Hello. This is Jorge Gutierrez.
I am the cowriter and director of the Book of Life.
Welcome to the audio commentary.
As a huge animation fan,
I've been listening to audio commentaries my whole life.
And so I'm gonna try to honor all of those, because I've always dreamt of this.
So...
Well, let me just start by thanking Reel FX Studios,
a studio in Dallas who believed in me from the beginning.
Tom Kartsotis and Steve O'Brien and everybody at Reel FX
really got behind our movie, and I wouldn't be here without them.
And then, of course, our beloved partners at 20th Century Fox,
Jim Gianopulos and Vanessa Morrison,
they fell in love with our film and really got behind us.
And, of course, Guillermo Del Toro, my superhero,
a mentor and someone who's become an incredible friend.
So the movie begins in the present.
And the idea was always that the world was a little bit cold,
so you guys can see a lot of the characters
and a lot of the lighting is very blue.
The idea being that these kids are a little dissatisfied and a little cynical,
which is kind of the intent from the beginning.
I wanted to really, really sort of portray this idea that
kids from every race in different parts of the world,
they go to museums and they get bored.
And so someone's about to take them somewhere magical.
When we introduce Mary Beth, we wanted to keep her a little mysterious.
If you're paying attention, there's something unique about her.
If you look at her design, for example,
red hair and blue eyes are the most rare combination in the world.
Only 1% of the population has that.
So already we're hinting at you,
"This is someone different. This is someone unique."
Each of the kids represents different things to me.
For example, the littlest one, Sasha, is very innocent
and she kind of believes everything.
The older the kids get, the more cynical they are,
and so it's gonna take longer for those guys to get into our story.
But that was always the idea from the beginning.
So we go into this sort of secret room.
And, again, if you've seen the movie
and you're watching this for the second time,
you're gonna start getting a lot of references.
Taco Tuesday!
This tunnel that they're walking on,
this is the tunnel where Manolo walks to go to his first bullfight.
So that's when he sort of starts his story,
and that's why we start the story here.
The goth kid, the kid with the purple hair,
is kind of our love letter to the Ramones.
And sort of this idea of all these kids who love goth things,
especially Hispanic kids who love goth things,
we're basically telling them,
"Hey, you have Day of the Dead, the most goth thing of all."
So that's kind of why that character looks the way he looks.
Behold, children...
Here, if you pay attention, when Mary Beth turns on the light,
everything in that room is a prop from the story and the movie.
You saw the statue of Joaquin's dad on the left.
All this stuff is from the Land of the Remembered
and the Land of the Forgotten.
That's the bull that Manolo's gonna bullfight.
I mean, we're basically walking into,
if you could imagine, a roomful of props from this movie.
We first introduce the Book of Life with a tree of life,
which is a very Mexican thing, this idea that we're all part of a tree.
And that as we grow, the tree grows.
So Mary Beth takes us into the book,
and we start to get a sense of the tone of the movie.
"The battle of Cinco de Mayo"?
I've always wanted to make fun
of this obsession with Cinco de Mayo in the US,
so that's why that joke is there.
Chupacabras is my favorite mythological creature.
I couldn't make a movie without the chupacabras.
And so as we go into the universe, it looks like a sombrero.
As a kid, that's what I imagined Mexico looked like from far away,
with a giant mustache.
And here is the first El Tigre cameo.
If you look to the screen, right,
you would have seen Manny and Frida over there.
So this is animated in 2D.
I got to animate stuff with another animator, Travis.
All this stuff, this is sort of the book version of these worlds.
And, eventually, as the story progresses,
we'll get to see the real thing, but this is kind of a tease.
I got to work with a lot of my old artists from El Tigre.
It was like a reunion.
Roman Laney and Gerald de Jesus, my two art directors from that time.
As you guys can see, the look of the movie is very, very specific.
For example, this painting of La Muerte that we're gonna see
was painted by our art director, Paul Sullivan,
and a lot of the paintings you see in the movie are from him.
And Paul really, really captured Sandra's and my style.
Sandra Equihua, my wife, and designer of most of the girls in the film.
But these are actual Paul paintings.
We joke now that if you cut Paul in the arm, guacamole will come out,
because he understood Mexican culture so well by the end of the film.
In the beginning, we're kind of setting this up for everybody.
People who don't know the culture,
we're telling you who these characters are and what they represent.
If you think about it, La Muerte is all about warmth and kindness,
Xibalba about coldness and sharpness.
The Candle Maker is the balance in between them.
Here, we explain the idea that all these toys
represent real people.
And that's how I felt when I was a kid and I played with my toys.
They were all representations of things.
No retreat.
Here, we finally enter our real story,
and as you can see, we meet our three leads.
We don't know who they are yet,
but that's the first three people you meet when you go into that world.
This is very much inspired by Janitzio in Pàtzcuaro.
Day of the Dead celebrations in Michoacàn.
So it's all very, very authentic.
Having loved the holiday, I've gotten to visit all those places,
so definitely a nod.
As you can see La Muerte and Xibalba appear,
Xibalba's grave is devoid of life, devoid of candles.
La Muerte's is full of life.
So we're already telling you what kind of characters they are.
Here, Xibalba just put out a bunch of candles,
which later you'll know what that means.
But in the beginning, again, we're setting you up and we're telling you
this guy likes to create chaos for mankind.
Even though that old man is old and getting close to the time for him to leave,
La Muerte spares him.
So we're telling you La Muerte loves mankind
and she's willing to give us a second chance.
Very much inspired by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo,
these two Mexican painters, who couldn't live with each other,
but couldn't live apart from each other.
That's where La Muerte and Xibalba come from.
La Muerte is voiced by the amazing Kate Del Castillo,
who is sort of a goddess of Mexican soap operas.
And then Ron Perlman voices Xibalba,
who is a staple of all the Guillermo del Toro movies
and one of my all-time favorite actors.
So definitely...
I can't believe what a fantastic job they both did with their characters.
Let's check out the menu for the evening.
Xibalba is very much my love letter to Guillermo's movies.
So there's a lot of references to his films in his design.
Here, we reintroduce the three little kids.
The first time we meet Manolo, he's playing the guitar.
The first time you meet Joaquin, he's pretending to be a soldier.
And the first time you meet Maria, she is not impressed by the both of them.
So, I believe character introductions are really, really important.
So we really, again, wanted to tell the audience,
"This is who you are about to meet with."
Setting up Maria as someone who is not a damsel in distress
was really important.
I grew up with really strong Mexican women.
My mother, my grandmother, my sister, my wife.
So this movie is a love letter to all of them.
They were the pillars of my family.
Here, the transformation of the two ancient gods into human form.
And you can kind of tell how they feel about humanity based on their designs.
So Xibalba turns into an old soldier,
sort of trying to live his past glories.
And La Muerte turns into a chubby, happy older lady,
who's very happy with who she is.
And so, again, these are mirrors on how they feel about humanity.
Come, mijo.
This scene is very, very delicate.
There had to be a very, very clear understanding
that Manolo missed his mother,
but Dad had to explain what Day of the Dead was.
Not just to Manolo but to the audience who's never heard of this.
And so the tone of the sequence was very important.
You can hear Gustavo Santaolalla's lullaby that he wrote.
It's very beautiful.
And it's a really emotional moment,
where Manolo sort of reminisces about his mom.
I've always loved magic realism.
And this is one of those first moments,
where we sort of start breaking the rules
and start doing wipes with flowers
and sort of start telling you, "This is not a regular world.
"This is a magical world, and there's connections to other worlds."
Just be still...
As far as the acting, the actor who played young Manolo is Emil.
He did a fantastic job.
And Hector Elizondo, who voices Carlos, Manolo's father,
really brought so much heart and gravitas to his role.
I can feel them.
You can hear sort of the pain in him when he talks.
Tonita Castro voices the old version of La Muerte.
And, again, if you pay attention, she has a chicken on her head.
And it's letting you know that
La Muerte is okay with animals and animals are okay with her,
which is a big theme in the movie.
Again, La Muerte, when she meets Manolo, she doesn't give him anything
but a blessing, and the blessing isn't magical.
She just tells him, "Believe in yourself."
And Manolo already has it in him.
Joaquin, if you notice design-wise, the grave of his father is very cold.
There's no one there praying for his dad, so...
We're hinting that there's something up with his father.
And when we first introduce old man Xibalba,
it's very much a fairy tale of the old trickster
trying to trick a young person into doing something
and taking advantage of his insecurities.
And it's delicious.
So, as you can see, both boys were asked for bread
and how they answer the question defined their future.
And Joaquin was not willing to give the bread for free,
and so Xibalba takes advantage of that and gives him this medal,
and that's a double-edged sword
that will eventually become very, very important in the film.
But that was always the idea that, even when they were kids,
those choices they made would determine who they would become.
Design-wise, old man Xibalba is very much a love letter
to the old Fleischer cartoons that I love from the '30s.
