Director Brian Levant brings landmark cartoon to life with untold origin story of Mystery Inc. in Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins

QUESTION:

What significance do you place on finally telling the origin story of the Mystery Inc. gang for a franchise that is celebrating its 40^th anniversary?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

This means that for the 40th anniversary of Scooby-Doo, we go back and start at the very beginning - we go back to when these are just meddling kids, and they truly are kids.  When we started filming, the youngest member of our cast was barely 16 years old, and I think the age of the cast reflects the innocence and energy and an openness to new stimuli - in general and specifically - in this franchise. By starting over, we have re-energized the franchise and given it a new reason to exist.

 

 

QUESTION:

You have some history of converting animated cartoons into live-action film. What's the trick?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:

In translating an animated piece into a live-action film, every day you walk the tightrope between what is too silly and what is too cartoony versus what is too real for the situation. I think we have successfully navigated that tightrope so that we maintain our balance, and yet stayed true to the original. This is a very contemporary, 21st century version of Scooby-Doo. The relationships are real, they are real people, they have real ideas, they have real problems, and they are a real team.  Then to counter that with the shtick of a six-foot-tall, computer-generated Great Dane, that tips the balance a little bit every day. So sometimes we have to lean a little bit harder on the real in order to maintain the total balance.

 

 

QUESTION:           

These "kids" really seem to have made these roles their own while staying true to the traditions of this franchise. What's it been like working with this cast?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

This has been a great opportunity for this cast to learn to become professionals and to take all their enthusiasm and energy and channel it into a process where they've become very polished performers. In doing so, they have really learned to inhabit their roles.  When you watch this film, mainly it's composed not of singles or individual shots, but of big tight four-shots of the group, and they have become a group in real life as well as on film. That's really reflected in the performance and in the teamwork that they display every day on screen.

 

 

QUESTION:           

Let's break down the cast one at a time. Tell us about your Velma - Hayley Kiyoko.

 

BRIAN LEVANT:

Hayley is very different than Velma Dinkley.  She has really had to strip away who she is completely and inhabit the soul of somebody who is a little bit cloistered, who relies on their intellectual prowess and has less success in their social skills.  And in doing so, Hayley has found new ways to invent. Obviously, Hayley does not look the way Velma did in the cartoons, and I think that's a great thing.  I think that's one of the things that makes our project here individual and different and contemporary, but it didn't affect Velma's characterization. Velma has broadened her appeal.  She has become more human, and that is all due to Hayley's input.

 

QUESTION:

What made Kate Melton your ideal Daphne?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

When Kate Melton first walked through the door, before she uttered a word, I knew that we'd found Daphne.  I don't know how things like that work, but it turned out to be true, and through every step of the way, she did not disappoint. She grew in polish, she grew in confidence as the audition process continued, and what you see on (screen) is the work of someone who has no fear. And, like Daphne, Kate ventures into the unknown every day and her hair always looks good. You have to remember that no matter what you do in animation, you have two-dimensional characters.  In order to make them three-dimensional characters, we have to add to their beings, and a lot of that work has to come from the actors themselves in trying to inhabit them and trying to say, "What would that person be like if I met them on the street?"  And then try to bring that to life.  Katie has done that very, very successfully.

 

 

QUESTION:

How close are Nick Palatas and Shaggy?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:

Nick is not really Shaggy, but totally Shaggy. Nick is a very unique talent in that he's a very, very smart young man, who's playing a very spaced out, somewhat dimwitted person.  That's a rough job, and there is a lot of weight on Nick every day to be funny, to be endearing, to be charming, to be sweet, and not turn into a parody. I'm really proud of the way Nick progressed every day, every scene, every week. He grew to inhabit the role, and to say he has become Shaggy is a credit to the hard work he put into dumbing himself down and being open to the possibility of being a blank page every time he walks into a room.

