Looking from the Sky

Looking from the Sky is a 2007 animated romance drama film directed by Robert Fredrickson and produced by Taito Okura, Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Bob Yari. The film is about a girl named Pamela Coleman (Alexa Vega) who one day, while hopsitalized, befriends a boy (Haley Joel Osment) who had been hopsitalized for much of his life due to various birth defects, and the film chronicles the budding relationship between the two of them along with some other events in their lives. It is told through the perspective of an adult Pamela (Julia Roberts) recounting the events to the audience.
Produced by Bob Yari Productions and Playtone and animated by Gonzo, the film was released on August 17, 2007 by Yari Film Group and Paramount Vantage. It received positive reviews from critics, with praise towards the chemistry of the two leads, the animation and voice acting and grossed $84.6 million against a budget of $10 million.
== Plot ==
Coming soon!
== Cast ==
* Alexa Vega as Pamela Coleman
* Haley Joel Osment as Elliot Moore
* Michael Rosenbaum as Dr. Russ Santiago
* Alan Arkin as Pierce Alvarado
* Jim Belushi as Floyd Thornton
* Scarlett Johansson as Mrs. Coleman
* Jess Harnell as Mr. Coleman
* Zac Efron as Stephan Malcolm
* Hayden Panettiere as Brittney Schneider
* Maurice LaMarche as Mr. Annable
* Rachael Leigh Cook as a nurse
* John Ingle as the hospital director
* Dee Bradley Baker, Joshua Seth and Yuri Lowenthal as Stephan's goons
* Minnie Driver as the principal
* Katie Leigh as Kara Clark
* Steve Burton as Shawn Gardner
* Townsend Coleman as a radio announcer
* Grey DeLisle as Mrs. Moore
* Jeff Bennett as Mr. Moore
* Julia Roberts as the narrator/adult Pamela
=== Additional voices ===
* Dee Bradley Baker
* Tom Kenny
* Sirena Irwin
* Eddie Carroll
* Jennifer Hale
* Kath Soucie
* Carlos Alazraqui
* Steve Staley
* Susan Blu
* J.B. Blanc
== Production ==
=== Development ===
This was the second film project Robert Fredrickson had come up with, around the time he was developing Rulers of the City. According to Fredrickson, he inspired the film's story from his teenhood, and how he had come down with hepatitis A whilst in the hospital, and during then, he befriended a fellow boy who had a slightly similar condition as the character of Elliot, though his supposedly wasn't as critical. In fact, Fredrickson stated he had to make the lead character a girl because he felt that it would hit too close to home if he made the lead character a boy, but he did feel it opened the perfect opportunity to make it a more romance-oriented movie. Fredrickson also wanted to show that he could make a more family-friendly movie that would have the same impact as Rulers.
In 2004, after the success of Rulers of the City, Fredrickson was able to ink a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures for what was then going to be called The Boy from the Hospital, and it would also gain the attention of producers Bob Yari, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman. It was announced in 2005 that the film would be produced by Bob Yari Productions and Hanks and Goetzman's production company Playtone and that Paramount and Yari Film Group would partner to distribute the film. Budgeted at $10 million, it was initially planned to be released under Paramount Classics, but was later transferred to Paramount Vantage upon the company's formation in May of 2006.
=== Writing ===
Fredrickson would write his script for the film during production of Rulers, and was assisted by writing duo Babaloo Mendel and Lowell Ganz during then and when the script was revised. In addition to his time in the hospital, elements of the story were inspired by James Hurst's short story The Scarlet Ibis, which Fredrickson had previously read whilst in high school; namely, Elliot was loosely inspired by the character of William "Doodle" Armstrong from that story. According to Fredrickson, it took quite a bit of research to figure out how to realistically write the character's condition to explain why he managed to live to around the same age as Pamela.
Floyd Thornton was loosely based off Robert Fredrickson's father, Garrett Fredrickson, as was Pamela's father. Stephan Malcolm was loosely based on a classmate Fredrickson knew in high school who played basketball, though he confirmed his personality was very different than Stephan's. Brittney Schenider, though a character Fredrickson had already thought up for the film, was loosely inspired by someone Lowell Ganz once knew; he and Fredrickson both thought the idea of a popular girl who likes the attention but is still very supportive of Pamela to make for an interesting dynamic between them both. In addition, the voice actors were allowed to improvise lines and full on conversations for various scenes, namely minor ones. According to Bob Yari, some of these had to been cut or toned down as some of these lines were "completely inappropriate for a PG rated movie".
=== Casting and Voice Recording ===
Alan Arkin was the first actor to join the cast, taking up the role of Pierce Alvarado, and he did so due to him having been a fan of Rulers of the City and due to his interest in taking a voice role in an animated feature again, having previously voiced Schmendrick in the 1982 Rankin/Bass production The Last Unicorn. Multiple actresses and voice actresses were considered or had auditioned for the part of Pamela Coleman, and finding the right voice for her proved to sort of a challenge. The role was eventually cast to Alexa Vega. One of the actresses who auditioned for Pamela, Hayden Panettiere, would be given the role of Brittney Schneider, as Robert Fredrickson, Bob Yari and Tom Hanks liked her audition enough to give her a role in the movie. Initially, Robert Fredrickson wanted to get Sigoruney Weaver to do the voice of Pamela as an adult, who was the film's narrator, but he instead decided to get Julia Roberts to do the voice after seeing Erin Brockovich; he felt her voice had a sort of storyteller quality that really suited the framework of it being set in the past. Tim Allen was also considered for the part of Floyd Thornton before Jim Belushi was cast.
