CHRIS BUTLER: This is Chris Butler,
the writer and director for Missing Link.
And I'm about to give you the commentary for the movie.
So, I wanted the start of the movie to be simple and striking.
And a foot.
The first shot of ParaNorman was a foot and a half-eaten brain,
and feet are my thing, apparently.
But it's not just a cinematic fetish.
This is about walking in another man's footsteps.
In fact, at one point,
one of the titles that we considered for the movie
was Following Footsteps.
The working title for the movie when I started writing it
was Seeking Shangri-La.
And that spoke to the origins of it
as a pastiche of adventure movies, like Raiders of the Lost Ark,
which was, in turn, inspired by pulpy episodic swashbucklers.
And straight away, I think you see that it's a color movie.
For me, this was about stepping out of the shadows.
That, in itself, is, I think, part of Laika's drive, as a studio,
to keep doing things that are different.
And for me, this was something new,
to make an unabashedly vibrant, colorful,
stepping-out-of-the-shadows into-the-sunlight movie.
A big influence was National Geographic,
which, as a magazine, that brought adventure, travel
and new culture into homes of the last century.
And it also brought a lot of color.
Vibrant, larger-than-life color.
And Nelson Lowry, the production designer,
he leapt at the chance to play in this colorful world.
He had the monumental task
of making this idea of density of detail
and color mixing actually work.
The original intention here was to make a kaleidoscopic travelogue.
I've often described this movie as...
well, the intention being if David Lean made
Around the World in 80 Days starring Laurel and Hardy.
And part of that
was this epic adventure quality.
Very much influenced by Raiders of the Lost Ark
and other adventure stories of that ilk.
I think part of looking to David Lean
and the epic quality of his movies...
that also, for me, was part of his penchant
for spectacularly cinematic character introductions.
Lawrence of Arabia.
There's Magwitch in Great Expectations.
I wanted the first shot of Lionel to be...
equally impressive.
Flying across the surface of Loch Ness in twilight,
through fog, and then coming across this British gent sipping tea.
It's impressive, but it tells you everything
you need to know about him straight away.
He's British, he's well bred, and I think the pinky says
that he's just a little bit stuck up.
The purpose of this cold open for the movie
is to tell us exactly who Lionel is.
And part of that is to show his flaws.
The biggest flaw that he has as a character in the movie
is his lack of empathy.
But he still needs to have a certain charisma.
Audiences have to like him,
and that's where Hugh Jackman comes in.
He's a full-blooded leading man,
and I think that's reflected in his design.
I actually based some of the initial drawings
on Hugh Jackman, way back when.
So, he is this strapping,
barrel-chested, capable adventurer.
And he's also likable.
There's an energy to him that is infectious.
I think that was important for Lionel, was to get
some of that effortless charm that Hugh Jackman has
to this character who is a little eccentric.
Hugh did the vocal warm-ups
before Lionel starts playing the bagpipes.
He did that in the booth in one of our first sessions.
It was our first session, and I remember just sitting there,
looking at him, watching Hugh Jackman
singing in a booth for my movie.
And that's when I was like, "My goodness, this is real."
The reason for the Victorian setting for the movie was I wanted it...
I didn't want it to be contemporary,
because now we know everything, we see everything.
We have all information at our hands at all times.
Back in the Victorian times, the world was still a mystery.
But there were those men and women who were,
rightly or wrongly, exploring its secrets.
And this was one of those times
when exploration was at its height.
The world was truly opening up in a way it hadn't before,
and that seemed like a really interesting canvas
upon which to paint this picture.
And now we are coming to the establishing shot of London.
I wanted this one shot to do the heavy lifting
for pretty much the entire city
in one shot.
I wanted to establish where we were, the time period,
and I think you immediately get that
from the horse-drawn carts and the Hansom cabs.
And it also speaks a lot to the aesthetic
that I was pursuing in the movie, which was dense patterning
and a lot of very graphic shapes.
Almost like a sea of tiled rooftops and chimneys.
Thought it was a really beautiful way
of introducing those to the civilized world.
And that carries through to Sir Lionel's study.
You can see it's pattern on pattern on pattern.
There's pattern on the chairs, on the floor.
It's just a lot of lot.
If I'm ever to be taken seriously by the adventuring...
BUTLER: It was something that was potentially going to be tricky,
because I knew it was...
it could easily have competed with itself.
But luckily I work with the most talented people in the industry.
Nelson Lowry, our production designer,
he took this challenge.
And I think he was also pretty geared up by the fact
that we were gonna make our most colorful movie here.
And I think here we get a really good look at Sir Lionel's suit.
Deborah Cook, our costume designer,
she is responsible for all the costumes in this movie,
and I think she did an amazing job.
I remember sitting down with her very early on
and talking about how I wanted to embrace
this dense patterning aesthetic on these very basic shapes.
I know Lionel's suit... I was very keen on houndstooth.
But at that scale, and with a handmade costume,
there was this whole moiré problem
which I think Deborah got around by faking the houndstooth.
And there's a bunch of Easter eggs...
I don't like to call them Easter eggs,
but that's essentially what they are.
Little treats for any of our fans out there,
in the drawers, and in fact, in the books.
I think... there's lots of book titles
that no one will ever see, but I know they're there.
I think there's a book that's written by a character from The Lost World,
a Homo doda.
And the Dodas were the ape-like creatures in The Lost World,
Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World.
There's a book by a character who studied apes
in the Sherlock Holmes stories.
I think that's on a shelf somewhere.
And of course, we've got the monkey from Kubo,
the Netsuke, in the drawer.
Far too many things to mention.
Ow! Ow! Ow! Ugh...
It's you.
BUTLER: And here we have The Optimates Club,
Thank you.
BUTLER: The gentlemen's club.
It's an explorers' club, but it's really
about this colonial idea of exploration,
exploration as a means to conquer,
to own, to capture.
I wanted it to be all black and white.
The only color in the room was supposed to be the ruddy noses
and burst blood vessels of these old gents.
We had a lot of fun with the decorations in this room.
All the stuffed animals I wanted to be black and white.
And that's how we ended up with the mounted head of a killer whale.
All those were designed by Juliaon Roels,
a wonderful character designer who worked with me
to flesh out this entire world.
And it's quite sad, a stuffed panda head on the wall.
What is it this time...
BUTLER: I think in the hallway there,
we saw Lionel running across...
It's a map of the world.
It's in the tiled floor.
And as he runs across it,
he's scattering papers, he's scattering pages of study.
He's scattering learning across the world as he runs across it.
That's important, because Piggot-Dunceby
will do something very different when he walks across the same floor later on.
...cast of a giant, nonhuman footprint.
- That's a big foot. - I bet he's a big fellow.
One of dozens of documented eyewitness reports
of a mysterious creature. Do you mind?
Ugh.
Huge, hairy, and walking upright.
Neither ape nor man, but the link...
- Ugh! - In between.
Yes, he's had many names:
Skookum, Rougarou,
Tse'nahaha, Loo Poo Oi'Yes
and most commonly known in...
BUTLER: I did a lot of study of Bigfoot legends,
and the various names for ape-men across the world.
It's an interesting thing when you come to verisimilitude
in a movie like this,
because I can tie myself in knots with historical accuracy,
about whether a costume is correct to 1890
or whether, in fact, the word Bigfoot
had been used by a certain time.
And in the end, you have to say,
"It's a movie about a talking Bigfoot, in a suit,
so maybe back off the historical accuracy a little."
...and brought good British table manners...
