Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1438374
24 cgw o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 1 animated musical "How do you express the house caring for someone, or being worried about someone? It was a fun, artistic puzzle," says dos Anjos, "solved by a good deal of trial and error." According to dos Anjos, the animation team hasn't had to tackle anything like this house in prior films, and for this endeavor, was assisted by the effects department at times. "Usually we only make a few props here and there, but not to the extent of the entire house," he says. So, TDs created new tools for the anima- tion team to use in order to manipulate the house. "They built this tool that enabled us to pick up almost anything in the environ- ment and kind of build a rig out of it so we could manipulate it," dos Anjos adds. "But this was the most amount of prop interac- tion that we had to do thus far." MUSICAL ELEMENTS Joining Miranda in this musical journey is composer Germaine Franco and music arranger/musician/composer/producer Mike Elizondo. In fact, Miranda was one of the people who visited Colombia on the research trip and was able to experience the unique sounds that made their way into the score of the movie. "From the very start, we committed and said, 'This is a musical with a capital M,' " says Howard. "And that includes dance and movement. When we were in Colombia, music and dance were everywhere." Furthermore, the music and dance had to reflect those found in Colombia. "A lot of the rhythms are familiar to me, but the instrumentation and orchestration are dif- ferent and oen unique to Colombia," says Miranda. "One of the funnest things is that the accordion is so central to the music." On this film, choreography was a huge priority, too, and the filmmakers wanted to be very specific about the movements, as there are so many dance styles in Colombia, and those styles vary compared to how it is done in other Latin American countries, contends Howard. So, they took the lead from Jamal Sims, the main choreographer on the film, and his team member Kai Mar- tinez, both of whom worked for a year and a half with the animators on the characters' dance movements, taking into consider- ation the character's body type and how, for example, a shorter person would perform the dance. One song and dance number in particular, "We Don't Talk About Bruno," contains very specific, amazing dance moves. WDAS has worked with choreographers in the past, usually for specific sequences and aer the layout and cinematography have been predetermined. However, the "Bruno" number was designed specifically for a close-up or a shot of the feet, so the steps had to be animated as intended according to timing and performance. Sims came up with the dance moves, which took into account each character and the person's personality and pow- ers. "The animators would start to very, very roughly translate the dance onto the characters, paying really close attention to how they were moving in the physical 3D space, and making sure that their footfalls were really accurate so that Nathan Warner, our cinematographer, could go in with his layout team and shoot the scene as if it were a live-action movie. And he could take inspiration from not only the storyboards, but also from what Jamal and his team have created," says Lehtomaki. Lehtomaki contends that animating to music is fun, but it is also more difficult because there are more restraints. "You still have the acting that you would have to do in a normal dialog scene, but now you have music with a rhythm and cadence that you have to abide by and work within," she says. "And if they are dancing, like they oen do in this film, there are some technical steps that you have to get correct." Because this is a Miranda musical, it con- tains some very fast lyrics. And having the characters enunciate every word in some of the songs would have resulted in the jaw popping up and down, since the anima- tors only have 24 frames to communicate everything. "We had to be very careful," says Lehtomaki. "We had to dive really far into fig- uring out what's happening with the tongue. What's happening with the tension in the neck, when you need to break to sustain a long sentence with all those words or a big note. We had to find the simplicity to still communicate all those lyrics you're hearing but not have it look chattery." To help, vocal coaches and Broadway performers were brought in to teach the animators the dos and don'ts for what the characters are doing as they perform. The animators also used mirrors they had placed at their desks to see how their own mouths were moving when delivering certain lines. A SHOW WELL DONE In all, it took approximately five years to bring this film to life, which is just about average, says dos Anjos. What wasn't "av- erage," however, was the overall complexity resulting from the number of main charac- ters. And for that, Encanto boasts one of the biggest animation crews WDAS has had on any of its movies, with approximately 100 animators among a crew of nearly 600 total. Of course, the Madrigals were graced with a charmed life for many decades, but it took the skill and determination of WDAS to bring the family and the family's story to life. Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW. The film is set within an Encanto, a special charmed place in Colombia.