Award® winner Gary Rydstrom!

While up at Skywalker Ranch you will also interview Elijah Kelley (“Hairspray,” “Red Tails,” “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”) who voices Sunny in the film!

And finally, you will also attend a reception at Pixar for an INSIDE OUT presentation (opening in theatres on 6/19) and a screening of the short film LAVA!

My initial reaction was disbelief. So I re-checked that my name was actually on the invitation. Because SKYWALKER RANCH AND PIXAR, people! It's as if someone had peeked into my super-secret-double-probation Bucket List and created an event of Perfect Perfection for a Super Star Wars/Pixar über-nerd Devotee such as myself.

So, (I'm trying to say this as casually as possible) next week I'll be traveling (with 24 other bloggers) to Skywalker Ranch and receiving a tour of the grounds.

I'll be interviewing Director and 7 time Academy Award® winner Gary Rydstrom. And also Elijah Kelley (the voice of Sunny).

And watching a screening of the new Lucasfilm/Touchstone Pictures film, Strange Magic.

After which I'll be attending a reception at Pixar for an INSIDE OUT presentation (opening in theatres on 6/19) and a screening of the short film LAVA.