BUTLER: Having said that, I do think if you can create a believable world,
the intention here was for this to be recognizably our world.
We're playing with a lot
of preexisting ideas of the world,
certainly in this era.
And I think that's important,
because you want to give the audience a hook to hang on.
Well, I say you're wrong.
What?
I believe the two go hand in hand,
and what's more, I-I-I...
What did he say to me?
I think he said you're wrong.
I have heard enough.
Your words are nothing.
My word is everything. What is yours worth?
BUTLER: I don't think you can see it in...
and maybe it's in the background there...
I don't know whether it was actually
ever really noticeable in the movie itself,
but hanging on the wall there is
a taxidermied monkey head from Kubo.
- ...my place where I truly belong. - You do not...
BUTLER: I think that's in the "Art of" book
for anyone's who's interested in seeing a decapitated monkey.
...nothing to lose.
(excited whispering)
BUTLER: And the sweat on Piggot-Dunceby's brow!
The amount of times we went over and over that sweat.
...if I take my leave. I... (chuckles)
have much to prepare. Thank you.
Until next we meet, gentlemen.
(footsteps depart)
Hmm...
(muttering)
BUTLER: And as Piggot-Dunceby makes his way out of the club,
while extolling his point of view of the world,
he is snuffing out candles in his wake
and reducing, as we see there, the world into darkness.
They'll change the world, and there'll be no room in it...
BUTLER: He's not about forward thinking, in case you didn't get it.
Even on a shot like this, I wanted it to clear.
He's all about isolation.
So, a busy frame to start off with
immediately clears when he enters the shot.
How are you going to do that, my Lord?
- Gonna hire a thug to kill him. - Oh, yes. That'll do it.
BUTLER: And here we are introduced to the henchman, Stenk,
with the...
nasty scars on his head.
I think that was from a fight with a grizzly bear.
That was the backstory there.
He is voiced, eventually, by Timothy Olyphant.
That was Travis Knight's choice,
and I think it was... particularly funny for me
that one of the world's most handsome men
is playing one of the ugliest characters we've ever designed.
Every shot here is...
It's not just about Lionel going on this grand adventure.
Carefully chosen shots
to sell this idea of a bustling,
busy, vibrant place,
without actually having to build the whole of the London docks.
So, it was really a montage of...
of pieces that artfully give you the idea
of this voyage about to take place.
I think what's important
about those initial shots of Lionel on the docks
is that he's very purposefully removed from everyone else.
So, you have groups of people waving goodbye to their loved ones
as he walks past on his own.
He has no loved ones.
He is a loner. He is alone.
Even when he's in his cabin getting ready,
he's very separate from the people who are outside.
So many beautiful shots here.
I think this is a good indication of our color approach for the movie.
Myself, Nelson Lowry...
We had a guy called Dave Blike...
do a color script for the movie.
And we talked with Chris Peterson, the DP.
And what I wanted
was for every location in the movie to have a signature palette.
Unlike a lot of the movies that we've done,
we don't really return to many places.
Everything is a progression across the world.
So, I wanted to give the audience
kind of a color rhythm, a visual rhythm to take them through the movie.
The Pacific Northwest is kind of played out at this stage
as being this kind of primal, mysterious forest.
So, I went with blues and greens.
The blues give it kind of an isolated coldness.
We come back... As an example,
we come to back a forest, much later on, the jungle in India,
and that's yellows and greens,
to give it a much different feel.
So, every scene we traveled through
had its own distinct, signature color.
♪♪
(echoing) Hello!
Mm.
(sniffs)
(rustling)
(neighing)
(shushing)
BUTLER: And that's when we get our first glimpse
of the missing link himself.
I wanted him to be...
hard to pick out... There's the footprints again.
Every one of these shots is...
gorgeous.
You can see all the dense patterning throughout the forest,
made up of leaves and branches.
And even the patterns on the trees themselves,
we had a library of show patterns, which we incorporate into everything.
The sides of trees, the ground, the water.
And here he is.
(snorts, growls)
(growl intensity increases)
(coughs)
And the moment when we first realize that maybe
the Sasquatch isn't quite what we expected him to be.
Working with Zach Galifianakis here was an absolute treat.
I...
I knew I wanted Lionel and Link to be yin and yang.
It's very much a buddy movie in that sense.
I was looking a lot at, obviously,
Sherlock Holmes and Watson.
But in this case, if Lionel is Holmes,
then Link is his very hairy Watson.
So, I needed their personalities to really be able to play off each other.
Working with Hugh,
it was great to tap into that leading man bravado
and have a character who's so...
confident and selfish,
but also has a playful streak.
But then you've got this guy.
I think originally, when I was writing this,
I remember going into the first record with Zach,
and he just instantly did
something pretty magical with it.
I think that that's a treat for me,
is when these characters
that have only really existed in my head before
suddenly start to take form outside of my head,
because you have this gifted actor who comes in
and adds their own perspective, and it starts to become something else,
something that I don't have quite control over,
and that's really exciting.
What I found was that the voices of Link and Lionel
were very similar at the start.
They...
And by that, I mean the cadence, and the rhythm.
Just because I was writing them, they felt very similar.
And as soon as Zach started recording,
he started pulling words, and mixing stuff up,
and swapping sentences 'round, and just his natural way
of delivering one of my lines changed everything.
So, immediately, I started rewriting all his dialogue.
I was doing it in the booth, I went home, and I just rewrote everything.
And Link suddenly became
this wonderful character who existed on his own terms.
And here we see Lionel pushing through the vines.
Apologies to Ian Whitlock, the animator who had to deal with those vines.
Ever.
BUTLER: It's such a fleeting moment,
but such a logistical nightmare to have something like that.
They're all practical and all animated by hand.
I think that one's my favorite right there.
BUTLER: Little window into Lionel's background there.
I find that the most interesting leading characters
are the ones that are flawed.
And I love Sherlock Holmes.
What I love most about him
is that he's eccentric, he's borderline sociopathic.
Didn't want Sir Lionel to go quite that far.
But I did want him to have a lot of issues that he had to deal with.
I don't think it's all that fun to have a character who's perfect at the start,
because then they've got nothing to learn.
And it's only in his interaction with Link, through the movie,
that he turns into a better person.
I have none of my kind to live with, no...
no family... really nobody.
BUTLER: As is a testament to the amount of creativity
and research that goes into these movies,
that mural on Link's wall is based on the Hairy Man pictographs
found at Painted Rock in California.
I believe they are the only widely accepted Bigfoot pictographs,
and those strange markings under the eyes are tears, apparently.
According to the creation myths of the Hairy Man,
those are tears of sadness,
and that seemed entirely appropriate for these lonely Yetis.
Yes, you can. If anyone can, it's you. You're a great man.
BUTLER: This scene was actually one of the first ones we started shooting.
And it's the first time that we're getting these puppets together on set
and moving them around.
Link, especially, was an incredibly complex puppet
that we were troubleshooting all the way through the shoot.
...to prove my doubters wrong...
I think what I found so inspiring, I think,
was seeing, like this shot here...
It was one of our first Lionel shots, and it's a long one.
But the facial animation seemed to me to be on a different level.
And that was what we were going for.
The head of facial animation, Benoit Dubuc,
he came on for this movie,
and I feel like I probably,
in the first early days, I terrified him with what I was asking from him.
But it was really a great experience working with him and his team,
because I think we managed to...
elevate the facial animation here
to something that really we haven't seen before in stop motion.
On our previous movies, we had a kit system,
where all the dialogue, all the faces,
exist in a library, they're numbered,
and you piece together different faces to create
whatever line that you need.
