Connect with Deadline online!
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
Category
đč
FunTranscript
00:00 [film reel clicking]
00:03 - Hey everyone, Anthony D'Alessandro
00:13 from Deadline Hollywood.
00:14 Thank you so much for coming out to Netflix's Nimona.
00:18 I mean, look at this turnout.
00:20 I mean, if I had free cars, I would be like,
00:22 you get a car, you get a car, you all get cars.
00:24 I mean it, this is a wonderful turnout.
00:26 So this movie is up for original animated film
00:31 at the Oscars and it had the most.
00:34 [audience applauding]
00:38 You are a great audience.
00:39 And it was up for nine Annie Awards,
00:43 the most Annie Awards this year.
00:47 And it won two last night.
00:49 It won for writing for Robert L. Baird
00:52 and Lloyd Taylor's script and also for voice acting
00:56 for Chloe Grace Moritz.
00:58 [audience applauding]
01:01 And it is a gorgeous movie.
01:03 It's a fun, fun, fun ride.
01:06 There's a Q&A afterwards with the movie's directors,
01:09 Nick Bruno and Troy Quain and producers,
01:12 Karen Ryan and Julie Zachary and the voiceover actor,
01:16 Eugene Lee Yang, who plays Ambrosius Goldenloin
01:20 in this movie.
01:20 So please stick around for that.
01:22 Thank you so much.
01:23 You guys are great.
01:24 Thank you, seriously.
01:25 [audience applauding]
01:26 So let's get started with introducing our guests.
01:30 She's the producer of Nimona.
01:33 She's worked over at Sony Image Works.
01:36 She has a ton of VFX credits on movies
01:38 such as the Angry Birds movie, Alice in Wonderland,
01:41 Polar Express, Tron Legacy, Julie Zachary.
01:45 [audience applauding]
01:47 She's an animation professional.
01:50 She's worked over at Walt Disney Animation.
01:52 She's worked on movies such as Wreck-It Ralph,
01:54 Big Hero 6 and Moana.
01:56 Producer, Karen Ryan.
01:58 [audience applauding]
02:01 He is an actor, director, producer and writer
02:04 of such digital work that's been on Buzzfeed
02:06 and he's a member of the YouTube group, The Try Guys.
02:10 Their stuff has been viewed billions of times
02:12 as the voice of Ambrosius Goldenloin,
02:16 Mr. Eugene Lee Yang.
02:18 [audience applauding]
02:23 And he's the co-director of the global grossing hit,
02:27 Spies in Disguise and an animation vet.
02:30 He's worked on movies such as the Peanuts movie,
02:33 Ferdinand, an Ice Age collision course,
02:35 Nimona director, Mr. Troy Quain.
02:38 [audience applauding]
02:42 And he also directed Spies in Disguise.
02:48 He's a Blue Sky Studios vet.
02:50 He's worked on Peanuts movie, Dr. Seuss,
02:52 Horton Hears a Who, Ice Age,
02:54 Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Rio and Epic,
02:57 Nimona director, Nick Bruno.
03:00 [audience applauding]
03:03 So this is, you're nominated for
03:11 an original animation Oscar.
03:13 You had the most Annie Award nominations.
03:17 If all of you could talk about,
03:18 this has been a long road for this movie.
03:22 And I don't think this audience knows
03:25 how long a road it has been.
03:28 So if we can go back to the beginning,
03:30 from its origins, tell them the whole story.
03:33 From Blue Sky to Megan Ellison and Anna Perna, everything.
03:38 Feel free to talk.
03:40 - I was born in 1980.
03:41 [audience laughing]
03:43 To a humble beginning in Mohegan Lake.
03:46 We're gonna go way back.
03:47 I was born in 1970.
03:48 - Jesus.
03:49 - Oh yeah, that's the first.
03:51 - In a small town in Northern Ontario, Canada.
03:55 We had no internet.
03:56 Or like, no.
03:57 - Let me see if I can give the quickest abridged version.
04:01 It started with Indy Stevenson,
04:05 this amazing graphic novel that also, yeah, yeah.
04:09 [audience applauding]
04:12 It went to be optioned with Fox.
04:16 Then they started working on it.
04:18 Then Fox was bought out by Disney.
04:20 Disney was not very excited about the LGBTQ+ themes.
04:28 Aw, yeah.
04:33 So much so, in fact, they end up closing the studio,
04:39 Blue Sky Studios, which was my home and house
04:42 and family for many years.