So, then, if my boy marries...
So, again, this relationship between Xibalba and La Muerte
is very unique and their designs are meant to complement each other.
La Muerte is white and made out of sugar candy,
Xibalba is tar and everything icky in the whole world.
But if you look at them, La Muerte is very much in love with Xibalba
and Xibalba is very much in love with La Muerte,
and they're still trying to figure out what went wrong.
But we keep hinting that Xibalba has cheated many, many times on La Muerte.
And so this movie is about redemption, so eventually Xibalba will redeem himself.
- ...for the hand of Maria. - Wait. So these ancient gods...
So we come out of the magical world and again much like a story book,
we get to hear the kids comment on all these things.
And, again, in the beginning,
they're very cynical
and slowly throughout the film they start getting into it.
This is another moment where we see the three kids defined by their actions.
And, as you can tell, Manolo stumbles, but he keeps getting back up
and that's who Manolo is.
You're so cute.
The introduction of Chuy was also very important.
Again, we get to understand who Maria is,
and that she will always fight for those who can't fight for themselves.
So we're setting up the little rebel as she finds her cause.
Come on, you guys!
- Let's do this! - Yeah!
And, as you can see, Manolo is all for it, Joaquin is the one who's not sure.
So that's Joaquin's father in the sculpture,
and we introduce the General, General Posada,
who's sort of the protector of the town,
but the years have not been kind to him.
And his soldiers
are not exactly up to par to protect their little town.
General Posada's voice by Carlos Alazraqui,
someone that I have worked with for many years.
So, again, it was a reunion to work him again.
So this sequence is very much inspired by the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
But this is the running of the pigs in San Angel.
And, again, Maria's having a blast.
And the little town pays for it.
Her intentions were very good, but the results were a little chaotic.
And, again, all the actions our kids are gonna take
are gonna determine who they are.
So this warthog was a design that I did.
So this is the first time Joaquin tries out his medal.
And much like a new superpower, he's very impressed.
No retreat.
And so he challenges little Manolo, and Manolo, for the first time ever,
he will use his superpower which is the blood of his ancestors,
and this idea that he comes from this line of bullfighters, so it's in him.
He can just do it, and Dad, for the first time, sees it.
And, see, he's realizing, "Wait a second, I can do this stuff."
And that's a little bit of foretelling of the future.
Manolo's life would be so easy, if he just followed in these footsteps.
He would become a rock star of bullfighting.
But he chooses not to do that, he chooses to be himself.
Ha!
We didn't want it to be an easy choice for him.
And, again, he finishes the bullfight, but he doesn't actually finish the warthog,
he just neutralizes the warthog.
Thank you, Manolo.
Gracias
The idea for the nuns singing came from singing nuns.
You okay, sir?
You have saved my life.
- And I... - Shh.
Quiet, boy. I'm talking.
- But I... - Quiet.
They were like a Greek chorus throughout the film.
Shots like these are full of Easter eggs,
there was a guy hanging from the window,
the General's hat's on fire.
Here, we pay off the chicken taking a bath joke on the screen, left corner.
So this is the type of movie that you're gonna need to watch many, many times
to catch all the background jokes. The movie is layered with that stuff.
This is something that happened back then. It even happens today in Mexico,
where if you're from a very wealthy family, and your kid is too much of a rebel,
you send your kid away to Europe
to be turned into a proper young man or a proper young lady.
And they usually come back even worse.
"Maria's gonna go back to Europe and she's gonna use this to her advantage
"and learn as much as she can and become even stronger.
"'Cause that's just the type of character she is."
So this is a big moment for our hero.
He saved the day, got zero credit for it.
Everybody... The three amigos are being separated.
And even poor Chuy pees on little Manolo.
Come along.
So, again, Manolo should go to the General, should go complain,
but no, he chooses to follow his dad,
telling you that at this point in the movie, he's still not quite himself.
Maria and every girl in town.
This hallway was very important,
it's full of posters from all the ancestors we will eventually meet.
And it's sort of a poster hall leading to the beloved San Angel plaza.
And so this is the first time Manolo
sort of reveals to his dad what he really wants to do,
which is play the guitar and sing.
Son, music is not work fit for a Sanchez...
And, again, we didn't want the dad to just hate singing.
He just wants his son to follow him.
And so, again, he's trying to explain to him,
"Your life will be so easy, if you just follow us."
But it's just not in Manolo.
The Sanchez curl they have in their hair, if you pay attention,
every time they turn around, it flips to the side they're looking.
This is a little animation trick. Sort of like the Mickey Mouse ears.
And so, the day came when Maria would leave...
This little train station is very much
an homage to the old spaghetti western, Sergio Leone train stations.
These train stations that always looked like they were falling apart.
And the whole town goes to say goodbye to Maria, right?
Little orphans and the nuns and Father Domingo, the priest.
But this moment was all about our three leads.
I'm gonna miss you guys.
So this is a big, big moment.
Of the three kids, Maria kind of knows who she is.
She's a little wiser and a little more mature than the two boys.
And you. Don't you ever stop fighting...
And she kinda tells them,
"You need to be yourself. And you need to be yourself."
And the one that listens is Manolo.
Again, this was a moment to reveal that Manolo understood Maria.
Everything she had done, she had done for this little pig.
And so now that she was leaving, Manolo wants her to keep a little piece of the town,
and, in a way, a little piece of him with her.
Seriously, no one told me about bringing gifts.
And it sets up this idea
that Maria loves animals and is willing to help them.
And that will eventually become a big plot point in the film.
Manolo's little guitar broken in the beginning, the red one.
Very important that it came from the chaos of youth.
Maria! Your bonnet!
So Joaquin goes for the bonnet
and Manolo realizes the bonnet doesn't mean anything to Maria, so he doesn't go.
Manolo, when he sees the guitar and this phrase,
which is very important in the film, is the thing that eventually saves them.
Maria!
Again, our two boys run to Maria.
Again, a nod to classic films.
And they both yell their intents.
Manolo will play when she returns and Joaquin will fight when she returns.
And that's who those two boys are.
So it was really important to make sure this rivalry was friendly to me,
because these are friends, and so these
choices that they make,
they're not out to hurt each other,
but they definitely want to compete for something they want.
One, two, three.
This Mumford & Sons' I Will Wait,
Gustavo got to do a ranchera version of it.
And I'm still incredibly thankful to the band
for letting us use this amazing, amazing Grammy-winning song.
It summed up the struggle that our two characters
were having... And this montage sequence...
I love montage sequences. So this was really hard to do.
And you can see the boys slowly becoming who they are.
Manolo keeps playing the guitar in secret and making his father upset.
And Joaquin keeps embracing his destiny.
Here we see Manolo as a grown-up for the first time.
Joaquin has now become pretty much a superhero with that medal.
And the two of them, their paths have been set.
And we don't know where Maria is yet, right?
This is all about the boys. It is all about their development.
Manolo's very unsure of his path.
Joaquin could not be more secure.
I love this shot, 'cause it sets up that he goes off to adventure.
Meanwhile, Manolo's stuck inside this bullring, he can't leave.
And then he is at his happiest when he's playing the guitar.
I will not wait for you!
And the idea that even though he's a grown-up,
he's still a little kid in the eyes of his father.
And this is his first bullfight and it didn't mean that much to him
that he was out there playing.
Playing all night with those mariachis brothers!
Here we introduce the grown-up version of Manolo
and teenage rebel version of Manolo,
as he deals with his father and his grandmother.
And we introduce the Rodriguez brothers, which are meant to represent
how Carlos... His fear, this is what Manolo will turn into,
if he doesn't follow in the family.
He's gonna turn into sort of a buffoon and people will laugh at him.
And so, he doesn't want that.
I was a beast in the arena. A beast!
Grandma Sanchez, voiced by actress Grey Griffin,
who is another actress from El Tigre, brought so much warmth to that character,
she based the voice on her own Mexican grandmother.
So it was really cool to hear Grey channel her grandmother.
...actually finish the bull.
But he finished the bull the other day in practice!
A lot of these lines came from... Guillermo would write some of these lines,
a lot of the board artists would write some of these lines.
My cowriter, Doug Langdale, again someone that I've worked with on El Tigre
came up with a lot of these lines.
So it was really, sort of, a big family reunion for all of us.
This is the internal struggle of every artist who...
Musician or painter, filmmaker, writer that wants to follow in his own footsteps,
but is stuck with the legacy that he has to live up to.
Mijo...
he no gonna do it.
This is a big moment, this tunnel.
Manolo's trying to walk into the light and the light is blocked
by someone who's very comfortable in the spotlight.
And so this is a big scene between Diego Luna and Channing Tatum.
It was the first time the little brother, older brother dynamic started blossoming.
And each of them, they're such great actors.
And Channing did so much improv
and brought such a hilarious take on Joaquin,
that I kept on rewriting all the stuff based on every record.
