Flying Broomstick: How the witch gets around.Fire-Forged Friends: The cat is jealous and unhappy when the other animals join the broom, but after they save the witch, they're all friends again.Continuity Nod: The mouse and the snake from The Gruffalo are briefly seen.The cat does not approve of all the other guests being invited onto the broom. All Witches Have Cats: Sure enough, the witch has an orange cat.We see scenes of the dragon stalking the witch, and we also get back stories from the frog and bird explaining why they want to get on the broom. Adaptation Expansion: Like other adaptations of Donaldson books, expanded out to fit a TV time slot."And it does make me break my usual family rule of no television on Christmas Day. "My idea is to enjoy it while it is happening, although it is quite nerve-racking," she said. On her current status as children's entertainer to the nation on Christmas Day for the third time, Donaldson is philosophical. I am scruffy, so it was quite a surprise when I saw how Axel had drawn her. "Like her, I leave a trail of lost things, although I have tried to reform. "When I first created the witch, it was me really," she admitted. The author said that she is not normally "that precious" about her work, as she is used to working with an illustrator. "But it is lovely that the team are so earnest about getting it right." And you can see why because it is so exhilarating when she whooshes off," said Donaldson. The film-makers were anxious to find a reason for the witch's broomstick journey, but eventually decided to stick with the idea that she just loves flying. "There is a lot of detail in the backgrounds that we can use, so the book is a bit like a puzzle that we are solving." The bird, for instance, is happy to leave a flock where no one else is green like her, while the frog is keen to get away from his muddy pool. Lang wanted to find ways to explain why the animals want to join the witch on the broom. Peter Jackson's use of higher projection rates for his film of The Hobbit has been criticised. "Each character has very few words but that actually means it is more important that we have a great performance," said Rose. The film version now features probably the starriest cast of the festive season, with voices provided by David Walliams, Gillian Anderson, Sally Hawkins, Simon Pegg, Timothy Spall, Martin Clunes and Rob Brydon. You feel you can touch the sets, which is important to me."ĭonaldson's popular book tells of a generous witch who invites a group of animals on to her broom, to the annoyance of her cat. "The images are flat, but there is a very tactile quality to the film. "Axel's illustrations are deliberately 2D," said producer Michael Rose, of Magic Light Pictures, the company which also made The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child, shown on Christmas Day in 2011. Lang is German, like Scheffler, and after storyboarding the half-hour Christmas special with Donaldson's help in London, he put together the film with animators in Stuttgart, using a mixture of built models for the scenery and CGI for the central characters. Even before I knew who drew them, I liked the style and how funny they were," said Max Lang, who also worked on The Gruffalo film shown to a television audience of 9.8 million on Christmas Day in 2009. The director of Room on the Broom is a fan of Donaldson's collaborator, illustrator Axel Scheffler, so sticking to the authentic look was vital. They know the books from cover to cover and abhor obvious artifice or small changes to the narrative. Jackson, in response, argues that a global switch to 48 frames a second from the standard 24 is only a matter of time, due to the sharpness it affords.īut it is young fans of nursery favourites by writers like Tolkien or Donaldson who make the most critical viewers. Yet audiences have claimed it makes the tricks of cinematic showmanship easy to spot – including Gandalf's contact lenses and the fibreglass sets. The argument gained still more force with fresh complaints about the evident special effects in the Peter Jackson film of The Hobbit.Įarly preview screenings of the film version of JRR Tolkien's classic been projected at a higher rate of 48 frames a second. He has endorsed a new animated sequel, The Snowman and The Snowdog, because it uses the minimum of computer effects. The acclaimed author's view echoes criticism from The Snowman's creator, Raymond Briggs, last week about the detrimental impact of too many computer-generated images in films. "My books are poems really and to my mind are a fixed entity." "What is so lovely about the film is the way they have kept true to the story and the look of the book," Donaldson told the Observer.
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