Animated Features Films Bring The Magic As Academy Celebrates The Nominees

By Michelle McCue and Melissa Thompson

This year there are 30 nominees in the animated category, between the Short and Features. “Don’t we love these people who bring us the magic?,” said Academy Governor Bill Kroyer as The Academy celebrated the Feature Animated films on Thursday.

The Academy presented their seventh annual event celebrating the nominees for Best Animated Feature Film.

Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, who won last year’s Animated Feature Film Oscar for FROZEN, moderated the discussion with all the nominated filmmakers from BIG HERO 6, THE BOXTROLLS, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2, SONG OF THE SEA and THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA. This year’s nominated films come from around the world and encompass traditional animation, computer animation and stop-motion, and the evening also featured clips from each film.

Prior to the panel discussion, a few of the nominees spoke with WAMG.

Nominees Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

On her first nomination, Arnold said, “I feel like Cinderella at the ball. It’s so amazing because it’s a whirlwind of great activity and you get to meet so many people. So many great filmmakers. It’s fun and super special.”

On what’s in store for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 3, DeBlois gave us details on the third installment of the beloved series. “The story takes on a little more balance between Hiccup and Toothless because they are now chiefs of their respective tribes. It’s a story of carrying Hiccup through to the fulfillment of his character’s growth and arc, but also seeing where Toothless goes with all of this new responsibilities.”

In January, DreamWorks Animation appointed Bonnie Arnold & Mireille Soria as co-presidents of Feature Animation. When asked about her new position, Arnold told us, “there are so many great filmmakers at DreamWorks and a lot of projects, and I’m getting to spend time with the other filmmakers. There’s not a house style, so each of them are very unique and I’m having a lot of fun getting to know more about them and what they’re doing and helping them get the best version of their movies on the screen. It’s very exciting, until I start having to focus back on DRAGON 3.”

Nominees Roy Conli, Don Hall and Chris Williams, BIG HERO 6

The film is filled with a rousing score by composer Henry Jackman. On the choice to go with Jackman, Don Hall said, “He’s awesome. I worked with him on WINNIE THE POOH. I think he’s the best. I love working with Henry. He’s so collaborative. For those who don’t know music, he’s really good at breaking down what he’s thinking and very clear with his thoughts. He’s also a very fun, entertaining person who knows story. There was never any doubt that he was the guy.”

Chris Williams added, “the music covers a lot of ground tonally. He was able to hit all of those tones and bring a cohesion to the film, so he was fantastic.”

Roy Conli said Jackman, “saw early clips and had an idea where we going thematically. From those early themes, he was crafting ideas and as the film kept evolving, he would bring more. During our weekly meetings, for over a three month period, we would talk about the film, listen to music and he’s the most collaborative composer I’ve ever worked with.”

On how they put together the look and dialogue for Baymax. “It’s based on a real concept called soft robotics and I discovered it at Carnegie-Mellon University,” said Chris Williams. “I did a real trip and this is real stuff – vinyl robots that are inflatable for use in the health care industry. The entire personality of Baymax and his character design came from that research trip. We can’t say enough about the voice of Baymax, Scott Adsit.”

Adsit looked at many drawings of Baymax before deciding on the voice. “We wanted him to have a calm soothing voice and Scott himself came up with the idea of having the weird pauses between words. It was like the computer was trying to think of the things to say. It was great to have an amazing actor to work with,” said Roy Conli.

Between the filmmakers, the three mentioned their favorite animated films were PINOCCHIO and BAMBI.

Nominees Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable, THE BOXTROLLS

The film’s charming score is from Dario Marianelli. “He’s a genius. We listed to a bunch of different composers and something unique as far as the instrumentation from Dario really stood out,” said Stacchi on their choice to go with the Oscar-winning composer (ANNA KARENINA).

Annable added, “He’s never done animation. I didn’t even know if he was going to be interested. We were nervous to meet him and it turned out he was just as nervous to meet us. He has his own children and he really wanted to do an animated feature.”

“Plus, a composer usually comes in at the end of the process, when the film is cut. Dario worked with us all the way through the process, so he did the music for our story reels. Sometimes we went to him for sequences where “Fish” and “Eggs” are playing with the music machine and he had to write the music before we would storyboard it. The dance sequence, he wrote that whole waltz while we were still storyboarding. It’s not only a waltz, it has to be a score, it has to be an emotional bed under the romantic moments. We worked with him for the entire 18 months of production,” concluded Stacchi.

Nominees Isao Takahata and Yoshiaki Nishimura, THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA

Nominee Tomm Moore, SONG OF THE SEA

While waiting for the Q&A to begin, the song “Let It Go” was piped into the theater. We noticed co-hosts and Oscar-winners Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck sitting in the row ahead. Both turned and said, “not this song again.” With a sense of humor, Lee went onto say, “my new phrase is ‘it’s not my fault.’ ” Buck said he is a fan of the latest video to come online where one N.C. mom records her frustration with FROZEN on the third snow day as well as the Oscar nominated song.

The nominees discussed how their films were developed, their creative processes and presented clips illustrating their technique. The five nominated films all deal with young characters who had lost someone and invokes the conversation no matter the age of the viewer.

“Sometimes an animated movie is the first film a child will see,” said HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 producer Bonnie Arnold.

For all the filmmakers, the process is still very organic. SONG OF THE SEA director Tomm Moore said, “It’s a way to tell the story so we don’t lose the folklore.” (trailer)

From drawings to movies, the panel discussed what originally drew them all to animation. “Comics was a way into animation,” said BIG HERO 6 director Don Hall.

THE BOXTROLLS nominee Anthony Stacchi said, “I’d love to see the people who do the behind the scenes work acknowledged with nominations in the main categories like Best Costume and Best Visual Effects.”

Nominees Isao Takahata and Yoshiaki Nishimura (THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA), via a translator, said they brought their film to life with a process of flat plane effects for animating. “It’s all about the simplicity of the line work.”

Watch the Oscars this Sunday, February 22nd on ABC.

Photos ©A.M.P.A.S.

Visit The Academy: www.oscars.org

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