Nov 29, 2023

The staff of "Trolls" talks about co-production and how to create a creative production.

DreamWorks Animation's "Trolls Band Together," the third feature film in the "Trolls" series, is breaking box office records with a mix of high-energy pop music, candy-coated visuals, and lively animation. The film is also the most technologically advanced film in the franchise to date. It is also the most technically ambitious film in the franchise to date, and DreamWorks had to reorganize its entire render farm to support the film's massive scale.

Like the first two films in the series, Band Together was directed by Walt Dohrn. Tim Heitz, who directed the special edition "Trolls: Harmony's Holiday," co-directed the film.

Cartoon Brew's exclusive online event partner, INBTWN Animation, recently spoke with Dohrn and Heitz, as well as the film's head of story Colin Jack, VFX supervisor Mark Scott, and head of character animation Ben Willis were interviewed. The group discussed their favorite scenes and sequences, the unlikely cinematic elements that influenced this family film, and the collaborative nature of the production that allowed a wide range of people to contribute ideas and suggestions.

In the latest installment of the DreamWorks franchise, the follow-up to Trolls World Tour, the main characters, Poppy and Branch, are finally an official couple. As their relationship progresses, Poppy learns of Branch's secret past as a member of the boy band Blazon. When Blanche's brother Floyd is kidnapped by a villainous duo of pop stars, Blanche and Poppy set out to reunite the band and save Floyd from an undesirable fate.

Dorn contrasted the approach of this new album with the previous one. Troll's World Tour dealt with cultural and global themes. In this film, he said, he wanted to go into the internal emotional structure of the characters. And since we started making this film at the beginning of the pandemic, we were discovering our own emotional structure, what drives us." [According to Heitz, the entire crew was excited to return to the world of "Trolls" for the first time in several years. This world itself is such a fun sandbox for all of us to play in," he said. What else could we do in this world ......?" It's not like you're scratching your head and wondering, 'What else can we do in this world?

VFX supervisor Mark Scott, who has worked on dozens of films, credits the directors with creating an atmosphere that encouraged collaboration and exploration of ideas. He said, "One of the artists would suggest something in the dailies that we all hadn't seen before and send it back [to the directors and producers], and everyone would start chatting about it in a heated way. It doesn't always happen. Often our job as filmmakers is to make sure we're going in the right direction. I don't think I've ever worked on a film under such an authoritative license to come up with ideas and collaborate."

The video is full of other anecdotes, cut-scene stories, and production insights, so be sure to watch the whole thing.