And then Diego is a writer and a director himself,
so he kept coming up with stuff.
Behind the scenes, it was a great creative rivalry between the two of them.
And you know who won in that rivalry? The film.
In honor of Maria's return from Europe...
the town received a rare...
So again, Joaquin very over-the-top, blue suit, white pants.
He really is a prince. He's a blue blood.
The old man who is the voice of the town.
We had to set up how incredibly macho Joaquin was,
this sequence was boarded by our head of story Ricardo Curtis.
And his boards were amazing.
And, again, setting up that this character's a larger-than-life hero.
That horse probably didn't make it, but it got him up there.
And he is not only good with the crowd, but smooth with the General.
Maria's big introduction, so Joaquin's was very loud.
Maria's, by contrast, is very quiet.
So, at this point, we don't know what Maria's like,
we only hear what the town knows.
So she's gonna help the orphanage and she's really smart.
So there's this mystery to what has become of Maria.
Hola, Joaquin.
And then we reveal that she's really, really kind and natural.
And beautiful, and so the whole town goes crazy.
The pretty girls full of makeup, dressing like European girls.
Maria is like Frida Kahlo, she's embraced her folk Mexican roots.
And so the two, Joaquin and Maria are back.
And now this is the reintroduction of Manolo to the whole town.
Pretending to be this great matador.
What?
And so the whole town is buying it.
And for the first time he dedicates the fight to Maria. And she's not into it.
I'm allergic to dying!
Gabriel Iglesias, Cheech Marin and El Mandril voice our three mariachis.
Those guys were amazing.
If you pay attention to the music in this sequence,
we are using Ennio Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold
from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as the soundtrack music.
That is my all-time favorite piece of film music, so I'm very, very thankful
to Ennio Morricone for letting us use this piece.
But it summed up this really over-the-top bullfight.
So if you pay attention,
Maria's only impressed with Manolo's romantic gestures.
She's not actually impressed with the bullfighting.
Wow.
And she's trying to cover her face with the fan,
but we the audience and Joaquin were actually getting to see how she reacts.
So, again, Manolo's not hurting the bull at all.
And he's using bullfighting to pay compliments to Maria.
So Joaquin, who thought, "There's no way this kid can compete with me, "
all of a sudden gets nervous.
The whole town is now rooting for Manolo.
Again, if he follows
his father and he follows his family,
everything will turn out great.
But we know as the audience, Maria's not into any of this stuff.
She loves animals.
The moment of truth in...
This is a huge defining moment for our hero.
In his mind, if he does this, everything, the whole world is his.
But he sees Maria, he sees inside himself
and questions tradition.
And, again, he doesn't hurt the bull. He just knocks the bull out.
And Grandma, if you pay attention throughout the film,
she restates what she's always said,
"He's not gonna do it, because he's not gonna break who he really is."
Grandma kinda speaks this truth throughout the film.
Adiós, Maria. Ow!
So this is a huge, huge heartbreaking moment for Manolo,
he thinks the whole town's turned on him, he thinks he's lost Maria.
And so Dad lays on him really, really hard.
...never apologizes! Never!
Ever.
And I've had this conversation with my father as a kid many times.
Well, then, I'm no bullfighter.
But, again, I think Diego and Hector,
an amazing chemistry between the two of them.
Again Grandma judges.
This joke of the bull being disappointed in Manolo,
it took a long time to get it just right.
Victory!
That poor kid never had a chance, my dear.
Good game, though.
And, again, like the two ancient gods that they are.
Xibalba doesn't understand mankind as well as he thinks he does.
Couldn't look you in the eye
The art direction of this sequence and the color,
Liz Hemme, our lighting supervisor, and Paul Sullivan,
all three of us worked really hard and really...
It was a really important scene in that
the moment Manolo and his father are arguing, the sky is gray,
the clouds have covered the sun and Manolo's lost.
But the moment he starts playing Creep by Radiohead,
the sky starts to open
and the sunlight comes down and the spotlight shines on him.
And his eyes are closed so he's not seeing this,
but basically the heavens are telling him, "This is you. This is who you are.
"Embrace this."
This song, Creep, has always been one of my favorite songs
and I think it sums up what every teenager feels
when they don't fit in and they just don't know who they are.
It's a song that again, I'm so thankful to Radiohead
for letting us use it.
General Posada threw a grand party to welcome Maria back.
But, you see, he had bigger plans.
To Joaquin!
So this ballroom sequence was very, very important.
We're inside Maria's house and if you look at the walls everything is gray,
because the General isn't exactly very forward-thinking or very joyous.
So we're inside his domain and the party has added a little bit of color
and Maria and Joaquin are adding color to this gray area.
And that's kind of a big thing in this house.
Maria's bedroom is gray, she's the only color in there.
She's the joy in the General's life.
Why don't you tell me a little more about...
All these sequences, they were...
I'd love for Doug and I to take credit for a lot of this stuff,
but there was definitely a lot of improv by our actors that I love.
There's little subtleties and mistakes that I love keeping in the film,
because it adds humanity, much like the imperfections in folk art.
I kind of like imperfections in the voice acting to just give it flavor.
Oh, is that so?
Now, they're basically sparring in this dinner.
Joaquin is a little too sure of himself.
And Maria sort of calls him on it.
...and be at his beck and call.
Just setting him up for the trap.
And poor Joaquin, he is very much outmatched when he says these things.
Are you kidding me?
Oh, boy.
- Is that how you see a woman?
As you can imagine, a girl like Maria, from that time,
for her to be so forward-thinking would have been a big, big deal.
She really would be a rebel.
Some people have asked, "Is this film..."
In Mexico specifically, they said, "Is this film a feminist film?"
And I said, "Well, if feminism means men and women are equal,
"then absolutely this is a feminist film."
...civilized.
Buenas noches.
You've picked yourself a feisty one.
Again, Maria was at a tableful of soldiers,
and she held her own and kind of stood for herself.
...the general invited the whole town!
Except for you, Manolo.
So, this is very much inspired by the centuries-old tradition
of going to serenade the girl of your dreams.
We get to hear the dynamic of the three brothers again.
Animation went nuts...
Our animation supervisor Wes Mandell really pushed all these characters.
And the team was just amazing.
Louis and Bill, our two leads, they just went crazy.
I put in Biz Markie's Just a Friend in the script,
thinking we'd never get the rights to it.
But sure enough, it worked out.
So what you're hearing is Cheech Marin singing Biz Markie,
which was kind of an amazing thing.
Wow, that totally captivated her.
And Gabriel Iglesias, Fluffy,
I didn't know this, but he comes from a long line of mariachis in real life.
He starts singing Rod Stewart's song, Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?
Gustavo Santaolalla got to do his take on it.
And so the yodeling you hear is Gustavo,
and then the singing is Gabriel.
Oh!
Again, we had to have Pepe
having a tattoo of himself on his own chest gag.
How could we not?
And then this is El Mandril, and he never actually gets to sing.
...way out of your league, bro.
Hey, let's eat!
So one of the themes in the movie
is when you play somebody else's song,
it's not yours, even though you make it your own.
When Manolo does that, bad things tend to happen.
And so this is I Love You Too Much,
a song composed by Gustavo Santaolalla and Paul Williams,
someone that I've always admired.
They wrote this
beautiful, beautiful serenade
that kind of sums up the relationship between Manolo and Maria.
I love you too much
And the way Joe, our layout supervisor,
the way we set this up filmmaking-wise,
was that we slowly start falling in love with Manolo.
So the camera, as you'll see,
is slowly, slowly getting closer and closer to him.
And closer to Maria.
There's love above love and it's ours
So it's very, very gentle.
...too much
As you can see, Manolo starts out in the dark.
He walks into the light.
And slowly the music starts taking over.
And the music not only starts affecting Maria,
but it starts affecting the animals.
Again, a big plot thing in our film, how important animals are.
And you can see Maria is impressed, but she's not completely there yet.
We see a rich lady with a somewhat rural poor guy.
And we're starting to see the heavens and we see La Muerte.
The song is affecting mankind and the ancient gods.
To have you come here by my side
And I love, love this song.
This was a very important moment
in that, again, in this contest to win Maria's heart,
Joaquin sees all this and he's like,
"Okay, my next move, I gotta get ready for it."
...I will fight
So, very much inspired by Romeo and Juliet,
the classic serenade scene.
And, again, the gods are watching. The gods are listening.
Andrew Ford, an incredible animator on our film,
did this shot, which is one of my favorite shots in the movie.
One of those shots that you could only do in animation.
As Manolo gets closer and closer to Maria...
There's love above love
We always call this a magic realism moment.
So as Manolo sings, the world goes away.
It's just him and Maria and the song.
And it's just the three of them, and it's all gonna work.
And then she turns on the lights.
Did you think it was gonna be that easy?
And kind of sums up a classic Mexican girl,
who's not gonna go for the easy stuff.