 

 

QUESTION:           

Robbie Amell is the most experienced of the four main actors. How did that play into his filling the role of the leader of Mystery Inc.?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

Robbie Amell is obviously one of those guys who, in his high school class, was picked to be most likely to succeed.  He's obviously a good-looking kid.  He's a great athlete.  He's a really strong actor, and every day, once again, he's improved - he's worked on his energy, on his command of the lines.  But what has never faltered is his natural leadership abilities. And it is not a great leap for him, the person, the guy who was the captain of the hockey team, to become captain of Mystery Inc.

 

 

QUESTION:           

What is it about these characters and this franchise that is so endearing and enduring?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

The reason that Scooby Doo is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year is due to its creators.  Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were the gentlest, kindest, sweetest men who ever lived, and they spent their long illustrious careers doing nothing more than trying to make people laugh.  And they created very sweet characters.  There is no evil in the world that they created.  It is a testimony to their generosity of spirit that their work survives for so long and so intact. We are doing a project that I think they really would have loved.  I remember very fondly the first time I ever showed Hanna and Barbera a finished version of The Flintstones movie. When the lights came on, they stood up with tears in their eyes, and they both rushed over to me and threw their arms around me and swore that they couldn't believe that they had lived to see something like that made of their work. And I think if they were still around today, they would feel the same way when they saw this film.

 

 

QUESTION:           

What is it about this story that makes it accessible to everyone?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

What makes Mystery Inc. unusual is that it really does gather people from the different sides of a high school. It's the jock, the drama queen, the brain and however you want to describe Shaggy - a collection of individuals who would normally not have much to do with each other. But they're all thrown together and find that they have a lot in common, and that they can support and help each other solve a mystery and grow as people. We all went to school, I think we all associate with one of those four segments of the high school social scene, and so we can in some way relate to these kids and their adventures.

 

 

QUESTION:           

Did you direct this film with a target audience in mind?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

In my work, I aspire not to make a kiddie film, but to create a family film that can be enjoyed equally by all segments of the audience.  With Scooby-Doo, we have an audience who grew up with the show on Saturday mornings and now have kids of their own, and they do want to share what they experienced and what they felt as kids with their kids.  That works best when the project radiates their best hopes and ambitions for this series and this film. That's what we've sought to accomplish.

 

 

QUESTION:           

As much as you want to present a modernized Scooby-Doo tale, how important was it to include the familiar, iconic symbols of Scooby-Doo?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

There are definitely elements of the program that you want to continue. These are what we call "runners" - things you've got to see the characters do.  You want to see the Mystery Machine.  You want to hear Velma say, "Jinkies." You want to hear Shaggy go, "Zoinks!"  You have to hear Scooby start every sentence with an "Arr." (he laughs) Things like that ground you and remind you of the foundation of the franchise. And we try and build on top of that with real characters, real relationships and hopefully some topnotch comedy effects, as well big blocked scenes to give you a much larger vista than just the touchstones that the franchise was built upon.

 

I think the future will still hold some surprises. In this initial outing, we did want to have the classic villain-unmasked-by-meddling-kids, but I think there's many more areas of the supernatural, and many different kinds of mysteries that we can delve into in future films. The limits are only those of imagination here, and I think we're just opening the door to something very new and exciting and very unsuspected for this franchise. 

 

 

QUESTION:           

You've created some fairly elaborate twists on commonplace sets, and not gone with huge amounts of green screen or computer special effects. What was your mindset on that approach?

 

BRIAN LEVANT:           

We have really worked hard - and by "we" I'm saying people like our producer Brian Gilbert, production manager Chris Foss, art director Tyler Haron and storyboard artist Darryl Henley - in trying to create very different visuals for this film. Different than you've seen in the cartoons, different than you've seen in many comedies. As an example, the underground school offered some tremendous visual possibilities that really intrigued us. We've also tried to take the everyday things that you see in life and imbue them with an air of mystery, with some suspense, so that the kids really don't look at the world the same way at the end of this journey. I think that audiences are going to respond to it.