The Sea Beast director Chris Williams on using a “classic style but contemporary ideas” for the animated action-adventure

After working in Disney animation for 25 years, director Chris Williams decided that Netflix was the right place to finally make the animated action adventure he had always dreamed of. The Sea Beast. The film follows Jacob (Karl Urban), a sea monster hunter, and Maisie (Zaris-Angel Hator), a young stowaway, as they join the crew of Inevitable in a hunt for the elusive Red Bluster. The pair soon discover that the animals are not as sinister as they should be, leaving Jacob to grapple with the idea of ​​what it really means to be a hero. The film was animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks, which was also responsible for animation last year The Mitchells against the machines.

DEADLINE: Where did the idea come from? The Sea Beast come from

CHRIS WILLEMS: When I was younger, I liked movies and especially adventure stories. I remember just being totally hooked and hooked on the idea of ​​venturing into uncharted territory. I remember enjoying watching Hunter of the lost treasure and being very aware of the fact that adults made this film. It made me realize that I can grow up without giving up all the things I love, and it was, oddly enough, a very comforting moment for me.

I worked at Disney Animation for 25 years and the whole time I was like, “Boy, wouldn’t it be great to do a real animated action adventure movie one day?” So it always gnawed at me. At the same time, I loved those old, unfinished maps where the cartographers felt compelled to populate these great open oceans with these truly amazing sea monsters.

Eventually it started to take off as a story, and I got this amazing opportunity right when Netflix Animation came together. They were brand new and they wanted to tell different kinds of stories, risky stories, so I talked to them about the idea of ​​a big action adventure movie with sea monsters. They were very excited about it, but I warned them it was going to be incredibly ambitious and not cheap, and they weren’t scared at all.

DEADLINE: So what do you think was the most ambitious part of it?

William: I think it’s just the sheer size of the world. We stressed that we wanted it to feel immersive, and that ultimately comes down to really breaking a sweat over the details. We visit a lot of different places, so we wanted to have a very rich and believable culture and history in this world and the way you convey that is by really making sure you pay attention to the little things. Often there are elements in the frame that don’t necessarily grab your attention, but just make you believe in what you see. And of course in animation nothing just happens, you know, everything is a choice. Everything needs to be designed and built, so really asking people to join this sea and go the extra mile to make the world feel rich and believable.

There was so much interaction with the water just because of the sheer volume effects, and we were lucky to work with Sony Imageworks because they have experience with things like this. A lot of times I said, “Hey, if you want me to reformulate a little bit and figure out that water contact, we can talk about it.” But I think they were proud of what they did in the film and I think they wanted to show what they could do. They didn’t shy away from a challenge, which I think is one of the cool things about animation – people don’t shy away from a challenge.

DEADLINE: You have these big fight scenes between the sea monsters and the ships, and you also have the one between Red and the giant crab, how are those animated?

William: Well, we always knew we wanted a big kaiju fight. When you have a movie about monsters, it’s almost a promise to the audience that they’re going to get that moment where two huge monsters go head-to-head. It’s a year-long process that starts by talking to the story team about the story and character. The story has to evolve and you have to feel real danger and change, so we talked about it from a story point of view, and then we got into the choreography and spent months and months re-creating and storyboarding these complicated story scenes, and then look at it in an editorial and edit it.

And I work with people like Owen Sullivan, our Head of Story, who is just a master of action choreography and knows that it’s important to make it fun as well as exciting and dangerous. Our editor Joyce [Arrastia] is really good with action and timing and amazing with all the sound effects we need to really bring the scene to life. So it’s working with talented people over many months and eventually years that makes these scenes work. I’ve always been a real fan of action in movies and when you do it right it feels like pure cinema.

DEADLINE: The film has a message you don’t often hear, that you can be a hero and still be wrong. And it’s the decision you make after realizing you’re wrong that really defines you. Where does it come from?

William: I talked early on about the idea that the film is about this cycle of violence and how it continues and how hard it can be to break the cycle sometimes. As we explored this, we went a step deeper where we said that there are times when powerful beings will try to create a narrative that pits us against each other to accelerate this cycle and continue to achieve their own goals. to promote to serve. It was on this floor that we really started to see this crossroads that wasn’t just about the cycle of revenge. It was also something that was almost used as a weapon. We kept rewriting and retelling this scene profusely because it felt like we were trying to say something that wasn’t coming. We didn’t find a way to put it into words until we came up with this phrase: “You can be a hero and still be wrong.” It really makes you understand that we all work with the facts that we have and you have to be judged because you know that’s all we have to work with.

Sometimes someone can do something that feels wrong, but from their perspective it seems right and we need to talk about it. It should be part of the conversation. As we develop the story over the years, we also talk about the thematic ideas that should go under the story. One of the things we talked about a lot is that we wanted to make a film that felt like a pure action, adventure and fantasy story that was open to its influences. I wanted it to feel like a classic adventure story, but at the same time we’re trying to appeal to a modern-day audience. I think that was one of the things that fueled the film. It has a classic style but contemporary ideas.