RATATOUILLE’S PARIS:
A BREATHTAKING NEW WAY TO LOOK AT THE CITY OF LIGHT

Paris may be the most photographed, painted, written about, dreamed about and adored city in the world – but RATATOUILLE manages to take an entirely new look at it. The story of RATATOUILLE unfolds in two very different but equally enchanted sides of the city: an ethereally charming and urbane world of restaurants and cafes above ground; and the intricate, mysterious, industrious realm beneath the streets where Django’s furry family makes their home.

“Paris has been seen many different ways, but never from a rat’s point of view,” muses Brad Bird. In revealing this whimsical vision, Bird worked closely with production designer Harley Jessup, who found himself with one of the most exciting missions any animated designer has ever been issued: not only to distill the essence of the City of Light into a CG world, but to create a landscape that is more than just a backdrop, but a character that breathes passion and life into Remy’s world.

Naturally, Jessup started with an inspirational journey, along with director of photography/lighting Sharon Calahan, to France. “We were looking mainly at color, shapes and surfaces,” Jessup explains of their whirlwind trip. “It really inspired us to use a very different kind of a palette than ever before. We realized that much of Paris has this kind of classical, stone quality that is then filled in with little accents of color. We’d see a woman walk by in a red coat and she would just sparkle against the gray background – and we wanted to get that in the film. That’s why the palette is more muted than any other Pixar film. It was a little scary, because usually animated films are so outrageously colorful we were using colors more as accents, but I think the restraint of color can also make it much more powerful.”

When it came to flourishes, Jessup was less restrained. “We wanted to create a classical, fairy tale Paris,” he says. “It’s already such a magical city but we made all the spires and domes a little more prominent to really accentuate the enchanted aspect of it.”

Although many of the film’s locations are fanciful, Jessup faithfully recreated several legendary landmarks, most notably the Pont Alexandre III, the beautiful arched, lamp-lined bridge that spans the Seine, where Linguini and Remy first form their reluctant partnership. “That’s really a low point emotionally for Linguini and Remy so Brad wanted it to play out against the dramatic scenery by the Seine with the soaring Notre Dame cathedral in the background,” explains Jessup. “We tried to recreate it very authentically.”

Even the oft-praised Parisian skies inspired the production design. “There’s a very particular look to French skies, which is why Impressionism was born there,” observes Jessup. “There’s a beautiful quality to the light, a slightly misty quality, and we really tried to find ways to add that touch to all the outdoor scenes.”

When it came to researching for the underground world of Remy and his fellow rodents, Jessup got to literally see the underbelly of Paris, descending into the famous flowing sewers beneath the city that Napoleon himself pioneered. “We toured the sewers as well as the catacombs and the quarry tunnels where all the limestone was quarried to build all the famous structures,” recalls Jessup. “It was really a trip of polar opposites – crawling around the sewers by day and dining at the finest restaurants by night! But that’s also what the movie is all about: a rat like Remy isn’t supposed to go to the places where humans go but that’s where he winds up.”

Since Jessup found the real sewers a bit too dank and narrow, he embellished upon them. “We wanted a more evocative, dramatic feeling,” he notes, “but at the same time, we didn’t want it to be too grand, either. We use some of the same classical shapes we use in the human world up above but in a rougher way, in a sort of mossy, algae-covered way. We also created the rat encampments to have a kind of Gypsy character. There’s a very warm, family feeling that comes out of the little scraps of cloth and French wine boxes they use and the campfire they live by.”

Remy’s family uses their environment in all kinds of clever and creative ways. Jessup especially got a kick out of creating the makeshift boats on which they escape from the French countryside into a storm drain. “All of the little boats are made out of found objects,” Jessup muses. “They’re made out of barrels and watering cans and tea pots and it’s a lot of fun.”

Effects came into play in creating the rapids that the rats are sucked into in their ramshackle watercraft. “It’s technically very challenging to deal with moving water,” notes effects supervisor Apurva Shah. “There was a lot of effort that went into creating the whole environment for the river and creating that dynamism with the rain and the river and the exodus of the rats. There’s been a lot of work done in the last few years in coming up with simulations to make water look and behave more realistic, and we took advantage of that.” To assure authentic understanding of how rapids work, Shah and his team even took a trip down the Class III American River near Sacramento!

The piece de resistance for Jessup was designing the place where Remy first gets a taste of his dreams coming true: the kitchen at Gusteau’s. “The design of the kitchen evolved over about two years,” he says. “We visited lots of real French kitchens and used some very specific references from them. The main difference is that our kitchen is much more open, whereas many kitchens are a series of small, interconnected rooms that wouldn’t work cinematically. But we still kept the separate areas where the baking is done, where the fish is cooked, where the meat is cooked, where the cold food preparation is done and so forth, so we needed quite a large space.”

That space becomes the scene of all kinds of comic mayhem when Remy enters it, which also challenged the film’s directors of photography. Although Remy loves to cook, a human kitchen is filled with dangers he has to avoid, from falling into pots to paddling through a sink filled with dishwater, which leads to much of the film’s physical comedy. Says Robert Anderson, director of photography/camera: “A lot of times, the cameras are hustling just like the kitchen is hustling. In some scenes you’ve got Remy cooking in his own world and the camera will start out graceful and flowing with the music as he prepares this amazing meal. And then suddenly, Remy will be discovered in the kitchen and now the camera’s chasing after him, as people are throwing things at him and he’s almost getting run over and thrown into an oven. The camera is always right there with him.”

The dining room at Gusteau’s was equally important to the film’s whimsical look. It was inspired by an amalgam of several famous Parisian restaurants, including Guy Savoy, Taillevent, La Tour d’Argent and Le Train Bleu, the beloved Belle Epoque dining spot in the Gare de Lyon railway station, as renowned for its grand, eclectic décor as for its classical cuisine.

“We were inspired by several French restaurants – but Gusteau’s is the most ornate restaurant of all,” confesses Jessup. “It’s filled with huge, gilded arches, ceiling murals and thick red drapes, and it’s palatial in scale, making it the perfect backdrop for tiny little Remy to try to become a chef.”

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THE RECIPE FOR SUCCESS:
CREATING RATATOUILLE’S DELECTABLE ARRAY OF FINE FOOD
Once inside Gusteau’s, Remy gets the chance he has waited for all his life – albeit in disguise -- to completely revamp their fading menu with his own creative concoctions. For the filmmakers, bringing to life this culinary world that means everything to Remy in an accurate and exciting way was key to the entire story.