‘Wild Robot’ and ‘Inside Out’ Directors on Creating Animated Features

Key contenders for this season’s animated feature Oscar race shared their insights on creating emotionally authentic features on the Variety Animation Panel – Pencils & Pixels at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. 

“I would say that your fears are not your limitations. They’re your opportunities. That when you really look at the things that scare you, those are the things to turn towards and to try and work out, because that’s where the good stuff lies,” said Morgan Neville the writer, director and producer of Pharrell Williams’s Lego-animated film “Piece by Piece.” 

Neville was honored alongside Gints Zilbalodis, director of “Flow”; Oscar winner Josh Cooley, who directed “Transformers One”; Chris Sanders, three-time Academy Award nominee and the writer and director of “Wild Robot”; Kelsey Mann, writer and director of “Inside Out 2″; and Adam Elliot, writer, director and producer of “Memoir of a Snail.”

When asked what advice he would share with a student currently working on their first animated film, Zilbalodis offered, “Don’t try to just be like everyone else, try to tell your own story and in your own way.” He also added, “If we spend our lives making these films, we should do it because we really care for it. It’s not just a job, so try to find something that really you’ll feel passionate about, and that’s very close to you, and it will become more than a job.” 

All filmmakers on stage agreed with the sentiment that in order to successfully communicate an idea with the audience, it must be honed down through a specific feeling. Cooley noted, “You need something to anchor you when you’re being asked a million questions a day and for me it’s always the most emotional part of what the story you’re trying to tell.”

Another mutual consensus was the importance of team collaboration to elevate a singular person’s vision into a film. Since animation requires multiple drastically different departments, the skills and techniques each team possesses are difficult to master alone. On this, Sanders shared an anecdote on directing ‘Lilo and Stitch,” which was the first time he and Dean Depluwa got the opportunity to direct. “We had a moment of panic because we thought like I don’t understand every discipline. That I’m going to be now in charge of layout and such. And I learned animation but I couldn’t really do it that well and I understood it but again not enough who stand over somebody and tell them how to do it.” The solution he said was to speak to everybody “as though they were an actor.”

Mann had a similar experience when dealing with the character designs for the “Inside Out” emotions. He explained how he initially came very prepared with a specific vision for the characters, but then someone on the team said was best if he just communicated what emotions he wanted to portray with each scene and then the animators could work from there. He added, “Then you get all these amazing ideas that you wouldn’t have had. That’s probably my biggest thing that I’ve learned on the film is trusting your team.” 

The panelists also discussed the topic of the role of a director and how much they control. “I think in stop motion, there’s a presumption that everyday the director comes in last, all the other people come in and set up all the stages and get the puppets ready and then I just come in. But, in my studio, I’m first to arrive at 6 a.m. and last to leave at 7 p.m.,” said Elliot. 

Coming from a fusion of two genres, Neville shared his surprise to the added control a feature director has over a documentary filmmaker, “I was really interested in the friction between the real world and the documentary. The grammar of documentary, and then putting that into a world where you can control everything.”