TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM Director Discuss Film Concept Art Animation Style

I sure love what’s happening with animated movies these days. There are a lot of interesting experiments going on with different animation styles that are breaking the mold of what we are used to seeing. THE Spider-Verse franchise and Michelle against the machines they did some really cool stuff and now the movie coming out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Chaos leans into that wild, radical art style.

Manufacturers Seth Rogen, Jeff RowAND Eve Goldberg I wanted to update the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise for a whole new generation and also tell a fun and relevant story. They wanted the art style to look like concept art or doodle-type drawings that people might scribble in a notebook while sitting in class in high school.

Director Jeff Row he recently spoke to Variety about the animation style saying they wanted it to look imperfect.

“I think for us, artistically, it was a reaction to a 30-year trend in 3D CG animation to push towards photorealism and hyper-realistic lighting and texturing. The Mitchells vs. Machines. Then, a few years ago, “(Spider-Man:) Into the Spider-Verse” happened, and that proved that a film can resemble conceptual artwork and can be critically and financially successful. That opened a lot of doors and I think we tried to take that kick and run with it on ‘Mitchells’, and then ‘Turtles’, I tried to be even less compromising. We decided that we wanted this film to look exactly like concept art and we want the concept artwork to look distinctly human and not computer generated. And that means imprecise, flawed, misshapen, and reminiscent of the way you draw when you were a child or teenager, and your passion and enthusiasm for making art hasn’t been dulled by formal art training. It’s the kind of drawing you do before you have that voice in your head saying, “Don’t do that.” That’s not how you draw.” We wanted to design a film that had that level of free expression. And then it was just a lot of designing it and convincing a lot of very talented artists that it was okay to make mistakes and that those were actually features and not bugs.

Animating this sketchy, unfinished art style wasn’t easy, and according to the production designer Yashar Cassaiit was the hardest part of the production:

“The thing that seemed so wrong at first was to tell my highly skilled and skilled artists who are also ultra talented that because we draw as teenagers, I need you to draw it again but I need you to take away all those years that you transitioned to art school learning your craft and drawing as yourself at 15. But once everyone dropped the wisdom of conventional animation design, we had a blast.

It is explained that this film tells a coming-of-age story of teenagers who experience feelings of isolation, loneliness, and embarrassment while trying to find themselves. They also wanted that story to be very emotional for fans and audiences and during their production meetings they “talked about bringing tears to the eyes of viewers when they leave this film.”

Well, if this movie makes me walk out of the theater with tears in my eyes, the creative team wins the game because I’ve never cried watching anyone Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Rowe went on to explain, “Being a teenager is inherently an emotional, confusing and lonely time in your life. There’s so much feeling in making these characters real teenagers and we’re committed to having them voiced as teenagers.”

Kassai went on to say that the main inspiration behind the film was the classic 80’s cartoon, saying, “Our holy grail of the entire franchise has always been the late 80’s cartoon, the series original and that really wacky toy line that came out of it during the early 90s.

“We were looking back to a time when sophomore crass humor was the comedic style of the day. So we started there but then added the teenage drawing look as a very strong top layer. We were also heavily inspired by movies like ‘Chungking Express’. Turtles hide from humans, so everything takes place at night, and these kids have to hide in the shadows because they want to be a part of human society, but they feel a little insecure when they are with humans because of what their father he told them about human beings. So they can’t be like on a sunlit beach or a sunny day in Central Park. We spent a lot of time diversifying the look of New York at night and giving it a variety of different color schemes.”

Ramsey Naito, president of Nickelodeon Animation and Paramount Animation, goes on to praise the animation: “I think it’s an animation masterpiece and just hilarious and Seth and his team are such a big part of it. It’s a good example of creators coming in to reinvent something they love. I remember going back to Nickelodeon and talking about TMNT and we knew the team that worked on it had to be creators who loved TMNT.

Goldberg went on to talk about how he wanted the story’s characters to be relatable through their real-life struggles, saying:

“They’re mutants, they’re ninjas, and they look amazing. Overall though, it’s the story of a father and his four brothers who are very different, argue and disagree, but are a family who are always there for each other. They’re doing everything they can to make the world a better place and that’s what we should be doing. No matter your race, religion, or what kind of mutated human-animal hybrid you are, you should be there for your family and do what you can to make the world radiant. In a sense, we are all Turtles, metaphorically speaking.

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Chaos, after years sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as ordinary teenagers through heroic deeds. Their new friend April O’Neil helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in the way when an army of mutants is unleashed against them.

When previously talking about the tone of the film, the director Jeff Row revealed the vibe they were going for: “We wanted it to be like Stand by Me AND Lady Bird. But, you know, with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The voice cast of the film includes Micah Abbey like Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. like michelangelo, Nicola Cantu like Leonardo, Brady Noon like Raphael, Jackie Chan like Splinter, John Cena as Rocksteady, Seth Rogen like be-bop, Ice cube like Superfly, Rosa Byrne as Leatherhead, Natasia Demetrius like Wingnut, Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil, Giancarlo Esposito as Baxter Stockman, Post Malone as Ray Fillet, Paul Rudd such as Mondo Gecko, e Maya Rodolfo as Cynthia Utrom.

THE Seth Rogen-product Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Chaos hits theaters August 4.