Bobs Gannaway and Ferrell Barron from Disney Planes: Fire and Rescue

Another great part about my trip to LA earlier this year was sitting down to see Planes: Fire and Rescue. I was among the first group of people who saw it in its completed form from start to finish. It is a fantastic movie and I can’t wait to take my family to see it in a few weeks! After the screening was over we got to do an exclusive interview with Bobs Gannaway (director) and Ferrell Barron (producer).

They are very funny and personable. It was great to sit down with them and listen to them talk about the movie and learn from them. I am not going to give any spoilers out – but I wanted to share some of the Q & A’ s from the Bobs Gannaway and Ferrell Barron Disney Planes: Fire and Rescue interview with you!

Q:    We were just discussing the first one was great and it was cute and it was heartwarming but this was compelling.  It was like you were cheering them on.  It was the ultimate goal that they had to meet and it was just, it was amazing.

Bobs:     It’s really great because I feel the same way.  [LAUGHTER]  No I know what was really nice is Clay and his Team along with John did a really great job teaming up the world, and a lot of his choices informed our choices.  A good example is Dusty’s relationship with Skipper.

Q    :    How much time did you spend at National Parks Institute?

Ferrell:     A lot of time.  Yellowstone and Yosemite are the two Parks.  You can see there are a lot of Monuments in there that are kind of taken from both.  Waterfalls I think from Yosemite, our Art Director spent a lot of time there obviously, taking a lot of pictures.  We met with a lot of Park Rangers who toured us around and Old Faithful Inn, our Lodge is based on the Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone.  So we got to take a quick trip and didn’t have enough time.  It was one of those Vacation trips where everyone’s cramped in a car.  Griswolds like.  Speeding to one location, jump out take pictures, speed to another.

Bobs:     Research informs everything right down to a gag as well as big Feature moments.  Little things like the Lodges.  There’s Rocking Chairs in front of the Fire places.  We had the head of National Parks watch the Movie.  The Old Jammer, I’m sure you’re familiar with it, is the Tour buses that are used, still used today in Glacier National Park in Yellowstone.  They’re called Jammers because they would jam the gears and they’re not Standard anymore.   But still they’re called Jammers.  So Jammers name is based on a historical vehicle and so someone might pick up on that.  If they don’t, it’s all right.

Boat Reynolds appears there.  Any idea where that guy came from?  Anybody?  That came from research.  We were driving through Yellowstone and there was a sign that said Boat Rentals.  And I went, Oh Look, Boat Rental, Boat Reynolds.  So you know, just the littlest tiny thing will inform big choices.  And even something no one will even get which is the Railway Station that’s hooked to the Grand Fuselage which is the best pun in the Movie.  The Railway Station is actually based on a Railway Station that no longer exists that was the North end of Yellowstone, that was designed by the same Architect as the Old Faithful Inn.

So I thought Oh, that would be a cool little homage to him, just sort of put his Railway Station, connect it, so you know, little things like that that nobody will ever pick up on.

It always works its way in where you’re sort of the Curator of all of these wonderful things that you get to kind of, you know, put together and it’s so much fun.

Q    :    What kind of research did you do to get the fire to look so realistic?  Did you just watch Videos of a Fire?  Did you actually see a fire?

Ferrell:     Years and years and years.  Well we will never confess to that.  I mean, no we didn’t jump into a fire but we certainly, there’s a lot of footage.  Cal Fire provided us with a lot of great footage.  This was probably the biggest undertaking we’ve ever tried here to Disney Studios was this FX Movie.  53% of our Movie I had Visual Effects of Fire, Smoke, and Water.  So when we, when Bobs first pitched this to John Lasseter and he saw that first image, they knew we had to get on, call R&D Research and Development right away on the fire.

It’s {the fire} essentially a Character.  So you want to be sure you’re developing this Character that it looks real.  He was a very specific.  He wanted it to look real and not — not fake.  So that was our first thing.  And in the Effects world, Fire is a fluid simulation.  It’s one of the most difficult things you can do.  It takes a lot of time to get it right. and then it can also bog things down because it’s so heavy.  I mean, you’re dealing with zeros and ones, it’s all Computer generated.  And it’s very heavy.  So we had to first build a fire that looked real, um, but it had to be a fire that was also sustainable through the course of Production and wouldn’t lock us down.  So that was two tasks.  It had to look right and be sure that we could actually produce it for over 600 shots.

Bobs:     The shots become very dense.  There’s about 2 and a half million trees populating the Park.  But we looked at mostly real Fire footage and some elements that go in the Movie loosely based on the 1988 Yellowstone Fires.  Old Faithful Inn had been restored I think ten years prior to that fire.  Had just gotten Sprinkler Systems put in.  We climbed the roof of the Old Faithful Inn and took pictures of the Sprinkler System so it looks like the Sprinkler System.  If you happen to get a chance to climb on the Old Faithful Inn.

They started talking about the firefighters and it was very touching. I wanted to share a little bit about what they said here:

Bobs: All the people we met, the Fire Fighters are everything you think they are.  They were amazing, giving, caring, courageous people, so charming, and so giving with their time and wanting to help.  It was really a wonderful experience and they’ve become friends of ours now.

Ferrell:     Because of that, we really took this Movie to heart.  We really put it on our shoulders and we wanted to tell a story that really paid a Tribute and gave homage to Fire Fighters.  They were all so honored to be talking with us and being a part of the film, helping tell their story.  That was the biggest goal not only for kids and parents but we wanted to make the story for them.  That’s been the biggest part of this whole project is just making sure that we’re being truthful and making them proud to watch the Movie.

This was very touching. I love that they did this with that kind of spirit and thought in mind. You can really tell their level of dedication to the details and the story line because it is so powerful and touching.

There were some other quotes that I loved and wanted to share them with you:

Ferrell: It goes back again to the research, bringing in as many Consultants as we can to help every aspect of the Movie that related to the Story, to bringing truth to it all.  

Bobs:    The Flight is,  as with Planes, all accurate.  We had the same team, the same Consultant Jason McKinley who made sure the flight was accurate.  We have Helicopters in our Movie and we brought in Chuck Aaron.  The Fire Fighters, they made an Air Attacker.  The Air Tankers are separate from the Smoke Jumpers.  It’s a separate Unit.  So we met both of them.  We went to Smoke Jumper training. 

Disney’s Planes: Fire & Rescue – Extended Trailer

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Disclosure: The trip was sponsored by Disney and all posts I do on behalf of the trip are part of that sponsorship. However, all opinions are my own and they are not affected by that. I will only share information that I believe will be beneficial to my readers.