04:44 And the movie was dead.
04:46 The movie was killed.
04:48 But because of this group,
04:50 because of Megan Ellison and Annapurna Pictures.
04:54 [audience applauding]
04:54 That's right.
04:55 She saved the movie
05:00 because she believes representation matters.
05:02 [audience applauding]
05:06 Yeah, so, I mean, she spent a lot of money
05:12 to get it out of that Disney vault.
05:13 I think it was like eight gazillion dollars,
05:15 I think is the actual--
05:17 That's a real number.
05:18 That's a real number, yeah.
05:19 But I just wanted to just pick up a little bit on that
05:22 because of the era we live in, in film at the moment.
05:26 And it was incredible.
05:29 It was really incredible what Megan did.
05:30 I mean, we live in a moment where I think it was great
05:35 for Megan to see the value of what this movie had to say,
05:39 that film has more of an intrinsic value
05:42 than simply being a tax write-down for certain studios
05:47 who view these things as simply commerce.
05:51 But that's important.
05:53 I mean, we went from being a write-down
05:55 and a put-on-a-shelf to being up for an Academy Award.
05:59 Like, going from dead to the heights of Olympus
06:01 is pretty incredible.
06:02 [audience applauding]
06:05 How far along were you in development when Megan saw it?
06:11 Did you have any kind of rough cut?
06:13 Yeah, I mean, it was one good thing we had,
06:16 we had our story reels.
06:17 The movie you just watched is about 95% of what we had
06:22 when Blue Sky was closed down.
06:23 So we had our whole story reel cut.
06:25 We had Eugene, Chloe, Riz, and a lot of the reels.
06:29 We were about 75% through layout
06:32 and four sequences, I think, approved through animation.
06:34 You were nine months away.
06:35 We were about nine months away
06:36 from finishing the movie out the door.
06:40 So yeah, it was tragic when they closed Blue Sky down
06:43 and even more so when they didn't let us
06:45 just finish the journey of this film.
06:47 And we got the reels together.
06:51 We were gonna share it with the crew on a Thursday.
06:54 And we got news that Tuesday
06:56 they were shutting the studio down.
06:58 So that was a bit of a kick.
06:59 But we all sat and we said,
07:02 "You know what, we're gonna screen this anyway."
07:04 'Cause it was such a labor of love for so many people.
07:06 And it was really hard.
07:09 We were all sitting on Zoom,
07:11 like 400 people on the Zoom call,
07:14 watching this movie together and crying and laughing
07:17 and realizing what it all meant.
07:19 And no one wanted to hit that leave Zoom meeting button.
07:24 One guy did, we know who it is.
07:26 (audience laughing)
07:28 But we still love him anyways.
07:29 But yeah, it was really,
07:32 and having to call Eugene and all our cast
07:35 and say, "The movie's done, we're gone."
07:39 And then it was definitely this moment of like,
07:43 "Nah, we're not gonna go quietly."
07:45 - I do wanna add though,
07:46 that this is a group of filmmakers.
07:48 We know how to make movies.
07:49 We don't know how to sell them.
07:51 We certainly don't know how to scrape them out
07:53 of the Disney vault and take them on the road
07:55 and show them to different studios.
07:57 So we went quickly from filmmaking team to,
08:00 "What does turnaround mean?"
08:02 Figured it out and found Megan Ellison,
08:04 who saw herself in that content
08:06 and the strength of the reel she really connected with.
08:09 But we started over from being in a giant studio
08:12 with tons of resources.
08:14 We had all worked our careers, Sony's, Disney's, Fox,
08:17 all of these places where you have all of these departments
08:19 and you can make a movie very comfortably
08:22 within a studio system.
08:23 We all of a sudden weren't independent.
08:25 So not only did we shop the movie around and find it a home,
08:29 but we made the movie by ourselves
08:32 with the support of Annapurna and then Netflix.
08:35 And the movie that you see on the screen
08:37 is our movie.
08:39 Another, it's 100% us.
08:42 And a lot of cases, these notes,
08:46 and like Nick mentioned, these notes on,
08:49 "Hey, let's talk about the themes,"
08:50 or "Let's change this," or "We have a problem with
08:53 "the gay thing," which was, actually happened.
08:57 We didn't get any of those notes
08:58 and all we got was support from Megan and Netflix.
