Ice Age
Short description
Ice Age is an animated adventure set 20,000 years ago, at the dawn of a glacial period. As herds of animals migrate south to escape the cold, a solitary mammoth named Manfred, who prefers to go his own way, meets a talkative sloth called Sid. The two of them come across a human infant and decide to return him to his people, a journey that brings them into the company of Diego, a sabre-toothed tiger with intentions of his own. The mismatched group must survive a changing world as they travel.
The film was directed by Chris Wedge and written by Michael J. Wilson, Michael Berg and Peter Ackerman, with Lori Forte producing. It was the first feature Wedge directed, preceding Robots, Epic and Monster Trucks. Ray Romano voices Manfred, John Leguizamo voices Sid and Denis Leary voices Diego, with Goran Visnjic, Jack Black and Cedric the Entertainer among the supporting voice cast. The production involved 25 credited cast members and 162 credited crew.
Made for 59 million USD, the film took 383 million USD worldwide, a strong return for an original animated release from 20th Century Fox, Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox Animation. On IMDb it holds 7.5/10 from 562,000 votes and on TMDB 7.4/10 from 14,648 votes, while critics gave it 7/10 from 164 reviews, so audience and critical assessments sit close together.
What's left behind the scenes
- The scene with the squirrel Scrat was included in the film to justify the title of the cartoon, as ice first appears only at the 37th minute of the action.
- The programmers worked with a 3 terabyte system.
- The first drawings in the cave (before the characters enter the large hall with mammoth drawings) are copies of the earliest cave paintings known to humankind. The cave with these drawings is located in Lascaux, in southern France. The drawings are approximately 15,000-17,000 years old.
- Before the animators began work, there was a long preparation period to launch the project, which lasted about a year.
- Initially, the cartoon was supposed to be a drama, however, the studio agreed to greenlight the project only if the genre was changed to a family comedy, which was then done.
- Initially, Blue Sky Animation was a small division of "20th Century Fox" that spent 15 years developing and refining technologies for creating computer characters. For example, their developments formed the basis for the special effects in the films "Alien Resurrection" (1997) and "Joe's Apartment" (1996).
- The drawings that can be seen during the end credits were created by the animators’ children.
- None of the human characters in the cartoon utter a single word throughout the entire film.
- John Leguizamo, who voices Sid, tried various intonations and speech patterns for his character until he realized that he was best at lisping.
- Scrat was deliberately deprived of a voice to add a comedic effect to the action.
- "Scrat's Lost Adventure" can be found on DVD.
- The initial script included a character named Sylvia, who was supposed to be Sid the sloth's friend.
- James Earl Jones and Wing Rames were considered to voice Manny.
- All the voice actors were allowed to improvise to their heart's content in order to give the animation a certain element of spontaneity.
- Initially, the creators of the cartoon wanted to cover the "20th Century Fox" company logo with ice (this version of the logo can be seen in the trailers), but during final editing, they decided to leave the standard emblem.
- The child's name is Roshan, his mother's name is Nadia, his father's name is Runar, and the names of the saber-toothed tigers are Soto, Zeke, Oscar, and Lenny. A wife and child of Manny are drawn on the wall in the cave. All this information can be found in the original film script.
- The only objection from consultants at the "American Museum of Natural History," who worked on the cartoon, was that they demanded the removal of dinosaurs from the film, as they became extinct long before the events depicted in the movie.
- The first film released in 2002 to surpass the 100 million mark.
- The film's director, Chris Wedge, voiced the squirrel named Scrat. Many viewers highlight Scrat as their favorite character, even though he barely participates in the development of the main storyline. It was thanks to the audience's reaction during test screenings that the decision was made to include his presence in some scenes of the cartoon.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