Recording sessions took place at Studiopolis in Los Angeles, California, with additional ADR recording taking place at Warner Bros. Studios. Susan Blu, who served as the voice director for the film on the behalf of Fredrickson, primarily made sure the voice performances were as realistic and natural as possible, in order to add to the realism of the movie's story. Several performances in the film, namely the improvised scenes, were done in group recording sessions to better allow the actors to bounce off one another. During this time, the film's title was changed to Looking from the Sky, at the request of Paramount Pictures.
=== Animation ===
Recognizing some of the criticism of Rulers coming down to the quality of the animation, Robert Fredrickson decided to contract the animation for Looking from the Sky to Gonzo, Inc., who was becoming well known in the West for their work on Hellsing, Full Metal Panic, and Basilisk. The animation production process for Sky was similar to that of Rulers; the character, background and prop designs would be done by Japanese artists, storyboarding would then be done in Los Angeles, California before being translated into Japanese and sent to Gonzo's facility in Suginami for animation production, and then finally post-production would be handled once more in Los Angeles. Hiroki Harada served as the movie's animation director whilst translation was headed by Shigeru Ouichi.
As the film was explicitly set in Denver, Colorado, a few of the background artists flew to Denver in order to find visual inspiration for locations and settings. Photos of locations they picked would be used as reference in the drawings. In addition, the backgrounds would also be produced in CGI by fellow anime studio Satelight, Inc.
=== Music ===
Initially, Patrick Doyle was offered to do the movie's score, but he had to decline because of scheduling conflicts with Sleuth, with Christopher Lennertz taking up the role of composer. Sire/Warner Bros. Records released a soundtrack album for the film in 2007, shortly before the film's theatrical release.
== Release ==
=== Distribution ===
Yari Film Group and Paramount Vantage jointly partnered to distribute the film worldwide. Yari handled the theatrical distribution in the United States whilst worldwide theatrical distribution and marketing was covered by Paramount themselves. In Japan, the film was released by neither Paramount or Yari, but by GAGA USEN Corporation. Following the film's theatrical release, Yari would handle the television distribution for the film, whilst Paramount handled the worldwide home video distribution for the film, displacing Yari's usual home video partners, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, in the United States. Following the bankruptcy of Yari Film Group in 2008, Paramount assumed all remaining rights from Bob Yari Productions, with the company licensing the television syndication rights to Trifecta Entertainment & Media.
=== Marketing ===
The movie's first trailer debuted before the release of Freedom Writers on January 5, 2007 and was later attached to the releases of Arthur and the Invisibles, Miss Potter, Catch and Release, Music and Lyrics, Bridge to Terabithia, The Astronaut Farmer, Gray Matters, Wild Hogs, Black Snake Moan and The Namesake, and would also be available for viewing on the movie's website. The second trailer for the film was released in April of that year and was attached to the theatrical releases of Year of the Dog, Next, Kickin' It Old School, Lucky You, Spider-Man 3, Fast Track, Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Gracie, Ocean's Thirteen and Surf's Up. When asked about why they promoted the film on films such as Black Snake Moan, Paramount stated they were aiming for teen and adult audiences.
A website for the film was launched that same year, with features such as bios and filmographies on the cast and filmmakers, a snyposis on the film, production notes, a stills gallery, a downloadable screensaver, and the film's trailers. The movie's TV spots first began being released in July and ran through September.
=== Home media ===
Paramount Home Entertainment released Looking from the Sky on DVD and HD DVD on January 15, 2008. The DVD release came in two editions, a single-disc standard edition and a two-disc "collector's edition", with the single-disc release's only bonus features being an audio commentary, the film's second trailer and a selection of other previews and different language and subtitle options while the second disc on the two-disc set contains three behind-the-scenes featurettes, two deleted scenes, interviews with the cast and crew, production notes, biographies on the cast and crew, the music video for the movie's credits song "Whenever You Remember" by Carrie Underwood and a stills gallery; these additional features were included on the same disc as the movie and other features on the HD DVD release. The film's release on home media proved to be very successful, with Paramount ranking in about $16.3 million in DVD sales a month after it's release on the format.
After the discontinuation of the HD DVD format on March 28, 2008, Looking from the Sky became one of the first new titles from Paramount Home Entertainment to be released on Blu-ray after the company initially announced they would exclusively support HD DVD in 2007. The Blu-ray release came out on May 20, 2008, alongside the Blu-ray releases of Face/Off, Next, Blades of Glory and Bee Movie, and was largely based off of the HD DVD release with some minor alterations. Paramount re-issued the film on DVD and Blu-ray on September 12, 2017, for the film's tenth anniversary.
All the home video releases contain the picture Pamela takes with Elliot in the forest, which is seen various times in the movie, as a collectible item inside the case.
Category:2007
Category:2007 animated films
Category:2007 films
Category:Paramount Vantage films
Category:Yari Film Group
Category:Walden Media
Category:Walden Media films
Category:Walden Media animated films
Category:Gonzo
Category:Anime-influenced animation movies
Category:Carl Andy Timeline