09:00 And the movie that you see is the movie
09:03 that we wanted to make.
09:03 And she said, "How can I help you?"
09:05 So that does not happen.
09:07 And we're very proud of it.
09:08 (audience applauding)
09:10 - Who on your team reached out to Megan?
09:12 - It was like a game of telephone.
09:15 It was a phone call to one person
09:18 who connected up with us to another person,
09:19 asking advice from other studios,
09:22 talking to the bank, talking to our family.
09:24 What do we do?
09:25 How do we get investors?
09:26 And eventually the universe kind of
09:28 got everything together and Megan had seen the reels.
09:32 And it was through the love of the reels
09:36 and what we had that we were getting so much
09:39 strong support and so many people wanting to help us.
09:41 And that's how we got Megan.
09:43 - So quite often when here's on an animation film,
09:47 you start off in one direction,
09:49 you work on it for like a year or two,
09:51 and then it gets scrapped and there's a whole 180
09:54 and it becomes a completely different film.
09:57 Was that ever the case with this
09:59 or is this a very faithful adaptation
10:01 of the graphic novel?
10:03 - This was definitely the case with this movie.
10:06 We spent a long time working on these reels
10:08 and it was, the graphic novel is incredible.
10:11 There's so much in it and we went down
10:13 all these different roads.
10:14 This movie was in development for 10 years.
10:18 Yeah, and I mean, tons of work
10:21 and very cool things were coming out of it,
10:23 but it wasn't until we opened up the story to the crew.
10:28 So something we did at Blue Sky
10:29 and something these guys were really, really good about
10:31 was not just asking for feedback,
10:33 but really involving the entire studio
10:35 in the story that we were telling.
10:36 We wanted to bring the graphic novel to life,
10:39 stay true to all the things we loved about it,
10:41 but we wanted these characters to feel like the people
10:43 that we know and that we love,
10:44 and so people can see themselves on screen.
10:46 And so we did that, but that also made it
10:49 that much more heartbreaking when the studio closed
10:52 because Blue Sky was an incredible place,
10:54 but Nimona was like our movie that we were all a part of.
10:58 Yeah, so.
11:00 And this is my bad, I should know this.
11:03 Were there other projects lost when Blue Sky shut down?
11:07 Like was there several or was it?
11:09 Nimona was the furthest along, but there was,
11:13 yeah, no, I mean, it was, Blue Sky Studios
11:15 was one of the major players in the animation space,
11:18 so there was probably five or six projects
11:22 in healthy states of development that were moving forward.
11:26 We had a slate of a film a year, 500 people.
11:30 So there was a lot that happened when the doors shut
11:34 and the lights went out.
11:36 What I think is important to say is that,
11:39 I mean, that happens in animation all the time.
11:41 We've all worked on movies that have been scrapped
11:44 and usually just sort of say like,
11:45 okay, there's a lot of good work there and lessons learned,
11:48 but you do walk away from it.
11:49 With this movie, again,
11:54 because of how much representation matters,
11:56 working with people who grew up
11:58 the outsiders of their own kingdom,
12:02 relegated to the shadows,
12:04 you just knew you had to continue to fight for that.
12:08 That's what kept everybody alive is,
12:11 we knew it was a movie that a lot of our friends
12:14 and family needed.
12:16 And we knew there was very little chance of that happening
12:21 for a little while.
12:23 Like I just heard one of our favorite Disney studios,
12:27 I won't mention which one,
12:29 but they're working on something
12:30 and they recently just scrapped it
12:32 because they were worried again about going down that road.
12:35 I'm sure you could do your homework
12:37 and figure out which one it is.
12:38 People are not taking that chance.
12:43 They don't realize the importance we can have
12:46 for the kids in our community.
12:47 - What kind of response have you gotten to the film
12:50 in terms of how it's touched people in the community?
12:53 - Oh, it's been really incredible.
12:54 I think a lot of the work I had done 10 years prior
12:58 on digital was pretty front-facing with my queer identity.
13:01 I've been in constant conversations and advocacy
13:04 about the nuance of representation on screen.
13:08 You kind of hear from most things like,
13:09 oh, this is the first time we have blank.
13:11 And we also really love that there's a queer kiss
13:14 that happens in the background
13:15 that they can cut for the foreign markets.
13:18 There's always some conversation
13:19 about things being actually important.
