{"id":8997,"date":"2022-02-17T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/?p=8997"},"modified":"2022-02-18T20:57:56","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T20:57:56","slug":"turning-red-with-excitement-a-look-inside-pixars-latest-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/turning-red-with-excitement-a-look-inside-pixars-latest-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Red… with Excitement! A Look Inside Pixar\u2019s Latest Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In celebration of Pixar\u2019s upcoming movie, Turning Red<\/em>, Upcoming Pixar attended an early press day where the film\u2019s creators talked about story, art, visual effects, animation, and music. As Pixar\u2019s 25th feature, Turning Red<\/em> marks many firsts for the animation studio. Most notably, the film is told from the perspective of a teenage girl living in the early 2000’s, and the production was led by an all-women team whom lent their own experiences to the story. How exciting!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Domee Shi pitched three \u201ccoming-of-age\u201d teenage girl stories to Pixar, as it was something that wasn\u2019t widely represented in media at the time. In 2017, Shi was asked why the main subject of Bao<\/em> was a boy \u2014 she responded and said \u201cOh, because I only had eight minutes to tell this story. For a mother\/daughter story, I’d need an entire feature film to unpack that\u201d. Ultimately, Pixar\u2019s creative leadership team chose Turning Red<\/em> due to her personal connection to the story since it was inspired by her relationship with her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shi described her relationship with her parents as \u201csuper close\u201d but as she started to grow up, her mother didn\u2019t understand her new interests. At its core, Shi said \u201cTurning Red<\/em> is just inspired by this universal struggle of growing up and trying to figure out how to honor your parents but also stay true to yourself\u201d which is a sentiment that many first-generation children can identify. Mei Lee\u2019s transformation into the red panda is an \u201cadorable metaphor\u201d for the \u201cscary, unadorable, awkward, and cringy\u201d changes that people go through during puberty. Shi was asked how she brought authenticity to the Chinese-Canadian experience and she explained, it\u2019s \u201cbaked\u201d into Turning Red<\/em> because it illustrates the struggles of Mei, an immigrant kid caught in between two worlds: east and west.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the spirit of authenticity, the production team for Turning Red<\/em> worked hard to reflect Shi\u2019s vision of an \u201cAsian tween fever dream\u201d which meant learning how to stylize 3D animation. Production Designer, Rona Liu, worked with Domee Shi on Bao<\/em> and they bonded over their Chinese heritage and a love for cute things. In this film, Liu was asked to draw from her own relationship with her mother which inspired the final look of an opening sequence. However, Liu and her team also wanted to add all the things they loved at age thirteen. She stated that it was a \u201cmix\u201d of east and west. This included boy bands, cute accessories, anime, and TV shows. A couple sources of inspiration were Sailor Moon, Paprika, and One Piece. Since Turning Red<\/em> is told from Mei\u2019s point of view, Liu said that they imagined her world as \u201cvery vibrant\u201d and \u201cvery colorful\u201d. The color and lighting of the film are dependent on Mei\u2019s emotional state. We can expect that the production team had a fun time expressing Mei\u2019s feelings as she cycled through her transformation from Mei to Panda Mei!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On to Visual Effects! Danielle Feinberg was the Visual Effects Supervisor for the film (the first woman to hold this position in 20 years!) and her main challenge was translating 2D inspiration into 3D which is traditionally hyperrealistic. A first step to solving this problem was focused on the shapes of Mei\u2019s world. The team described the style as \u201ccute, chunky\u201d which Feinberg said they applied to the movie. They then added color and shading in order for the shapes to appear as more graphic and rounded. The second challenge was Panda Mei\u2019s expressions. Feinberg described this as one of her main worries because the range of shapes was technically challenging. She had recently learned of a new technology called \u201cprofile movers\u201d and as she explained, it would allow the character rigger to adjust curves easily instead of manually tweaking the shape. However, at the time, the technology was not fully proven and Feinberg made the difficult decision to take the risk in order to push Panda Mei\u2019s expressions to a new level and resemble its anime inspirations. If you\u2019ve seen the latest posters<\/a> for Turning Red<\/em>, you can see that it was a great success!