Rango is being entirely animated by the visual-effects home Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). ILM is normally hired to provide the CGI for expensive blockbusters (such as Verbinski’s Pirates with the Caribbean movies), but this is the initial time the company has been asked to handle a completely animated feature.
Verbinski cleared up some plot details. Rango (Depp) is a pet chameleon who lives in a terrarium. “He’s a thespian searching for an audience,” says Verbinski. “He’s created friends using the inanimate objects in his terrarium — he calls them all by name. And when we meet him, he’s in the act of putting on a play using the various objects.” Verbinski then alluded to Roadkill, an armadillo voiced by Alfred Molina: “Roadkill’s run over within the origin of Rango’s demise, exactly where his terrarium is thrust from his car, and he results in the desert.”
By means of a bizarre set of circumstances, Rango winds up at a town called Dirt, which is populated by a number of Mojave Desert wildlife. “This town is truly hungry for a hero, and they get the great pretender,” says Verbinski. “Rango has to ultimately be prepared for the difference between pretending and what’s real.” The director also mentioned that Rango, as an aquatic creature desperately looking for hydration, ironically finds himself obtaining involved in a Chinatown-esque water subplot.
Already Rango comes off as an animated movie with more substance on its mind and much more tricks up its sleeve than most. And the way Verbinski went about recording his characters’ voices was a departure for an animated movie. Normally, actors perform their lines alone in a recording studio. But instead, Verbinski gathered his entire cast — including Depp, Timothy Olyphant, Abigail Breslin, Bill Nighy, Isla Fisher, Ray Winstone, and Harry Dean Stanton — and had them act out the whole film inside a studio during the course of a 20-day shoot. Utilizing a limited amount of props, sets, and costumes, the actors repeatedly tackled their scenes while video cameras recorded their performances.
“It’s not motion capture — we call it emotion-capture,” says Verbinski. “I didn’t want to stop the techniques that were developed in shooting live action, in which you try to optimize the possibility of capturing the awkward moment — the moment in which things aren’t cerebral or manufactured. Every thing in an animated movie is manufactured. There aren't any accidents. So we were trying to encourage a kinetic, raw spark to the audio track.” Verbinski showed us some of this footage, and needless to say, the view of Johnny Depp pretending to become heroic cowboy lizard is simultaneously amusing and slightly disturbing.
