The upcoming film of Illumination migration is a comedy about a family of ducks trying to fly from New York to Jamaica. Writer-director Benjamin Renner makes his 3D animation debut and John Powell wrote the music for his film. Renner told the audience at Deadline’s Contenders Film Los Angeles event Saturday that Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri assured him he could learn 3D animation on the job.
“When I do 2D, I basically have a blank slate,” Renner said. “I start drawing lines. I stop as soon as what I want to express is on the paper. If I want to draw a duck, I draw three lines. Some call it minimalistic. I call it lazy.”
Renner said he discovered that the difference between 3D and 2D is that 2D is addition and 3D is subtraction. There are so many elements, including texture, lighting and shadows, that Renner saw the process as a matter of removing things that didn’t belong.
“You have to remove elements and create them with shadows and light,” Renner said. “You move away from everything and delete things. 2D is more about making things appear.”
Renner said ducks are also challenging creatures. He recalled a team of fifty animators studying a real duck in their studio.
“This duck must feel like a human being abducted by aliens,” Renner said. “No one spoke. We all looked at a duck and didn’t know what to do with it. He wasn’t hurt. Then he went back to his cage.”
Mack (voiced by Kumail Nanjiani) is a duck who doesn’t want to emigrate. In keeping with his personality, Powell constructed a theme that was deliberately musically ineffective.
“I wanted one that would break,” Powell said. “He would not be a hero. It’s a melody that goes off and just goes around in circles. I started with it. Then the trick was to try to turn the film into a heroic theme.
Although the film begins in New York, ducks know nothing about New York. Powell said Renner encouraged him to think of the soundtrack as an otherworldly landscape. So Powell experimented with various random instruments.
“There’s a lot of stuff in there,” Powell said. “There are also strange voices. There is a kora, an African harp. I used a strange thing to slide. It all sounds like I know what I’m doing. I’m just playing.”
migration will be in cinemas from December 22.
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Source: Deadline
Ashley Root is an author and celebrity journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a keen eye for all things celebrity, Ashley is always up-to-date on the latest gossip and trends in the world of entertainment.
