Speaker 1: H oh g is, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 2: People say, good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater.
Speaker 1: They want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in
Speaker 1: the protection booth.
Speaker 2: Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 3: Cut it off?
Speaker 4: Hello, Wait, wait, why is a penguin in our.
Speaker 5: It needs our help? Look at this oil on you.
Speaker 5: I'll move, I will get you clean. It's a penguin.
Speaker 1: His name should be dinging.
Speaker 3: H.
Speaker 1: They always find their way back, same nest, same mates.
Speaker 4: Are you okay? Should do the best for the penguin.
Speaker 1: He's so friendly.
Speaker 3: He went right in.
Speaker 1: Do they normally do that?
Speaker 3: I like?
Speaker 4: You have me attack? Please him?
Speaker 3: Made? I look at that?
Speaker 4: Are you hungry?
Speaker 3: Of course?
Speaker 5: So I think the whole world would be interested in
Speaker 5: the story of human You.
Speaker 6: Have to see this for a million views.
Speaker 1: He's famous.
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
Speaker 1: It's one of ours.
Speaker 5: The last couple of years, he showed up in June.
Speaker 5: He comes and goes as he pleases.
Speaker 7: He's always so happy to see Sean.
Speaker 2: Only a little penguin travels five thousand miles every year
Speaker 2: to visit his friend. You know, the penguin.
Speaker 5: We have decided to take him here at the university,
Speaker 5: he studies human interaction.
Speaker 2: Where is Dindon?
Speaker 3: I have to find him? Uventine Dihim have by re friendship.
Speaker 3: He's he her bet, not my bet. He's my friend.
Speaker 2: Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth.
Speaker 2: I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking
Speaker 2: with director David Sherman and star genre Renaud All about
Speaker 2: the new film My Penguin Friend. It opens nationwide on
Speaker 2: August sixteenth, twenty twenty four. It is a delightful little
Speaker 2: film that will make you cry at the end, at
Speaker 2: least I did, and if you don't, you're heartless. Thanks
Speaker 2: so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed the interview.
Speaker 7: Mister Sherman, how did this story come to your attention?
Speaker 7: How did you find out about this and how did
Speaker 7: the actual project come to you?
Speaker 1: I've had heard about the story being from Brazil, the
Speaker 1: story when national everybody knew about Jean and Deen Deen,
Speaker 1: And when I was doing a promotion work for a
Speaker 1: previous film that was represent Brazil the Academy Awards in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, the studio heard about my movie and the said, well,
Speaker 1: here's a Brazilian that has a connection to the ocean
Speaker 1: because of my background that I've been sailing around and
Speaker 1: doing documentaries for many years of my life. They called
Speaker 1: me up and said, we don't take a meeting, we
Speaker 1: have this story. And I said, the story of Roll
Speaker 1: and Dandy. That's amazing. So we sat down and they
Speaker 1: pitched the story and I thought, this is right down
Speaker 1: my alley. This is a beautiful, true story. It's a
Speaker 1: hard touching story. I love telling humans, real human story
Speaker 1: and it was absolutely beautiful and in my backyard in Brazil,
Speaker 1: which I know so well, in the ocean and all
Speaker 1: these fishermen's that I've met throughout my upbringing, and so
Speaker 1: that's how I came into the project and with this
Speaker 1: amazing invitation. And then it took us five years to
Speaker 1: get the project off the ground, as it always does
Speaker 1: because of COVID and everything. So it was a joy.
Speaker 1: It was amazing that it got offered to me and
Speaker 1: I felt right at home. Although working with penguins something
Speaker 1: new that was some dreamful.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I was curious how many real penguins you actually use.
Speaker 7: Were it's that the same penguin actor? Where there any
Speaker 7: CG penguins.
Speaker 1: We used ten penguins to do the role of one,
Speaker 1: and I think in our movies we probably have about
Speaker 1: eighty percent real penguins. We did have CGI penguins to
Speaker 1: do the dangerous scenes and the scenes that we could
Speaker 1: not obviously shoot, and then we had animatronic penguins as
Speaker 1: well robotic penguins to do you know, reverse shots, because
Speaker 1: we had a limited time per day to work with
Speaker 1: the penguins, so we use all the techniques available. But
Speaker 1: I think we probably have about eighty percent of real
Speaker 1: penguins in the movie.
Speaker 7: Mister Renault, I've been a fan of ever since I
Speaker 7: saw you in the Last Combat way back when. And
Speaker 7: I'm trying to think of because you tended to play
Speaker 7: more fantastical characters, killers, gangsters, those kind of things. How
Speaker 7: often have you played a real person, like a pre
Speaker 7: existing person, and how was that for you?
Speaker 6: I think I've done more than one hundred movies, so
Speaker 6: I don't remember this, but what attracked me to that
Speaker 6: far say? It is a rassiaep with the animals and
Speaker 6: the planet and the environment the see and if I
Speaker 6: could say, please pay attention because we're living in a
Speaker 6: small amount of time in this planet, and we have
Speaker 6: to give the planet to the next generation. Please protect
Speaker 6: instead of destroy. Look at animals, Look at the sea.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the footage of especially the ocean, that is it's
Speaker 7: almost a character onto itself. How much again that was
Speaker 7: real places? And how was that scouting for those locations
Speaker 7: we could hear just breathtake.
