The Adventures of Tintin: Behind the Scenes of the Secret of the Unicorn

Steven Spielberg obtained the filming rights to "The Adventures of Tintin" in 1983. The film entered the stage of preparation for filming in 1984. At that time, Spielberg wanted Jack Nicholson to play Captain Haddock. This film is Spielberg's first comic book adaptation. Although he had the opportunity to direct "Superman" before, he failed to make it; it was also the first film directed by Spielberg without a real person. The main plot of the film comes from three Tintin comics: "The Crab Cartel", "The Secret of the Unicorn" and "Red Rackham's Treasure". There are also some minor plot details from the remaining Tintin comics. At first, Spielberg wanted to make the movie a live-action movie, and he asked Peter Jackson for help, hoping that his WETA could help create a digital Snow White. Jackson himself happened to be a fan of Tintin. He persuaded Spielberg that only performance catching technology was the best way to bring Tintin comics to the screen. Spielberg accepted his suggestion. However, the white snow in the film is pure CGI. In 1981, after Spielberg finished filming Raiders of the Lost Ark, he saw comments comparing Jones to Tintin. So he asked his secretary to buy a complete set of Tintin comics. Although he didn't know French, Spielberg immediately fell in love with the young reporter and the work of Georges Hergé Remy. Then he became a fan of Tintin. At the same time, Hergé once said that only Spielberg could "correctly bring Tintin to the big screen." Thomas Sangster was originally chosen to play Tintin, but due to scheduling conflicts, he was unable to take the role. Later, the role of Tintin was handed over to Jamie Bell, who had collaborated with Peter Jackson in "King Kong". After Simon Pegg finished filming "How to Betray", Spielberg extended an olive branch to him and gave him the role of Thomson in the film. This film is Andy Serkis' third collaboration with Peter Jackson and his fourth performance capture film. The first three are Gollum from "Lord of the Rings", King Kong from "King Kong" and Caesar, the ape from "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". Serkis once said, half-jokingly, that he hoped Jackson wouldn't let him play Snowy the dog in "The Adventures of Tintin." In order to play Captain Haddock, Andy Serkis read a lot of Tintin comics. He thinks Captain Haddock has a lot of surreal qualities, like some characters in a Monty Python movie. Daniel Craig is the most socially connected member of the cast. He has worked with Toby Jones on "Notorious," Jamie Bell on "The Resistance," and Spielberg on "Munich." During the filming of previous movies, Spielberg always liked to close one eye to see the effect, because that way he could see the effect of the audience watching the movie (2D). But during the filming of this movie, he opened both eyes. First of all, this is a 3D movie; secondly, he wanted to shoot this movie in the same way as a live-action movie. Spielberg completed his portion of filming in 32 days. Peter Jackson only appeared on the set in the first week, and then he used iChat to direct the filming of the film through the Internet. Simon Pegg said that when Peter Jackson's voice came out of the speakers, it was like God speaking. Steven Spielberg liked the virtual camera very much in post-production, so he went into battle himself and completed the compositing of many shots. Michael Kahn is an editor who has worked with Spielberg for more than 30 years. In his cooperation with Spielberg, he has been using old editing machines such as Moviola and KEM. In this film, Spielberg used Avid digital editing technology for the first time. However, this is not the first time Michael Kahn has used Avid. He once used Avid on "Twister".

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