Cindy Bond Interview & Timetable for Epic Stories of the Bible

Peter Chattaway has interviewed Cindy Bond - president and chief operating officer of Promenade Pictures who brought us last year's version of The Ten Commandments. There's actually two different versions of the interview out there. The one up at Christianity Today has had additional material courtesy of Mark Moring, whereas FilmChat includes the parts of the interview that discussed the Epic Stories of the Bible series as a whole.

After the interview, Bond also emailed Peter the list of films that will be covered by the series, along with a schedule for release:

1. The Ten Commandments -- October 19, 2007
2. The Flood -- Easter 2009
3. David and Goliath -- Fall 2009
4. Daniel and the Lion's Den -- Easter 2010
5. The Story of Esther -- Easter 2011
6. Creation -- Easter 2012
7. Jonah and the Whale -- Easter 2013
8. Samson and Delilah -- Easter 2014
9. Joshua and the Battle of Jericho -- Easter 2015
10. The Story of Peter -- Easter 2016
11. The Story of Paul -- Easter 2017
12. Bethlehem - birth of Christ -- Easter 2018

There are a few points I'd like to make on all this. Firstly, it's interesting that they are making these films out of sequence. I can imagine that they might have started with Moses in order to test the water, but I can't work out why the rest of the series varies so. In particular, ending the Old Testament series on Joshua, and leaving the nativity story until the very end is somewhat unusual.

Secondly, I'm surprised that out of all of those stories there are none that appear to deal with the ministry or the death of Jesus. These may well be touched on via flashbacks in the stories about Peter and Paul, but that omission is a bit of a shame, and I'm curious to know why that is.

Finally, there are a few stories here that have generally not had a lot of screen time to date. In particular, the stories of Daniel, Joshua and Jonah have been covered only sparingly. So it'll great if they find their way to the cinemas screens at some point over the next decade or so.

The interview at CT also mentions some interesting points. Firstly, Bond promises that the animation will be much improved for the next film in the series (which will be called either The Flood or Noah's Ark: The New Beginning). This was perhaps the most widely criticised area of Ten Commandments (my own review), so hopefully the improvement will be significant enough to allay those objections. She also revealed that Ben Kingsley would again feature as the narrator and that this time he would be joined by Michael Keaton, Marcia Gay Harden, and Rob Schneider.

The Ten Commandments (2007)Scene Guide

I've been meaning to post this ever since I wrote my review of Promenade Pictures'The Ten Commandments (2007), so here it is. Readers may be interested to compare it with the Scene Guides for a couple of other Moses films, last year's live action TV mini series The Ten Commandments (part 1 and part 2), 1996's mini series Moses (part 1 and part 2). I've been meaning to post scene guides for Moses the Lawgiver (1975) since July, but have never quite got around to it. Anyway, on to the scene guide for this film.

