The directors of some of this year's most celebrated animated features talk about the designs and inspirations behind key characters, including sentient robots, expressive cats and evil penguins.

anxiety – “Inside Out 2”

In the sequel to Pixar's Oscar-winner "Inside Out," Headquarters is disrupted by new emotions, especially scene-stealing anxiety, which director Kelsey Mann said was the hardest of the new emotions to engineer. "It was really (character art director) Deanna Marsigliese who cracked the final design. Not only did she find the right sense of anxiety, but she did it with a fun and whimsical design," Mann said of Orange Emotion, citing her Key features include an extra-wide mouth, "which is perfect for her teething" and shaggy hair that "shows off her nervous energy." Mann also wanted to make Angst — despite some of the choices she made in portraying the now-teenage Riley — a character that audiences could root for. "Anxiety is the antagonist in the movie, but she doesn't really see herself that way. She's just trying to protect Riley." Speaking of "Anxiety" voice actress Maya Hawke, he said: "It ends up being incredible. Thinking at the speed of things, figuring out millions of possible threats, so I knew I wanted someone who could speak very fast...but my favorite part of Maya's performance was that you could hear it. There's a lot of heart behind her voice. You can really feel that she loves Riley and is doing her best to take care of her."

cat - "Flow"

"Flow," Latvia's dialogue-free animated contender in the Oscar race for best international feature film, tells the story of an emotional, big-eyed cat after her home is destroyed by a massive flood. "We were trying to find the right balance to make the character designs believable and natural without being surreal, which I think would make it less expressive and engaging," director and co-writer Kinz Zibalodis (Gints Zilbalodis) explained. "The eyes are the first thing we notice about a character, so we have to make sure we pay enough attention to them. Credit for the character's expressions goes to the incredible work of our animators. They consulted a lot of real-life animals . ” He added that animation director Léo Silly Pélissier set the guidelines for the team. "Cats, for example, don't look around very much with their eyes. Instead, they often turn their entire head, which also helps convey the protagonist's anxious energy. For the eyes, we had to make sure we produced micro-movements." The animators call this "eye darts." , he noted, "It's a relatively simple technique that makes a performance more believable."

charlie and sam ——"That Christmas"

Twins Charlie (voiced by Sienna Thayer) and Sam (Zazie Hayhurst) from Empty Socks, the first book in the Richard Curtis trilogy about locksmiths and The Netflix movie is based on this book. They needed a design that "allowed us to play two identical-looking characters in completely opposite but believable ways, while also creating naturally charming and sweet children," director Simon Otto said. "Our character designer Uwe Heidschötter pulled together a streamlined, stylized design that allowed us to focus on their round, soft eyes, and well-researched features that reminded us of what we see in these British towns. The people. …the only visual mark of distinction is Sam’s braids, contrasting with Charlie’s wild, shaggy mane, and they wear different colors, Sam a calming green and Charlie a bold red, by the way. This is also the color of Christmas. ” He added that the characters needed to convey “tonal humor and emotional depth to Richard (Curtis)’s real-life character, so we focused on idiosyncrasies in their personalities and let the design all revolve around their facial expressions.” Simplicity and Accessibility” design, proportion, hair and costume design. "They also develop contrasting behaviors and body language to set them apart.

Emi ——"Ultraman: Rise"

In this Netflix adaptation of the classic Ultraman series, pink monster baby Emi blends writer-director Shannon Tindle's classic monster inspirations with his experiences as a parent. "In the tradition of classic tokusatsu ("special effects"), the monsters in Ultraman were played by men wearing rubber suits. So I imagined a kid wearing one of the suits—big head, chubby cheeks, short Fat arms and legs," he said. "However, the audience also needed to connect with Emi on an emotional level. Therefore, my daughter's spirit was woven into Emi's final design and performance." Tyndall shared photos and stories about his daughter with the team at Industrial Light & Magic, The team animated the film. The team also brought their own parenting experience to Emi. To "voice" her, he hired Oscar-winning sound designer Randy Thom and the Skywalker Sound Team. "Amy represents a child's range of emotions - from sweetness to anger. Although she can't speak, she needs a charming and sometimes repulsive voice," explains Tindall, despite Amy's yawning , but “babies — and monsters — aren’t always cute. Of Amy’s tantrums, I remember telling Randy, ‘You know you hear the deafening screams of toddlers trapped on airplanes Weaponize it!'"