It's gonna be a long journey to earn her heart.
Hold on, I'm coming.
But, again, Manolo struggles and gets up, and so we root for him.
Joaquin.
And here Joaquin makes a classic, horrible mistake,
which is he's pressuring Maria.
The whole town is behind them.
His father is behind them.
It's almost like it's not only Joaquin asking for marriage,
but the whole town is asking for marriage.
And she's being put on the spot.
Manolo's moment was very intimate between the two of them.
This is in broad light.
In the room, you see paintings of all these generals.
The generals behind them.
Joaquin's dad is behind him.
- Huh? - Uh-oh.
And Manolo stumbles in.
And, again, this drama happens in front of the whole town.
- Did he propose, too?
And the dynamic of the three of them from when they were kids,
this is the next level.
Well, I proposed first. So, go fight a bull or something.
And this is very much inspired by the relationship that I had with my sister.
Sort of this rivalry we had when we were little kids.
But how are you going to protect Maria...
if you can't even finish a bull?
Channing and Diego, both had this really, really cool dynamic.
You kind of root for both.
In the beginning, I think the fear was that Joaquin would be too over-the-top
and you just wouldn't root for him.
But I think Channing brought real warmth and charisma to Joaquin.
And so you kind of love him.
Even though he yells his own name
and he does all this crazy, goofy, over-the-top stuff, you're with him.
- Huh? - What?
And Diego is so earnest and so noble,
that, again, you're rooting for both of them as characters.
I'm going to teach you some manners.
- Joaquin!
So this is a return to when they were kids,
except now Maria can fence.
And Maria is an equal to them.
Any time. Any place.
Oh. Really, guys?
No!
Don't go, Joaquin!
What if the bandidos come?
The bandidos are...
This was our first introduction of the bandits.
And, again, we did not want to set up Chakal yet.
We wanted to sort of sell the henchmen.
Eugenio Derbez plays Chato.
Eugenio is an amazing, amazing comedian and director from Mexico.
And I feel so lucky that he agreed to help us out with the voice of Chato.
All of this animation is just super-cartoony and over-the-top.
And we needed all that stuff to sort of sell how crazy this world was.
As you can see, the bandits are all...
They're made out of wood, but they also have a lot of metal on themselves.
The idea was that the bad guys were originally in the army,
and they put metal on themselves to protect themselves.
But eventually the wood rotted away.
Then maybe we won't burn...
your town down.
- Oh. - You want the town?
You're gonna have to go through me!
- Hey, ugly! - Huh?
Why don't you fight a real man?
With a really awesome mustache!
Here, a big intro to Joaquin stealing the spotlight from Manolo.
And, again, if you look closely,
a lot of the poses are inspired by classic comic book covers.
So a lot of this stuff, for anybody out there who loves comic books,
Joaquin is very much referencing a lot of the stuff.
Louis Jones, our lead on Joaquin,
really, really went out of his way to make him a superhero.
Get him, Plomo!
Imagine, Joaquin knows he can never get hurt,
so he's incredibly confident in the way he fights.
The whole town was hiding.
Joaquin shows up, and the whole town comes out to support him.
And even Maria is sort of starting to root for him.
Ow. Ooh. Oh.
One of the big influences for me
are not only a lot of action movies and animation, but video games.
There's gonna be a lot of video game references throughout the film.
Because to me, that's just as important
as every other media that I get inspired by.
- Retreat!
And don't ever come back!
So story-wise, Joaquin is slowly turning into his father.
Following in those footsteps.
And the same spotlight that was on his father is now on him,
and he could not be more comfortable with it.
So the love triangle, as you can tell,
is not really between Maria choosing Manolo or Joaquin.
She has to choose between the town and Manolo.
So she knows that if she marries Joaquin,
she's gonna protect the town.
So as a good soldier, she's gonna protect the town.
And Manolo knows this.
As you can see the kids, based on their expressions,
they're starting to get all the subtext, they're starting to get all the subtlety.
And they're starting to get what the story is really about.
This sequence was really important,
because it set up the dynamic between Manolo and his family.
Even though Carlos is really hard on him,
and even though Abuelita, Grandma, can be pretty blunt with him,
they're still his family and they still love him.
And he still goes to them for advice.
And so this is a big moment where Grandma sort of opens herself,
and this is the first time that she kind of tells him something that means a lot.
Because they're saying, "We love you and we support you."
And we go from one of the sweetest scenes
to one of the spookier scenes, where we introduce Chakal.
Chakal doesn't really show up in the film until much later.
Just to make him more scary.
And we set up that the bandits are a little goofy.
But as you can see, Chakal is more of a monster.
- Are you certain? - I swear! I swear!
Dan Navarro plays him.
And he brought a beautiful, beautiful performance.
Dan grew up on the border, much like me, in Tijuana.
He kind of heard that voice everywhere.
And, again, we set up all this is happening at once.
And then I also saved a little puppy one time that had a little...
This sequence is very much
a moment where we reveal a lot about Maria.
While Joaquin hasn't exactly impressed her,
she still loves him 'cause Joaquin's her best friend.
So Joaquin keeps sticking his foot in his mouth
with all these over-the-top things.
But as you can tell, she's charmed by him.
She's just not gonna fall for any of this stuff.
- Maria. - Yes?
And the moment where Joaquin is truthful,
and the moment where Joaquin becomes a real person
and sort of opens himself up,
that's what intrigues Maria a little bit.
She's starting to think, "Wait a second. Maybe you're not...
"You're not who I think you are.
"Maybe you are a little bit better than I expected."
Yes! Yes, yes, yes!
And what does Joaquin do?
He throws his hat down to celebrate, sort of negating the whole moment.
If you look in Maria's bedroom, you'll see the second El Tigre reference.
There's a little poster of Manny and Frida in the corner.
I can't, Manolo. My father won't...
Please, Maria. I beg you.
So, again, this moment we're about to see,
is very much inspired by how I proposed marriage to Sandra,
when we were dating.
Fix this for me, old friend.
Xibalba is watching all this stuff,
and obviously, the snake is set up.
So the tension is coming.
This whole song, you're going to enjoy it, but you know the snake is coming.
Can't Help Falling In Love is a really, really important song.
I've always loved Elvis and I've always loved this song, particularly.
Sort of the karaoke song that I sing to Sandra.
So, this idea of leading a path of candles
to a tree full of candles to propose,
that's exactly how I proposed to Sandra.
I went to her house, and it was on Day of the Dead,
I laid a path of candles, and she came out.
I had a trio.
Her whole family was there and my family was there.
And I got down on one knee,
and we both started crying when I proposed.
So this whole moment is very much based on that historical event for me.
...with you
As you can see, Maria has made her choice.
She's picked Manolo.
In the end, this wager, it was always her choice.
She's the one who decides who she marries.
She's not gonna let her dad pick.
It's so beautiful.
This reveal of the town,
again, Manolo is a male character that can appreciate this beauty
and that can appreciate these quiet moments.
And that's I think the real reason Maria loves him.
Because he's different.
Oh, Manolo.
And you can see by the body language,
Manolo is offering himself up, he doesn't have a ring.
He's not Joaquin at all, but that doesn't stop him from trying.
And I love this.
I love that Maria gets down on one knee, too.
She's basically saying we're equals.
- Snake! - No!
Plot-wise, the snake was supposed to bite Manolo.
So this is a big...
Hopefully, the audience doesn't see this coming.
But it's Maria who gets bit.
If you notice the colors, this is a big moment.
As the colors start fading because Maria starts fading,
the light starts fading in Manolo's life.
So we go into this gray palate.
Again, candles going out, which is very symbolic in our movie.
And this whole sequence is pretty spectacular.
Augusto Schillaci, our visual effects supervisor,
went out of his way to make sure the look of the film was super-unique.
He was a great collaborator,
always willing to break the rules
and push the envelope on the look of our film.
But this is one of my favorite, favorite sequences.
Again, the world is gray. It's all gone away.
The only color is the characters,
and if you look at Maria, her color is fading.
What have you done, boy?
What have you done?
And so Manolo, we always said,
"It's raining, because even the heavens are sad.
"They're crying for Maria."
No!
Maria died?
That can't be right!
What kind of story is this? We're just kids!
So this was one of my favorite lines that Guillermo came up with.
And again very meta, sort of commenting on the movie itself.
I will never see her again.
And then this moment's very much a classic fairytale moment
of the trickster taking advantage of mankind when they're down.
I mean, Manolo's literally on his knees crying,
when Xibalba tricks him.
And, again, a little foreshadowing of what's gonna happen.
Manolo's misreading everything.
Done.
And, again, the magical snake takes him on the...
Maria...
On this journey to this other world.
As you can see, he has a smile, 'cause he's going to be reunited with Maria.
What is it with Mexicans and death?
This is another hilarious Guillermo line that gets a huge, huge laugh
and kind of sums up Mexico.