Israel enslaved - (Ex 1:8-14)
Moses on the Nile - (Ex 1:22-2:10)
[extra-biblical episode - Opening credits]
[extra-biblical episode - Moses and Ramsees play]
Moses kills the Egyptian - (Ex 2:11-12)
Moses sent away - (Ex 2:15a)
Moses and Jethro's daughters - (Ex 2:15b-22)
Burning Bush - (Ex 3:1-4:17)
Moses returns to Egypt - (Ex 4:27- 2:23)
Moses's first appearance before Pharaoh - (Ex 5:1-10; 7:8-13)
Bricks without Straw - (Ex 5:11-21)
Moses appeals to God - (Ex 5:22-6:9)
Water to Blood - (Ex 7:14-25)
Lice - (Ex 8:16-19)
Frogs - (Ex 8:1-15)
Flies - (Ex 8:20-32)
Murrain - (Ex 9:1-7)
Sores - (Ex 9:8-12)
Hail - (Ex 9:13-35)
Locusts - (Ex 10:1-20)
Darkness - (Ex 10:21-23)
Pharaoh appeals to Moses - (Ex 10:24-29)
Passover - (Ex 12:1-28)
Death of First Born - (Ex 12:29-30)
The Exodus - (Ex 12:31-39)
Pilars of cloud and fire - (Ex 13:20-14:4)
Pharaoh changes his mind - (Ex 14:5-14)
Parting of the Red Sea - (Ex 14:15-31)
Song of Moses - (Ex 15)
Water from Rock - (Ex 17:1-7)
Manna and Quails - (Ex 16:1-15)
Aaron and Miriam question Moses - (Num 12:1-8)
Moses on Sinai - (Ex 19:1-6)
Golden Calf - (Ex 32:1-6)
Ten Commandments - (Ex 20:1-17, 34:29)
Golden Calf - (Ex 32:15-)
Building Tabernacle - (Ex 36:1-38)
God changes his mind - (Ex 32:7-14, Num 14:10-35)
Death of Miriam - (Num 20:1)
Death of Aaron - (Num 20:22-29)
Moses tells joshua about his death - (Num 27:12-23)
Final Speech - (Deut 1:1-8)
Death of Moses - (Deut 34:1-12)

Notes
A quick look at that confirms one of the points I made about this in my review: this film crams an awful lot of the biblical material into it's 90 minute run time. A quick comparison with those other scene guides - which were for 3 hour productions - confirms this. There's obviously many more episodes that could have been included (battle against the Amonites, Jethro's visit, other rebellions etc.), but this is as complete a telling of the full Moses story as any other, yet in a fraction of the time.

That said it's interesting how this film handles much of the material in a similar vein to DeMille's take on The Ten Commandments. (He made two versions in 1923 and then the Charlton Heston version in 1956. It's the latter one that is dominant in the public imagination, largely because it imports the best aspects - to DeMille's mind at least - from the first film, and expands on them.) So, for example, both the Ten Commandments scene and the Golden calf incident, are handled as DeMille handles them; Moses goes up a mountain, receives the tablets bearing the commandments, and returns to find rebellion in the camp, the punishment for which is wandering in the desert for 40 years.

Biblically speaking, however, the Ten Commandments are given to all the people whilst Moses is at the foot of the mountain (although he has made several treks up and down the mountain by this point), and he then goes to spend time with God. When he discovers the people's unfaithfulness, the punishment is death to those who refuse to repent. It's not until the survivors refuse to trust Joshua and Caleb, as opposed to the other 10 spies, that the people are sentences to wander in the desert until they die. It perhaps not surprising that an animated film aimed at kids edits the material in this way, but the reliance on DeMille is striking. Another example is Moses' banishment after killing the Egyptian. I wonder to what extent the script writers were aware of this as they wrote?This is one of the only films about Moses that deals with each of the ten plagues in turn. The sequence in Exodus does become rather repetitive and so usually film-makers focus on the reaction to one or two before seguing their way through the rest of them, or just omitting / combining some of the ones in the middle before returning to the plague of death at the end. This one gives time to each of them.

One thing I did notice, however, is that it moves the plague of lice to number 2 (rather than number 3). It's an incredibly minor point, of course, but that only peaks my curiosity. Why was this change made? (That's not an objection, by the way, it just strikes me as strange).There were also a few little visual things I wanted to add in her. Firstly, it's interesting how this film makes the giving of the Ten Commandments even more spectacular. In the DeMille films there are pyrotechnics as fire from heaven carves the words into stone.This film goes way beyond, as the two tablets are caught up into the sky in a whoosh of stars, and are gradually lowered in front of Moses. It's one of the film's most original moments, and, sadly, its worst.

As I mentioned in my review, there are, however, some nice visual moments. I was reminded of the God shot during the parting of the Red Sea, which, again, is otherwise very DeMille. There's also a shot during the manna and quails episode of one of the older men, whose naked chest bears the scars of his time as a slave, and lends extra poignancy to the rose-tinted nostalgia that the people are expressing for Egypt and it's food.

