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Transcript
00:00Hello. Nice to see you all again. I'm Zach, and we're going to be talking The Wild Robot,
00:14the latest feature from director Chris Saunders. So if you could please welcome my wonderful
00:18guests. We have writer-director Chris Saunders. We have composer Chris Bowers. We have actor
00:29Lupita Nyong'o. We have actor Mark Hamill. Before we start, we have a clip from the film.
00:59Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't, don't you need that? I have everything I need. All power to exterior.
01:15You call yourselves animals? Let's go! To the island. Hoorah!
01:46Wonderful, wonderful. Chris, with animation, I mean, casting is just so important. The
01:56voices of the actors are just everything here, and I wondered if you could speak a little
02:00bit about your casting process for this, and in particular with Lupita and Mark. Was there
02:05something that you remembered from their work in the past that made you think, oh my God,
02:09these actors are perfect for this role? I have to say, our casting director, Christy
02:15Soper, does such a brilliant job casting this film. Full credit. Absolutely. And she's not
02:24just looking for a great voice to match the characters. She's really looking for character
02:28matches, and there's no better example, I think, than Lupita with Roz, because Lupita
02:34really, really took the lead in deconstructing that character to understand the architecture
02:40of her particular thinking. As a robot, there's a lot of things that are going on there, and
02:46we wanted her to play, believably, as a robot that you could have bought from a very expensive
02:52company, but it had humanity in it so that we could connect as an audience, and also
02:59that we would, you know, believably, she would be something that somebody could buy and integrate
03:04into their lives and do jobs for them and stuff like that. But in finding the thinking
03:11patterns along with Lupita, there was no recording session that I didn't leave with a bunch of
03:18notes to apply to the scenes that we had maybe already recorded, but also to the overall
03:24arc of the character, which was an ongoing thing. So, yeah, it's like, amazing match
03:30just character-wise, not just a great voice.
03:33And Lupita and Mark, this is a slightly rudimentary question, but I've, since I was a child, finding
03:40out how animated films are actually made, I've always been so compelled by the idea
03:45of acting to a mic, and sort of that being the acting that you do, and I wonder if you
03:50could speak a little bit about that process, and also the stamina it takes to come in every
03:55day and just give the same effort when you're coming into the booth.
03:59Yeah, the work of, at least for me, the preparation for a voice role is quite similar to the preparation
04:10for any other role. You want to understand the character, their wants, and how they go
04:15about achieving what it is they want. But then the execution is quite different, because
04:22on a film, on any given day, you're working on one or two roles, but when you're working
04:29in the booth, you're working on anything and everything. So there is an athleticism that
04:37is required, and also, you can't be as precious, and you also have to rely very heavily on
04:46the vision and direction of the director. He's the one who's holding everything together,
04:55and you are catching up, and you're just one piece of the puzzle. You're not even the physical
05:01performance. So it took real trust and faith in Chris, and he's such a great communicator
05:11of where the project is and what developments had been made. It's really collaborative in
05:20that way. You have to really partner to get to where you need to get to.
05:31Well, I'll start talking, even though I've forgotten the question. One thing I love about
05:36animation is it makes every actor a character actor, because they cast with their ears,
05:42not their eyes. So you're going to be able to play parts you'd never get
05:46if you were on camera. And I found it incredibly liberating to discover this
05:53part of the business that I wasn't really a part of for many years. I went to Broadway to try to
05:59get character parts and did seven shows. But when I came back and got into the animation world,
06:06I think the real turning point for me was The Joker, because people just, they'd stop me...
06:10No, no. They'd stop you in the grocery store. They'd go, that's not you. Do the voice.
06:17So you're in Toys R Us doing the Joker voice for some bewildered child on aisle five.
06:22When I was contacted about this particular project, I immediately ordered the book, and I would
06:28recommend you read it. It's just wonderful. And I thought if they can capture just a small portion
06:36of this book's brilliance, we're on a winner. And they knocked it out of the ballpark. I mean,
06:48they knocked it out of the ballpark. I mean, his music, the casting, everything about it. I thought,
06:54oh my gosh, this is a classic that appeals across the board from small children to
07:03old timers like me. So yeah, I couldn't have been happier to be part of it.
07:08On the music, Chris, film composition, like many parts of the filmmaking process,
07:22is changing so much because of technology. But I think you described on this film having a
07:27traditional experience composing the film. And I wondered if you can speak a little bit about that,
07:32working with Chris here, and why was that useful for this project?
