Scooby Doo Set Report from Coming Attractions

Scooby-Doo Set Report: Coming Attractions recently joined a group of online persons, or in some cases personalities, on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia to solve the mystery of how and why the Scooby-Doo movie was being made. Among the first to get a look at the production of the film were Garth Franklin from Dark Horizons, Zap2it.com's Michael Szymanski, Lincoln Gasking from Counting Down, Joanna Gruber for FirstLook, Heather Feher from About.com, Michael Helms on behalf of Fangoria magazine, Scott Brake from IGN FilmForce and the one and only Smilin' Jack Ruby, who has his own set report online at C.H.U.D. right now. They're great group of people, all of them, who I joined as we got the goods straight from the set of Scooby-Doo.
I think the original intention was to surprise audiences with how big and bold this movie is actually going to be and let word of mouth sell the picture. But recent assumption and speculation has seen word of mouth spreading already about the film, and it hasn't been good. So obviously the folks at Warner Bros. decided it was time to show the folks who usually start the spreading of the advance word a little of what was going on behind the scenes. Scooby-Doo is the latest live-action version of a cartoon to get the greenlight - but the big question everyone has is, will it be any good? Well, guess what...there is a lot more and encouraging work going into this film than previously thought.

The promise of pleasant surprises all starts with the set design, which is just incredible. Sets like the elaborate and comprehensive castle interior feature the familiar spooky images from the show given life in a three dimensional world and taken to the next level by production designer Bill Boes. He explains that to create the look for the film "We looked at a lot of stuff. We looked at the old Scooby-Doo show, which has got a lot of really great shapes in it already. We looked at Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. We looked at Little Rascals and all the old forties Universal movies sort of have this feel; so that's sort of what we adopted for the color pallet feel. And it's a ride; so with a ride you can have all kinds of weird decorations. It's a haunted castle ride, so that's why there are all sorts of skeletons and bits of armor and our Jester Cart." And that's exactly what it looks like, a very realistic and spooky haunted castle with not only skeletons and bits of armor but swords and axes, cages with decaying bodies, huge, crooked doors with elaborate carvings and that Jester Cart that runs right through the middle of it all on a single solid steel track. It is a ride indeed, in more ways than one.

Scooby-Doo would be nothing without a giant, spooky cave that nobody has any business being in. So you can be assured that the dark, spiky cavern setting that we were assured will play a pivotal part in the movie will be one of the places Shaggy and Scooby find themselves in. Impressive as well is the mountain top set, also a location where one or more of our heroes will come to a turning point. Still under construction, this set was not as detailed as some of the others, leaving plenty of room for the addition of some special effects shots for a sequence that has yet to be filmed but promises to take Scooby-Doo to a new level, even if only literally. This set was an exception in its lack of detail. Production designer Bill Boes, under the direction of Raja Gosnell and producer Chuck Roven, has made the decision to create as much of the Scooby-Doo universe in production as possible. Hence both the scale of some of these larger sets, and the detail of all of them, including the interior of the Mystery Machine, which features everything from Shaggy's barbecue grill and beanbag chair to what looks like a functioning Atari console.

No exception to this scope and attention to detail is one of the coolest sets of all, the "Feast Room." You've seen it in two dimensions before, as the often-used banquet room with large rectangular table fit for a King just filled with food. The kind of place Shaggy and Scooby happen upon occasionally only to find themselves surrounded by their favorite food group - meat. An entire smorgasbord is laid out not only on the table, but also along what has been dubbed the "wall of meat," which holds some surprises I'm sure you can guess but I will only tell you were made possible by the work of John Cox, who won an Oscar for his visual effects work on Babe. Pretty impressive stuff, meaning that from a production standpoint this movie is looking very nice.

A good portion of the film takes place on "Spooky Island" and allows for such creative and controlled sets. The idea is that the whole place is a giant amusement park on which the gang from Mystery Inc. will - for the first time ever - be faced with a really serious problem that won't prove quite as simple as pulling off a mask and revealing the villain. The whole idea in bringing the Scooby gang to a live action feature film is to make the characters not only literally and figuratively more three dimensional, but address the fact that they're so well known. They've become the Fred, Velma, Shaggy and Daphne they are today because of their mystery solving days… and because, I'm sure, they hang around with an ambiguously gifted dog. This means some of the shots we've been seeing are not what the gang is going to look like in the film. There is a flashback to the old days in which the group looks exactly as we all knew and loved them, but now they've been slightly updated. Some new wardrobe, which is slightly toned down and not quite as over the top as what we've seen, is more of a retro look as the gang are desperately hanging onto the style they and we are familiar with.