So this Land of the Remembered is the main dish in our movie.
And it was really, really hard to make this.
Paul Sullivan, our art director, just killed himself, him and the art team.
We worked so hard on this land.
Writing the description of what this world looked like in the script.
It was like three paragraphs where I sort of explained what it all was.
But then Paul had to conceive, "What will that actually look like in the real world,
"and what will it look like in our film?"
And so we worked really, really hard on all this stuff.
I made it.
And on the Day of the Dead, no less.
Where is...
Miguel Sandoval plays the Captain and I love his voice.
And, again, we needed a guide to welcome Manolo.
All the plot points here connect, right?
Maria's not in this list.
That piece of paper has the names of a ton of crew members in the film,
so if you freeze-frame it, you'll see everybody's name in there.
Another Sanchez?
And, again, Manolo could not be happier,
he's come to this world to be reunited with Maria,
so this is a really happy festive moment.
And this land is something I've been dreaming about for the last 15 years,
so to finally put it on film, it definitely felt like it took 15 years.
So as you can see, all the colors, all the saturation,
everyone's smiling, all the buildings are smiling.
This land is very much...
This is Guillermo's cameo in the movie.
The Land of the Remembered was vibrant and joyous!
I can honestly say he nailed it on the first take.
We had a blast with that little cameo.
But as you can see in this land, humans and animals are interacting.
And, again, we're telling you in this land, where everything is happy,
mankind and animals have made up.
Wow.
The three floats reflecting who these ancestors are.
The first one is a giant pyramid.
And so we start meeting all these superheroes that Manolo grew up idolizing.
Carmelo Sanchez, who I got to voice,
it represents the pre-Hispanic history of Mexico, right?
The Aztec and the Mayan and so he's an Aztec bullfighter.
And they all passed away, because they were a little too sure of themselves
and a little too confident.
So that's one of the lessons that Manolo has to learn is be more humble.
Oh. The great Jorge Sanchez!
Plàcido Domingo, the incredible Plàcido Domingo voices Jorge Sanchez,
and the design of Jorge is a little bit of a nod to Don Quixote.
And then Plàcido in real life has been performing Carmen,
the opera that's inspired by bullfighting,
and so what you hear, the music behind them is Carmen.
...I always dreamt of singing in the opera.
- You did? - But as you know...
Plàcido was someone that, as soon as he accepted the role,
Doug and I ended up rewriting his part to make sure we got a little opera in there,
this idea that Manolo could go back
and liberate an ancestor who actually wanted to sing,
but wasn't able to stand up to his parents.
Of course!
And then this is a big introduction to Luis Sanchez,
played by one of my favorite character actors, Danny Trejo.
Danny is someone that who always, always...
I worked with him on El Tigre.
I definitely wanted to work with him on this film.
And he embodies this super machismo.
And so Danny gave us a really great performance
and it's always amazing work with him.
You couldn't finish one bull?
- You were a clown.
Sorry, cousin Chucho.
That's little Uncle Chucho giving you a hint as to...
This family has all types of family members.
And this is a big, big, big moment in the movie.
Ana De La Reguera plays Carmen.
And so we got to record this sequence together with Diego and Ana,
who had known each other.
But it was a very, very emotional record.
And, again, you hear Gustavo's lullaby underneath,
setting it up in the beginning of the movie. It pays off here,
this reunion between Manolo and his mother.
I've waited so long for you.
The design of Carmen, which Sandra did,
is very much inspired by the chiapanecas in Southern Mexico.
And then her hair is inspired by Tongolele and a little bit of María Félix.
So all these are classic actresses in the history of Mexican cinema.
So handsome, you turned out.
And I became a bullfighter...
But this was a big, big emotional moment.
And I thought the acting our animators did in this sequence is
so subtle and so beautiful and Ana's performance is so charming.
We wrote Ana's character, Carmen.
I kind of based her on my mom,
who's a little quirky, and a little too happy sometimes.
But that's kind of where that character came from.
These are the Adelita twins.
I've always loved Adelitas.
These were our revolutionary warrior women of Mexico,
who, when the men fell in battle,
they picked up the swords and the machetes and they fought.
And so we wanted give Manolo these cool cousins,
so Sandra designed them.
Savage.
Come, she will help you find my new daughter-in-law.
La Muerte's castle, again, a Paul Sullivan design,
very much inspired by the Mexican trees of life.
Once we enter the castle,
there's a lot of references to the architect
Antoni Gaudí from Spain.
And a lot of designs from ancient Mexico
and a little bit of an influence of everything, which is what Mexico is.
It's a sort of mish-mash of cultures.
As you can see, this is a larger-than-life magical world.
And we had to, at the same time, try to give it some reality.
So there is gonna be
the food that connects us to the world above.
So all those offerings from upstairs
magically transport down for the Land of the Remembered characters.
So this is supposed to be the happiest moment in the film,
when Manolo will be reunited with Maria and...
Xibalba, the trickster, has won
and taken advantage of our hero.
So, again, really, really fun sequences with Ron Perlman.
Ron is an incredible actor
and, I think, what he brought to Xibalba
was such a unique take on this mischievous, lovable villain.
I mean, he is redeemed in the end,
but he does some pretty dark stuff in the movie
and we love him, we root for him.
And since you're not around anymore...
Maria is going to marry Joaquin just to, you know, protect her...
As you can see in Xibalba's design,
he has black candles with green flames of envy
and they're burning the skulls.
So it kind of tells you Xibalba really enjoys torturing mankind.
...the sleeping beauty.
So, again, this was one of those moments, Maria wakes up.
And, as you can see, the colors in her room are very gray.
She is the life of this room.
And then...
Cheers.
...Manolo figured this out,
and he starts putting two and two together.
And he doesn't care that Xibalba is an ancient god.
He stands up to him, which I thought very much was Manolo.
He is not afraid. In the movie, he is never afraid.
And a lot of animated movies are...
The main characters have this giant flaw that they have to conquer,
the traditional character arc.
Manolo's different. Manolo, from the beginning,
he knows who he is, as far as what he wants,
he's just not willing to commit to it.
As the film progresses, he starts growing more confident,
and sort of embraces who he really is.
But if you really look at his arc, it's very much internal.
This was a beautiful, beautiful moment.
There's no dialogue, but this shot of Dad just thinking about his son,
and of all the regrets of all the things he didn't say,
it's one of my favorite quiet moments in the film.
I'm sorry, Maria.
This sequence, again, if you look, Maria's bedroom,
even the wallpaper are bars. She's kind of in a cage.
That her dad is trying to protect her from the real world.
And if you look at all the walls, she has covered them with posters.
And they're posters full of color
and posters of different places all over the world.
And, in a way, those are her windows.
Those are the things she wants to do.
So this is a huge emotional sequence that our animators really nailed.
Zoë Saldana's performance of Maria is pretty astounding.
And the emotion she brought to Maria,
the feistiness she brought to her,
sort of the character's soul came from that performance.
Ah, young love.
So this is a big moment in the movie,
where Manolo's kind of stuck down there, right?
He goes down there to be with Maria
and she's not there.
So this is a big, big moment.
"You've got to go back." And so different family members
start offering different advice. And he pleads with them.
Again, his life would be so much easier,
or his death would be so much easier, if he just stayed down there.
But he does not give up. He's not gonna take the easy way out.
And at this point, all the kids are rooting for him.
And so they are now invested in the story.
And, as you can see, all the answers are coming from the family members.
This was the first time we had Plàcido Domingo sing a line.
So Skeleton Jorge started to believe this is an opera.
Sort of setting it up.
It was one of my favorite moments between Danny and Diego.
...it's a good day for doom.
Manolo accepting his destiny and he impresses the whole family.
Even though he's different from them,
he's still a part of the Sanchez family.
And so they're starting to root for him on his own terms.
The legendary Cave of Souls was rumored to be at the edge...
It's a sequence that Ronn, our matte painting supervisor,
his team did just an amazing job throughout the film.
A lot of these were meant to look like living paintings.
This, uh...
Clayton, one of our artists, designed this beautiful, beautiful, sort of love letter
to the ancient Aztec god of the death,
and that's what that tower is supposed to look like.
My arthritis is killing me!
And again, setting up this dynamic
that these three generations are going on this journey.
We made it, mijo.
Manolo doesn't go first,
and we start to set up this idea that Manolo is different.
Manolo is different than anybody else.
Grandpa!
As the Cave Guardian voiced by Eric Bauza, again,
one of my old El Tigre actors,
tells us Danny's character, Grandpa Luis, is not worthy.
And so it's up to Manolo.
Ray, one of our incredible board artists, came up with this sequence.
And we kind of set it up that this challenge,
Manolo shouldn't be fighting anyone. He sort of...
In a way, he's trying to understand himself.
So these tasks are very much about who he is.
Uh-oh.
And so all these problems are kind of chasing him.