13:21 But when I was told about this project
13:23 and when they approached me for casting,
13:25 it felt already like it was its own little
13:29 rebellious revolutionary project
13:31 because I was familiar with ND Stephenson's work.
13:33 I watched "All She-Ra."
13:34 I knew about "Nimona" and read it.
13:37 And I was like, well, this is not just like,
13:39 for lack of better terms, not a little gay.
13:41 It's like really queer.
13:42 It's like super queer.
13:44 And I mean, the protagonist is essentially
13:46 transgender non-conforming.
13:48 This is a non-binary story.
13:50 This is a story that is rarely if ever told,
13:54 especially in like a large feature animated platform.
13:58 So seeing that sort of struggle to find yourself on screen
14:02 was also represented through the production process.
14:05 Like this idea of the little girl against this big machine
14:09 and being able to overcome that.
14:11 And not only overcome that,
14:12 but to get to this point where it's nominated for an Oscar.
14:15 I think it just is showing not just the fact
14:18 that this was a rarity,
14:20 because we want to keep emphasizing,
14:21 it's so rare to get things saved.
14:23 It's so rare to get things made, but it happened.
14:26 So it's hopefully the first of many.
14:29 That means that studios out there,
14:30 like there is someone out there who can help
14:33 and create these things,
14:34 make sure that they're heard and seen.
14:36 Sometimes it's just one person.
14:38 And sometimes it's one person
14:39 who's making sure it's not seen.
14:40 So it really is telling that at the very least,
14:44 Simona at this moment in time is representative
14:47 of what we hope is the beginning of a major shift.
14:51 And I think that's real representation.
14:53 (audience applauding)
14:57 - And for all of you, what kind of reaction have you heard?
15:00 - I mean, it's been amazing.
15:05 Filmmakers were entertainers.
15:09 So there's been so much incredible,
15:11 like that movie was really fun and it was really funny.
15:14 And it had a great time, which is great
15:17 'cause that's what you want.
15:18 But the other aspect of that is
15:20 after we've done so many screenings
15:21 and had a chance to communicate with people,
15:24 the amount of sharing and opening up
15:26 and that personal connection has been staggering.
15:30 And on a level I've never experienced in my career,
15:33 I had this one Q&A afterwards, this gentleman came up,
15:39 I could tell he wanted to ask a question in the audience
15:41 and he didn't want to, and he came up afterwards.
15:44 And he started talking about the third act.
15:45 You just watched the movie,
15:46 that Nimona approaching the sword.
15:47 I mean, you're laughing, but you're crying.
15:50 And then there's some really heavy sort of mental health
15:53 sort of considerations.
15:54 And he said, "I was watching that moment."
15:57 And then he stopped talking and he just leaned against me
16:00 and started sobbing and wrapped his arms around me.
16:02 And I literally just held this stranger
16:05 for about five minutes while he cried.
16:08 And then he said, "Thank you."
16:10 It was just, he was like, "I'm in a much better place now.
16:14 "I feel seen, I feel strong."
16:16 But there was a moment when that was me.
16:18 And I felt so humbled that this person felt so comfortable
16:22 after watching a movie that we all made together
16:24 to share such a personal part of themselves.
16:26 I think, I hope as much as everyone can go and have fun,
16:30 that people realize these things do affect people
16:34 and they do have power.
16:36 - And I know ND often cites this story,
16:38 talking about he's the creator of the story.
16:41 His family knows about this for a very long time,
16:44 but the film, the actual film opened up
16:46 this new avenue of conversation about his trans identity
16:48 with his own parents that wasn't existent before.
16:52 Sometimes we need these types of art and media
16:55 reflected upon ourselves to use as a communication tool.
16:57 'Cause many families don't have that.
16:59 And I haven't talked about this much,
17:00 but my mother knows what trans identity is now
17:02 because of this.
17:04 'Cause she was like, "I get the gay couple thing."
17:07 (audience laughing)
17:09 What's with the pink?
17:10 She's a rhino and then she's an ostrich.
17:13 And I'm like, "Yeah, that's pretty much it."
17:15 And she goes, "Okay, I get it."
17:17 So like even on a small scale,
17:18 it's not just the kids out there who might need it.
17:20 There's so many people out there who just need
17:22 the first step in an open conversation
17:25 about things within the LGBTQ plus umbrella.
17:28 And sometimes the most beautiful and seamless way to do that
17:32 is through an amazing animated picture.
17:34 And I think "Nimona" just has splendidly opened up
17:37 a lot of those doors.
