Two Filipino Americans are looking awfully purple these days, and hopefully laughing all the way to the bank.
The Inquirer reports the two played important behind the scene roles in the making of Smurf 2.
Maricel Pagulayan was promoted to associate producer for the sequel after serving as visual effects supervisor in the first.
John Butiu is a visual development artist at Sony Pictures Animation.
“I helped create the “look” of the Smurfs in 3D,” said Butiu. “We are used to seeing them in 2D, but once they are in 3D, it is a whole new world. It was very challenging to see how they would look from all angles and then get them approved by the art director, director, producer, owner, executives,
“The characters I worked on were Clumsy, Papa Smurf and a generic Smurfy character which Sony Imageworks modified to use for the film that followed their requirements.”
Maricel Pagulayan contributions to the movie were praised by director Rajat Gosnell.
“Maricel is a magician,” Raja said. “There’s always a crisis, always someone not delivering. Maricel did an amazing job and kept us under the budget. The most important thing to any director is when you come to your producer on the 11th hour and say, ‘Maricel, I need one more shot. Can we figure it out?’ She’ll say, ‘Let me figure it out.’ She’ll move money around, find the thing, sort of beg, because we knew the studio wasn’t going to approve any more money. She was a master at making all that happen; that’s why I call her a magician.”
You can read more about Pagulayan here in the Inquirer.
You can read more about Butiu here also in the Inquirer.