In his life, all these responsibilities, all this guilt is going after him.
And throughout this sequence, he kind of figures it out.
He just needs to deal with them. He needs to confront them.
And what does he do? He lets them all neutralize each other.
And so this is a big moment in the movie, where he just lets it happen,
and that's how he stops them.
That was so beautiful.
And, again, he won by not fighting.
So the Cave Guardian
very much says, "Okay, you are smart enough,
"but let's see if your heart is pure enough."
And, I guess, if you remember, from the beginning of the movie,
La Muerte said, "May your heart be pure and always full of courage."
And Manolo, again, doesn't fight.
He stands there and takes it, takes it like a man.
And the Cave Guardian reveals, "Yep, your heart is pure.
"Your quest is worthy,
"which is to return to your town and to save the love of your life."
This is the Cave of Souls?
Shh, Grandpa! Show some respect.
That...
was...
awesome, man!
So this is a big intro to the Candle Maker.
Very much...
Ice Cube had never done animation before.
So this is a big treat for me. I'm a big hip hop fan.
And I've always loved Ice Cube.
And so when I first presented the idea to him,
I don't know if he was sure that he was in the right meeting,
because he would look at all the art work and he kind of said, like,
"How do I fit into all this?" And I told him,
"I see you as...
"This movie very much deals with music,
"and to me you are one of the gods of hip hop.
"So I'd love for you to play a god in our film."
And he went for it.
And so this was one of those characters that was really difficult to nail down,
because he had to be a little crazy and he had to be a little goofy,
because he hasn't seen any mankind, anybody enter.
So he's gotten lonely.
And the Book of Life, we introduce him as a character,
and sort of it's...
They've been in exile, they haven't talked to anybody.
So they've gone a little loopy.
The Cave of Souls was very much inspired by this old Mexican movie,
where they had a cave full of candles that represented the souls of mankind.
And so this is our version of that
and sort of my idea of what this land would look like.
Our production designer, Simón Varela,
went out of his way to draw all this stuff
and it was really, really amazing to see Simón work.
He is one of the last artists who work in charcoal
and traditional media.
And so throughout the film, a lot of the designs, Simón went nuts,
and gave us some of the most amazing beautiful things.
And there, that's Maria.
Candle Maker, Ice Cube thinks that's my homage in the film to myself.
I thought I was the priest, but I'll take the Candle Maker.
If Ice Cube says it, I believe it.
This little sequence, right there,
you can see me and my wife and my son, Luka,
and we're praying to the memory of my grandfather,
so that's a little nod to my family.
With him comes the end of your town.
Again, Ice Cube came to these records,
and he had so many great ideas
and so many improv lines
that I screwed up a lot of the takes, 'cause I couldn't help myself
and I would just start laughing.
But he is someone that just gave it his all.
And I love, love, love how the Candle Maker turned out.
He's one of my favorite characters in the film.
...they're blank!
Eric Drobile, the lead on him,
one of the amazing animators at Reel FX,
really, really went to town on him.
And he had to be different than our wooden characters.
And so he really embraced sort of the rubber hose feel of Candle Maker.
And I think he brings great contrast in the film.
Especially we were almost an hour into it or past an hour,
and so you start needing contrast and you start needing different things.
Come on, let's do this.
Cave of Souls was sort of a portal land
in between all of our magic realms.
And there's a lot more magic realms than you think.
We just allude to them. But we only see three of them in this movie.
And so these waterfalls connect us to all these realms.
- No retreat! - Hold on!
No surrender!
So we've now gone to the Land of the Remembered, full of color,
and we're about to enter the Land of the Forgotten,
which is the opposite of that.
The lack of color, and as you can see, it's very much black and white,
almost charcoal in its color.
In the Land of the Living, you're made out of wood,
in the Land of the Remembered, you're made out of stone,
in the Land of the Forgotten, you're basically made out of ash,
as you start falling apart, because people don't remember you,
and so they're starting to forget you.
You might end up in Tijuana.
This was another really, really difficult thing to do in the film,
which was set up yet another magical world.
But as you can see,
this land is full of triangles, devoid of color.
And we didn't want it to be scary.
More than anything, we wanted it to be sad.
There it is, Xibalba's castle.
So the castle, two-headed snake, the symbol of Xibalba,
that was one of the first designs we ever did.
But how did you get here?
Paul and I, Paul Sullivan,
we sort of wanted to make this land an extension ofXibalba.
So you see little hints of him throughout.
There's murals everywhere with his face
and even in these walls in the back,
you see La Muerte and Xibalba tiles everywhere.
Xibalba cheated.
He did what?
Lava was sort of this scary version of rock.
So that's why in the castles where we have all the red color,
sort of tell you this is the most dangerous area in this land.
La Muerte's been exiled there.
But now, now that she's found out what Xibalba was really up to,
we have one of my favorite moments in the movie,
which is this back and forth between the two of them.
I just love their interactions and I love the sort of teasing
and the back and forth between them.
Especially when he knows he screwed up
and he is trying to charm his way out of it.
Kate and Ron got to record these sequences together.
And it was a very, very cool record.
It was a... They were matching wits.
And it was pretty, pretty cool. They started improvising. It was great.
"Medal of Everlasting Life"?
Whoever wears the medal cannot die or...
And, again, imagine these are mortals watching these gods fight.
And it turns out that the gods are just as human as the humans.
And so their interactions start getting really interesting.
My son did not deserve this.
Come on, I have to go back.
And, again, all these little back-and-forths,
very much inspired by some of the interactions that Sandra and I have
about many things.
But Manolo, for the first time, challenges the gods.
I mean, if you think about this moment,
this is a mortal who's taking on gods.
And so he knows, he's figured it out, right?
He's figured out gambling is, sort of, their weakness.
These wagers, these larger-than-life wagers are kind of their thing.
So he takes advantage of that.
And he goes, "Okay, well,
I'll play along. And I'll make a bet with you."
We have a deal.
And I think Xibalba can't help himself. And so he agrees to it.
And I think when he asks him, "What is your worst fear?"
this is a big moment for Manolo.
We don't know what that biggest fear is. We're gonna find out a little bit later.
But we assume it's one thing based on what happens, but it's not.
So this is the Land of the Remembered plaza,
which is very much inspired by the Colosseum.
Fred Gardner designed it
and it was one of those things where we talked about it,
and I said, "I want it to look like the Colosseum from Rome.
"Like five of them on top of each other."
And this idea that animals and humans have fought in them.
And so it had to have just as much history as everything else in our film.
This is impossible. It can't be done!
So Manolo is supposed to take on the skeleton bulls,
representing all the bulls that his family had taken.
And so this was a big, big sequence, effects-wise.
Eric, our effects supervisor, and his team just...
They did magic with the resources they had.
You boys warn General Posada.
This is, again, a big moment in the movie,
one of my favorite moments in the movie.
And it's Carlos. He knows he's only buying those kids time,
but it's worth it, right?
In ancient Aztec beliefs, you were judged not by the way you lived,
but by the way you died.
Then come and get some.
And so Carlos' story ends in the most heroic and amazing way.
As you can see, the candle telling us Carlos is coming.
Get out of there!
And so this was a very important moment.
One of our animators, Ernesto, suggested this.
And he said, "It'd be a shame if Manolo has his moment in the end
"and his dad doesn't witness it."
So this is how we got Carlos down to watch the big, climatic bull fight.
Again, Eric and his team, and Augusto Schillaci sort of...
I still don't know how we got away
with doing all this craziness in the time allowed with our resources.
But I cannot be happier with how the skeleton bull turned out
and that transformation.
This is a design that Paul and I worked on for a long, long time
with Dustin, one of our character designers.
Yes.
For San Angel, I do.
So this is what we call the saddest wedding in the history of weddings.
And as you can see, all the candles in the church are not lit.
This is a sad moment.
Chakal is here!
So chaos is coming. Joaquin realizes he has no medal.
And General's terrified, but Maria
looks at the crowd and says, "No, no, no.
"We can do this. If we fight together, we can do this."
Meanwhile, Manolo is... Just when things couldn't get any worse,
they get even worse with the ring of fire and he's not exactly winning.
Tension's building.
And I love, love, love this joke.
Cholesterol.
And, again, we had to cut the tension,
'cause the stakes are really high at this point,
but we don't want to climax too early.
We want the story to sort of hit you in the right places.
So this speech was really hard.
Do you know what I see?
I must have written this thing with Doug, like, 30 times.
It was really, really hard.
I looked at the Henry V speech and we kept writing it over and over.
And it had to be a speech that said a lot of really specific things.
And the way Zoë delivered it
and the way Jackie and Jess animated Maria was pretty incredible.
But it was a really, really tough speech to nail down.
I think it works really great in the end.
But it's one of those sequences that was really hard from the beginning.
It couldn't be too over-the-top, and it couldn't be too subtle.
It had to be just right.