17:38 - I would like to add something that's brought me
17:41 a lot of inspiration and hope throughout all of this.
17:43 We talk a lot about how hard it was to make this movie
17:45 and how many no's we got
17:47 and like literal shutdown that happened to us.
17:50 But the community in the animation community
17:53 and the people, the individual people that we have met
17:57 while showing this movie, while trying to save this movie,
17:59 there's been this overwhelming support
18:02 for what we're doing with this film.
18:03 And this movie is just, it's joyful.
18:06 People are coming up to us and sharing that
18:08 they're feeling all these things,
18:09 but they're also just having a really good time.
18:11 And that's so inspiring to me that people wanted to help.
18:15 Like we did not know what we were doing
18:17 and we tried really hard, but it was everyone that we met
18:20 who wanted this movie to be seen, who saw themselves
18:22 and who wanted more content like this.
18:24 And so I look at the no's we got from these big studios
18:28 and from people telling us there was no place for this.
18:30 Like our journey proves there is a place for this.
18:32 People want so much more of it.
18:34 (audience applauding)
18:35 Right?
18:36 And it's up to, like we can do this.
18:39 So we just have to keep making more content
18:40 that we believe in and then supporting each other
18:42 when we see that and we will change this.
18:44 And then this will be the majority.
18:46 (audience applauding)
18:49 - So talk about the style of the movie.
18:54 It's got, I mean, it feels like it has
18:57 this beautiful hand-drawn quality to it.
19:02 - That's a true statement.
19:04 Yeah.
19:04 (audience laughing)
19:07 Now, we were very much, you know,
19:11 when coming up with the film,
19:13 Patrick Osborne and Jeff Turley had done some amazing art.
19:17 And one of the things that they wanted the movie
19:21 to feel like is just even visually,
19:24 it felt other than a lot of what you'd see
19:26 in a typical CG film.
19:29 So what's one of the themes that happens so often
19:32 in the film is it's got one handheld
19:35 in this medieval sleeping beauty kind of feel,
19:38 the classic fairy tale, but then it's done in CG
19:41 and it's done with like a Star Wars-esque flying cars
19:46 and cool lasers and stuff like that,
19:48 just to feel that mashup.
19:51 'Cause that's also a lot like the world we live in, right?
19:54 We have all this advances in technology,
19:56 but we still have a mindset in the futile past.
19:58 So yeah, so it's great.
20:01 It's a great view on our world.
20:03 (audience applauding)
20:08 - Now, when Eugene was cast,
20:11 the production designer took a different approach
20:14 with your character.
20:15 Tell us more about that.
20:16 - So like Nick said, when we came on,
20:21 there'd been a lot of beautiful artwork done.
20:24 The movie had been going for about five years,
20:26 I think at that point.
20:28 So it was very limited amount of adjustment we could make,
20:33 but one of the things that we felt was super important
20:37 to this film is, you know, Ballester's this person
20:41 wrongly accused of something he didn't do.
20:44 And the one thing driving him to get back to this
20:46 is this idea of this love,
20:48 this person he's connected to so dearly
20:50 that it's worth fighting an entire kingdom to get back to.
20:53 So we knew that the character of Goldmoine,
20:55 we really wanted to give that character
20:57 a lot more emotional weight in the story
21:00 than say the graphic novel necessarily had.
21:03 And so we had the ability to sort of adjust one character
21:07 and that character was Goldmoine.
21:08 And Aidan Sugano, the character designer,
21:10 had really lobbied for, again, wanting diversity of,
21:15 in every sense, and it brought us actually a picture
21:21 of Eugene and some of the digital work
21:24 he'd been doing online.
21:25 And we were like, oh my God, this is perfect.
21:26 Not only is it perfect, it's just an icon
21:30 of what we want this character to look like.
21:31 We want to cast this guy.
21:32 And so that's when we went out to Eugene
21:35 and so it's the one character we adjusted for the talent.
21:40 - Which is funny because I knew the graphic novel,
21:43 so when I did my first read, I kind of played it like a dick
21:46 'cause when they said, "We think you're perfect."
21:48 And I'm like, "Okay, I don't know what that means."
21:50 - Thank you.
21:51 - 'Cause Goldmoine in the graphic novel, if you know,
21:53 is like, he's a little bit more of a cad.
21:55 So I was really excited.
21:56 I'm like, "I'm gonna fucking be the worst."