And that can be and has been incredibly effective for us.
But we wanted to go even further here.
So, on this movie, every shot is bespoke.
Every single shot has its own unique performance
and its own unique faces.
That is a huge undertaking.
I think it's...
I think, in total, 106,000 faces, I'm told.
Could be wrong. Could be twice that.
Oh, I like the sound of that guy.
BUTLER: What it's allowed us to do
is achieve a level of nuance and sophistication
that we just haven't been able to before.
And this is our first look at Adelina Fortnight,
the old flame of Sir Lionel,
who owns the only known map to Shangri-La.
Or at least, that's what Sir Lionel thinks.
There was a lot of setup in just those handful of shots.
Adelina comes to represent
a very revolutionary type of woman at this time in the world.
She's kind of a mix between Nellie Bly, Mary Kingsley,
Annie Smith Peck.
All these women were really...
putting trousers on and exploring the world,
which was outrageous at Victorian times.
And I wanted to tap into that a little bit with Adelina.
You see a glimpse of her adventuring past
locked away in that safe,
because now she's become...
she's been forced into Victorian mourning,
shut within her house.
...at the very least, we should cover up your... modesty.
BUTLER: We're seeing here the beautiful logging town.
I think this is probably one of my favorite sets. It was huge.
I think a lot of that is down to Kieron Thomas,
who did a fantastic job putting this all together.
I think this is a really good example of the design aesthetic of the movie,
where it's got combination of color, and pattern, and density,
but all very simply done.
It's elegant, despite the fact
that it's a town built out of driftwood and mud.
And the bar itself...
I don't think I realize,
at times, when I'm writing,
quite how much of a challenge
that I'm about to present to the crew.
I knew that I wanted this to be
like a proper Western saloon.
A cup of Earl Grey tea with a spot of milk,
and please don't let it steep too long.
BUTLER: And you'll see in the background a whole host of loggers and locals,
many of which are CG characters,
created by our VFX department.
I do think they did an absolutely amazing job on this movie.
There are times when you really can't tell the difference,
I think, between the CG guys and the puppets.
Just on a practical level, this is a huge sequence.
All these puppets together in one space,
and they are about to start fighting.
- ...for 30 years or more. - Is that right?
The Sasquatch appears to have you beat, Mr. Stenk.
BUTLER: The wolf dog, there, Misty,
she, at one point, had a slightly bigger role.
She's called Misty,
and her handler is called Fang.
There was a whole thing about that.
Cut it out just to get to the fight a little quicker.
(gasps)
Woof.
- No. It can't be. - Oh, but I'm afraid it can.
And it is. And you didn't. And I did.
(Stenk grunts)
You're beautiful.
Um...
Can you hold on one second?
BUTLER: We saw there McVitie, the bar owner,
covered in tattoos.
I was quite impressed with what they did with the tattoo thing.
I think it was painted onto the silicone.
And of course, it wouldn't be the Pacific Northwest without too many tattoos.
...turns out the job I've been hired to do
- ain't no fool's errand after all. - Oh?
I've been paid a pretty sum
to stop you and this creature
from ever reaching civilized...
BUTLER: I think the bar represents
what I'm trying to do in a lot of the movie,
which is lean on things that we've seen before.
We've seen bar fights before.
We've seen Western brawls.
And I definitely wanted
to embrace that.
But I also wanted it to make its own thing,
and a lot of that comes with the design.
In this case, we came up with the idea
that McVitie maybe had ideas above his station.
He didn't believe he was running this...
dreadful bar in the middle of nowhere.
He thinks it's a fine establishment,
so we put wallpaper on the walls,
and that enabled us to infuse this place with color.
Obviously, the wallpaper is peeling off
and falling apart, and even the tiles on the floor...
they're dirty, and they're not quite placed properly,
and he didn't have enough to fill the whole floor.
But it suggests something... it gives it its own identity.
You might also notice the wanted posters on the wall.
The original idea
was to have a wanted poster for everyone in the bar.
I think we ended up... Oh, look. There's Misty's wanted poster.
I think she is wanted for not playing fetch.
(lively music playing)
(grunting)
BUTLER: I still...
I'm still pretty amazed that we have managed to pull this together.
This was shot in so many different elements,
over such a long period of time...
No hard feelings, Frost.
BUTLER: ...and has so much CG and practical integration.
It is quite an achievement.
- I'll be right back. - Okay.
BUTLER: I love the lighting on this sequence.
Oh, no, you don't.
BUTLER: If you look closely there, you'll see a little tuck in his belly,
which was a wire that the animator pulled through to give it that wobble.
(evil laugh)
(horse neighing)
(man groans)
BUTLER: There is the bridle wear store.
That is a pun that I am not responsible for.
I'm responsible for many things in this movie, but not that.
I think that was actually Oliver Thomas, the story artist.
Not to worry, Mr. Link. We're not stopping after all.
It seems Piggot-Dunceby is set on scuppering my success at any cost.
We must make haste for Santa Ana, California.
Lord Piggot-Dunceby! Lord Piggot-Dunceby!
BUTLER: And we're back in England again.
Maybe now's the time to talk about teeth.
We Brits are not known for...
our dental aesthetics, shall I say?
And I wanted... You only have to see there, Piggot-Dunceby's mouth is...
it's a face full of teeth, really,
and none of them are nice.
And I really wanted the teeth to be distinctive in this movie.
I didn't want just some kit version of teeth
that would be plopped into every character.
Everything is distinctive.
The British lords, as an example, all have very...
...unruly teeth.
All aboard!
BUTLER: What we did was, myself, and Juliaon Roels,
and Dave Vandervoort, we designed
teeth for every individual character, pretty much,
and then gave that to the RP department,
who would make it part of the faces.
In fact, that gap
we see inside when the character's talking,
that, in the studio, we call the mouth bag.
I don't like it as a term,
I think it sounds unpleasant, but that's what it is.
His underwear, too?
It just seems a little...
I mean, I turned them inside out...
BUTLER: And here we see Link for the first time in his costume.
This is a beautiful piece of engineering, because of course,
it is no mean feat
to stuff that giant, hairy creature
into an animatable costume.
I'm hoping people, the eagle-eyed amongst you,
will notice that it is actually Fang's suit.
So, the guy who had the dog earlier
is now running around the Pacific Northwest naked.
Try not to shed on the cashmere.
Ha!
Oh...
Do you shed?
ADELINA: So, let me see if I understand.
You plan...
BUTLER: And now...
...all the way around the world...
BUTLER: we finally get to meet Adelina properly.
It's a beautiful set,
and it was important early on
that we create this idea
of a birdcage.
We continually use a bird motif
with Adelina, and so,
on that opening shot, you will see
a swift flying freely through the sky,
and then see Adelina's house behind the bars...
He was your friend.
BUTLER: ...of her gate.
It's a similar thing in here.
The bird motif is everywhere.
This room is essentially a cage,
even to the point where she spilled letters onto the floor,
kind of like paper on the floor of a cage.
The pattern of the wallpaper,
the wooden detailing, it all suggests
that Adelina is behind bars.
And tantalizingly,
the outside world, this beautiful, colorful place that she used to enjoy,
is just beyond that stained glass window,
which, again, has birds on it.
...shut away in this old house,
surrounded by memories of times long past.
Like an unhappy bird,
locked in a cage.
BUTLER: There he is.
(chirps)
Another CG character.
One of my favorites.
...intoxicating woman.
- Stop! What is wrong with you? - Ow!
You think I cannot see?
