Jeff, Greg Sherman on The Boys: Interview
Songwriters Wrote for Disney's Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh
Aug 21, 2009 Dominic von Riedemann
With Disney's new documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story, filmmakers Jeffrey C. and Gregory Sherman pay tribute to what may be one of the greatest songwriting duos of the Twentieth Century: the battling brothers who wrote tunes for musicals like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
In Part #3, the film-making cousins talk about the generational differences they ran into when making their documentary. In this installment, they discuss various 'eureka moments' and how the director of Animal House helped them find their way.
Was there a point, in making the movie, where you found yourself going off track and how did you get back on?
(They pause, look at each other for two seconds)
Gregory Sherman: “That’s a great question.”
Jeffrey Sherman: “It was difficult at the beginning because we had so much material, and we both fell in love with little sections, and we papercut little things.
“What we did was, we kept going back to ‘What’s the story? What’s the story?’ and we had to weave – I always compare it to 3-D chess, because you would have to take the personal story, the career story, the family story and our grandfather’s story and weave all these things and make it into a cohesive piece. That was the hardest part and–“
Greg: “We would also have editors who had their own agenda, and Jeff and I were co-directors, but we’d never worked together before, and to find the right editor who would be part priest, part psychologist, part everything and help us tell the story in the best way possible, and not have his own agenda: that was another challenge too. A couple of these editors were a real handful for us.”
Jeff: “We’d gotten on tangents, and we knew that wasn’t the story, but we did surround ourselves with people who would tell us, ‘This isn’t important.’ The other thing that was great was John Landis (director of Animal House and Beverly Hills Cop) took a real interest in it, and said, ‘I wanna come down and see what you guys are doing.’ He came down and sat with us in the editing room for a day and said, ‘You don’t need this part, you need more about this. Why didn’t you use this part of the interview, this is better!’ (they laugh)
Greg: “I believe John’s exact quote was, ‘I’m not going to let you guys f**k this up!’ (everybody laughs) And he worked with us to ensure that we didn’t do just that.”
Jeff: “We had a lot of screenings along the way, and get audience responses . . . it took a while before we found the story.”
Greg: “There was a very strong premise that we got funded for: things that stayed within that premise stayed in the film, and things that didn’t fit the premise–“
Jeff: “Fell off.”
Where was the ‘eureka’ moment, where you felt you’d found the heart of the story?
(silence)
Jeff: “There were several, really.“
Greg: “There were a lot of ‘eureka’ moments, because there were so many layers to the thing. There were some wonderful things: there was a ‘eureka section’ where they showed the creative process, and we cut that together with someone talking about ‘I was in their office and I watched them do this.’ Then, being able to illustrate that with actual footage of them doing their thing. That was a wonderful moment, but I wouldn’t say it was the seminal moment.
“There are sections of the film where, when we got the section the way we wanted it, those were ‘eureka’ moments, and there were numerous of those.”
What was the biggest pleasant surprise: something came together that you didn’t expect, and what was the most unpleasant?
Jeff: “For me, it was when we were trying to figure out my dad’s War experiences, and there were two very big issues: he got shot in the knee, and he liberated Dachau – he was the first American to enter the concentration camp. First, we had it linear and it was not working. And then we found a spot between Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Bedknobs and Broomsticks – and I know it sounds really silly – but they were both dealing with the Nazis. It was a really horrible thing but it fit perfectly with the story, and it defined my dad–“
Greg: “At the proper moment. It was a great ‘Ah-ha!’ moment for us, absolutely. And cutting together certain sections about their childhood, where one’s saying ‘I didn’t really know him that well’ and the other's saying, ‘Oh, we were so close.’ And we know those moments work, because they were real and it does illustrate the friction between them, and what made this incredible body of work come to life.”
You’re in an elevator with a stranger. You have to pitch The Boys to them within 20 seconds. What do you say?
Jeff: “The three words that are out there are ‘Brothers, partners, strangers.’ That’s the simplest boiling down of it. And, considering these are the guys that wrote all these great songs . . . I guess for me, I would say, ‘It’s not unusual for brothers to fight. Brothers in business fight quite often, but to do this for 60 years and create this beautiful body of work, that’s what the soul of this thing is for me. That’s the miracle of the story.’”
Greg: “For me, it would be: ‘The guys who wrote Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh and The Jungle Book, the guys who wrote the foremost family entertainment of the past century couldn’t stand to be in the same room. Now go watch the film!” (everybody laughs)
The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story opens August 21st.
(To learn more, click here to read Suite 101's exclusive interview with legendary songwriter Richard Sherman)
Robert and Richard Sherman
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