MOVIES
It's been a long haul for creators of 'Tugger'
Genesis Orlando's 1st full-length feature is cleared for takeoff.
By Roger Moore | Sentinel Movie Critic
Posted June 2, 2005
The first feature-length cartoon to be made in Central Florida since Disney closed its Orlando animation studio will be about a Jeep.
Tugger, The Jeep Who Wanted to Fly was produced by Genesis Orlando, a tiny animation house in Celebration founded by a Disney veteran. And it will star another Disney vet: Jim Belushi will sing and talk as the voice of Tugger in the 3-D computer-animated cartoon, which will come to some 700 theaters at U.S. military bases this July.
"It's been a long haul, but we're almost at the finish line," says animator Jeffrey Varab, who co-directed the film and who owns Genesis Orlando.
Two years, from planning to completion, adds story artist and fellow Disney alumnus Beryl "Woody" Woodman. Woodman, a Jeep fan (he has a 1946 vintage Willys, now painted Tugger-blue), took George Parsons' basic story idea and transformed it into a script about a World War II Jeep who spends his days after the war tugging planes into and out of hangars at a small airport.
But Tugger, as the title says, wants to fly.
"It's a natural, a story about a real World War II hero, the Jeep, and what he does after the war," says Woodman.
Varab, whose 25-year career in hand-drawn animation includes animating characters in films for Disney (The Fox and the Hound, Mulan) and non-Disney cartoons (All Dogs Go to Heaven, Balto, Titan A.E.), made Tugger the first full-length feature project of Genesis Orlando.
As the film was planned and put into production, Varab and Genesis Orlando got permission from DaimlerChrysler to use the Jeep name and grille design. Shell Oil came on board, and Genesis scored cooperation from the Air Force's Thunderbirds precision flying air team, featured in the movie.
"We had the Jeep painted one color, but then we redid it in Thunderbirds blue," Varab says.
A 2004 visitor to the Genesis studios -- actually a town house in Celebration -- could watch a beehive of some 30 freelance animators in "the pit," a great room full of computer workstations, turn a 1941 vintage Willys Jeep, assorted airplanes, gas pumps, trucks and airport gear into animated objects. Backgrounds were roughed-out and colored in, then the animated sequences involving the machines, people and critters who move were layered on top. And it's all done with a drag and a click on a PC.
Genesis keeps only a core staff of eight in between projects and brings on freelancers whenever it ramps up to do a film.
The first Friday in March Varab was able to screen the nearly finished film and the "music video" trailer for it. Animators who worked on the film, backers and officials from Celebration saw a kid-friendly Veggie Tales-style story of a flight-happy Jeep, his shortwave radio pal "Shorty," a grumpy airport boss, The Chief, and the Chief's Yosemite Sam-look-alike dog.
As production on the G-rated cartoon progressed, there were last-minute changes in casting. They were planning to use Donny Osmond as Tugger, with Belushi as Shorty, his radio sidekick. Now sometime-Blues Brother Belushi will voice and sing Tugger and Orlando comic Carrot Top will voice Shorty. They will perform at the premiere in Celebration July 2. The film will be shown, for free, on three Jumbotron screens, and the post-film concert, complete with flyover from Patrick Air Force Base, will be broadcast to Air Force bases worldwide, Varab says.
Paramount has video rights, with the movie slated to come out on video Sept. 1.
And the future? There's another Tugger adventure plugged at the end of Wants to Fly. Tugger and the Kansas Twister is "already scripted and story-boarded and ready to go into production," Woodman says.
Roger Moore can be reached
at rmoore@orlandosentinel.com
or 407-420-5369.
It's been a long haul for creators of 'Tugger'
Genesis Orlando's 1st full-length feature is cleared for takeoff.
By Roger Moore | Sentinel Movie Critic
Posted June 2, 2005
The first feature-length cartoon to be made in Central Florida since Disney closed its Orlando animation studio will be about a Jeep.
Tugger, The Jeep Who Wanted to Fly was produced by Genesis Orlando, a tiny animation house in Celebration founded by a Disney veteran. And it will star another Disney vet: Jim Belushi will sing and talk as the voice of Tugger in the 3-D computer-animated cartoon, which will come to some 700 theaters at U.S. military bases this July.
"It's been a long haul, but we're almost at the finish line," says animator Jeffrey Varab, who co-directed the film and who owns Genesis Orlando.
Two years, from planning to completion, adds story artist and fellow Disney alumnus Beryl "Woody" Woodman. Woodman, a Jeep fan (he has a 1946 vintage Willys, now painted Tugger-blue), took George Parsons' basic story idea and transformed it into a script about a World War II Jeep who spends his days after the war tugging planes into and out of hangars at a small airport.
But Tugger, as the title says, wants to fly.
"It's a natural, a story about a real World War II hero, the Jeep, and what he does after the war," says Woodman.
Varab, whose 25-year career in hand-drawn animation includes animating characters in films for Disney (The Fox and the Hound, Mulan) and non-Disney cartoons (All Dogs Go to Heaven, Balto, Titan A.E.), made Tugger the first full-length feature project of Genesis Orlando.
As the film was planned and put into production, Varab and Genesis Orlando got permission from DaimlerChrysler to use the Jeep name and grille design. Shell Oil came on board, and Genesis scored cooperation from the Air Force's Thunderbirds precision flying air team, featured in the movie.
"We had the Jeep painted one color, but then we redid it in Thunderbirds blue," Varab says.
A 2004 visitor to the Genesis studios -- actually a town house in Celebration -- could watch a beehive of some 30 freelance animators in "the pit," a great room full of computer workstations, turn a 1941 vintage Willys Jeep, assorted airplanes, gas pumps, trucks and airport gear into animated objects. Backgrounds were roughed-out and colored in, then the animated sequences involving the machines, people and critters who move were layered on top. And it's all done with a drag and a click on a PC.
Genesis keeps only a core staff of eight in between projects and brings on freelancers whenever it ramps up to do a film.
The first Friday in March Varab was able to screen the nearly finished film and the "music video" trailer for it. Animators who worked on the film, backers and officials from Celebration saw a kid-friendly Veggie Tales-style story of a flight-happy Jeep, his shortwave radio pal "Shorty," a grumpy airport boss, The Chief, and the Chief's Yosemite Sam-look-alike dog.
As production on the G-rated cartoon progressed, there were last-minute changes in casting. They were planning to use Donny Osmond as Tugger, with Belushi as Shorty, his radio sidekick. Now sometime-Blues Brother Belushi will voice and sing Tugger and Orlando comic Carrot Top will voice Shorty. They will perform at the premiere in Celebration July 2. The film will be shown, for free, on three Jumbotron screens, and the post-film concert, complete with flyover from Patrick Air Force Base, will be broadcast to Air Force bases worldwide, Varab says.
Paramount has video rights, with the movie slated to come out on video Sept. 1.
And the future? There's another Tugger adventure plugged at the end of Wants to Fly. Tugger and the Kansas Twister is "already scripted and story-boarded and ready to go into production," Woodman says.
Roger Moore can be reached
at rmoore@orlandosentinel.com
or 407-420-5369.
