Annecy 2022: My Father’s Dragon WIP
My Father’s Dragon will be the next feature from Cartoon Saloon, who’s last feature Wolfwalkers arrived to much jubilation in 2020. Directed by Nora Twomey (The Breadwinner) who introduced fellow panelists Áine Mc Guinness, the Art Director on the film and Fergal Brennan, Technical Director.
Opening with an incredibly humble reminiscence of her 20th year at Annecy Twomey shared her anxiety to showcase the film. This is rather typical of the studio who in-spite of having a perfect track record of amazing films (seriously if you think you’ve discovered a duff film in their back catalogue I promise you it’s you that’s the problem) remain charmingly polite, almost meek and self effacing and don’t take an ounce of their success for granted.
MY FATHER’S DRAGON – From five-time Academy Award®-nominated animation studio Cartoon Saloon (The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, Wolfwalkers) and Academy Award®-nominated director Nora Twomey (The Breadwinner), comes an exquisite film inspired by the Newbery-honored children’s book from author Ruth Stiles Gannett. Struggling to cope after a move to the city with his mother, Elmer (Jacob Tremblay) runs away in search of Wild Island and a young dragon called Boris (Gaten Matarazzo) who waits to be rescued. Elmer’s adventures introduce him to ferocious beasts, a mysterious island and the friendship of a lifetime. Cr: Netflix © 2022
Jumping to the first clip from very early in the film and it’s clear to see from this WIP that the film follows in the rich traditions of style and substance that the other films in the catalogue do. We meet Elmer, a young boy leaves his home and local store that he shares with his mother on a long drive from the warm and cosy yellows of the dusty midwest, the the cold and grey skies of a big city. In amongst the rain and gloom, Elmer’s mother encourages her son to dream of a new store in the city which visually takes us back to warm, safe glow as he fills his head with dreams. Encouraged to give city life a shot, Elmer and his mother step out of the car only to be greeted by the grumpy locals in the rain.
The small snippet is obviously part of a wider film where we follow the adventure of Elmer, who is 10 years old and sees for the first time that this mom doesn’t have it all figured out, so he runs away to try and find answers. He wishes to find a dragon. Rides whale to Wild Island. Where he finds Boris the dragon. Unfortunately Boris has no answers either as he is a kid too, so the two work together to find a way home.
The feature film is based on the books by Ruth Stiles Gannett who, at 99 years old has been able to share with Twomey the spirit of her work. The author wrote a story about a normal kid, not a hero or a prince, just a kid who found his own way out of problems. “We kept Elmer very mortal” said Twomey. “…taking the spirit of the book to the film, from one to another keeping the love that Ruth had for Elmer alight”.
In the second clip we saw something of the journey to Wild Island. Whilst riding on the back of a whale, who is transporting him to his destination the name of the place is revealed to Elmer which scares him as wild animals with “pokey teeth and pokey claws” live there. We see in the distance a captured dragon tied to the top of the island who is lifting the isle from the water and stopping it from sinking.
As demonstrated by Áine Mc Guinness, red, yellow and blue become significant colours in the film as they do in the original illustrations in the books, with gold colours in the film signifying hope, home and safety. When the characters are out of comfort zones cool blues support the emotions. Though the illustrations in the book have a flat look which the film wished to emulate, a deep immersive world has been achieved through texture and lighting.
The character of Elmer went through many iterations, though the urge was to create a character that was bold and unique, the team quickly realised that every kid watching has to see them self in the character if they are to empathise with Elmer and his journey. The team were afforded the opportunity to be more playful with secondary characters to honour original designs of the book.
Though the film looks flat, like a lavish moving illustration it remains an incredibly effects heavy film. Rather than using effects as a crutch or mask the team avoided effects with things that are too realistic and opted for a hand drawn look for smoke, rains drops and spores, all in keeping with design and used to focus and frame the character and add depth to the epic scale of the world
When it was time for Fergal Brennan, Technical Director to talk, his upbeat and meme filled portion of the presentation gave an impression of how remote working had created a bond between the crew in order to make the film work as well as detailing the tools used to realise the movie.
A final clip shared a part of the movie where Elmer and Boris are getting to know one another which also demonstrated the remarkable chemistry between the voice over actors Jacob Tremblay (Elmer) and Gaten Matarazzo (Boris) as their characters traversed the isle.
Remote working didn’t mean that the filmmaking process was allowed to cut corners as Twomey related. “I challenged myself as a storyteller more than I’ve ever done, creating three drafts of script and three more animatics than I’ve ever done”. Though a laborious process the director is happy that the process has yielded results ” glad we kept asking questions because it means we’ve earned everyone’s work”.
I started this article by stating that Cartoon Saloon have yet to make a duff film, it seems their next film is no exception.
My Father’s Dragon will be released on Netflix in the autumn