The cast seems pretty confident, starting with Freddie Prince, Jr., who as a cartoon fanatic is pretty excited to be working on the project, despite the less than desirable wardrobe and the fact that he is forced to dye his hair that blonder than blond color every Sunday. All of his hair, including the eyebrows, arms and… under said arms. As Fred he's quite happy to take on a character who has become so full of himself and his status as a hero and leader he lives in his own little world of having all the answers and only the best ascots. Personally, though, Freddie admits relating a bit more to Shaggy; and the man should know what's he's talking about if what he says about owning all the episodes of the show is true.

Matthew Lillard does a pretty mean Shaggy, and from what we've seen, and according to compliments paid to the actor by director Raja Gosnell, his ability to not only look and sound like the Shaggy we know will be combined with a unique energy and knack for turning his imagination into physical reaction. This means the most important role in the film to be played by a real-life actor is in good hands. Lillard, who has to spend the most screen time with a non-existent costar, is aided by not only a great imagination but some Scooby stand-ins including a full size mock-up of the dog, heads on sticks, actors in green masks and even a little person in a dog suit. It may be difficult, but he's managing to keep his energy up even after months of filming and despite the mullet haircut he must maintain beneath that Shaggy wig for easy application.

Sarah Michelle Gellar seemed quite satisfied to be playing a bit of a different role during her break from Buffy. As Daphne she'll be playing a young woman sick of being the damsel in distress and set out to kick some butt, but having to overcome the years of unforgiving outfits and preconceived notions of her role as someone for Fred to save. She was as shocked as we were when she first discovered the magnitude of the production and was seeing the Cave set for the first time as she gave us the lowdown on how she started out this film working on both Buffy and Scooby-Doo at virtually the same time, until her show wrapped for the season.

Rowan Atkinson and Linda Cardellini were not available that particular day, though we did leave questions for Linda to answer. It looks like as Velma she'll be taking on some changes as well, sick of being "the smart one." We saw this in the three minutes of far-from-finished footage from the film we were able to see. Considering its lack of completion, was very promising indeed. The colors were not corrected yet and some special effects and post-production were missing (most notably Scooby-Doo) and it still looked great. That's what comes from having something of substance to shoot with those great sets. What remains to be seen, other than whether the story can hold up to the few minutes of really funny and fun stuff we saw in the end; and then there is that missing dog.

Raja Gosnell was a very polite and friendly guy, and as a director he seems very open and easy-going. In this instance, it's going to work well for him because he's got such a great production crew and the cast definitely knows what they're doing with this particular material. Everyone is on the same page and it shows on the screen. What doesn't show, yet, is the title character, which will ultimately make or break the film. Gosnell is sticking to his guns in making sure everything that can possibly done is done to make the movie look physically credible. If he is able to maintain that standard with the design and development of Scooby-Doo it's going to work and it's going to work well. This will be a hell of a fun movie. If not, no amount of spectacular set design or spot-on recreation of "Zoinks!" is going to do a thing. But so far, things are looking up. A great amount of work is going on very far behind the scenes to design a dog that we are assured they entire team realizes has to be the perfect Scooby-Doo from the moment the character first appears. Details right down to the dog collar and the tag itself are being looked at very carefully. We noticed about a dozen different designs for Scooby's tag.

Whatever they come up with, it will be after very careful consideration, and the execution of the 95% CGI effects used to bring Scooby Doo to life are all that is left to deal with. All the other pieces of the puzzle are currently in place, answering that question about why and how the Scooby-Doo movie is being made in the first place: It's being made because everyone knows who Scooby-Doo is somebody decided they loved the idea enough to keep the legend going; and it's being done the only way it should be… creatively and very carefully.

We will have the actual interviews with the cast and crew from the set of Scooby-Doo coming in at some point, and will make not only a transcript but also some streaming video of those interviews available at that time.

Thanks to Warner Bros. for organizing the set visit and thanks to Garth, Michael, Joanna, Heather, Smilin' Jack Ruby, Michael from down under and Scott for being there.