You come here because you want something,
and you think you can charm me and you can flatter me,
and I will do just as you say.
BUTLER: Adelina was an interesting character for me,
and I think Zoe Saldana brought just so much to it.
I think it was important
that all of these characters in this movie
are kind of displaced.
They don't quite belong where they think they should.
It's most easily grasped, I think,
with Lionel, who wants to be part of this club
that really doesn't want him and doesn't represent him in any way.
I think it was important to...
We have in Adelina this independent woman
who's way ahead of her time.
She is a widow, she's an immigrant,
and she's found herself in a situation that she doesn't really want to be in.
But it's not exactly clear how she's gonna get out of it.
And I think when Lionel or Link come along,
she sees that as her opportunity.
♪♪
Hey, Sir Lionel. Sorry. Do you have a size bigger?
I think I put a run in it.
On your head.
BUTLER: This whole sequence was very much inspired by silent movies.
This is where the Laurel and Hardy bit comes in.
It was a real nod to Vaudevillian,
very comedic, physical performances.
I looked a lot at Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd.
You'll notice the staging is almost entirely proscenium.
Proscenium staging refers to theatrical or flat staging,
it's what you see in a theater,
with the proscenium arch above the action.
So, the wall here represents that.
Makes it flat, and it kind of provides
a nice little nod, I think, to those old silent comedies,
which framed their comedy in a very clear way.
And then we'll see Link start to limber up in a second.
And that was specifically inspired by Harold Lloyd's Safety Last,
in which he is limbering up
before he climbs a clock tower.
Originally, we boarded a lot more of this silly business.
(breathing rhythmically)
(grunts)
Ah!
(screaming and grunting)
Bravo.
BUTLER: Even the shape of that hole, I remember.
I remember spending days trying to determine
how cartoony should we go.
Should we literally have Link's silhouette in the wall?
And that didn't seem quite right. It didn't seem to quite fit...
with what we're establishing here as our reality.
(groans softly)
(snoring)
BUTLER: Ah, the nightclothes!
So, in a movie like this,
which already we're stretching thin every department,
it is a huge, ambitious undertaking.
And really, you've got to be careful what you try and cut corners on,
if you do at all, because people will notice.
If you're trying to say this is a journey around the world,
then you've got to deliver.
For me, it comes down to sometimes the smaller details.
So, for example,
these characters being woken up in the middle of the night,
and being in their nightclothes.
We may only see them for a handful of shots,
but I remember having conversations early on
where it was suggested, "Maybe they got dressed
before they ran out to discover the burglars ransacking their house."
And I can stretch reality,
in any number of ways,
but that? No, no, no.
In order to be in the movie, to be in the story,
these guys needed to be in their nightclothes.
Although I did make a compromise there, you'll see...
with Ricardo. He has his nightshirt tucked into his pants.
ADELINA: Lionel!
BUTLER: I think I also agreed not to show their feet...
LIONEL: (laughing) Yes!
...because we didn't have naked feet for them,
and it meant they didn't have to build new ones.
But I do particularly like seeing Adelina's hair down there.
The Santa Ana train station.
Based very much so
on the original Victorian Santa Ana train station.
Photographs and designs from the time.
We changed a thing or two, here and there.
Lionel Frost!
BUTLER: Gave us another opportunity to really push the color.
I think people think of the Victorian times
as it's all pea soup, fog,
and Jack the Ripper, and it's all blacks and grays.
But the truth is that it was a colorful time.
People were
pretty brave with a lot of their choices and I wanted to show that.
I think we're so used to seeing sepia photographs
that it was a nice opportunity to really embrace
this Around the World in 80 Days technicolor feeling.
Did you steal from him as well?
BUTLER: This was another one, another costume,
Lionel in disguise as a nun.
I fought for that one, and we kept it.
(train whistle blows)
BUTLER: But it's hard to argue,
"I really need this character to be dressed as a nun
for a minute and a half."
It's not an argument that's easily won.
Something you said to me.
It is time for this unhappy bird...
to break out of her cage.
BUTLER: Even the smoke and steam here...
That's right.
...represent something of a design challenge.
So, we worked with the VFX department.
- ...explain later. - Oh, I don't care.
BUTLER: David Horsley, he is probably best known, I think,
for the water work that he did on Kubo.
And he was responsible
for a lot of effects, all of the effects, I think, on this movie.
And what I wanted here was for steam and smoke to feel real
but also have a stylized quality to it.
So, if you look close enough, and I don't think most people will,
even the steam has crosshatching within it,
which ties into the show patterns
that we use on every surface of the movie.
Even the sky.
♪♪
All these rock monuments, this may look like it's all matte painting,
LIONEL: From New York, we can find passage...
BUTLER: There are... All of our digital matte paintings
are initially informed by practical elements.
We will build small miniature models.
I know the whole thing's miniature, but these are even more miniature.
So, we will build assets that we will deliver to the VFX department,
and they will utilize those to create their matte paintings.
Of course, they will add so much more to it.
And a shout-out, I think, to Joey Beckley
of the VFX department,
because he did such breathtaking imagery in this movie.
...Shambhala, Agartha, the valley of the Blue...
BUTLER: The stagecoach...
It seemed like a simple scene when I wrote about it.
It was important to me
with regard to the mise-en-scène of the movie that we establish...
that these characters are not unified as a group.
They are literally on rocky ground as they start their journey together.
That's why I set it in a constantly moving stagecoach.
And, in fact, most of the...
most of the times the characters interact through the movie,
they are not really on stable ground.
They're either on a ship or the back of an elephant,
but they're very rarely completely still.
I thought that was very poetic.
But it was also, of course,
nearly the undoing of several hundred people.
But mise-en-scène is important to me.
For anyone who's listening who is an aspiring filmmaker,
look it up, read about it.
It is essentially...
the creating of meaning or narrative
through the dressing of a set,
through the costuming, through the composition,
through the things in the background.
You should believe that every single shot in this movie
has some reason for being there.
...growl a little bit in excitement...
(growls)
That was fun.
LIONEL: Yes, let's not get overexcited, shall we?
You know, I really didn't think it was possible.
And yet, here you are, in front of my face.
BUTLER: I think the stagecoach was the first time
we started animating Adelina.
Often it's the case in these movies
where we start shooting with puppets
that really we don't know yet whether they're going to work
and be able to do everything that we need.
It was the case with Adelina's face
that we were making constant tweaks to the proportions,
throughout this sequence.
I think we just about got away with it.
But you may see the slightest differences
between the size of her jawbone.
And that's because you're working with a lot of stuff on paper.
You're working with a lot of designs.
Then they get into the computer, and you're seeing them.
You only really see what a puppet looks like,
and what a character feels like,
when they're under lights, on set,
in camera, and then they take on a whole new life.
Things that you thought worked fine in the computer,
suddenly they're casting a weird shadow,
or it just doesn't quite fit with the sound of the performance.
There's a lot of troubleshooting that goes on as we go along.
The hunter that follows us will not give up...
BUTLER: We just saw another one of our map scenes.
...shoot you dead, skin you, and have your...
I knew I had to cover a lot of ground in this movie.
These characters are traveling, literally, around the world.
And it can't be a two-and-a-half-hour, three-hour movie.
So, there were times when we had to use a well-worn device,
and it's that dotted line across a map.
I think it's best represented in the Indiana Jones movies.
I knew I wanted to do that. I knew I wanted to show
these characters traveling long distances,
using a map, but I wanted it to have its own identity.
And so, I came up with the idea of,
"Yes, let's use a map,
but let's have the characters actually manipulating that map."