21:58 (audience laughing)
22:00 And then they said, "No, no, no, intimate, authentic,
22:03 "be in love."
22:04 And I was like, "Ah, fine."
22:05 And then so I remember after the first screening
22:09 with my boyfriend, he turned to me and he said,
22:10 "You speak way nicer to your fake boyfriend
22:14 "than you do to your,
22:17 "I'm glad you're gonna inspire all those kids, but."
22:20 We're gonna have a very long talk when we get home.
22:23 - But I mean, Goldmoine, I mean,
22:25 look at this glorious coif.
22:27 I mean, if you're not inspired by this hair,
22:30 then there's something wrong with you, I think.
22:32 I'm completely jealous of it personally.
22:34 I can't. - Your hair's great.
22:35 - I try, but I can't.
22:36 - I'm sorry, I wish I had very long flowing hair
22:38 like OG Goldmoine's,
22:40 then it might've been a little different,
22:41 but that's expensive to animate.
22:42 - So my favorite scene in the movie
22:46 is when Nimoda turns into the whale
22:49 and then goes through all of the floors
22:51 and then there's that great thing with the statues falling
22:54 and they go out the window.
22:56 How hard was that to execute?
22:59 Just a wonderful, amazing,
23:05 big screen kind of action scene like that?
23:07 - I mean, animation takes a very long time.
23:11 Everything's difficult, but it's really not that difficult.
23:14 And what I think, (laughs)
23:17 yeah, 'cause we make cartoons.
23:19 It's not like we're pouring concrete and actually working.
23:22 For that scene, what was fun is that was a bunch
23:29 of animators and story artists and layout camera people
23:33 just having fun, right?
23:35 'Cause it was like, we need to get them out of the prison.
23:39 We need to get them out of the institute,
23:41 but Nimoda wants to destroy everything.
23:43 She's gonna make Ballester believe she's trying to help,
23:46 but she's gonna destroy everything.
23:47 What kind of fun can we have?
23:49 And that's the beauty of animation
23:52 is just all these amazing artists just having fun
23:55 and pulling all their stuff together in such a great way.
23:58 - And on top of that,
23:58 Ballester does not wanna go with this character.
24:00 I mean, she represents everything he's been taught
24:04 to dislike in this kingdom.
24:06 So, I mean, the way we like to approach an action sequence
24:10 is you can have big set pieces.
24:12 You can have a lot of fun, actually.
24:13 Like Nick said, that's the bread and butter
24:15 of what everyone does.
24:16 So you can make anything look slick and be exciting,
24:18 but if it's not about something,
24:20 you go, the stuff's moving, it's loud,
24:23 and your brain sort of switches off.
24:25 And so again, it's making sure that you know
24:27 at the core of it what that character dynamic
24:30 and that struggle is,
24:31 and then you let that drive the big action
24:34 so that all that comedy, all that action is about.
24:38 At the end of the day, one character is saying,
24:40 I'm gonna get you out of here,
24:41 but I'm gonna do what I wanna do, which is break everything.
24:43 And one character's like, I don't wanna be going with you.
24:44 I'm trying to get away from you, and I can't.
24:47 So it's always an exciting thing to find that balance.
24:51 - We're gonna open it up to two or three questions
24:54 for you guys, 'cause you've been great.
24:56 Over here.
24:58 - Yeah, hi, yeah.
25:00 So I know this is a very big question,
25:02 but how do you guys feel about being
25:05 in an Oscar nomination and over Disney?
25:09 (audience laughing)
25:11 - Listen, I'll be very honest.
25:14 We're artists.
25:16 Awards are not gonna make us feel better about what we do.
25:20 But what is important about this,
25:23 what's very important is a win,
25:27 an Oscar win would be a win for representation.
25:30 And that is, yeah.
25:32 (audience applauding)
25:35 That is incredibly important for us.
25:37 That's why we're doing the long haul
25:39 and trying to meet with as many people,
25:40 because to Eugene's point,
25:43 every individual makes a difference when it comes to that.
25:45 And a win like that might really help
25:48 pave the way for more films.
25:50 But we didn't do this for spies in disguise.
25:52 When we made-- (laughing)
25:55 We were just like, that's a dumb move.
25:56 We turned a spy into a pigeon, and nobody needs this.
25:59 (audience laughing)
26:02 - Well, pigeons.
26:03 Pigeons do that.
