JEFFREY Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation, and Simon J Smith, director of Bee Movie, talk about some of the joys and challenges of bringing Jerry Seinfeld’s vision to the big screen…

Can you tell us about the now legendary story of how the pitch for this movie started with a phone call from Steve Spielberg?
Jeffrey Katzenberg: For nine years every week, like tens of millions of people all over the world, I would watch Jerry’s television show. I don’t think there’s anything I got more laughter out of for more years. So, I started calling him and here’s the first thing about the story – the moment I called, he always took the call! I’d have an idea and he’d say: “Good, tell me…” And that’s not what you expect on the other end of the phone. So, I’d awkwardly pitch an idea for a movie, he’d listen and then say: “No!” And this happened for years. Then, four years ago I went to his office in New York and I figured this time I wouldn’t be doing any phone call, I was going to put the full move on him. So, I had pictures, drawings and characters and he was incredibly patient and listened. But then I remember he got up, he walked to the window and looked out to Central Park, looked down, turned around and said: “No!” [Laughs].

I’d like to think there was just that moment of hesitation that marked the moment when the seed was planted. It certainly gave me hope. But then six months later I got a phone call from Spielberg and he was outside a restaurant. It was very noisy and I could hardly hear him, but he said: “I’m just having dinner with Jerry Seinfeld and he’s just pitched me an idea about Bee Movie and the bees… call him!” And that was it.

Q. The bee has obviously been a neglected creature as far as Hollywood has been concerned. Did you have to enter into a bee world?
Simon J Smith: I think there was a mantra in the story – “think in bee”. We got an expert in from MIT at the London University to educate us on everything about bees. But as you can see from the movie we threw out about 90% of it because it wasn’t very funny. He was a lovely chap, though, and we did learn a lot about them and it was Jerry who had the fascination with bees beforehand. We definitely got engrossed in the bee world. We had facts like it takes 12 bee lives to make one teaspoon of honey. And that proved quite disturbing to me, the thought of putting that in your tea… it makes you feel really guilty. In fact, I haven’t had any honey since!

Q. What appealed to you about directing Bee Movie?
Simon J Smith: Obviously, Jerry had the idea and I’d heard that he was writing a script for DreamWorks Animation, for whom I was working. The idea of Jerry’s idiosyncratic observations of our society funnelled through the eyes of a bee sounded like a really fun idea. After I met Jerry, he was a delightful chap and I thought this was going to be a really fun time. So I couldn’t wait to start on the movie.

Q. Is this one of these films where you get much more stuff than usual for the DVD?
Jeffrey Katzenberg: Well, having the writer and the performer in the room meant there was more opportunity for improvisational work. I think that’s part of what’s unique about the film – there’s a lot of moments where there was just improvisation. Renee has talked about how quick she had to be and how challenged she was while there were the two of them, but you don’t get that in animation usually.

Q. The whole business of animation continues to grow and it begs the question of how many is enough releases of animation in a year?
Jeffrey Katzenberg: I think last year [2006] saw the peak – about 15 or 16 movies were released. It’s about half that this year. But when you step back and you see that the most popular movies, certainly on a worldwide basis, three of the top 12 movies this year are animated films. So, these are no longer cartoons that are being made for some small portion of the audience; they’re for everybody and I think this is as good a representation of how an animated movie can be made by adults for adults and at the same time be wildly popular with kids. I think it’s one of the great fun surprises for Jerry: he made this movie for himself and with his sensibility on it, and yet it’s amazing to see how much fun it is for the kids and how much they get. It’s surprising in a way. So, these films are very mainstream and when you say how many is enough? I don’t know. There are 500 movies made every year, and 10 animated movies, so not very many.

Q. What’s next for you?
Simon J Smith: I’d love to do something else but honestly I haven’t really had chance to think about it because we’ve been promoting the film in different places and after three and a half years on one film I could do with a little vacation perhaps. So, maybe the beginning of next year I’ll start thinking about it. But what’s been amazing for me is going from whatever I was doing before to directing. It’s a huge change because I was used to being told to do this, or being asked if I could do this. All of a sudden, when you become a director, they say: “What do you want to do?” And it’s like: “Well, whatever you want…” And they come back with: “Well, what do you like?” But I like all sorts of movies – I like Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, I like Toy Story… and they told me I had to decide what I fall in love with. I think it’s very much like finding a mate. You have to find a script you fall in love with because you have to commit fully to it because you know you’re not going to have a great relationship with it unless you fully commit. And so I guess I’ll be going on the dating circuit with a few scripts in January.

b>Read our review of Bee Movie

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