So, that's when we got best use out of our 200-percent scale puppet hands.
We actually have Lionel drawing their course around the world,
and I think what we ended up with
was something that was really elegant and carefully placed
in terms of where he's placing the cross, where he's drawing the line,
so that you can create something that's really quite lyrical and beautiful.
In fact, I liked it so much
that that's what I decided on doing for the end credits of the movie.
There's a lot of close-ups in here.
I am fond of close-ups.
In fact, some of the stuff that I boarded on Kubo
was incredibly extreme close-ups.
Nothing gives you an insight into a character more than their eyes.
Unfortunately, in this movie,
I decided to put their eyes really high up on their heads,
which meant framing became very problematic at times.
...carry your bag like he's your servant. You tell him he smells...
BUTLER: Again, another scene
where the characters are on unsteady ground.
They are not connecting quite as they should be.
Again, I wanted...
Yes.
BUTLER: ...to play out a scene of characters talking.
Essentially, that's what it is.
But give it some interest that makes it unique.
And so, I decided
to have these characters in a room
where all the furniture was sliding around.
Not easy for the animator.
It's very hard to fake...
imbalance.
Because, of course, the set isn't moving. The camera is.
So, the animator has to fake
the stumbles, and the giddiness, and the sliding.
...Lionel. Talk to him.
BUTLER: This is my Cyrano de Bergerac scene.
That's how it started, anyway.
It's Sir Lionel attempting empathy,
attempting to be a decent human being.
Admittedly, Adelina is forcing him to do it.
But I thought it might make a nice little scene
where Adelina is coaching him through it.
It changed into something else, because I thought it was important
that Sir Lionel is not just faking this,
but he is starting to...
discover that there's more going on in his heart.
You seem troubled, Mr. Link.
BUTLER: This sequence, for me, it was...
it represented a certain level of acting
that I think we've always been aspiring to.
It's just the next level of acting.
There's such beautiful nuance and subtlety to it.
Rachelle Lambden was responsible for the majority of these shots,
and I think she did a really beautiful job.
It hasn't quite worked out that way.
BUTLER: This is one of the few times...
Being the director of a movie like this,
you're watching it repeatedly, again, and again, and again.
And sometimes, it's hard to step back
and just kind of evaluate it as a piece of entertainment,
or see it as an audience member might see it.
But this was one of those scenes
where I can watch this and get completely caught up in it,
because I genuinely believe
that these are living, breathing characters
standing in front of me.
That's the ultimate goal of making a movie like this.
It doesn't matter how cool the technology is...
or how beautiful the artistry is.
You still want the characters onscreen to be compelling and believable.
- My nipple? - Heart. Your heart.
Oh.
BUTLER: The animation supervisor on the movie, Brad Schiff,
we've had many conversations about this,
and I think part of what we're trying to do at Laika
is to have characters that you believe are real on the screen,
and I think we've achieved that many times over.
But it's something else to see a character onscreen that is thinking.
...scream, didn't turn and run away like most people do.
They just... They just smiled.
BUTLER: I think we've managed to achieve characters
that are moving and breathing onscreen.
But here, I think we achieved characters that are thinking.
You can see them thinking.
- Su... Susan? - Yeah, Susan.
BUTLER: This was an important moment for me.
So the prospector was a girl.
It was in the trailer,
and people know this character now as Susan.
But to me,
this was vital to the movie's meaning.
To me, this is a movie that says
that your identity is what you give yourself.
It's not what other people put upon you.
And that's what this Susan moment is all about.
...this Shangri-La. We will find your place.
(soft orchestral music playing)
BUTLER: The name of the ship, the SS Manchuria,
is stolen directly from Lost Horizon.
It is the ship that saves the main character
after he escapes from Shangri-La.
(sighs)
- (gun clicks) - (Adelina gasps)
Wow, that was positively...
BUTLER: And seeing Sir Lionel, who is...
he's a pretty selfish,
arrogant character.
But to see him actually attempting to connect...
Put your hands...
I think there's something quite nice about that.
(grunting)
(screaming)
BUTLER: Thus begins the storm-at-sea sequence.
I knew the movie was going to have to have
a couple of, or a number of, big action sequences.
If I was gonna do an animated Indiana Jones,
then I had to deliver the goods.
(Adelina screaming)
BUTLER: What I liked, potentially, about an action sequence set on a ship
was being able to have some fun with gravity, again.
A lot of people who've seen this sequence have said
it's like a stop-motion Inception.
And that, I cannot deny,
I was definitely aiming for that.
It would've been great to do more, but...
(screaming)
BUTLER: Even we have our limitations.
I also, apparently...
wanted to hit Adelina in the head several times.
I think these are some of my favorite sets, actually.
I just think...
just the look of them is beautiful.
The patterning of the pipes,
even the patchwork of old and fresh paint on the walls.
This is exactly what the look of the movie is about.
The wood grain on the floorboards
is the same patterning that you will see elsewhere in the movie.
It's a rich tapestry of pattern.
I got ya.
Over here!
Help!
(yelps)
BUTLER: The water in this sequence...
We've done stormy seas before, in Kubo.
I knew I wanted this to be different,
but I think when you first start talking about these things,
you talk about how stylized can you go,
and I think when it comes to effects animation,
like fire, and water, and smoke,
I think our approach here is similar to our approach with animation.
You have to feel like it's real.
I don't want to be so stylized in the water
that it doesn't feel wet,
or that you can't...
you can't place these big, exciting action sequences on the water
because it becomes too far removed from reality.
So, it has to feel and behave like real water.
The stylization, I think, comes in the details.
So, the shapes that go into the sculpting of the waves
matches a lot of the shapes that are going on elsewhere around the movie.
Even things like...
we call it bacon strips.
What I wanted on the surface of the water
was that kind of white foam lace that you see.
It was a neat way to differentiate us from the work done on Kubo.
And it seemed to tie in nicely with the patterning again.
I called it bacon.
I remember sitting with David Horsley in edit
and asking for more bacon, constantly.
And Mr. Link, keep your trousers...
BUTLER: Not unusual for me.
There's a good chap.
(groaning)
Ah, shoot. The boss ain't gonna like this.
(screaming)
It's not subtle.
In fact, this whole...
Apparently, this ship was transporting nuts.
We've got pistachios... Oh, and bananas.
Because everything is supposed to be talking
to Piggot-Dunceby's mental state at this point.
You may notice that Piggot-Dunceby
is almost always framed against red.
That's his color.
The red hull of the ship. He has a red leather chair.
The red door of the Optimates Club.
Even the red of the fire.
That came from the idea that Sir Lionel is doing a deal with the devil.
And Lionel even steps into the light...
and gets this red glow on his face early on.
Come along, Mr. Link.
The seagulls there, entirely CG,
and probably my favorite thing in the whole movie.
We can enjoy the view while we're about.
(grunting)
LINK: Uh... Are we gonna need the boat again?
BUTLER: And another of our beautiful montages,
just very carefully chosen individual shots
that sell the beauty and the grandeur of this movie.
And I particularly like this one, because there's a sweetness to it,
with Link exploring the world.
♪♪
And drawing his very own family.
Look, could that be...
just a hint of humanity in Sir Lionel?
So, I was a stickler for the maps.
Again, it's the verisimilitude.
I wanted it to feel like it was...
this was a real Victorian world.
So, I made sure all the maps were historically accurate.
...so many beautiful things in the world.
BUTLER: We get a look here of our elephant.
I think the biggest puppet that we've ever created.