26:04 Pigeons are a grossly underrepresented species of bird.
26:07 - Yes, #birdsofatheather.
26:10 - One thing I've learned kind of being adjacent
26:11 to this world for the past year
26:13 with meeting all of these amazing animators
26:15 and the directors of the other nominated films
26:17 and other films I greatly respect,
26:18 'cause I thought this was a really strong year in animation,
26:21 like hugely incredible, was that like,
26:23 I was just talking to Peter Son
26:24 and then Phil and Chris from Spider-Verse,
26:28 and just everyone's loving each other's work.
26:31 All the creatives, all the animators,
26:33 everyone who's kind of like ground level
26:34 and looking at it through that lens
26:36 is like highly, like hyper supportive of each other.
26:40 So certainly, there are issues.
26:43 I just think a lot of those are definitely
26:45 and should be aimed at like top level.
26:47 And so that's where for sure,
26:49 there's a lot of criticism to be had,
26:50 but a lot of love in those rooms.
26:52 - Yeah, I do have to double down on that
26:54 because Spies in Disguise really is not a good movie.
26:59 (audience laughing)
27:00 Now-- (laughing)
27:01 - No, I love Spies in Disguise.
27:03 What are you talking about?
27:04 (laughing)
27:05 - Okay.
27:06 No, but this industry, this industry,
27:09 there are, the animators in this industry
27:12 are like the world's collective biggest hug
27:14 you could put together.
27:16 Everybody at Sony, Disney, DreamWorks, Netflix, everywhere,
27:20 all they wanna do is get stories like this out there.
27:23 This year was a great year for telling diverse stories
27:25 in diverse styles, but that is kind of a fluke
27:30 in that it was only because I know how hard
27:33 all these directors pushed for that
27:35 against the odds of studios, where when we say studios,
27:38 I say like two or three shitheads at the top of each studio
27:42 pushing back, saying this is too dangerous,
27:45 we're not gonna get our money,
27:46 can we just make another cheeseburger
27:48 that everyone will eat?
27:49 And that's what people love for animation.
27:51 But again, it's so important that we support these movies
27:53 for these reasons.
27:55 (audience applauding)
27:58 - Yes, yes, yeah.
28:04 - I have a question.
28:06 You said that you asked other people on the crew
28:10 for their input, and I wanna say it's definitely,
28:14 I took that from you, because even though
28:16 you started out with possibly telling a story
28:19 about transgenders and gay, I see it for all marginalized.
28:24 And I'm a clinical psychologist,
28:25 I think it should be in every school.
28:27 - Oh, that's good.
28:29 - I'm gonna get very emotional,
28:30 because I saw when they were shooting up the world
28:33 or whatever, the school building shot up.
28:35 And I want you to know that you did an amazing job,
28:39 an amazing job, because there's so many people
28:42 that have tried to do this with different pieces,
28:44 and I think you've talked to every single person in here.
28:47 And so I really have a question.
28:49 (audience laughing)
28:50 - That is the best question we've, yeah, that was, no.
28:54 Thank you.
28:55 (audience applauding)
28:56 But I do just, I know there was a question,
28:58 but I just wanna, like, it was important for us
29:01 to follow up with truth.
29:03 And like Nick said, and Karen and Julie,
29:06 like, when you have a crew sharing personal experiences
29:11 and stories and opinions, and you know what you have to do,
29:16 you know, you want that honesty
29:18 to resonate with an audience.
29:21 I mean, we, in the third act, when Ballester arrives
29:24 on that sword to stop Nimona, we had two pages
29:28 of the most beautifully written script work,
29:31 like Ballester was saying all the right things.
29:33 It was wonderfully planned.
29:35 I mean, Riz was gonna just, you know,
29:38 deliver the shit out of that speech.
29:40 Like, it was gonna be, it would have been incredible.
29:42 And yet, talking to our group of animators,
29:46 there was one animator who just honestly,
29:48 in the middle of the meeting, said like,
29:50 "I just really always wanted my family to say I see you."
29:53 Right?
29:54 And we were like, like, there it goes.
29:57 Like, how much more perfect?
29:58 Like, that's all you need to say.
29:59 That's all most people want, is just see me.
30:03 Don't assume, don't apply from labels,
30:07 don't take other people's words, but just see me.
30:09 And that one statement let us know
30:12 how to drive Nimona's whole story.
30:13 I mean, we could have put her backstory
30:15 right at the beginning.
