'The Wild Robot' director Chris Sanders and composer Kris Bowers sit down with Variety to explain the making of their film.
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00:00Chris and Chris, Chris with K and Chris with C, you have to have a talk.
00:08There are some people who are very emotional right now and they want to know why.
00:11I don't know who to blame for this, but I'm going to start with you, Mr. Sanders.
00:15Listen, it's hard to say this because I don't want to minimize your contribution to animation
00:22and the animation community, but it's your best movie, man.
00:25It's the best thing you've ever done.
00:27And I love all your movies.
00:30Why The Wow Robot at this point for you?
00:34And how much did you have to beg Lupita Nyong'o to voice Roz to do it?
00:41As for the why, when I dropped into DreamWorks to see if there was anything in development
00:47that I might be able to work on, and they showed me this book and described it, and
00:51just the very, very first few sentences describing the book, I was hooked.
00:57I thought, this is what I want to work on, and took it home, read it, and then the mother
01:03story at the core and the intricacies and delicate and really emotional scale of the
01:10story, I was hooked.
01:12And so I immediately called back and said, okay, please, what do I need to do to be attached
01:17to this story?
01:20And then Lupita, this is such a wonderful opportunity to mention Christy Soper, our
01:25incredible casting director, who suggested Lupita as the first best choice to voice the
01:32character of Roz.
01:35The art of what she does became evident as we worked on the character together.
01:41She's not matching a voice.
01:42She's matching a personality.
01:45And Lupita worked so incredibly diligently and tirelessly to decode the thinking patterns
01:56of Roz.
01:57It's a very unusual character.
01:59There are these necessary gaps in her understanding, in her programming.
02:03If we don't have those gaps, then she can't go off program, which is a key to the story.
02:11And it was an ongoing process.
02:13It lasted the entire length of the production.
02:16Working with Lupita on that, really one of the most rewarding relationships with an actor
02:21I've ever had on an animated film.
02:23Now Bowers.
02:24So Chris Andrews comes to you and says, hey, we need some music.
02:28And you decide, okay, I'm going to pull out all the emotional chords, kind of really like
02:35get this moving for the audience.
02:38And you had said, the first version you brought to Chris, he was like, it's a little too sweet.
02:44And then you had some inspiration and wanted you to talk about that publicly, because we
02:49love talking about our fears as parents and how that inspires us to do better in life.
02:55Yeah.
02:56So when I first came on the project, my daughter was about six months old.
03:01And I usually with my process, I like to watch the film a number of times and take notes
03:10without thinking about music, take notes on what I think thematically is happening and
03:14be able to come to Chris with ideas of which characters, which ideas should have a theme
03:19musically.
03:20Because my favorite composers were the ones that were so intentional with those themes
03:24that by the time everything comes together in the story at a certain moment, you feel
03:29emotional with the music because they've been very diligent and deft with a specific theme.
03:36And so watching it, I thought that not only should there be themes for characters, but
03:40also this main theme for this idea of family.
03:43And I told Chris that one of the first attempts at a theme I wanted to approach was that migration
03:48sequence.
03:50And I, by the time we got to this point, my daughter's maybe about one.
03:54And I remember watching it and the immediate thought I had was, okay, I can imagine taking
03:58her to college, like dropping her off at college.
04:00And I wrote this piece of music that was making me emotional and I felt like this was exactly
04:05right.
04:06I shared it with Chris and Chris was like, yeah, that's not, it's not really hitting
04:10the right feeling.
04:12And he was like, maybe you should imagine you're taking your daughter to college and
04:14dropping her off.
04:15And I was like, that's what I did.
04:18And maybe it's because she's one and that's why it's hard for me to imagine properly.
04:22But we had a conversation about that moment and what I realized is that when I went back
04:29and listened to that first piece of music I wrote and imagined the scene in my head
04:33of dropping my daughter off at college, it was very sweet and naive and it was also just
04:39this happy moment.
04:40It was like her going up the stairs and turning around and waving back at me and me waving
04:44and me thinking about her on the way home and her calling me, like it's just very sweet.
04:49And Chris reminded me that this moment for Roz and Bright Bill is very far from that.
04:54And when we talked about it, I remember going home and having a different thought and also
05:00realizing that like a part of me didn't want to imagine that.
05:03I think I was in this period where my daughter couldn't even talk yet and I didn't have to
05:06consider, you know, I could parent in a way that I wanted to without her telling me that
05:12she needed something different at that point in our relationship.
05:15And reflecting on this idea of that years from now, no matter how hard I try or the
05:20things that I do that I think are the right thing to do, she's going to be disappointed,
05:24she's going to be upset with me, she's going to have moments of needing to accept things
05:28about me that she finds disappointing, I'm going to fall short of what she needs.
05:32Like all these things that were really painful to think about and I didn't really want to
05:36imagine just stirred a lot of other emotion in me.