Oh, Lionel, look!
BUTLER: Our team, they created something wonderful with this elephant.
He was always only supposed to be in it for just a short time.
I wanted this moment where Lionel and Adelina
are starting to really come together again...
I wanted it to feel magical.
So, setting it against this lush Indian jungle...
And we get a glimpse of a Hanuman statue in the undergrowth,
which I thought was a nice nod to the part-primate, part-man idea.
I wanted it to feel romantic.
I wanted it to feel like old-school Hollywood.
(yawns) Good morning!
BUTLER: Of course, before ruining it.
Oh, Lionel!
And part of that was going big.
It was having this scene acted out
on the back of a wobbling howdah, on the back of an elephant.
We'll soon have you frolicking in the snow
with huge, hairy ape-men.
BUTLER: I wasn't quite expecting the elephant
to be that good, in all honesty.
I remember talking about wanting to get the quality of loose, wrinkled skin,
and not really sure, when we first had those conversations,
that we were gonna be able to do it.
And they nailed it. It's a beautiful thing.
Now I kind of wish the elephant was in the whole movie.
Nobody else wants that, but just me.
Yes, this is it.
But, Lionel...
BUTLER: More examples here of excellent miniature work,
combined with matte painting and digital imagery
to create these really wonderful locations.
I love the lighting here. It really feels like we're outside.
Yes. Hello? Hello?
Excuse me, sir.
Would... you... please...
direct us...
to Gamu?
Do you understand?
Ga... mu?
Clearly, the movie is...
It is a nod to those old-fashioned ripping yarns of yesteryear.
But it's also a little bit of a...
I'm poking fun at the idea of exploration
being anything other than thinly disguised colonialism.
Take care.
Again, the snot bubble, such a small thing, and yet...
quite a challenge.
It ended up being digital, based on a...
a practical snot bubble that was created, I think, by RP.
And also, it was LAVed by...
I think we looked at videos of Brad Schiff,
the animation supervisor...
I think it was a home video of his son blowing snot bubbles,
which was lovely to look at first thing in the morning.
Maybe talk a little bit about LAVs later.
The chicken. Okay, so...
The chicken, apparently, is something...
Originally, I wanted to have this whole interaction with Gamu.
It was almost to take a breath before all of the climactic third act.
All the action stuff that's about to follow.
I thought it gave us a chance to enjoy this group together
and have some fun.
Again, with being displaced.
Cultural tourism at its worst here.
But the chicken, yeah.
So, I saw a photograph in National Geographic,
which was a huge influence on the movie, as I've said,
and there was a photograph that I saw long ago
of a woman walking around with a chicken on her head.
And I just thought it was this beautiful thing.
So, I thought, "Gamu should have a chicken,"
and there should be no reason for it because I think that's okay too.
You don't always have to have a reason,
especially if it's just there for absurdist comedy.
But I wasn't quite...
expecting people to love the chicken so much.
In fact, we did a marketing test screening.
Gamu!
BUTLER: And people loved the chicken so much
that I added another four shots, I think.
To me, it's a prop,
but to a lot of people, it's a character.
Yak is our life.
Yak is milk, meat, clothes, friend.
BUTLER: Gamu has this very beautifully realized costume.
Again, Deborah Cook,
she is...
absolutely brilliant at research.
And not just...
Cookie?
BUTLER: Sorry, I have to pause while he...
I really shouldn't be having one of these.
...has a mouthful of poop.
They're so good.
BUTLER: He's kind of taken the wind out my sails now.
So, Deborah...
research, a lot of research.
Wonderful stuff.
And she has a way of incorporating that research,
and stylizing it, and being playful with it
that is respectful but fresh and unique.
I love the costume work on the Himalayan villagers.
It is the men who seek it who are lost.
Then you know of it.
BUTLER: So, the cookie-eating thing...
I've read a lot of people talking about the movie,
or my sense of humor in the movie,
as a little softer than other rash animation,
a little more whimsy.
Sometimes it's called a little smarter.
A little more cerebral.
But then I think, yeah, but there's a character who's got a mouth full of poo.
(screaming)
AMA: You killed her again!
BUTLER: I haven't really got anything to add to that.
...where he belongs.
Then you will guide us?
You got to be kidding.
I will give my granddaughter directions.
(scoffs)
(music playing)
BUTLER: Another little travel montage.
This shot is important,
because we start the movie with Lionel's footprints on his own.
And now, there are footprints side-by-side with his friends.
We see a lot of design elements
that are informed by other elements
that we've seen earlier in the movie.
So, for example,
there is talk about Shangri-La as being a valley above the clouds,
so literally, that's what we created.
We created a huge mountain
where the top is consumed by clouds, which you just saw.
But if you even go back to the mural on Link's wall,
or even the wax seal on Adelina's map,
there are little symbols of mountains poking through clouds.
(giggling)
(gasps)
BUTLER: Gamu herself...
I looked at a lot of photographs,
and she has very stylized creases in her face.
I remember there's a bunch of portrait photographs by Steve McCurry.
I think some of my favorite close-ups in the movie are of Gamu.
And the mountain climbing.
Again, we're covering a lot of ground here.
And they're not really equipped for climbing a mountain in the Himalayas,
but hopefully you just go with it.
Earmuffs. That's how Adelina prepared.
Earmuffs for climbing Everest.
And at last, footprints like his.
He thinks he's found it.
Mike Hollenbeck
did a lot of the initial running stuff for Link.
We based a lot of his walks and runs on Mike's early testing.
I like how chaotic this run became,
because we wanted it to feel like, as his cape flew away,
his pretense at being more human
is disappearing behind him,
and he's embracing his more animal side.
He starts running on his hands as well as his feet.
So, he goes from two legs to essentially four.
He's between worlds at this point.
And of course, it all turns out to be a big disappointment.
Here we're starting a sequence that I think...
I feel like I've said this with every sequence so far...
This is my favorite.
This is the reward in the third act for the audience.
This is the prize.
This is what they were looking for. This is Shangri-La.
And I think it's a really gorgeous-looking scene.
I think it's...
It is definitely helped by Carter Burwell's swelling score here.
He did a phenomenal job.
I think this was one of the first demos that he sent to us.
And I remember sitting in the screening room at work playing this sequence.
It wasn't all finished, but we just put the demo over the top,
and it gave me goosebumps.
♪♪
More fine work from the CG department.
We only built, I think,
three Yetis.
A naked one and two armored guys.
And they created a whole individual army out of those assets.
When I'm writing, I tend to write the end of the movie first,
because I think it helps to know where you're going
or what you're trying to say.
And one of the first scenes that I wrote
was actually this dialogue exchange
between The Elder and Sir Lionel.
Of course, it got refined, over the years.
But as a scene, I think it works really well.
I think there's a real sense of playfulness.
They're almost flirting with each other.
They are clearly both smart, capable individuals.
And they're kind of testing the water.
I think to be able to achieve
that kind of subtlety of dialogue
in animation is great.
I'm very proud of what we did here,
particularly the facial animation.
The entrance to the temple
is supposed to be
a reflection of the Optimates Club.
At the start of the movie, Lionel wants to be accepted
by this group of people in a specific place.
The end of the movie, Link wants to be accepted
by a specific group of people in a place.
And they are bookends, if you like.
They are reflections of each other,
even down to the construction,
or the shape of the rooms, the pillars.
And here you can see the red drape behind The Elder,
which is similar to the red that we see behind Piggot-Dunceby
when he's at the fire.
Even the Yetis themselves,
they are essentially black and white.