07:37Yeah, I would say probably for two core reasons. I mean, first, the process of working with Chris
07:44felt like it reminded me of the relationships between composer and director that I fell in
07:49love with when I was a kid and fell in love with this craft. I remember seeing videos of
07:54Steven Spielberg sitting next to John Williams at the piano, and John telling him what the
08:00strings are going to be doing, what the themes were, what the brass are going to be doing,
08:03and articulating it in that specific and intricate of a way. And I feel like with Chris,
08:11we sat next to each other at my studio every week, once a week, and it was me going through each cue
08:18and playing them for him, and then us getting into the details of like, okay, well, what is
08:23that melody? And where's that coming from? And us looking at the strings and the brass and all these
08:26things. And that level of craftsmanship when it comes to creating a score is something that,
08:34you know, oftentimes we don't really get to experience as composers because score is
08:39becoming more, you know, textural and kind of like a background kind of thing, and more sound
08:44designing and things like that. And so to be able to get into the orchestration and compositional
08:49process with this one was really special. And the other part of it is just how much
08:54I knew from the very beginning with Chris talking about the score needing to be a character in this
08:59film, and there being these, what he would call, houses that he would build for music,
09:03where there'd be little to no dialogue. And sometimes I'd write a cue and he'd actually
09:06take more dialogue out based on how much the music was carrying a lot of the emotional
09:10narrative in those sequences. It also required music to be melodic. And for me, like, the thing
09:17that made me fall in love with film music is when I realized that I could sing a melody outside of
09:22the context of the movie and feel the same emotions, and feel all of this adventure that I
09:26felt when I watched the movie. And having the space to be able to have these melodic statements
09:32and these thematic statements that then are built throughout the course of the film is something
09:37that Chris really encouraged and I was really excited to embrace. And so to focus on those
09:43aspects of the collaboration I felt was really special. Wonderful. Chris, this film is very
09:50moving but it's also very funny. There's great humor in the film. I wondered if you could talk
09:55a little bit about the tricks of your trade of, like, pitching humor that can work for the range
10:00of audiences that are going to watch this, from young children to, like, adults. How do you sort
10:04of balance that? You know, I think that in this film in particular I jumped in and worked on the
10:11emotional, like, wavelengths. And this was a very interesting one because we all talked together at
10:16DreamWorks. Most of the humor is going to be landing when it comes into the animation.
10:22And animation takes a while to arrive. This film has about 50 percent of the dialogue that an
10:29animated film this scale would normally have. So it's got these relatively open spaces and so much
10:35of the humor was going to be coming from the animation. And we all just agreed that it was
10:39going to take a little while longer for it to show up. And full credit to Margie and
10:45Kristen, the execs at DreamWorks. I don't know if they felt anxiety but they didn't show it if
10:50they did that we waited until the animation began coming in. That's really more my thing. I'm not
10:57really, a lot of times I get, like, invited to gag sessions. I don't do really well at those. I don't
11:02really have a lot to offer when it comes to, but the stuff I'm doing is, like, a little bit more
11:05long range, I think. But again, full credit to our amazing animators that they brought so much charm
11:11and so much humor to the physicality and the timing of what they do. And I think it's just the
11:16purity of animation was going on in this particular project.
11:20And the question for you all, this is a film that's very interested in the idea of sort of chosen family and what it takes to defend that.
11:28And I wondered why do you think that theme has resonated so much with audiences today?
11:33Well, Chris made me aware of the fact that in most animations the mother is missing.
11:47And the mother is missing in order for the adventure to happen, right? But this film
11:54is really an homage and a celebration to motherhood and parenting and also to the
12:04unique bond between a mother and a child, whether biological or chosen or what. And so it's,
12:12I think one of the reasons why it's been so well received and it's resonating is because
12:19we all can relate to being either a parent or a child. And it does so with an earnestness that is
12:30beautiful. I think oftentimes in art, when it's advanced, we get kind of highbrow and we don't
12:37want to be earnest. But the book was earnest and I think this film is earnest and it appeals to
12:45a pure part of ourselves that just seeks belonging and love.
12:59And Mark, I was intrigued by what you said earlier about the book and obviously you've
13:03worked on animated films before and I wondered, what is it about source material that makes you
13:07think, oh, this is something I could take a punt in? Is there a specific thing that you think,
13:13oh, this could work? What is that that you're identifying?
13:18Absolutely. Yeah.
13:19I didn't understand the question.
13:20Sorry. My question was, when you're looking at the source material of a film,
13:25animated film, what are you looking for that makes you think this could work?
13:30Well, like I said, I read the book and it's such solid source material. What I was thrilled about
13:36is they kept the illustrations were so important to the overall piece and they kept the exact
13:46style of the drawings in the book. I also want to point out for extra credit that I
13:51wore animation themed socks. These are my Beatles yellow submarine socks,
13:58which of course has nothing to do with the film, but I do love animation.
14:07And Chris, we were speaking a little bit about this earlier that at a previous contenders event,
14:13you spoke about the potential of a sequel happening and I wondered if you could talk
14:18any more about that and what we could expect when we could expect it.
14:22There's nothing really happening at this point. I think we're just going to wait and see how this
14:25one plays out and all, but Peter did write three wonderful books. We did everything I think in the
14:32first one. So this is the first book and we were very, very careful to end this as the first book
14:38ends. And that was a bit of a trick because at this point, I'm not going to tell you exactly,
14:43if you haven't seen it, I'm not going to ruin it, but there's a certain particular
14:47arrangement of characters at the end of this that was necessary to be true to the book.
14:51And it was a trick to make sure that we could do that, but also find a way to make this absolutely
14:57a standalone. If another one never comes along, that this one will stand alone and be satisfying
15:02and complete. So we were very, very careful to make sure-
15:06I wonder if Peter knew he was going to do, when he did the first book, did he know he was going
15:11to do additional books? Too bad he's not here today to answer that question.
15:16That's a good question. Yeah.
15:18Yeah, it's a good question.
15:20See, I bring everything to a complete standstill. That's my job.
15:25We'll have to ask him. We'll have to get him on the next panel.
15:29We're out of time. So thank you guys so much.