The tale of Charlie and his unforgettable visit to Willy Wonka's amazing chocolate factory is one of the most recognisable children's books on the planet. Roald Dahl's 1964 original novel centered around a young boy named Charlie Bucket who lived in cramp squalor with his family in one of those dank gritty industry towns so synonymous with early-mid 20th century England.
Every day Charlie looked on in envy at the local candy story where the kids tucked into the assorted sweets made by Willy Wonka - a genius whose chocolate and sugar treats are world famous, as is his personal reclusiveness. Wonka's large factory constitutes most of Charlie's town and no-one has ever been allowed inside to find out how he comes up with his magical creations.
Its then that Wonka announces a lottery with five golden tickets hidden inside Wonka Bars - the five kids who win will get a personal tour around the factory. Charlie hopes in envy that he might win and not surprisingly, he gets it along with four rich spoilt brats who enter the factory. Its inside that the wild adventure begins.
Dahl had a knack for combining vastly imaginative settings with simple and yet mature underdog stories that had a sweet heart and a dark edge. Its a description that sounds perfect for someone like Tim Burton. The director that brought us twisted but family friendly flicks such as "Batman", "Beetlejuice", "Edward Scissorhands" & "Big Fish" is now lending his hands to bring the tale to life again. The story was previously turned into a much loved 1971 Gene Wilder film that was more sentimental and innocent than the original book but was limited at the time by budgets and effects.
Also, as much as it has a loyal audience of people who love it, fans of the book weren't hugely impressed with the old film. In regards to this version however, Producer Richard D. Zanuck says "It's very close to the book. That was Tim's instinct right off the bat. He wasn't a big fan of the first picture and nor was Dahl apparently. His wife who runs the estate was very aware of that. She had a lot of control and was very careful. She was thrilled beyond belief with Tim and the fact that he wanted to go back to the basic material, not make a musical out of it or anything to change it drastically."
This new take 34 years on has no such limitations. With an edict to be more faithful to Dahl's material, the latest in flashy effects, UK's massive Pinewood studios and star power like Johnny Depp at his disposal, Burton is in his element again and it shows. Late last year I got the call and was flown to London to visit the film's sets at Pinewood Studios - the facility synonymous for shooting on almost all of the twenty James Bond films over the past five decades. Spread across several soundstages, the various internal rooms of the Wonka factory are realised in all their funky glory. Shooting began in June and was just past the 100th day when we visited with a week or two to go before the wrap. Despite it being the longest shoot Burton has ever conducted, the man seemed in high spirits.
With production design from Alex McDowell, whose credits range from "Fight Club" to "The Cat in the Hat", Burton's unique vision delivers a series of rooms far more elaborate and unique in their interpretations of the book's scenes. The biggest building on the lot, nicknamed 'The 007 Stage', housed the famous chocolate room set which is far larger and more elaborate than the somewhat small counterpart in the earlier film.
Its a unique place which combines a forest of edible candy trees, completely organic grass walkways, and a Victorian looking giant dam which churns out a waterfall/river of chocolate - pumping many thousands of gallons of mixture that closely resembles the brown sloshy treat.
More astonishing though was that this was almost all practical. Burton's crew built this and all the other sets to full scale, an engineering feat which required an astonishing amount of thought, planning and hard work on everyone's part. The flowing chocolate you'll see in the film, actually a non-toxic substance called Nutrisol, is totally real and required extensive pumping technology. Even the studio wasn't keen on the idea, wanting a CG chocolate river but Burton wouldn't have a bar of it. The grass of the room was plastic for the most part with small amounts of edible 'candy grass'. The assorted trees and plants (around two dozen different designs) had to also be edible but look like foliage on screen and stand up to extensive periods of shooting.
The set also housed a stunning hot pink Viking-esque dragon boat which is rowed by several dozen Oompa Loompas along the chocolate river and down a neon coloured water tunnel which leads the characters onto the next phase of the factory. The first thing we did upon arrival on-set was study a series of colour sketches showing off all the design aspects of the film - inspired by both the book itself, Burton's trademark Gothic sensibilities and even obscure Italian 60's cinema. The film's wild aesthetic completely permeates all the elements on display ranging from Depp's bright white and perfect teeth to the external town which covers an area several city blocks in size.
Smaller in scale but equally strange was the inventing room where the assorted Wonka prototype creations are made and tested. The black gloss walled room was filled floor to roof with giant tubes, vats, flasks, and spirouets that bubbled with all sorts of liquid. From special taffys to the now infamous everlasting gobstoppers, the room was pretty cool (and functional), and included a chocolate vat in which the Oompa Loompas conduct some synchronised swimming in.
The smallest set, but one of the most distinctive is the 'forced perspective' entrance hall to the factory. A twenty-metre long corridor that starts off about 3-4 stories in height shrinks down to the size of a school lunchbox at the back. From the front (the way it will be shot), the corridor looks massive - a good 100 metres long & five stories high all the way down.
