Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1513434
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 2 c g w 7 F riendship blossoms into romance and adventure in Trolls Band Together, the third chapter in DreamWorks Anima- tion's blockbuster musical franchise. Directed by Walt Dohrn, this action-packed musical follows the events of 2016's Trolls and 2020's Trolls World Tour. Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) are now ocially a couple, which leads to her unravelling the secrets of his past. Branch was the youngest member of Poppy's favorite boyband phenomenon, BroZone, along with his four brothers: Floyd (Troye Sivan), John Dory (Eric André), Spruce (Daveed Diggs), and Clay (Kid Cudi). Aer the group disbanded, the family sadly did as well. Branch went to live with his grandmother and had yet to reunite with his siblings since their days on stage. When one of the brothers is kidnapped by a pair of villainous wannabe pop stars—Velvet (Amy Schumer) and Veneer (Andrew Rannells)—Branch and Poppy set out on an epic journey to rescue him and bring the family back to- gether. Visual eects supervisor Marc J. Scott played a major role in bring- ing the lm's dazzlingly robust imagery to life on screen. One of the industry's most celebrated VFX artists, Scott is a twenty-plus year veteran of DreamWorks Animation with over y credits on his re- sume. His work can be seen in live action blockbusters like Titanic, Independence Day, The Fih Element, The Mummy, and Armageddon; as well as in several of DreamWorks' most iconic animated franchis- es, including How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fung Panda, Madagascar, and The Boss Baby. At the 2023 VIEW Conference, Scott discussed his creative ap- proach to the lm and shared insights into his career in animation and visual eects. CGW: What did you enjoy most about working on Trolls Band Together? Marc Scott: The crew, the people, the family we have at Dream- Works is always a pleasure, and we had the honor of having a lot of veterans come back from the Trolls franchise. We had many of the artists, directors, and producers come back on to the project, which was really fun to reunite a family that's been producing these lms for years now. There were a lot of creative challenges. One of the goals was to make it the biggest Trolls lm ever, and to expand the universe and to try to expose everybody to new and interesting ideas. Coming up with new concepts but still honoring the original idea of the Trolls franchise—that was really fun. CGW: Can you tell us more about those creative challenges? Marc Scott: It's a road trip lm, so you need to travel between vast distances and see new worlds. There were a number of new loca- tions. Part of the challenge of this lm was to get the Trolls out of their established world—sh out of water—and get into areas that were quite dierent from their own world, intentionally. We had to come up with new concepts, new worlds, and be able to also make sure that it ts within the existing Trolls franchise. Trying to come up with something new that also establishes a language—and art that you've already had and people have loved for years, is quite a chal- lenge. Marc Scott is a 20+ year veteran of DreamWorks Animation.