Chris Weitz Likens Robert Pattinson Fans to "The Birds" :)

After watching the videos and going deaf from the screams I agree with him ;)

Interview by Lev Grossman at Time Magazine:

... so yeah, I was late.

But Chris Weitz was very mellow about it. We talked about Twilight fandom and the lessons of Golden Compass and Weitz's natural estrogen levels. But we will begin in medias res with a chat about the Twilight panel from that morning...

Chris Weitz: It was this crazy thing, which everybody was kind of warning us about. 7,000 Twilight fans in a room screaming for Rob.

Me: It's an uncanny sound. I think only teenage girls can make that sound.

That high, keening noise.

It's like Beatlemania.

That's the only thing I can think of, the Beatles. You see old footage of that type of thing. It happened in Montepulciano, when we were shooting there. It was like The Birds, but with young girls. You'd turn a corner and there would be one or two or three. And the next time you looked there would be 10, 20, 50, 100.

Then before you know it gas stations are exploding.

Exactly. I think basically the panel today would have worked perfectly for the fans if it had just been us sitting there, and they could just look at Rob and Taylor. Maybe Rob and Taylor would move a little.

Taylor seems the most comfortable with this level of scrutiny. He doesn't squirm as much.

It's funny. In a way he's the least prepared for the intense scrutiny, but he's very balanced about it. Whereas I think Rob and Kristen are very sheepish about it. Not that they don't appreciate it. But they're thrown a bit by it.

They just seem very human about it. I mean, who would not be freaked out by that?

If you enjoyed it too much it would be weird. It would mean you were addicted to that kind of adulation. The thing is, there's so much love coming towards you, but you can't really tell whether it's towards the characters or the actors themselves, or towards an image in the media. and that's strange.

How closely did you follow the look-and-feel of the first movie in New Moon? Did you want to make it your own? Or do a seemless transition?

I think there's a balance possible. I do want to make it my own, and I'm not really interesting in tweaking the world in the digital intermediate so that it gets this kind of blue gloss which the first movie had. (Gozde: Ouch! True but ouch for Catherine) I'm much more interested in having a fuller palate, and a richer palate. And we're able to shoot some scenes in sunlight, eventually, which is really kind of nice. And to shoot interior scenes that have a kind of rounded glow to them, like the Volturi ... bad-guy headquarters, for want of a better term.

The footage today looked great, and there wasn't even any FX in it.

Not that you would notice. There's little stuff like, everytime you see Edward as an apparition he's been shot against a green screen and then taken out of the picture, and then treated and put back in. So you do a lot of work just to make it seem like he's sort of there. And then there's a lot of wire removal and stuff that you don't notice.

I hope there's sparkling in this one.

There will be lots of sparkling.

Is it weird to be a guy directing Twilight? Since it's a franchise that's considered more for … the ladies?

I think at first it was odd for the fans when I came on board. There was a question of whether I was going to kind of try to bring some amped up macho mentality … I wouldn't even know how to do that. I think I'm pretty fem. I have a lot of estrogen. (Gozde: I love you Chris, I do :) And David Slade scares me. Maybe we should give him some estrogen as well?)

At first Stephenie was a bit surprised that I had been brought out as a first choice. But we met and chatted and it all worked really well.

These are the parts concerning Rob to read the rest go to Time Magazine :)