‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ writer-director Jeff Rowe on using a ‘beautifully imperfect’ animation style for a teenage story

As a lifelong fan of the Ninja Turtles franchise, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Chaos Writer and director Jeff Rowe knew this film would be a gateway for a new generation of people. Along with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Rowe created a new look and story to appeal to new audiences who may have never heard of the series. Ninja Turtles for.

The film follows the four teenage turtles – Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Raphael (Brady Noon), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) and Donatello (Micah Abbey) – on their journey to become part of the human world. In order to be accepted by the people who live above them, the Turtles team up with their human friend April (Ayo Edebiri) to hunt down a mysterious crime syndicate, but soon discover that they are not the only mutants out there. They live in New York City.

The key to making this film stand out from previous versions of the film Ninja Turtles was a real focus on the teenage and coming-of-age aspect of the Turtles. This included not only the story, but also the animation itself, as the style mimicked the “beautifully imperfect” drawings that a teenager without formal training would create.

DEADLINE: The animation style of this film is wonderfully different. How did you arrive at this style?

JEFF ROWE: We were looking for some kind of guideline. What will this film look like? What will the visual identity look like? Let’s make it look like this tortoise‘s comics? Do you want it to look like a cartoon? Do we make it look like the live versions? The Ninja Turtles There have been so many things over so many generations that there is no definitive version. For me it’s the 1987 cartoon, I have nostalgic feelings for it, but whatever Turtles Fans write high praise, there is no final version. So we just looked at the story and said, “It’s about teenagers and we’ll cast real teenage actors and have them talk and act and act like real teenagers.” What if we made the movie the way it was drawn by teenagers? What if we make it look like the art style of notebooks and sketches?”

And we started looking. There was a day where all the art team members brought drawings they had done in high school and we just discussed them together and it was really fun to analyze what goes into a teenager’s drawing. And it’s a beautiful mixture of passion where as a teenager you just sit down and think: “I’m going to make the best drawing ever made in the history of mankind.” And where does it come from? It looks miserable. There is no formal art training. It is so beautifully imperfect and we wanted to capture that beautiful imperfection in the show style. It took a lot of work to get a team of incredibly talented and skilled artists to feel comfortable drawing with mistakes and drawing as if they didn’t know how to draw yet. But it was really worth it and in the end we got something that I think is very expressive, human and passionate, which makes a lot of sense for the characters.

DEADLINE: About casting teenagers for the Turtles, how did you find these voice actors?

ROWE: It was a great cast. We also opened it up to non-actors because we didn’t necessarily want a high-profile Hollywood child actor, just people who would feel like real teenagers. So we got hundreds of tapes and at some point we started incorporating voices into the character designs we had at the time. And we ask ourselves: ‘Which voice of Leo sounds the most interesting?’ What would be the most interesting contrast between the other voices?’ The first time we did a chemistry lesson with the four kids – Shamon, Micah, Nicolas and Brady – was nothing short of electrifying. It was like, “It’s the turtles, it’s got to be them.”

We recorded them individually first and it was perfectly fine. Some of the jokes were good, but a bit stiff and stiff. Seth [Rogen] We were really pushing to record all four at the same time, and when we did, everything just changed. They talked about each other, they argued, they laughed at each other… It was just so vivid, honest and real in a way that I don’t usually see in animated performances. And then we just had to start doing all the recordings like that and also throw out the script to rewrite things that would support that improvisational process.

It was a nightmare for the sound team and there was a lot to think through, but I think sometimes people approach animation with the mentality of “do a voice” and it’s like a cartoon with a strange voice or a talking in a foreign accent, and I think it can feel artificial and performative. The filming style was really naturalistic and tried to capture these real, truthful moments between the actors.

DEADLINE: In this story you focused more on the teenage aspect of the Turtles, but what I found really interesting was how that affected Splinter’s character as well. He became more of a father than a sensei.

ROWE: Yes of course. I mean, I think the idea of ​​a sensei father is a little off base. I’m sure there are kids who grew up with parents like that, but it’s not that common to have an overprotective father, or maybe a father who doesn’t have such great opinions about things that wreaked havoc in your life. It just felt really important to anchor the story in the family, to make them not Splinter’s students but his children, and then portray him as a loving, overprotective father. Jackie [Chan] brought so much heat to this look because Splinter could have been highly unlikely on paper. He’s not exactly great for the Turtles, but the way Jackie plays him and what he brings to that show makes him likable. And you sympathize with him and that is completely understandable.