You are like the son I never had!
So, here, the General's arc is complete.
He's now accepted Maria for who she really is.
And if you look at the crowd of people, everyone's scared, except Maria.
And then, as usual, Joaquin comes in and steals the spotlight.
Because no one's that big, man.
So, there, that joke, the guy yelling, that's me.
I'm happy I got that line in.
This is our big showdown, right? The monster versus the hero.
All this is about a stupid medal?
Are you kidding me?
Channing came up with this idea
that Joaquin would yell out his own name in one of the records
and we just ran with it.
As you can see, he's way too confident.
And then the medal goes.
And now that's the real Joaquin.
He doesn't have any power.
And so we don't even show you how badly he gets beaten.
We figured in your mind it'd be worse. So we decided not to show it to you.
Meanwhile, Manolo's dealing with an even bigger threat.
And much like with the boulders, he gets out of the way.
Again, he didn't fight the bull to knock him out.
He just got out of the way.
So this is the biggest moment in the movie.
As far as internal conflict goes, this is the moment.
He can be just like his family. He can follow in the tradition.
He can win by finishing the bull.
But what does he do?
He does not do that.
And these are big moments for him.
He's coming to terms with who he really is.
And that's what he does.
And, so this movie is very much inspired by the myth of Orpheus,
who was a musician.
And so this is our Orpheus moment,
where Manolo will sing his way out of this.
But it's not just the song he plays, it's what he says in the song that matters.
And he kind of ends the cycle
of what his family's been doing for years,
which is the theme of the story and the theme of our movie, which is,
it doesn't matter where you come from, and who your parents are,
and the traditions you come from,
it's good to acknowledge them and it's good to love them,
but the choices you make yourself,
that's what determines who you really are.
And so this song, Manolo's spilling his heart.
And slowly he gets closer and closer to the bull.
He is not walking away. He is sort of embracing this.
And one of the biggest messages of the movie
is also the power to apologize.
The power to admit that you were wrong,
and those that came before you were wrong,
even though you love them and you admire them.
And that you can change things.
And that you can break these cycles.
And so this beautiful song.
Paul Williams and Gustavo are geniuses and I just...
You know, again, one of these songs where the first time I heard it,
I just started crying. I was so overwhelmed.
And the power of apologizing, the power of apology.
You know, for a human, especially a bull fighter
to get down on his knees and apologize to an animal,
that's a huge, huge gesture in this world.
And so the fire of anger, it's all gone.
And from that, he takes all that pain away
and the skeleton bull turns into flower petals, the marigolds.
And the anger of the bulls is gone, and they are free.
- He did it! - Yes, he did.
And so the human just taught the gods a lesson.
Which, again, in Greek mythology, to me, was always a metaphor for
kids teaching their parents a lesson.
Xibalba had been wrong.
Manolo's fear was never bullfighting.
So this reunion between father and son, very much ties up...
Every line ties to the beginning,
that first conversation we heard between the two of them.
They start referencing those exact lines,
except now, each of them understands the other one a lot better
and they kind of...
The empathy between the two of them is very different.
And at that moment, Manolo conquered...
When my father and I,
when we saw the film together and this sequence occurred,
as you can imagine, there was a lot of tears.
...we give you life.
So Manolo's internal struggle is complete.
He is a full man, because he's accepted who he is.
And it's ironic that he had to die in order to
come alive and become himself.
But that's the story we're telling.
So Joaquin has lost the medal, all is lost, the town is about to fall
and we have our hero return.
And as you can see, when he comes back, he doesn't want the medal.
That's cheating. He's gonna do this on his own.
And he's come back so much more confident,
'cause he knows who he is.
And now that he has faced all those otherworldly obstacles,
taking on Chakal is doable.
But before that, he's gonna get his kiss.
'Cause he's earned it.
Hold this for me, amigo.
And, again, there's a time to play and a time to fight.
And this is the time to fight.
So this is a big hero return moment for Manolo.
Yeah. Yeah, mang.
And, again, he's just a man. So the odds are not good.
But he's not backing down.
With the whole town behind him, he's gonna take on Chakal.
- Huh?
And then the Sanchez ancestors return to help him,
thanks to the gods.
And, again, this idea that Manolo has changed everything.
And on our day...
So the gods are now rooting for him.
Xibalba's change has begun.
If you notice, he's now rooting for Manolo,
even though it means he's gonna lose the wager,
it doesn't matter.
The kid has earned his siding.
Familia Sanchez!
So this big moment, as you can see,
just 'cause they're ready to fight Chakal, that doesn't mean it's gonna be any easier.
This is a really fun moment with Plàcido Domingo.
When we recorded him,
he wasn't sure he was gonna be able to sing.
And then he started singing and then, you know, people's hats flew off,
and wind hit us.
It was amazing. And Plàcido's just that good.
And then I got to...
You know, I get to sing right after Plàcido Domingo, so...
It's pretty terrible, so I'm hoping it's funny.
Sandra thinks it's hilarious how bad a singer I am.
Another video game reference.
Here, Anjelah Johnson and Sandra Equihua, my wife,
play the two Adelita sisters.
And we had a lot of fun with that little dynamic of the twins.
All this stuff, pantomime.
And then one of my all-time dreams
to have a mustache punch someone out finally occurred.
Thank you
Yeah, having a Mexican wrestling priest
in the film was really important to me.
There's certain iconography in Mexico that,
"I can't make a movie without a luchador."
So we had to put him in there.
Hold me!
So as you can notice, the medal gives you courage,
but the soldiers are so cowardly that it doesn't work on them.
So now Chuy has his big heroic moment, he leads the pigs.
And if you notice, some of those pigs are skeleton pigs.
So he's also reunited with his family.
Chakal's swords are meant to look like sharks,
sort of to define the type of character Chakal is.
This kung fu reference, you know, we wanted to set up again.
Maria did a lot more studying in Europe than you think.
She learned a lot of stuff.
This is kind of a meta moment with Maria saying, "Men. Typical!"
I feel like she's saying it to me and Doug as writers,
like, "Really? You guys are gonna do, you know, the King Kong reference here?"
Got it. Joaquin!
So, again, Manolo is a lot more confident.
Instead of fighting these guys, he just jumps over them,
'cause they are not the real threat, they're not the real obstacle.
And then this moment, climbing up the tower.
This was a big moment for me in the script, which, it's very symbolic.
Each of the ancestors that helps him is one of the generations.
So in order for Manolo to succeed,
he is basically getting help from each of these different eras.
And the last one is his dad.
And his dad tells him, you know, when he was a kid,
"When you grow up, you're gonna be the greatest Sanchez ever
"by being a bull fighter."
And, here, Dad says,
"You're the greatest Sanchez ever for being yourself."
So the battle on top of the tower begins.
So all this became very, very technical.
We had to make sure it all worked.
And if you notice, Chakal slowly starts losing his swords.
And Maria, she can hold her own, but she can't defeat Chakal by herself.
And Manolo can't defeat Chakal by himself.
But when they work together and they use the tower,
and they use the bell to their advantage,
that's how they defeat him.
By working together and being smart.
And so they're having fun,
and the more fun they have, the angrier Chakal gets
and the more they start to knock him out.
Now it's your turn!
And then Manolo gets the final punch.
Bell hits Chakal.
And at this point, Joaquin has found the medal.
As you can tell, he put his hand on his chest.
And Maria's saved.
The whole town seems to
be amidst battle.
And then this is a big moment, right? Chakal is trapped.
And like the evil villain that he is,
he's not going out without taking the whole town with him.
So we just give you a hint to what one of those bombs did.
Well, he just lit up 30 of those.
No more shadows, Dad.
So this is a big moment for Manolo and Joaquin,
where they decide what we're gonna do.
And if you pay attention, Joaquin put his arm on Manolo's back,
which, later you'll find out why.
So the two of them work together.
Hey!
This is now between Manolo and Joaquin.
And, again, the performance here between Channing and Diego is fantastic.
You really feel for them.
Diego really sort of captured the moment of sacrifice that Manolo's about to make.
And Zoë's performance is so good.
Don't forget me.
That goodbye, that's the exact line
little Maria said to the boys when she left.
So, again, the church bell sound.
The battle's over, the bandits leave.
And Manolo has sacrificed himself
to save the whole town.
And as you can see, there's a little bit of green on his back.
We're gonna find out
that Joaquin actually saved his friend.
He was ready to sacrifice himself to save the town.
So it was a very heroic gesture.
And I think this is a very soulful moment for Joaquin.
His arc is complete and he paid the price with his eye.
And in a way, you know, this is a character that was obsessed with his looks.
And so he's paid a big price, but he cannot be happier,
because he's now become a real hero.
I have never seen more clearly.
And that, in the end, was what he's always wanted.
And so it's a very heartfelt moment.
And like a good friend,
he's happy that Maria and Manolo are gonna be together,
because those are his friends.