30:16 We were trying to figure out where to do that.
30:17 We could have had her say, "No, but there's a reason.
30:19 "Everyone's wrong."
30:21 We didn't, because Nimona shouldn't have
30:24 to explain herself.
30:24 No one should have to explain themselves.
30:27 You know, we, that's for us.
30:29 (audience applauding)
30:31 Just get to see what someone is trying to say
30:34 and what they're trying to be.
30:35 Give them the chance and let's go from there.
30:38 And sometimes, like you just said, it takes one person.
30:40 So it was, thank you.
30:41 I know those are questions,
30:42 but I just wanted to follow up on that
30:43 because it was a really important thing for us.
30:45 And I'm so happy that it comes through
30:47 in the film that you just watched.
30:48 (audience applauding)
30:51 - Yes.
30:52 Yeah.
30:54 - Oh, okay.
30:55 So I have a big interest in,
30:58 when it comes to films and stuff like that,
31:00 one thing that I'm really interested in
31:02 is more behind the scenes stuff,
31:05 specifically scrapped content,
31:07 like deleted scenes, like concept art,
31:09 like just stuff that didn't make it
31:11 into the film to some degree.
31:13 That's something I'm really fascinated by.
31:14 So were there any deleted scenes
31:17 or just things that maybe you felt like,
31:21 oh, this would not work in the way we wanted it to,
31:24 just stuff like that?
31:25 - No, we have an innate ability
31:26 to get it right the first time.
31:28 (audience laughing)
31:29 I mean, I don't wanna speak too highly of us.
31:31 No, I think, Nick, I think you should say
31:33 the one scene we didn't.
31:34 - Yeah, and you'll know instantly why it's not in it.
31:37 So in the graphic novel,
31:40 Nimona could cut off limbs
31:44 and reheal herself.
31:47 - I think you see where this is going.
31:49 - Originally, when we were going into the subway
31:52 and it was like, I need to create a diversion,
31:55 something small, something,
31:57 she just started like cutting off limbs
31:59 and spraying blood and be like, oh my God, what is that?
32:01 And we thought that was funny.
32:04 (audience laughing)
32:07 But just us.
32:09 (audience laughing)
32:12 - Who was the clinical psychologist?
32:17 We'll meet you at the front after.
32:20 We recognize we need help.
32:27 - Yep.
32:27 - Just to that, we have 10 years of artwork
32:31 that was done for all these different roads we went down.
32:33 We do have the "Art of" book, we just put it online.
32:36 So this, the whole thing, it's free, you can click on it.
32:40 We can share the link with you after this.
32:42 So if you want, and if you have any questions,
32:43 like we'll answer them, but it's all there
32:45 and it's super cool and very weird.
32:47 So enjoy it.
32:48 - Yeah, we're trying something different
32:49 and it's making zero money on this movie.
32:53 Because again, it's because we and Megan Ellison
32:57 really believe in that representation
32:59 and people seeing themselves in this material.
33:02 - Netflix has been awesome to share that forward, so.
33:05 - Are there more LGBTQ+ projects
33:10 that you're working on in animation
33:12 that you could share with us?
33:13 - Yeah, I mean, from this point on,
33:15 I don't see why anybody should not have some element of that.
33:18 Like, what's really important is we,
33:21 whatever movie we make,
33:23 it represents the world that we live in.
33:25 It's very simple.
33:26 - But nothing specific IP wise or--
33:32 - The Gay Adventures of Nick and Eugene
33:34 will be coming out, pun intended, next summer.
33:39 - You've been doing great in the gay bars.
33:45 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:46 Thank you, thank you.
33:48 - It's part of the education curve.
33:49 We've just been taking them to queer spaces
33:51 after all of our screenings.
33:53 And it's been cute, it's been very cute.
33:54 I feel like I'm with lots of my uncles.
33:56 Cool uncles, not the other type.
34:00 - Thank you.
34:01 Again, the clinical psychologist is right there.
34:09 - Gotcha.
34:10 Netflix's Nimona.
34:13 (audience cheering)
34:14 Let's thank our guests, producers Julie Zachary,
34:17 Karen Ryan, Eugene Lee Yang,
34:19 Troy Quain and Nick Bruno, thank you.
34:21 - Thank you everybody.
34:22 - Thank you. - Thank you.
34:25 (beeping)
34:27 (film reel clicking)
34:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]