More familiar is the TV room which looks almost exactly like the one from the old film - a very 60's aesthetic with everything bathed in bright white, and all the features from the goggles to the designs in large circular patterns. Completely new however is the Nut Room which gets its inspiration directly from the book. Covered in blue and white swirls and yet very clinical, this is the place where various nuts get sorted out with the poor quality ones thrown down a chute in the center. All around the chute and a giant vat in the center are benches where a hundred squirrels are hard at work sorting said nuts and picking out the meat.
These aren't CG squirrels though, for much of the time these were real - Zanuck says "We trained 40 squirrels for four months. All squirrels are born at the same time in March, and they were taken right from birth to our little school, so that's all they knew. After that, you have to be careful, because you can't just send them out into the woods because they wouldn't be able to make it. It was amazing that they were able to do what we required them to do... The trainer aged ten years at least during the process until the first shot, because he had never trained squirrels before. He said it was the toughest animal he had to train".
One of the said tricks involved two squirrels simultaneously having to run up and over one of the young child actors which was a tricky feat. The other half of the time the critters are animatronic. On a quick visit to the practical effects house for the film, we saw a bunch of robot squirrels standing around or on sticks with tiny metal claws that look frighteningly real. There was also a giant squirrel eye for one shot involving one of the kids getting a little too close. They weren't the only things that weren't robots - part of the time so were the Oompa Loompas.
Everyone remembers the dwarves in bad makeup and wigs from the old film. This time around however the pint-sized race is played by one man and one man only - four-foot tall actor Deep Roy, best known for a memorable "The X-Files" guest starring spot and assorted British/US films including a small role as an assassin in the "Pink Panther" franchise. The actual 'Oompas' are even shorter, standing at 30 inches in height.
To get the effect, Roy was shot against larger scale furniture and computer effects were added to make it look more effective. For more distant shots (eg. the rowboat), frighteningly realistic animatronic creations were used. With multiple different outfits (incl. a Sgt. Peppers band group), Roy was one of the busiest men on the set.
Anyway back to the buildings. Two of the glimpses we got were flashback scene sets. On one stage was a chocolate palace which Wonka built for a vizier, the trouble is the location where its built gets hot and so it starts melting. What's left was a palace gate that was half in ruins, statues with their heads missing and a throne that was crumbling. Also shown in flashback is a jungle scene where Wonka discovers the Oompa village hanging in the trees. Two scenes we saw being shot involved Depp in these scenes. In one he comes upon the Oompa village amongst the brush. In another he has a meeting with the Oompa chieftan and diplomatically pretends to like some green goo. Every take delivered a different expression that made everyone laugh.
Sets weren't just limited to the inside with one of the most memorable being the industrial town in which Charlie lives and the factory resides. Taking months to build on the fields out the back of Pinewood, what you have is several blocks of cobblestone streets, store fronts, low-rate housing and gritty factory walls covered in snow. It all looks and feels very real - that is until you get up close and see the stores are merely window displays, the distant buildings are actually not to far away (forced perspective) and the 'snow' actually clings to ones shoes without melting. Audiences however won't notice this, on screen its a totally convincing town.
The Bucket house in particular is fascinating - the house is built over a landfill, which has lead it to slump and leaning over at odd angles in an almost expressionistic style. The other distinctive building is the Wonka factory entrance built to scale. Looking like a power station designed by HR Giger, the giant gates lead to a somewhat grotty outer entrance with several lorries parked for deliveries. The doors into the building have a giant grammarphone arch motif that's almost like something out of Pink Floyd's "The Wall".
On the complete opposite side of the coin is the glass elevator. Whilst the roof rockets which propel the elevator are CG, the actual cabin itself is a gorgeous looking glass cube covered in hundreds of buttons which lists rooms from the original book along with lots of made up names by the crew ranging from the absurd (obvious crew name injokes) to the naughty (the 'Edible Panty Lines Division').
Later, we'd watch Depp shoot scenes in which he tries to convince the Oompa chief to let his people come work at the Wonka factory. This scene would take place inside one of the Oompa pods, and it would involve a bit of trickery to make it seem like Depp was much larger than Deep Roy, who also played the chief. Like some of the other sets, there were two different sized pods, one for Depp's scenes, and one for Deep Roy, and Burton would mix the two performances together to make it seem like they were acting opposite of each other. It was fun watching Depp run through different takes where he would try a concoction created by the chief and react with all sorts of funny faces.
To this day remains one of the most impressive sets I've every visited in terms of the level of sheer imagination and vivid practical environments on display. Later this week I'll be including interviews conducted recently with Burton, Depp and co. in the Bahamas to promote the film. Til then, rest assured this is one film to get excited for.