Speaker 1: We looked at different places. It's quite funny because we
Speaker 1: looked at Spain. We looked in different places because obviously
Speaker 1: we need the penguins and we could not transport penguins
Speaker 1: to different places around the world, which which is quite difficult.
Speaker 1: And I always wanted to shoot near the local true location.
Speaker 1: And amazingly enough, there is an institute in an aquarium
Speaker 1: that looks after rescued animals that have come to shore
Speaker 1: and that cannot be sent back to the ocean, and Ubatuba,
Speaker 1: which is the place there. They have that institute there
Speaker 1: and they had penguins there. So I said, this is
Speaker 1: the original, very close to the original location, and we
Speaker 1: have penguins. And we talked to the producers and then
Speaker 1: we went looking for the right beach. And I wanted
Speaker 1: this little corner of the world that seemed like it
Speaker 1: stopped in time, and we we scarved the whole coast
Speaker 1: and we got sometimes very hard to get places, with
Speaker 1: a lot of bumps in the roads to get to.
Speaker 1: But we finally found this perumitting beach and it's absolute magical.
Speaker 1: We did very little to the location. We built the
Speaker 1: house that there was a structure there before, and we
Speaker 1: built a little house for Joanne's house, but the rest
Speaker 1: is exactly how it is. You know that place, So
Speaker 1: it's very magical. And that was the thing about looking
Speaker 1: for the right places and the village. We went to
Speaker 1: another town which is a narrow way that it's today
Speaker 1: a town that's preserved for its historical value, and we
Speaker 1: were able to find that. And then obviously going to Patagonia,
Speaker 1: which is totally on location with wild penguins, where we
Speaker 1: had to be very careful because there were millions of
Speaker 1: penguins everywhere to be able to shoot. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to be as authentic as possible, so as truth as
Speaker 1: possible to the story, especially in the locations.
Speaker 7: Like I always say, don't work with children or animals,
Speaker 7: and there you are working with hundreds thousands of animals.
Speaker 7: That must have been quite a challenge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, children, animals and ocean. That's the ones they say no.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what It was definitely challenging, but
Speaker 1: it was also a joy because we all went into
Speaker 1: this project understanding that all the challenges that we had,
Speaker 1: so I think the production the actors were very forgiving
Speaker 1: and very welcoming working with the kids and working with
Speaker 1: the penguins and understanding that it was a different dynamic
Speaker 1: on the set. We definitely had to play in a
Speaker 1: different way on the set, and the whole crew came
Speaker 1: together to make the movie because.
Speaker 3: They knew it.
Speaker 1: They knew everybody knew, oh no, we're putting the three
Speaker 1: no nos together, and it actually, Yes, it was a challenge,
Speaker 1: but it was very joyful. At the same time, the
Speaker 1: energy was there because everybody knew how important the story was.
Speaker 7: The gentleman that this is based off of. Was he around?
Speaker 7: Did you get to talk with him? Was he actually
Speaker 7: on set?
Speaker 1: I did talk to him before we shot. We spent
Speaker 1: some time with him with the real Joan and understood
Speaker 1: with his story. And then he did not make it
Speaker 1: to the set, but we were preserving also the story
Speaker 1: that we're creating. I think this is something that we
Speaker 1: respected a lot not to replicate what the real story was,
Speaker 1: but to create our own story with the source from
Speaker 1: the real story. I think that's what's a balance to
Speaker 1: do with biographical pictures, and I think it was the
Speaker 1: right balance that what we did.
Speaker 7: Mister Renaute, How do you get into a character? How
Speaker 7: do you find that character and play this type of role?
Speaker 7: And how was it playing against the penguin?
Speaker 3: But it was young.
Speaker 6: I thought that the characters they're far from me. When
Speaker 6: you're young, you go to drama school and you read
Speaker 6: and you think that you have to find something far
Speaker 6: from you to be authentic. And with the age, with life,
Speaker 6: with divorce, marriage, having kids' friends, having experienced you believe,
Speaker 6: you know that the characters are not far from you.
Speaker 6: The killer, of course, is far from you, because he
Speaker 6: has to kill people and alone kill people. But human beings,
Speaker 6: they're not far and in coming. We have first the drama,
Speaker 6: because you judge people more through the drama than through love. Laughing,
Speaker 6: it's five seconds and then we forget the drama and
Speaker 6: I ife in your heart and you remember that. So
Speaker 6: when you read again and you let the story give
Speaker 6: you the scent something coming between the lines, because you dream,
Speaker 6: you see the story in your mind. You read again
Speaker 6: and surely, but it is sure that you will get
Speaker 6: the essence of the character.
Speaker 1: Because you're honest.
Speaker 6: You don't want to just pay the character. Otherwise you're
Speaker 6: not working. If you fake, you're not working. But if
Speaker 6: you're working, you'll see that the character will come to you.
Speaker 6: And then you chair the time on the set with
Speaker 6: the director and the camera mandling, I go, I go
Speaker 6: this way.
Speaker 7: Mister and mister Sherman. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 7: This is great talking with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Cute care, thecution, the THEO, the stall, the s