Fitz McGraw – "Wallace and Gromit: The Most Revenge"

The evil penguin Feathers McGraw first appeared in Nick Park's Oscar-winning short The Wrong Pants and returns in Revenge Bird. His design is fairly simple, admitting to Parker (who directed the film with Merlin Crossingham) that it's basically the shape of a flask. "Minimalism feels like an enigma," he said. It's his actions - his silence - that make him sinister. “The right animator needed to be found,” Crossingham said. "It's a very tricky thing to ask an animator not to animate. But his strength really comes from his calmness. ... There's a lot of confidence in the villains on the screen; the good guys don't run. They're never in a hurry. They're confident that eventually they will Capture prey," Parker said. Therefore, filming the stop-motion animated Feathers involved cinematic methods such as camera movement, black lighting, and music. It also involves attention to the eyes. The feather puppets are only a few inches tall and have eyes made of glass-headed pins. “There was always a reflection in his eyes,” Crossingham said. "Without a light, like a little sparkle somewhere in his eye, his presence on the screen is greatly diminished. So make sure that when he turns his head, there's always a bright spot. When he turns around, even Technically there shouldn't be a bright spot, and we forced one in by putting a light there."

grace ——"Memoirs of a Snail"

Adam Elliot, the writer and director of "Memoirs of a Snail", said that the stop-motion protagonist Grace is made of materials such as polymer clay, plasticine, silicone, wires, metal skeletons, paints and magnets, and is designed to Looks "squatting". "Her face was covered in freckles and her eyebrows were permanently sad, making her always look sad and cute," he said. "She almost always wore that drab, hand-knitted snail hat, which made her look strange and adorable at the same time. The cracks in her palette were always visible, reminiscent of her childhood filled with teasing and torture. She Her expression is always driven through her eyes, which are always in a Despite her petite stature, all these features make her extremely attractive and emotional. Her outfit is a very simple hand-painted brown drab dress to emphasize the more colorful aspects of her life. Compared with the role, she is called "simple". Succession actor Sarah Snook has been cast as the voice of Grace. "She's shy, quiet, and naturally vulnerable. I wanted her to keep her natural speaking voice and Australian accent. What I wanted was a very intimate, real, warm and melancholic performance, which she delivered brilliantly," Elio Special said.

Moana ——"Moana 2"

The Disney animated sequel picks up three years after the events of Moana and finds the eponymous character as a leader of her community (bringing them back to their history as wayfinders) and a big sister. Her appearance reflects these changes. She still wears Grandma Tara's necklace, and her hair contains more salt from drifting at sea. The artistic team combined research from cultural consultants to redesign her dress. "These are very intricate red feathers that run along the top of her dress and one side of her shoulder straps. These come from the 'Alae 'ula bird, which was highly prized in Oceania at the time." With David G. Derrick Jr. and Dana Ledoux Miller Jason Hand, who directed, explains. "Her dress is made from pandan plants that are actually woven together. Even the way it's woven is very special." He added that when designing the outfit, the team "tried to find Something that really fits what she does. She's in the canoe every day, but she's still a leader in the community."

Orion Parkes and D-16 ——"Transformers One"

In Transformers One, director Josh Cooley tells the story of how two young robots—Orion Pax (a young Optimus Prime) and D-16 (a young Megatron)—go from best friends to The story of sworn enemies. Each involves two major physical transformations, meaning each requires five designs, including their vehicle form. When the story begins, they are designed to be miners. "The two protagonists are starting their journey from the bottom, missing out on the machine that enabled them to transform. I hope the audience never forgets that, so their chests are open and clearly missing out on an important part of who they are. Let Their being smaller than typical Transformers also puts them in a lower category, putting them at a disadvantage," Cooley said. Their initial design also had to feel "familiar enough to the iconic designs we've known for the past 40 years," he added. Regarding the voice acting, Cooley said: "It's crucial that the audience is drawn to the scenes of these two friends together[early in the story]. Chris Hemsworth (Optimus Prime) and Brian Tee Leigh Henry (Megatron) are two of the most charismatic people on the planet... We worked together to find the exact moment in the story where their voices changed and to what extent, so that the tension grew and we felt the relationship begin to unravel."

Rhodes ——"Wild Robot"

Based on Peter Brown's book, "Wild Bots" tells the story of Rhodes, a sentient robot brought to life by the voice of Lupita Nyong'o. “The only thing I insisted on from a design perspective, as a translation from book to screen, was that the ROZZUM robot in Peter Brown’s illustrations had a very simple line to represent a mouth. I wanted to make sure that the ROZZUM robot on Roz’s face There are very few expressions. I believe people will be more successful in projecting their own emotions onto our characters in the absence of these details, so we limited Roz's facial articulation to her eyes," said the screenwriter. director Chris Sanders said, elaborating on the eyes. complex. "Even though Rhodes is relatively still, we can still get a sense of her thought process through the movement of elements inside her lenses and eyes." He stressed that Nyong'o "does some incredible heavy lifting in her vocal performance, which It's another aspect that can't be exaggerated. But animators also have this limitation, so they have to be more physically creative so Rhodes moves like a silent movie star... in a certain way. Under these constraints, creativity will blossom in other areas.”