Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
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D E PA R T M E N T 39 KEYFRAME SPRING/SUMMER 2018 39 39 KEYFRAME SPRING/SUMMER 2018 39 By Whitney Friedlander An excess of black and blue hues could be worked around for the first two movies, which use mainly interior images, but franchise director Genndy Tartakovsky raised the stakes for the third film, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, which centers on Drac's daughter Mavis booking a cruise for the whole gang because she believes her dad is in desperate need of his own getaway. This, however, did not mean the film's team of artists could also kick back and relax. In addition to the reality that all scenes needed to be set after sunset and also would largely be taking place outside, there were a host of new locales that required designs. These included a plane, a train and an automobile. But most impressive was the monster ship—a term that could be used to describe both its intended inhabitants and its massive scale. Tartakovsky says he came up with the idea for the script, which he co-wrote with Boss Baby's Michael McCullers, after his own experiences on a recent family cruise with his in-laws. The hectic atmosphere that enveloped him when he boarded his vacation liner made him realize that it was "a perfect setting for our monster family. It's just like the hotel, but on the water. All the jokes could be familiar because we have this hotel setting, but completely different and we get to do excursions." Hotel Transylvania 3 is also goofier; an animator's movie. "I would say, there is 40 to 50 percent less dialogue in this movie than the first two and we probably have about three or four sequences that are purely visual with no dialogue," Tartakovsky says. "There's more physical humor." Not only was this handy for the artistic team—story artist Chris Reccardi tells us that Tartakovsky's background "made for an enjoyable, visually stimulating process with lots [of] funny poses and acting"— but the director says this also gave him a chance to break free of the doom and gloom of the hotel and add a bit of color. Luckily, he knew just the guy for the job. He tapped Scott Wills, the art director from his Cartoon Network series Samurai Jack, to serve as production designer. "It took me a while to realize that every sequence is at night," Wills admits. "We have one sequence that's at dawn and everything else is at night. It's crazy because, not only are you limited because it's at night, but you can't make these movies dark. This is a family comedy. It has to be bright." Wills says that the studio's decision to move the film from a fall to a summer release compounded the pressure because that season already puts us in the mood for flashy neon pinks, purples and oranges. So Wills sought to infuse the night sky with a myriad of hues by, for example, invoking pre-dawn or dusk skies. >> SPRING/SUMMER 2018 39 By Whitney NIGHT