It's tarnished black armor on these white bodies,
which is similar to the lords,
who are wearing their black-and-white tuxedos.
Obviously,
the Yeti and Bigfoot puppets were a challenge.
And I'm pretty sure you will see plenty of the extras here
that will explain quite how much of a challenge these were.
The Elder herself, any character that's covered in hair
is gonna be difficult.
This was a puppet and a half, or actually half a puppet,
because we found that building the top or half of her
was the way to go for a lot of this.
So, we had this curious half puppet
with these spindly metal-armature legs walking around.
And then her train,
all the hair that she drags around behind her,
was provided by our VFX department.
Unfortunately, it meant that for some of these dramatic shots,
when we showed them at weeklies in the studio,
you'd see this character walking around,
looking like she'd lost their pants.
This is, of course, Emma Thompson.
Another treat, I think.
I really wanted
the voice of this character
that we only meet in the final stages of the movie,
I wanted it to be something special.
And what's more special than Emma Thompson playing a Yeti.
...the Inescapable Pit of Isolation and Miserable...
BUTLER: Shangri-La itself...
I'm sorry, what?
...for those who don't know,
it's this mystical valley in the Himalayas.
It was properly popularized...
In fact, I think it was invented
in the book Lost Horizon,
which became a movie.
It's become a number of movies, in fact.
But the one that is most memorable, I think,
is the black-and-white one.
I remember it because the temple of Shangri-La itself
is quite clearly shot at an art-deco mansion in Hollywood.
And it was fun to kind of nod to that
with some of the architecture of the building.
We didn't go art deco. We went pretty brutalist.
But it was still a nice little nod here and there.
And also the white doves that you see,
that definitely came from Lost Horizon.
The original movie is filled with these beautiful white doves,
so I thought it only right that I have them here.
The valley itself, according to that novel,
is a place where man never grows old.
And I quite liked to play on that,
with the idea that it was actually lived in by primitive man.
So, there's a lot of self-reflection in this sequence.
Which was why I set it in a pit,
full of reflective ice.
Some beautiful subtle acting here.
Dan Alderson's the animator.
Quite often, animation will steer away from talking heads...
I know I've heard that from people in the past...
with the idea that talking heads can be boring,
and I completely disagree with that.
If I think back to any of my favorite live-action movies,
some of the best scenes are essentially conversations.
And I don't think animation or family entertainment should be any different.
I think when you have an interesting dynamic between characters,
it's cool to watch.
You can get drawn into it.
Essentially what it's about is communication,
and that, to me, is a lot of what this movie is about.
People trying to communicate.
And here we're coming to a shot that is the perfect example
of how complex and satisfying a simple close-up,
supposedly simple close-up, can be.
It's actually a hugely complicated shot.
I wanted the focus to be on this extreme close-up of Lionel,
to see him thinking, to see the gears working.
While Adelina, who the shot... It's essentially her shot.
She's doing all the talking.
But she's walking up behind him.
We see his reaction to what she's saying,
rather than seeing her saying it.
She's out of focus for much of the shot.
I think it has a real elegance that makes it a movie,
rather than some little piece of whimsy.
I promised I'd take you to the place you belong, and I'm a man of my word.
BUTLER: The key image to this whole sequence
is the shot of Link standing in front of multiple reflections.
It was very important to me to have that,
because as he turns away from his own reflection,
you see this kind of fake family of Bigfoot,
Bigfeet, turn their backs to him.
It was an incredibly complicated thing to achieve.
We had to have multiple cameras shooting the puppet,
from various angles, which we then composited into the ice.
But I think it was worth it. I think it's a very poignant image.
It's hard to know whose fault that was. Let's do it again.
BUTLER: I think we also see
a cheeky little Michelangelo moment,
with the fingers about to touch.
Couldn't help myself.
...throw something down.
A rope would be better.
I don't know. Three more of them, and we could build a ramp.
Oh, that feels lovely.
(clattering)
BUTLER: Great bit of physical comedy here,
animated by Adam Fisher.
Um...
And coming up is my favorite line of the movie.
(screaming)
The people we don't want here are leaving!
Force them to stay!
BUTLER: Strange. I started writing this
probably 15 or so years ago.
It's remarkable how timely it's become,
in terms of the subject matter.
(grunting and groaning)
BUTLER: There is a Wilhelm scream in there. It is disguised
and made to sound like a Yeti, but it is in there.
If I was gonna do anything that was a pastiche of an Indiana Jones movie,
I had to put a Wilhelm scream in there.
(epic music playing)
This is where it ends, Frost.
BUTLER: And the bridge face-off.
I knew I wanted the climax of the movie to take place
somewhere that was truly unique and larger than life.
You know, I really don't care to anymore. I have changed...
I know that when I was growing up within the industry,
when I was working on other people's movies,
that, I think, the moments that really grabbed me
were the ones that took advantage of the medium,
in terms of staging.
And by that I mean...
if you're gonna have a fight sequence in an animated movie,
make it a fight sequence on a bridge built out of ice,
20 miles up in the sky.
...that thing?
BUTLER: You can do that with live action, of course, now.
But there is really no excuse not to...
Susan.
...aim high in animation.
...abomination!
That thing is more of a man than you'll ever be.
And what's more, he's my friend,
which is a far better prize than any fellowship with the likes of you.
If you are still intent on doing him harm...
BUTLER: And just as a visual,
I think the patterning of the snow and ice on the distant mountains,
the brick work at the temple, and those ice tiles,
I think it's just beautiful.
Makes for really beautiful images.
(evil laugh)
You can keep your missing link and your lost world.
You're welcome to them.
(continues laughing)
BUTLER: And the cracking.
This was another case of figuring stuff out as we went along.
Some of the cracking was practical
with animators sticking scalpels into
into this pliable gel material,
which would give it subsurface...
shattering, if you like.
But ultimately...
we go to VFX.
And they incorporate the practical elements that we've got,
including shifting tiles, that kind of stuff.
And they pretty it up.
They make it all feel like it's one thing.
They add dust and little bits.
This bridge right here,
as it's crumbling away, that is a digital bridge.
We built a full miniature,
and then we built full-scale
portions of bridge.
But when we see the bridge as a whole, collapsing,
that is all VFX,
with practical puppets comped onto the top.
I spent a lot of time
thinking about this action sequence at the end.
STENK: Not yet.
BUTLER: When I write a script,
because I'm writing it essentially for myself,
I will write a lot more detail
than maybe you'll get in a typical script.
Because I want to get my point of view across,
and I also have a very definite point of view
when it comes to an action sequence.
I pretty much wrote this action sequence blow-for-blow,
and when I was working with the story artist, Oliver Thomas...
I kind of talked him through it,
almost like... a football coach.
And he went away and storyboarded...
(grunting)
BUTLER: Very distracted by the slap fight...
Oliver Thomas is a remarkable story artist.
He has such an eye for composition.
He's able to...
He essentially animates his boards.
But he's got a good camera eye.
I've never really worked with anyone quite like him.
So, in trusting the sequence to him,
was why, I think, it ended up being so successful.
♪♪
And then, of course,
And anyone who had anything to do with the sequence
deserves my gratitude and praise,
but I often think of the animator here, because not only are they dealing
with the usual troubles of manipulating puppets,
but these puppets are being suspended by ropes in the air and swinging.
So, Dobrin, I'm sorry, and I thank you.
- (Stenk grunts) - (screaming)
BUTLER: And we tore these puppets to pieces.
That poor Link. I don't think there was much left of him.