The Ten Commandments (2007) - Review

Much of the early criticism of this year's The Ten Commandments has focussed on the animation quality which many reviewers consider to be below par. Whilst it may be true that the standard of the CGI here may not be quite up to the standard of Pixar's The Incredibles, overall I think the harshness of that criticism is a little unfair. The animation of people appears to be the hardest task in the world of CGI, and there are very, very few films which can hold a light to Pixar's family of superheroes. But the CGI in The Ten Commandments is comparable with the brief moments that humans enter the fishy narrative of Finding Nemo or the scary world of Monster's Inc., yet was achieved with a small fraction of those films' budget. The danger is that in demanding only the absolutely highest standards of CGI that this particular form of artistic expression is closed to everyone but the biggest two or three studios. Smaller filmmakers haven't got a change to compete. Twelve years ago Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg struck a blow for smaller filmmakers with their Dogme 95 manifesto. It seems a shame that twelve years later, to many critics' eyes, computer animation is only for the rich.

Given the amount of criticism levelled at the animation it surprising just how much visual creativity is on show in this film. Liberated from the technical restraints of cranes etc. the "camera" is able to swoop about indoors, produce some impressive backdrops, and get low and high angles that an actual camera would struggle to achieve. When Moses throws his staff to the ground in Pharaoh's palace its transformation into a snake is threatening shot from the floor. There are also a number of interesting dissolves.
It's also hard to imagine a live action film would be able to give the same prominence to the pillars of cloud and fire which lead the Israelites in the wilderness. They are present in the other films, of course. Cecil B. DeMille was never one to miss such an obvious opportunity for showmanship. But in a live action film, such a spectacle is just a bit too showy. In contrast, whilst the biblical account is certainly impressed by it's presence, it also implies that it quickly became the norm. Commandments captures the way that these pillars were reassurance of God's presence and leading, rather than simply divine pyrotechnics.

Films about Moses are, of course, so numerous, and so well known, that reference and homage are easy, but originality is difficult. Commandments has examples of both. Moses has died on screen before, but the film adopts an interesting approach. Moses's perennial thorn in the side Dathan is present once again, and here he even looks like Edward G. Robinson who played him in the 1956 film.

In some places, however, the "borrowing" perhaps goes a little far (here, as in The Prince of Egypt such as the crocodiles who snap at baby Moses's basket), but overall the various nods to the other films are fairly deft. That said, when the credits sequence uses animated hieroglyphics to highlight the increasing enmity between Moses and his cousin Ramsees, it's a clear reference to The Prince of Egypt's most impressive sequence, but it's also very effective in it's own right.
One of the things that is very different about this film is the wealth of material it manages to cover in such a short space of time. DeMille's gargantuan epic ran to 220 minutes, and still didn't cover as much of the story of the Exodus as this film does. At 88 minutes (including ending credits) this film is shorter even than The Prince of Egypt's 1 hour 39 minutes, and yet by avoiding silly sub-plots and distracting songs it covers far more material. In addition to the usual prologue, burning bush, plagues, exodus, and Ten Commandments, we're also treated to the stories of the water from the rock, manna and quails, and an extremely downplayed version of Aaron and Miriam's rebellion.

One of the things that will have attracted many of the film's viewers, are the big names that are providing the voices. Moses is played by Christian Slater in his least Nicholson-esque role yet, who is adequate rather than outstanding. But Ben Kingsley (who took the lead role in 1996's Moses) and Alfred Molina do well as the narrator and Ramsees respectively. Less impressive is Elliot Gould as the voice of God who seems to lack sufficient gravitas and kindness to really carry the role.
One unusual aspect of the film is the relationship between Moses and God. Whereas most of Moses's relationships are fairly conventional (enmity with an insecure Ramsees etc.,) Commandments breaks new ground by depicting Moses seeking out God and not just the other way around. When the Israelites complain that it's his fault they now have no straw to make their bricks with, he goes out into the desert to hunt out his Lord.

