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