Jun 29, 2023

The director, creator of "Nimona" explains why the shutdown of Blue Sky could not kill their film (video interview).

The film premiered at Annecy earlier this month, and Cartoon Brew's exclusive online event partner INBTWN Animation tracked down directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, Nimona's creator ND Stevenson.

Nimona was originally founded at Blue Sky Studios, but when Disney bought the studio's parent company, 20th Century Fox, the future of the film was in doubt. In 2021/2, Disney announced that it will close Blue Sky Studios and that production at Nimona has been suspended.

It wasn't until 2022 that we officially learned that Nimona was saved by Annapurna Pictures and Netflix, and that DNEG took over animation production.4

Being shut down by a huge parent studio is not usually one of the things you see coming, but usually harkens the end of everything...They stopped the movie, but they also shut down what was our home. Blue Sky Studio...There were 600 people, employees, but it was also our family. I worked there for most of two decades. Those were the people who were at my wedding...It was devastating to put an end to it. But it was this wonderful character, Nemona, created by ND, that kept things going.

For Stevenson, Nimona's character meant much more. It was his creation and represented what he believed would benefit both other viewers there, fans of existing works and newcomers to the character:

Hoping that she is for me and that she is for other people is that your feelings don't make you a bad person. Having big emotions and emotions, anger or fear or pain does not mean that you are broken or dangerous to others. You can feel those things, you can believe in yourself, you can ask for help, you can get help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help, you deserve help.

Nick Bruno agreed with Stevenson and felt that Nimona's relevance was one of the main reasons his team didn't want the project to die.

When this film was shut down, it was important that this was what was needed to get into the world. That this was a film that was different from anything else. Children need to see such expressions there. It gave us the motivation and energy to keep pushing even if we didn't know what we were doing.

Nimona is an equal part of sci-fi epic and medieval fantasy, and the characters, art and architecture of the film are necessary to express it.

This two-and-a-half d expression is a great nod...We're making movies with cg, but with a nice nostalgic wink to the old 2d era, and also back to our graphic novel roots. It felt like a kind of clever, beautiful way to marry the future and the past.

It may not be immediately obvious, but what you must see once you see is that the foreground characters, props and architecture of each shot are more detailed than those in the background.

The farther away we are from something, the more generalized it becomes. It really is, the more we allow ourselves to be closer to others, the more we can see what constitutes our full self. We can see all the small details that make you personal. On the other hand, the more we keep people at arm's length, the more they become this kind of label, the general shape, and the graphic of what we assume.

For more information about Nimona's production, check out INBTWN's full video linked above.