So whilst this is not a great film, and whilst the computer generated animation is not at the same standard as many of the big-budget productions, this is a reasonably solid telling of the story of Moses, which will be particularly appealing to younger children.

Reviews for The Ten Commandments

Promenade Pictures' The Ten Commandments was released last night, so I thought I'd link to some reviews. Unfortunately my screener only arrived yesterday so I'll not get my review written until Monday.

Joe Leydon at Variety praises Kingsley's narration, but bemoans the "dispiriting visual clunkiness" adding that "blandly rendered characters are wooden in their reactions and stiff in their movements".

Reviews from the major papers generally find both positives and negatives. Mary Houlihan of the Chicago Sun Times says it "mostly succeeds in bringing a new level of humanity to the legendary Moses... but as mainstream entertainment at the multiplex, it doesn't quite live up to animated-movie standards".

Likewise, The Chicago Reader's J. R. Jones is also undecided "The panoramic backgrounds have a silky beauty, but the characters are cheaply rendered with doll faces, enlarged musculature, tiny joints, and clunky movement." Tom Keogh at the Seattle Times calls it "ponderous but somewhat moving".That said, Los Angeles Times / Chicago Tribune's review by Lou Carlozo is very effusive. "There's an endearing, earnest quality to "The Ten Commandments" that transcends its star-studded cast and computer-generated animation".

Overall though the film has not won the critics over. At this moment in time, Rotten Tomatoes is poised at 18% (though 20% from the cream of the crop), whereas Metacritic is currently a slightly more encouraging 25%.

Even Christian Critics aren't particularly sold on it. Decent Film's Steven D. Greydanus rates it C+ wishing "If only the worst that could be said about it were in regard to the stiff, unappealing animation". Peter Chattaway's review or Christianity Today gives it 2½ out of four. "As a straightforward introduction to the biblical story, it is arguably better than some of the splashier or more sensational movies out there. Whether it merits a special trip to the big screen, though, is another matter."

As a film critic, I have to say sifting through the various reviews is made somewhat tiresome by the multitude of weak puns that plague these reviews. (As that one shows), it's really not very difficult to do, so there's a danger that we end up coming across like a bunch of sniggering adolescents.

CT Interviews Producers of The Ten Commandments (2007)

Promenade Pictures' animated Moses feature The Ten Commandments opens in the US tomorrow, and, as is often the case with such films, Christianity Today has interviewed some of those involved. Frank Yablans and Cindy Bond (the chairman and president of producers Promenade Pictures) spoke to Mark Moring about the film as well as the Epic Stories of the Bible series which aims to give the same treatment to another 11 Bible stories.

There aren't many reviews for this film yet. CT's own review should go live in the next 24 hours. Even Variety could only link to a review by Roger Moore of The Orlando Sentinel.

HT to Peter Chattaway

Website for Animated Ten Commandments Film

It's been over 3 months since I posted anything on the forthcoming animated Bible film The Ten Commandments (2007) featuring the voices of Sir Ben Kingsley, Christian Slater, Alfred Molina and Elliott Gould. It's actually due out next month, and there's now two related websites - one belonging to its production company Promenade Pictures, and the other belonging to the series as a whole, "Epic Stories of the Bible".

As you might expect the information on the Promenade site is fairly brief, preferring to point people to its subsidiary websites. It does appear that Promenade are currently "producing" no less than 17 films at the moment. Quite how far down the line these films are is hard to tell. This is the only one listed as an upcoming release, and the other five titles from the Epic Bible Series are also listed (Noah's Ark: The New Beninning (sic), David & Goliath, Samson & Delilah, The Battle Of Jericho, Genesis) even though the next one to be released is Noah's Ark which is still in pre-production (due for release in 2008).