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patty Kihm and Aaron Hartline were the supervising animators for Turning Red<\/em>. It was evident to them that the tone of the film was \u201cplayful\u201d after seeing Shi\u2019s storyboards. The animation stylistic choices that they made were based on the characters themselves. In order to reflect Mei\u2019s teenage awkwardness, they created animation tests that allowed them to explore her mannerisms. For example, they discovered that Mei is \u201ccharming, messy, and funny all at the same time\u201d which makes her relatable as a character. Influenced by the idea of \u201ceast meets west\u201d per Shi\u2019s vision, the animation team referenced anime and the characters\u2019 vast range when it came to their eye shapes. This allowed the characters of the film to emote in the same eye language. The next animation stylistic choice was isolated motion! In Kihm and Hartline\u2019s careers, they never had a director ask for this; however, Domee asked because it would amplify the movie\u2019s unique style. Hartline described this as \u201cuntraining\u201d the animators since they are taught that motion doesn\u2019t come from single point. In Turning Red<\/em>, it does! In the scene where Panda Mei pushes her schoolmate into the stall, that is an example of isolated motion where the only thing that moves is her arm. Pretty cool, huh? Another fun fact: Mei\u2019s friends move in unison! They start and stop moving at the same time. This signifies that they are a team and are super close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Producer, Lindsey Collins announced at the press day that Ludwig G\u00f6ransson was the film\u2019s composer. He comes from a diverse background \u2014 from producing for artists like Childish Gambino to receiving an Oscar for his work on Marvel\u2019s Black Panther<\/em>! Collins said he brought the \u201cperfect mix of traditional score, and also a deep, early 2000\u2019s pop knowledge\u201d to the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, 4*Town! In Turning Red<\/em>, we are introduced to the fictional boy band, 4*Town. \u201cBoy bands have often by ridiculed by the media, as most things that teen girls are obsessed with are, and we really wanted to pay tribute to this cultural phenomenon in the film\u201d, Shi stated. It was important for boy bands to play a prominent role in the movie because they represent the \u201cfirst foray into adolescence\u201d for many people. The design of 4*Town was inspired by bands like NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and O-Town. However, there was a contemporary twist and it resulted in a more diverse group! For example, \u201cOne of the boy band members, Tae Young, he’s definitely a homage to the K-Pop boy bands\u201d, Shi said. Finneas O\u2019Connell and Billie Eilish worked on three songs for the boy band. Collins said they weren\u2019t sure if they would meet with them so they created a handmade scrapbook to grab their attention! \u201cIt had doodles and drawings and photos and fan art and fake ticket stubs, and we cut out Billie and Finneas’s heads and put them on 4*Town characters\u201d, laughed Collins. In the end, they agreed and Finneas voices Jesse, a member of the band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Personally, I am incredibly excited to see this movie. I believe Turning Red<\/em> will be a great depiction of supportive friendships as well as a nuanced mother\/daughter relationship. Not only that, I look forward to seeing Mei understand and love herself for who she is. In a time where teenage girls are often vilified for their interests, I\u2019m glad to see them being celebrated!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Domee Shi\u2019s Turning Red<\/em> premieres March 11th, exclusively on Disney+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In celebration of Pixar\u2019s upcoming movie, Turning Red, Upcoming Pixar attended an early press day where the film\u2019s creators talked about story, art, visual effects, animation, and music. As Pixar\u2019s 25th feature, Turning Red marks many firsts for the animation studio. Most notably, the film is told from the perspective of a teenage girl living …<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":8998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[323,2,269,423],"tags":[431,430],"yoast_head":"\nTurning Red... with Excitement! A Look Inside Pixar\u2019s Latest Movie - Upcoming Pixar<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In celebration of Pixar\u2019s upcoming movie, Turning Red, Upcoming Pixar attended an early press day where the film\u2019s creators talked about story, art, visual effects, animation, and music. As Pixar\u2019s 25th feature, Turning Red marks many firsts for the animation studio. Most notably, the film is told from the perspective of a teenage girl living in the early 2000\u2019s, and the production was led by an all-women team whom lent their own experiences to the story. How exciting!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/turning-red-with-excitement-a-look-inside-pixars-latest-movie\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Turning Red... with Excitement! 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