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00:00Hello everyone and welcome to Deadline Contenders, the nominee's panel for The Wild Robot.
00:05Joining me today is writer-director Chris Sanders, composer Chris Bowers,
00:10and supervising sound designer Randy Thom. Welcome.
00:13Hey, great to be here.
00:16Before we get started, let's see that clip.
00:24I can't fly!
00:26You don't need to.
00:30Don't be afraid.
00:49Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't you need that?
00:51I have everything I need.
00:54All power to exterior.
01:00You call yourselves animals?
01:02Let's go!
01:04To the island.
01:05Hurrah!
01:30Oh boy, that just makes me want to start tearing up again.
01:35I've seen this film so many times at this point.
01:41So first thing that I want to touch on, and I feel like I've spoken to Chris so many,
01:47Chris Sanders so many times about this film, and I'm always asking him about the animation style
01:52here, but this clip just really shows how absolutely breathtaking the animation style
02:00is on this film.
02:02Can you talk a little bit about kind of creating this amazing aesthetic?
02:08I mean, just showing there this kind of beautiful...
02:12even the fire is just absolutely gorgeous when you look at it.
02:17Yeah, Ramon Zeebeck, our production designer, very, very early on, I think in the very first
02:24explorations of the moment, he moved, I guess, to the side of that typical orange
02:33color that you would expect in that kind of thing.
02:36And of course, our inspiration, as always, was Bambi, which that was a landmark moment
02:41in that film, and I think in cinema was when they did their animated forest fire.
02:45So we moved towards a more magenta look, again, just to freshen it up and just to refresh
02:51the audience.
02:53And in our earliest teaser trailer, we had one shot from that sequence.
02:59That trailer was made up of shots that we were pushing forward deliberately ahead of
03:04schedule because we wanted to make that teaser.
03:06So the one shot in the teaser does not match the one in the film.
03:10The one in the film is a little bit more fleshed out, and there are characters there that had
03:14not yet been rigged.
03:16Nonetheless, it was still that magenta, and people reacted really positively to that.
03:21Of course, overall, the painterly style is on full display and to full effect in this
03:28sequence.
03:30From the moment, and they were always, they being our designers, Ramon and Jeff Budsberg,
03:36our VFX supervisor, constantly surprising me with what they were able to do.
03:42Again, constantly refreshing the film, refreshing the audience and waking us all up over and
03:50over again.
03:50So just that moment where Roz tears open that door on the floor, when she tears open that
04:01moon door, the color that rushes in, it's just so dramatic.
04:06At that point, she's entirely painted as well because she started as a CG element without
04:11a painted surface.
04:12And then by this point, she is integrated into the rest of the styling of the film because
04:16she also has a painted surface.
04:18So everything has come together.
04:20And the way they did the brushed effects on the explosions as well, it was just incredible.
04:28I love that you can go see this film and see something you have literally never seen before.
04:34Absolutely.
04:34And this scene, the impact of it would definitely not be the same without the swelling score
04:41underneath it.
04:43Chris, can you talk a little bit about scoring for that moment?
04:48Yeah, it was a lot of fun to shape with Chris.
04:54One of the first memories I have of this sequence in particular was actually something that
04:59to me really proved the malleability of the main theme, which is, I think it was Chris
05:06and Mary Blee, our picture editor, tried as temp taking the I could use a boost cue and
05:13placing it over this to see how it felt.
05:15And it just really connected emotionally to hear that main theme reiterated here.
05:22And so then I took that guidance and crafted this version of that main theme in this sequence.
05:30I remember working with Chris to make sure as she opens up that hatch and jumps out that
05:37there's kind of like this brief moment of this brief gap in the music to kind of have
05:42this like, you know, hold your breath feeling as she falls out.
05:45And then I remember when they added those shots of Bright Bill growing up and then deciding
05:51to change the music there to have it get softer and have like this more sweet version of that
05:56theme.
05:56And it felt, you know, pretty emotional to see that reflection and then to hear that
06:03that melody happen underneath that.
06:06And then through the rest of it, it just kind of continues to build on.
06:10First, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like
06:15First, it's the family theme in that moment as she's falling down and she talks about,
06:18I have everything I need.
06:19It's that main theme.
06:21And then once she kind of tucks into the ball and barrels through the forest, it then transitions
06:27to her theme for the most part.