Peter T. Chattaway (whose recent blog posts on this film served as a timely reminder) suggests that actually "none of these stories is particularly 'epic.'" I'm always nervous about the definition of the word "epic" (tending to go with Chuck Heston's maxim that "defining an epic is only slightly less complicated than making one"), but certainly the word has been so misused that it's difficult to know exactly how it should be applied today. Certainly the most epic sounding of the remaining five films is The Battle Of Jericho, which I noted just last week had hardly ever been filmed.

From my initial glance at the official website it seems to be fairly detailed. There's a bunch of downloads (printable posters, wallpapers, web banners, IM icons and music), free resources for schools, church groups and so forth, a competition, a press room, an email list a news stream as well as details of how to register for free movie screenings. I've not had time to register for the press section yet, so I'll perhaps report on that later in the month (along with any more updates that I come across in the run up to this film's release).

There was also an article on this film in Variety recently.

Promo Video for Animated The Ten Commandments

Speaking of Peter Chattaway, he has also dug out a featurette for the new animated version of The Ten Commandments due for release later this year as part of the Epic Stories of the Bible series.

As featurettes go, particularly for animated films, it's well done. There's footage of all four of the main actors (Ben Kingsley, Elliot Gould, Christian Slater and Alfred Molina) in recording, and few soundbites from them - Slater in particular, presumably because he'll play Moses. There are also some shots from the film (including the one captured above).

A few interesting points raised by the video. It's interesting that they opted to record the voices in the same way as The Miracle Maker, i.e. by trying to get the actors all together when they did the recording. They seem to be well versed on recent animated Bible films, there's also mention of The Prince of Egypt (Slater noting that this film goes beyond the parting of the sea). Also mentioned is DeMille's film. One of the talking heads mentions how you can't ignore The Ten Commandments (1956 version presumably) when filming this story.

Curiously though, they seem to have ignored the existence of some of the other live action versions of the Moses story. Several of those interviewed mention how this film will be different because it will portray a more human Moses. Whilst it's not surprising that they miss the fact that 1975's Moses the Lawgiver did just this, it's a strange thing to say when one of the film's stars, Ben Kingsley, also gave us a very human portrayal in the 1996 Moses. ABC's The Ten Commandments (2006) also attempted this, although it's likely that recording for this project was completed before this aired.

Kingsley, Slater, Molina and Gould to Voice Animated Version of The Ten Commandments (2007)

My review of this film is now up, or you can read all my posts on this film.

What is it with the Ten Commandments at the moment? Last year saw Dougray Scott and Paul Rhys star in the new TV mini-series The Ten Commandments (2006). Then later in the year, a DVD was released of The Ten Commandments: The Musical featuring Val Kilmer reprising the role of Moses. Now this year we have The Margate Exodus lined up for a summer release, Dekalog spoof The Ten due in August and now another version of the Ten Commandments looks set to hit cinemas later in the year.

The imaginatively titled The Ten Commandments is an animated feature directed by Bill Boyce and John Stronach and produced by Promenade Pictures. Promenade's official website is still under construction, but there is a profile of the company here. It seems the names behind the company are former Paramount President Frank Yalbans and Cindy Bond who is producing this particular film.

The Ten Commandments will be the first of six bible themed CGI films known collectively as Epic Stories of the Bible. Curiously, the next entry will go back to the story of Noah with The Great Flood.

The film has certainly collected some acting talent to provide the voices. According to the IMDb, Ben Kingsley, who played the lead role in 1996's Moses, will narrate, handing on the part of Moses to Christian Slater. Alfred Molina will play the part of Ramsees, and Elliot Gould will provide the voice of God.

New Zealand Global Talent Community Kea have covered this story mainly looking at the success of of the animators for this project Huhu Studios. According to them at least, this film is based on DeMille's 1956 epic of the same title. Edit: Director Bill Boyce comments below that this film will not in fact be based on DeMille's film hoping instead to "portray a humble, human Moses".

I'll post more on this as it becomes available.