♪♪
(screaming)
BUTLER: The hope is, when you watch this,
that you won't be looking for what is practical, what is not.
Is that a real icicle? Is that a real crack?
Some of these wide shots, believe it or not,
are even miniature-scale puppets.
They are like three inches big.
And it's the first time we've ever used miniatures in one of our movies.
Because we could never make them
complex and sophisticated enough to be believable,
alongside shots of the full-scale puppets.
But here we did, and I think it worked great.
But that's the key. You want people to be lost in the sequence.
You want people to be compelled by the action and the characters,
and not really think about how you realized it.
I don't even know how we realized a lot of this stuff, and I was there doing it.
- ...for what you said back there. - Don't even mention it.
Okay.
(exhales sharply)
So, what happens now?
BUTLER: Here's that foot motif again.
Individually articulated toes, no less.
Really what we've been building up to
is a very simple moment, which we're about to see.
And it's something that the characters
haven't managed to do throughout the entire movie.
And that is... shake hands.
We see them finally shake on it.
This is movie about certain motifs, one is the feet.
But the extended hand is one of them.
It is a universal...
sign of entreaty.
When someone holds out their hand to you, they are asking for fellowship,
to some degree.
And that's what's been missing between these characters.
They've been working towards it,
but this, I think, seals the deal.
They are shaking on it. They are shaking on their friendship.
Finally, hand in hand.
See? Very mature, sophisticated filmmaker that I am,
I did think that this was the right end to their conflict.
Walk away.
Killing the Yetis was never really an option to me,
even though we see them tumbling down the staircase.
My assumption is that most of them didn't die.
I wasn't trying to wipe out this endangered species.
I think the trick in the writing phase was,
how do I...
how do I nicely tie off that loose end?
What is the best response
to the small-mindedness of this Yeti leader?
And... it was a tongue.
This final moment with Adelina, it was actually the first thing I wrote for her.
Because what I wanted to do was,
again, I wanted to play
with these old adventure tropes.
And one of those was this kind of classic Hollywood romance.
And I wanted to suggest it.
I mean, I haven't, but I could imagine...
BUTLER: ...hint that it might be happening.
But no, she absolutely deserves far better
than walking off into the sunset with Sir Lionel.
And it was important for her character.
She starts the movie feeling a little lost.
Like she used to know who she was, but she can't be that anymore.
And the end of the movie is her walking away,
knowing that she's about to go on a new adventure.
(laughing) This, Mr. Link, might just provide the vital clue I need to...
BUTLER: This final scene in Lionel's study is a little...
It's definitely setting up this Holmes and Watson relationship
that they now have.
Your word, yes, got it.
BUTLER: Beautiful lighting from Mark Stewart in this scene.
Don't dally, my friend. Adventure awaits.
Ha ha!
Oh, boy! Do I have time...
BUTLER: We're always sneaking fun little details into the backgrounds of...
of our shots, particularly ones that are so densely packed as this.
One nice thing that I like to do here,
you'll just see in the edge of the frame,
is...
Just see at the edge of the frame?
It is an invite to a wedding.
And that's actually the anniversary of my parents' wedding.
If my mom's watching this now, she'll probably be crying.
Phenomenal cast.
I cannot thank them enough.
When you start one of these things, you kind of draw up
a wish list of actors that you'd like to work with.
Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't.
And the chances are you are going for actors who are pretty busy.
That was certainly the case here.
But I was lucky enough to get who I wanted.
So, this was... the main on ends.
It's the first time in, I think...
I don't know whether that's true. This is...
For the last few movies,
we have had 2D-animated end-credit sequences.
And I didn't want to do that again. I wanted to keep it stop motion.
But I didn't really know exactly how.
I think the last time we did that was Coraline.
And it was with bat dogs, flying around.
With this, it seemed the perfect thing to use
was the traveling, the map montage sequences,
and have it play out all with paraphernalia in Sir Lionel's study.
I thought that by going the stop-motion route,
not only would it be just a cool ending to the movie,
but I thought it would save us
essentially having to make an entirely second movie in 2D.
We didn't save anything.
This was probably the most complex end-credit sequence we've ever done.
I do love it. I love every moment of it.
Here's our peek behind the curtains.
We always like to finish the movies with a button that shows the process.
I think Ollie Jones really is the guy who deserves credit for the idea here.
And I think it's probably the most stunning one that we've ever done.
I can say that.
You'll see here a photograph of Lionel, Link, and Adelina,
waving goodbye to Gamu, and Ama Lhamu, and little Ang.
And that is because, again, after an initial screening,
a few people said they were concerned that Gamu and her family were dead.
So, I thought...
we need a photograph of them just to say that everything's fine and...
yeah, they lived.
Collick didn't.
In fact, a lot of people were upset that I killed Collick,
the odious villain who falls to his death from the collapsing ice bridge.
It is fairly common,
comeuppance for villains in animated movies to fall from great heights.
But for some reason, people felt sorry for Collick.
I don't know why. I think he's awful.
Maybe he survived. He'll be back.
Even moving into the credit roll here,
we wanted to maintain that idea of kind of being in Sir Lionel's study,
amongst all his bric-a-brac.
It was a huge commitment to actually do this.
But we did.
The song that you hear at the end there...
Walter Martin wrote it for us.
Oh, I'm just gonna stop there.
Butler's Buttermilk Biscuits.
I think at one point,
early on in the process, I said to the art department,
"I don't see enough things that relate to me in the movie.
Why aren't there more Easter eggs that've got me in it?"
So, they created the now-famous Butler's Buttermilk Biscuits.
So yes, Walter Martin, he wrote this end song.
I struggled with the idea of an end song, to be honest, for quite a while.
I wanted it to be true to the movie.
I didn't want it to be just some piece of pop that wouldn't fit.
I knew we wanted it to be an original piece.
But how do you come up with something that is catchy and relevant,
and feels contemporary,
but also sits well within a movie that's set in the Victorian times?
I didn't really have an answer,
and then Walter came up with this really lovely, jazzy,
elegant, but insanely catchy demo that he sent to us.
And once you've heard it once, it kind of sticks in there,
which is exactly what I wanted.
I think it's a really lovely song.
So, you can see here,
any animated movie requires an army of people.
And this is no exception.
I think when I watch the credits and look at the names,
I think what really strikes me is...
how much of a...
What strikes me is how much of an international effort
one of these movies is,
which seems entirely appropriate for this particular movie.
But stop motion is such a unique medium,
and there aren't a lot of people who are experts at it around the world.
So, when you're putting together something of this size,
you have to reach out.
I am British, as you can probably tell.
And I went to...
In order to make stop-motion movies,
a lot of people from England went...
but from all over the world...
And I think the idea
of this insanely talented group of artists and creatives
coming together in this melting pot of a movie...
There is something really fitting and delightful about that.
I would like to point out that when you're doing a commentary like this,
there are pages and pages of notes.
There are so many anecdotes,
and fun facts
that you just can't cram into something like this.
I would love to.
I would love to do a sixteen-hour commentary.
But that's not happening.
So...
for everyone who's listening to this,
who had anything to do with the movie,
thank you.
You may not heard your name.
But...
I still thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Every single person of our 450 strong crew
was instrumental in making this a truly magnificent movie.
♪♪
BUTLER: And finally we have...
the Laika logo.
Animated in glorious 2D by Michael Schlingmann.
Whose also did some of the storyboards on the movie.
He animated this last part.
The rest, you'll have seen before in our previous movies.
And that is that.
Thank you for listening.
And to everyone involved, thank you so much.
Subtitled by Point.360