...a true hero...
You have to be selfless.
And, here, now the kids finish
the lines for Mary Beth.
The story has changed them.
The story has made them care.
So these very cynical kids have come to terms with being earnest.
I do.
By the power vested in us...
I love movies that end with a wedding.
All my favorite old movies end like this,
and so we had to end with a wedding and a wedding party.
She is going to be a great Sanchez.
And, again, Maria is now part of the Sanchez family.
And based on how strong the women are in that family,
she's gonna fit right in.
Ah, well...
So now that the humans have done their thing,
now the gods have their moment and Xibalba has learned.
You know, "I apologize for what I've done. I don't deserve you."
He's now learned a lesson from the humans,
which is a big deal.
And La Muerte acknowledges this and takes him back.
And so their arc is complete.
This last song in the movie was written by Us The Duo.
Beautiful, beautiful husband and wife band.
And they played this song at their own wedding.
So when I saw the video, I immediately fell in love with them.
John Houlihan, Patrick Houlihan and Areli from Fox Music
brought this song to us.
And I cannot love this song more.
When we started animating it,
you know, this was one of the last things we animated in the movie.
So we were running out of time.
And definitely the schedule was getting tighter and tighter.
But all our animators jumped in, full hearts,
and went nuts animating this very, very, very beautiful song.
We got to hear Zoë sing for the first time.
All of us completely blown away
by what a great singer she is.
So to have the two of them sing together in this last song was amazing.
Obviously, we had Placido Domingo sing.
We can't not let Plàcido sing.
And so all the stories are tied up in this last song.
Joaquin's gonna be all right.
The General's gonna be all right.
I love this little moment where we tell you,
"Well, Joaquin and the twins, they have a thing!"
And there's a shot coming up done by Louis I really love,
and it's this shot.
Louis and Bill did it.
Where they basically are dancing with their parents
and then they go to each other, as if to say,
"We're not kids anymore. Now we're a couple."
And the whole town is rooting for them.
You know, this kid, who the town booed, the town didn't back up,
has now changed the town
and they have all now come around to accept him for who he is.
You see the lake is shaped like a skull, the town is shaped like a guitar.
This movie is dripping with magic realism and symbolism.
And it's pretty much everywhere.
The image on the left, done by Paul on that book,
that's the crew shirt image.
So if you see anybody with a T-shirt that has that,
they worked on the movie.
So as you can see, the real world is now changed.
It's all warm.
With plants and pottery from San Angel.
And then our big reveal that Mary Beth was actually La Muerte,
and sure enough, the security guard was Xibalba.
These kids, they will have the courage to live.
And so we came out from the story into another story,
and that's a big line in the film,
you know, "These kids will have the courage to live."
And then we come out of that story and we reveal,
"Hey, all these stories,
they're everywhere and you gotta tell your own.
"And you just saw this story, what's gonna be your story?"
So we kind of challenged the audience
and we challenge everybody to now write your own story,
"Be memorable, do something that will make people talk about you
"and remember you in a good way."
Brad Booker, I'd like to point out, has been a friend of mine for many, many years.
He brought me to Reel FX, he was a producer on the film.
He worked with me side by side and he's someone that...
If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have done this movie at all.
This credit sequence was done by Justin Harder,
an old friend of Reel FX.
And I love it.
And one of the things I really like about it is,
he took all of the original character designs that Sandra and I had done in Flash,
and sort of stylized them even more.
So it gives you a glimpse of how graphic these characters really are,
when you break them down.
I also would love to really thank
20th Century Fox and Reel FX,
working together to make this film.
Reel FX came on board and believed in me from the beginning,
and I could not be more thankful to them.
Brad brought me in and kind of really convinced them to back this film.
Then Guillermo came in and I pitched him the movie,
and it was kind of a disaster.
And he really, really sort of saw through the terrible pitch,
and said, "No, no. There's something unique here."
And kind of knew my work from El Tigre
and really sort of became a mentor and a friend.
And this movie would not have been made without him.
And then 20th Century Fox,
Vanessa Morrison and Jim Gianopulos really, really believed in our film.
They kind of fell in love with it from the beginning,
and, again, helped us make something really unique and really different.
This movie doesn't look like most of the stuff out there
and doesn't feel like a lot of the stuff out there.
And it's to their credit that they backed us and they supported something so different.
So, again, I cannot be more thankful to them.
Just keep calm and carry on
On a single note Oh, oh, oh, oh
All these people.
Ricardo Curtis, our head of story, was fantastic.
Wes Mandell, his team of animators just went nuts.
Matthew and Geoffrey really held it together.
I mean, these people...
You have no idea how hard this movie was to make.
I always dreamt of making a movie like this.
To this day, I cannot believe we got to make it.
Mike Fortner and Glo Minaya are really, really important parts of this movie.
I mean, everybody in these credits earned their credit for working so hard.
You know, Eric Baker, Steve Hilbert. Joel was amazing.
Yeah, obviously, Liz.
I mean, I feel so lucky as a director
that I got to work with such an incredible team
of passionate artists and artisans, and technicians.
I would also love to thank Ahren Shaw, our editor.
I apologize for not mentioning him sooner, but I'm leaving him to the end.
He is someone who really stepped up in our movie.
We had a lot of editing help from other very experienced editors,
but for multiple reasons, they all kind of left us.
And Ahren was the last man standing
and he took the bull by the horns and really worked closely with me.
And I could not be more proud of the editing in the movie.
So, thank you, Ahren Shaw.
I really, really recommend you watch this movie many times,
because there's a ton of little things
hidden in the backgrounds throughout the film
that I think will be really, really cool to catch.
I watch animated movies over and over and so does my son.
So we definitely made it thinking about those things.
I would also love to thank Gustavo Santaolalla
and his recording partner Anibal,
and Tim Davies, our arranger,
who also helped Gustavo with a lot of the music.
They were fantastic.
Café Tacvba is one of the bands that allowed us to use their music.
And they have always been a huge influence of mine,
because they took traditional music
from the history of Mexico and kind of made it their own,
and mixed it with techno and punk and ska.
And so they've been a huge, huge influence.
We also have a song from Kinky in the film.
So, again, I'm very thankful to them.
Le Tigre gave us a song.
So I'm really happy that's in the beginning of the film,
when the bus shows up.
Also, you know, I'd love to thank Rod Stewart for letting us use his song,
Biz Markie for letting us use his song.
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros let us use Home in the end.
Again, Ennio Morricone,
and thanks to him, we got to use The Ecstasy of Gold.
A lot of these songs,
I honestly never thought we would be able to get them,
but, one by one, thanks to John Houlihan and the team at Fox Music,
we got really lucky and they let us use these songs.
Mumford & Sons, Radiohead, all these bands.
I never believed we could get them.
Another thing I'd like to mention is a lot of the sculptures in the film
were done in El Salvador by Simón and his team.
So thanks to those guys,
we kind of sold this idea of these wooden characters.
'Cause in the beginning, people would see Sandra and my art work
and they would kind of go, "What? What is this?
"What is this gonna look like in three dimensions?"
So I'm very thankful.
Also, Jonas, our post-production supervisor,
really, really held it together.
Scott, our sound designer, brought amazing, amazing sound design to our film.
Andy and Beau, our mixers, were pretty incredible.
All the facilities that helped us out
on the post side could not have been nicer to us.
David Cole, our colorist, I think is a huge part of our movie,
because we worked really hard with him, Paul and I,
to make sure the colors stayed true,
not only in the regular version, but in the stereo version.
Steve O'Brien, the chief officer at Reel FX,
again, this movie would not have happened without his support, and Tom.
Also like to thank Aron Warner, one of our producers on the movie,
for helping us out throughout the film.
And, again, I...
All these people in the credits,
I wish they'd go slower, so I could thank all of them.
But they have all been incredible, everybody was so committed to the movie.
We got to record in London at Air Studios,
and, again, all the musicians there were fantastic.
We got to play Beethoven's Ninth when Maria shows up,
which is my father's favorite piece of music.
And, again, look at these music credits, it's pretty amazing to see all these bands.
And then Paul Williams and Gustavo making original songs for us.
So buy the soundtrack, it's amazing!
Again, Us The Duo.
And then in end, we get to hear La Santa Cecilia do a song.
And then Jesse & Joy...
La Santa Cecilia does a cover of The Apology Song.
And then Jesse & Joy sing this beautiful, beautiful song, Live Life
from Kool Kojak,
and I adore this song.
The movie, my dedication's in Spanish.
I dedicate it to my friend who passed away, and my grandfather,
and Sandra's father, who passed away while we made the movie.
So this movie is very much to honor them.
And not only them, but everybody who is no longer with us.
So I always say, as long as we tell their stories,
as long as we sing their songs,
as long as we cook their favorite dishes
and tell their jokes, they're here. They're here with us.
And the moment we don't talk about them,
then they truly are gone.