06:30And it was fun to also like continue to revisit this thing about a moment where I'd actually
06:38written some music for the trailer and there was this like triumphant trumpet thing that
06:42happened.
06:43And Chris was like, I really love that.
06:44Can we try adding that to this moment when she tucks into the ball?
06:47So there's like this really big high D in the trumpet that that happens right as soon
06:52as she tucks into the ball.
06:54And then going to the mix was a lot of fun to see how, you know, Gary and everybody else
07:01can work on balancing the score with those efforts.
07:04Like I think about that moment where they're all pushing down the tree and how we had to
07:09be very mindful of like, okay, do we keep the strings really up and active so that
07:14we can feel that motor, but bring the percussion down so the percussion is not stepping on
07:17all of their efforts as they're pushing over the tree.
07:19And so whenever I see the sequence, I just think about the collaboration, you know, between
07:25starting with like me and Chris and Mary, and then even all the way down to the final
07:28mix.
07:29And again, the stress test of that main theme working in this instance and feeling emotional
07:36felt like a great success in terms of whether or not that theme had that, that was able
07:43to travel across the film in that way.
07:46And Randy, I feel like sound design in animation is often overlooked a lot.
07:54And this scene, especially, you can really see how important it is.
08:00Could you talk a little bit about designing the sounds for this scene specifically?
08:06Sure.
08:07You know, all movies have a sound style, just like they have a visual style.
08:12And this scene is like a great microcosm of the whole movie, in a sense.
08:20And the sound style, both in terms of the music and in terms of the sound design grow
08:25directly out of Chris Sanders design of the film.
08:29One of my big nitpicks about American animation is that it tends to rely too much on dialogue.
08:37And this movie has quite a bit less dialogue than the typical, at least American animated
08:44film.
08:45And the great thing about that is that it allows, I think, the movie to be more cinematic
08:51than it would be otherwise.
08:52It allows space for Chris Bowers and for the sound design to really shine and to help tell
09:02the story.
09:03And if you listen to the sound of this sequence, you'll hear that design of the way the scene
09:13is set up visually, and in terms of having nice holes in the dialogue, allows the music
09:20and the sound design to take turns to kind of pass the baton back and forth between each
09:27other.
09:27In one moment, a sound effect or set of sound effects will be featured.
09:32Another moment, music will be featured.
09:35And one of the jobs in the mix, of course, is to do that transition gracefully enough
09:41so that to the audience, it feels perfectly natural and like they're hearing everything
09:47they're supposed to be hearing at any given moment.
09:49But this is the kind of scene that if it had been designed badly as a sequence, as a visual
09:59sequence, as a storytelling sequence, would have been just hell to mix because everything
10:05would have been competing with everything else.
10:08But Chris Sanders had the wisdom to do otherwise.
10:12And so it was just a blast to mix the sequence so that when that door gets opened, we hear
10:19the whooshing of our principal characters falling through the air, and then we hear
10:25the explosions of transport blowing up and the great sound effects of the trees being
10:34knocked over and the splash into the water, etc.
10:38And it was just a joy to work on.
10:42It's funny you mention this idea of American animation relying a lot on dialogue, especially
10:50because the wild robot at the beginning of the film, there's only one character that
10:55can be understood when they're talking until Roz can actually understand other characters.
11:01So really, it's very much dependent on sound and score at that point.
11:06Yeah, so Chris Sanders, can you talk a little bit about just kind of creating this film
11:14where you're really kind of changing how you kind of changing expectations in that way?
11:23Absolutely.
11:25I knew from the from the from the moment I read the book that we had to move in a completely
11:31move in a completely new direction.
11:33In order to faithfully get this narrative up on screen, there were going to be a lot
11:39of things we were going to have to adjust.
11:42But the one thing that we were doing all these things for was to keep the really the heart
11:48and soul of the story intact.
11:50So I cleared characters out from the book to the screenplay.
11:54One of the things I always liken this to is that a book is a boat, and it can hold a lot.
12:00A book is a container ship.
12:02So because you can digest it at your own pace over weeks or months.
12:07But a film is an airplane.
12:09It has to be lightweight.
12:10It has a schedule to keep.
12:12It has maybe, in our case, an hour and a half to get to its destination.
12:17So you need to lighten the load so you can clear out space.
12:19And there's two reasons for that.