05:40And so then I went to the piano and tried to find something that made me feel those
05:44same feelings that are much more complex and found what is now the main theme.
05:48And I remember playing it for Chris and Chris feeling like, yeah, that's the feeling.
05:53Now actually go right away from picture and just keep working on the music and have the
05:58music and the emotion kind of continue to carry you.
06:00And then we'll actually edit and create the animation around the score for that sequence.
06:06And so once I found that feeling that was a bit more just complex, like the story isn't
06:11like that moment is, it was able to unlock that scene.
06:14But then I went and kind of stress test that theme throughout the film to see if we see
06:19Bright Bill's head poke out at the end of the movie, do we get this feeling because
06:23that theme comes back?
06:27Rule of the story, kids bring you pain.
06:30And his wife is pregnant again.
06:32So there you go.
06:33Can't wait for Wild Robot 2, man.
06:34I want to let you guys know something.
06:35I'm sure, I don't know if you know this yet.
06:38Wild Robot was nominated for three Academy Awards, animated feature, score and sound.
06:45Should have been best picture, but you know, we can talk about that later.
06:47Snubs and surprises are there for a reason.
06:49I am so happy that animation, not a genre, it's a medium, it's the way we tell stories.
06:55It's not for kids, not just for kids, it's for everyone, it's for anyone who likes movies.
07:00Chris, you loved, you've shared this a lot with me.
07:04You loved making this movie because it was like years of passion and everything that
07:10you've worked on your entire career, you felt like prepared you for this moment.
07:14Can you speak to that about feeling prepared to finally do something like this?
07:19Because also it can be difficult for people to see direction, quote unquote, in an animated
07:24movie.
07:25A lot of people think you're standing over their shoulders and you're like, draw that.
07:28And then that's directing an animated movie?
07:30It's not.
07:31There's more to it.
07:32But can you talk about being really prepared to take this on at this point in your career?
07:36So much about this movie was beautiful, fortunate timing.
07:41Timing as far as like the book being there when I dropped in.
07:45It had been waiting four years and I just, my timing was good.
07:51It's such a vast question and I could talk endlessly and I will not.
07:54If I hadn't started in animation when I did, if I hadn't been on a story crew for Beauty
08:01and the Beast, if I hadn't learned that craft from Joe Ranft and Ed Gombert and Brenda Chapman
08:07and everybody I worked with, Joe Grant, if I hadn't started then and learned something
08:12with every film, I wouldn't have been able to do this.
08:17I employed every single thing, every discipline that I learned because in this case I was
08:23solo for the first time.
08:25I always had a co-director in the past and it was a wonderful thing but this time I was
08:30on my own.
08:31So just the level of discipline that I had to employ and just, again, just calling on
08:37everything I'd learned in the past.
08:39It all came around exactly the right time, I think, to make this film.
08:46Yeah, just really, really a very, very fortunate timing on this.
08:52What's your favorite thing to work on in the movie, aside from thinking about your daughter
08:56going to college or just feeling prepared, but is there something in there that you feel
09:00like is kind of just for you?
09:02I always like those questions.
09:03Just something that you're like, that's for me, not for anyone else.
09:07We talked a lot about Roz having a theme that also came with a little bit of a chime, like
09:15a lot of electronic devices like our washing machines or toasters and things like that
09:21that have a little six, eight note chime.
09:25And so there's one at the end of her theme at the beginning when she first introduces
09:29herself, there's like, and it happens again when she acquires a task.
09:35But I had a lot of fun finding different ways to have that theme be the seed of other cues
09:42that you would never really realize that when she's going up to do the transmitter or when
09:47she has completed her task and she does the transmitter again.
09:51And there's just all these little iterations of that theme that was a lot of fun to kind
09:56of play with.
09:58And I feel like it's something that you'd have to be a real music nerd to notice it.
10:02Can you draw, Chris, by the way?
10:05I used to.
10:06It's funny.
10:07I went to cartooning school when I was a kid and I stayed with Butch Hartman, who did The
10:11Fairly OddParents.
10:12Really?
10:13Yeah, like literally, I remember one of my classes and he had a meeting pitching The
10:19Fairly OddParents.
10:20He's like, yeah, I think it went pretty well.
10:21I was in CalArts with him.
10:22I didn't know that.
10:23Chris, meet Chris.
10:24How you doing?
10:25There you go.
10:26Yeah, when I was, I wanted to be an animator just as much as a pianist up until I got to
10:34high school.
10:35And I went to an arts high school.
10:36My plan was to get in for music and switch to visual arts.
10:39And my freshman year, I just kind of had this like deep, like falling in love with
10:43music in a way where I remember my summer after freshman year, I had, I got into a jazz
10:48camp and an animation camp at Santa Monica City College.
10:51And I chose the jazz camp and then I just stopped drawing.
10:54Yeah.
10:55Fairly OddParents.
