DUCK SEASON RABBIT SEASON BUCK SEASON BEAR SEASON:
Open Season Co-Directors Jill Culton and Tony Stacchi Talk Animation Turkey

“It’s us animation studios against the rest of Hollywood,” laughs Tony Stacchi, co-director of Sony’s debut computer graphics (CG) animated project Open Season, strangely and subconsciously echoing one of the marketing taglines for the film: One Fur All, All Fur One.

The “Fur” element in the film is represented by Boog (a domesticated grizzly bear portrayed by comedian Martin Lawrence) and Elliot (a mule deer brought to life by Ashton Kutcher). Debra Messing and Gary Sinise voice the notable human representations.

While the fact that Open Season took three years to come together may seem like a lifetime when compared with a live action feature, Culton’s prior projects at Pixar took five. With additional sequences animated for the DVD, life with a CG project requires a whole lot of love.

The Journey

Jill Culton (Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc.) admits her Northern Californian habitat affected her initial involvement with film: “The people at Sony sent me [Steve Moore’s] treatment that was about five pages long. And it took me a while to read it; I’m a nature lover and I didn’t want to move to L.A. But the whole concept of animals fighting back against open season was too good an idea to pass up.” She adds that, because of her experiences and inspired by the artwork on some Christmas cards found in her attic, she “wanted the audience to be as overwhelmed by nature as Boog is when he goes into the woods for the first time. And Boog is really the human character, because he’s a domesticated grizzly bear who hasn’t ever been into the woods. You really go on a journey with him discovering everything for the first time.”

Former colleagues — and renowned story doctors — at animation studio ILM (at which the 2-dimensional Curious George began as a CG project) and familiar with being charged with getting the done in a very short amount of time, Culton and Stacchi came together again when Culton brought Stacchi on board for the three-year assignment. Industry veteran Roger Allers (Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid), who was responsible for pre-production concepts on 1982 flick Tron, joined the directorial threesome halfway into the three-year project.

The Premise

Basing Open Season on Steve Moore’s comic works, Stacchi relates that “there’s nobody who’s had a pet, or who’s hunted animals or who loves animals who hasn’t wondered, ‘What do they do when we’re not around? What do they really think about us? And, given the opportunity, would they bust into a 7/11 store and eat all the sugar in the place?’”

Duck Season Rabbit Season

Acknowledging that they watch the old Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons “all the time because we love ’em,” Stacchi describes the feel of Open Season as reminiscent of the Warner Bros. classics. “Hunting has a long, humorous history with Warner Bros. animation through its cartoons, and the whole of the United States has a very nuanced view on hunting and guns and everything else.”

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