12:20One of them is the clarity of the core story.
12:23But the other one was, it was very important that for this film in particular, we don't
12:27feel like we're on schedule.
12:28We don't want to feel like we're being pushed along artificially because we have a robot
12:32who's lost.
12:32And she doesn't, again, she doesn't have a schedule.
12:35So we want this to feel like we're in nature and everything is happening at its own pace.
12:39So that's another reason we had to open up space inside the story.
12:44And the lack of dialogue.
12:47A lot of American animation, as Randy pointed out, relies on a near constant feed of humor.
12:54And we wanted a balanced film as far as drama and humor as well.
13:00But it was going to take our film months longer for our humor to arrive because it wasn't
13:06dialogue based.
13:07It was going to be physicality.
13:10And one of the things we talked with the DreamWorks execs about is, it's going to be a while
13:15before the humor arrives.
13:17It will arrive, but it's going to be a little bit late.
13:20And everybody collectively was willing to sit on their hands and deal with, I think,
13:26the suspense until our animation began to arrive.
13:30And there was a day that we had a scene that it was the one where Roz is, she's deconstructed
13:36by the little raccoons in the forest that when she's offline, they take that as an opportunity
13:42to strip her for parts.
13:44And when we started seeing that, I remember people actually said, oh, there it is.
13:50It is going to be funny.
13:52So yeah, so everything about this film from the look of it to the pacing to the wide open
13:56spaces, it really did take a completely different direction.
14:02And early on, we talked about that with Margie and Kristen, the execs here.
14:07And I said, you know, this is going to be a really different movie.
14:09Are you OK with that?
14:10And Margie said, that's why we bought the book.
14:14And I was like, OK.
14:15So I felt very confident that we were all of one mind on this journey.
14:22And then Randy and Chris, for the score and the sound design coming into this,
14:30what was that like getting into this film where it's very dependent on something that's
14:37not dialogue based, very dependent on sound and score too?
14:42Well, on the one hand, it's more weight on our shoulders, so it's a little scary in that
14:49sense, but it's such a great opportunity so that after you worry about it for a minute,
14:55you just go to work and try to figure out how to take advantage of it.
14:59And I so wish there were more films that took this kind of unconventional approach,
15:08because, as I said before, it's so much fun to work on.
15:12Yeah, I'd say the same for me.
15:13Definitely, the beginning was a bit of a scary thing in terms of how much responsibility
15:20would be on the music.
15:21And it also felt very exciting because it let me know that the score could have a lot
15:28of melodies.
15:29And I think that oftentimes melody isn't viable because it gets in the way of dialogue.
15:35And you have something that's moving at the same time as people are talking.
15:38And so not having that allowed us to have these really clear melodic statements and
15:43themes that I could then see how they could grow over the course of the film.
15:49But also, it presented this fun challenge to really look at the specificity and intricacy
15:55of the body language and the way that Chris was even drawing in the storyboards.
16:00There was one moment that we talked about recently where this migration sequence, Chris
16:08Sanders was talking about a percussion hit that I added at a moment where Bright Bill
16:12says, I could use a boost, and it cuts to Roz.
16:15And when I wrote that cue, it was to the black and white storyboard sketches.
16:20And for me, I immediately was like, well, it seemed pretty obvious that something needed
16:24to happen there because it was a moment of recognition for her.
16:27And then Chris points out, well, I don't know.
16:29But it's actually because they used this old school animation technique where on that image,
16:35her face was stretched a tiny bit so you could see that there was motion happening, even
16:39though it was a still image.
16:40And so paying attention to those kinds of details was something that became so important
16:47without having dialogue telling us exactly what's happening in every moment.
16:50There are all these little moments, like Roz rubbing her neck where Bright Bill used to
16:54sit.
16:54These little moments that you wouldn't really pay as much attention to without that dialogue
16:58because you're kind of trying to pull as much as you can from the visuals and the sound.
17:02And that felt like a really fun, exciting challenge.
17:05Well, I could talk about this film forever, but that is all the time that we have for
17:10this.
17:11And I just have to say, when Chris said that you watch this film and you see something
17:17new every time, he was not exaggerating.
17:19So if you have not seen this film, absolutely.
17:22You're crazy.
17:23Go see it.
17:25But I want to thank Chris, Chris and Randy for joining us for this panel.
17:32Thank you all.