10:56Look at that.
10:57Chris?
10:58There were a few things that were firsts on this film.
11:01One of them, it's just engineering wise, I don't really get to talk about this much,
11:05but near the end of the film, there's a one-er.
11:10And it's when we have this like sort of comedy battle between Roz and the, the Ricos that
11:13want to, want to bring her back.
11:16And earlier, there's another one inside the lodge right before the, the, the, the bit
11:21where Roz has that very important talk with all the animals.
11:26I'd never done anything like that before.
11:28And it was, it was a tough thing to get through.
11:32It was a very lengthy process to do those two shots that go on and on and the camera's
11:36very, very active.
11:37It's a lot of animation.
11:39Several animators were at work in all those things and it was a bit of a puzzle to get
11:43done.
11:44But the overall effect was incredible.
11:47Like that one shot, even though it's a long shot, it accomplished more than like 20 shots
11:52could and I'd never done anything like that before.
11:54And I think that was one of my favorite new things that I, that I did on this particular
12:00film.
12:01I will do that again in the future.
12:02It was, it was, it was really fantastic how it worked out.
12:05Final question for, for you both.
12:07Aside from how terrible is Pedro Pascal, like in person, is it bad?
12:11Is he bad?
12:12Is he as terrible as like you think he is?
12:14No, he's as nice as you would expect.
12:17Yeah.
12:18Yeah.
12:19All right.
12:20We lie sometimes up here.
12:21No, he's actually great.
12:24This film means a lot to both of you, means a lot to people who watched and, and I think
12:32we still find ourselves surprised that animation is still like in this moment in time, especially
12:39where we're very worried about Hollywood and where it's going and movies, animation's still
12:45kicking ass, taking names and it's proven time and time again, it's a profitable business.
12:51It can make people feel things and you can do anything you want in it.
12:55What do you want people to take away from this movie and then how can they bring that
13:02love to animation when they go see their next animated movie or like, what, what is it about
13:08this that you want people to recognize as the love that exists in this medium?
13:16There's a culture within animation that I was introduced to way back on Beauty and Beast
13:20at Disney.
13:22Everyone who works on it takes it very, very seriously.
13:25It's, it's, it's, it's, you adopt a film like this and you live with it for years and it
13:31becomes, it becomes very, very real to you.
13:34You, you don't just work on it during the day and then you go home at night and forget
13:37about it.
13:38Like it's a 24 hour thing.
13:40There's so many moments that I would wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like,
13:43I've got it.
13:44I know what to do.
13:45And I would wake up and I would storyboard it.
13:48And I think there's just, and you can see it so easily in, in so many of these films
13:53and in particular this one.
13:55Everyone who worked on it, we couldn't have done this if everyone hadn't exceeded what
14:01they needed to do.
14:03Everyone went above and beyond and, and it was weird, like the message of the film began
14:09to soak into every corner of the production, which the, the message of kindness and exceeding
14:14your programming.
14:16I've never had a film that had to break so many boundaries and reinvent so many things
14:22software wise and animation wise.
14:25But with all those monumental difficulties, it was actually the weirdly, I want to be
14:31careful this word, easiest film to make.
14:34It wasn't easy.
14:35But it was, it was such a generous, supportive crew and Chris, and you can see like Chris
14:41is, is, is an aspect of that.
14:43Like everybody was so kind and, and, and, and supportive and positive about the whole
14:49thing.
14:50We didn't want it to end.
14:52These things take years.
14:53And even if you love the film, there comes a time as Catherine Keeter told me once, it's
14:57sometimes as good when a project ends.
14:59And, but we didn't want that to happen.
15:01And as each animator finished their inventory, they would say, don't you have one more shot?
15:08And we wished we had, we actually had, this has never happened before.
15:12I went to animation dailies more than once.
15:15And I began to pitch the shot to the animator.
15:18And he'd stop me and go, actually, I already animated it.
15:23And I say, wait, what?
15:24And he'd broken into the database and he pulled it out and he did it.
15:27And he said, and if I did it wrong, I will do it again.
15:29I get it.
15:30I, you know, I should have asked you first.
15:32And that was how much enthusiasm there was on the, on the project.
15:35So in that sense, it was, it was, it was really the film of a lifetime.
15:39With that now, I want to offer just a nice friendly reminder, Chris Sanders, one of the
15:44greats here, fourth Oscar nomination, pretty sure it's time that we get Sanders a trip
15:50to the stage, just to put that out there for you.
15:53Bowers, you've been up there once before, but you know, make it an annual thing if you
15:58feel like it, whatever you want to do.
16:01Ladies and gentlemen, one more time, Chris Sanders, Chris Bowers, the wild robot.
16:06Tell your friends and family to watch it.
16:08And then they'll be up here taking therapy from anyone that needs it to be able to get
16:13your feelings out.
16:14Thank you everyone.
16:15Have a good night.