“THE PROPOSAL,” directed by Anne Fletcher and starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, is being released June 19, 2009 by Walt Disney Pictures.
At the helm of “THE PROPOSAL” is Anne Fletcher, the former dancer and choreographer whose first directorial effort was the 2006 hit “Step Up.” Fletcher solidified her reputation as an inspired and confident director with the international box-office success “27 Dresses,” starring Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Ed Burns and “THE PROPOSAL’s” Malin Akerman.
Anne on Anne
Known and appreciated by cast and crew for her great spirit, irreverence and the way she would literally dance onto a set, Fletcher is as meticulous as she is energetic. Fletcher sees her work as a choreographer as preparing her for her role as a director. “Choreographers for film choreograph for the camera, not the stage,” she says. “We’re thinking about all the different angles. I used to break down
the characters, read the whole script to figure out why are these people dancing? Where do they come from and where are they going that they have to dance? Does the dance further the story? So you’re kind of doing the leg work that a director does. You’re understanding where the camera needs to go, what helps to make the scene look dynamic or small. I think it helps having that eye and understanding that things need to move to be interesting.”
A Physical Energy
“Anne’s energy is physical,” says veteran director of photography Oliver Stapleton. “Her background is choreography and dance, so her intuition and sensibility are based on something extremely earthy, which isn’t very common in directors. Most directors are very intellectual people who tend to exist from the neck up while some others exist all in the heart. I’ve never worked with a director who springboards from her physicality. Anne has a very unique way of choreographing the actors, and I don;t just mean the physical movement of ‘you walk from A to B,’ but rather having an incredibly clear sense of how a scene works.”
The Real Deal
“Her energy is endless,” Bullock says. “But that’s only surpassed by how great she is at her job as a director. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked with someone who was as thorough, as thought-out and as good at her job as Anne is. I’m so happy to come to set, because I know that if I do my work, she will have done it a thousand times better. She knows the ins and outs of everyone’s role and doesn’t allow anyone to go too far. If you’re stuck, she knows exactly what it takes to bring you out of it. As a director, she’s the real thing.”