Atomic Robot News: '9' - Using Pieces Of The Past To Build An Animated Future

'9' - Using Pieces Of The Past To Build An Animated Future

Source: Focus Features

The landscape of the futuristic animated feature, "9", that the characters exist in, and are trying to figure out their past and find their future in, is "filled with things that are hauntingly familiar to us all," says director Shane Acker. "But it's also as if the Industrial Revolution had been allowed to progress for hundreds of years, and we never got past that steam-powered design sensibility."

That very sensibility has picked up momentum in recent years through the "steampunk" aesthetic that marries functional and custom-made invention to Victorian-era design. According to Ruth La Ferla in The New York Times [May 8th, 2008], it "is the aesthetic expression of a time-traveling fantasy world...inspired by the extravagantly inventive age of dirigibles and steam locomotives, brass diving bells and jar-shaped protosubmarines."

As writer Pamela Pettler reports, "Shane had in mind industrial icons of mid-century Europe. There's a very strong derivation from those in 9."

Production designer Robert St. Pierre adds, "The science of alchemy plays a pivotal role in the story and in the production design. Jules Verne was also an inspiration."

Acker notes, "Verne's world has definitely influenced 'steampunk,' which is a celebration of mechanisms and an idolization or faith in machines as a future, and which emphasizes analog over digital. But in 9, since the world has fallen to pieces it's become all analog."

Art director Christophe Vacher notes that, given the movie's "post-apocalyptic environment, not only did we have to create things, we also had to age them, weather them, and sometimes destroy them!"

Acker elaborates, "The world of 9 is composed of what was discarded and what was left behind, so some things have become anachronistic and outdated.

"Each member of the group has clear visual ties to the humans' past. For example, #1 has asserted his leadership status with a coin atop his head, and he swaddles himself in a piece of red velvet. This tribe exists - and its members and their adapted culture are maturing - in a post-human environment."

Actor Elijah Wood (#9) notes, "The whole group now tries to find out who they are and where they came from, and to overcome what they are afraid of."

As director, Acker found he had to modify his working methods for the feature, since he was now overseeing dozens of people as opposed to previously occasionally working with two or three. He admits, "I was constantly saying, 'Oh, I can do that myself' or 'Let me just take that.' It naturally took a while for people to get acclimated to this world I'd set up and created. I would explain the rules for these characters, this world, and the philosophy of this world - and then our crew could run with it all.

"When you're doing animation, you're so close to it that it can be hard to take a critical distance from the work. Working with a team, there's always people around to see the work in new ways and to bounce ideas off of. All of the amazing artists who have come onto the project have brought so much to it that I couldn't have by myself. It's been a tremendous collaborative effort."

One collaborator, supervising animator Kristin Solid, had, like Tatasciore and Ksander, been at UCLA "at the same time Shane was there. He and I would comment on each other's films, and I even spent a little time working on the original short, doing some lighting. For the most part, he did that whole thing himself!

"Shane is very loyal and made sure to have people working on 9 that he has confidence in. They must be talented and be able to get him what he needs, because Shane and Joe Ksander expect the best from everybody, including themselves."

Acker adds, "The good thing about directing the feature was that I didn't have to worry about technological hurdles; we had a whole team that I could rely on to work out those challenges. This way, I could concentrate on the challenges of the story and characters."

Co-producer Jinko Gotoh remarks, "Everyone was proud to be working on a film that is set apart from any other animated feature out there. Our crew size was smaller, so each individual was responsible for more of an output; seven feet of film was animated weekly, as opposed to the more typical five."

Producer Jim Lemley comments, "What I learned on this movie is just how much animators put into the characters. It's their personality, their skill, and their artistry that goes into the characters. They are acting, too; they are actors overseen and directed by Shane. Combine their performances with the actors' voiceovers, and you've got universal human truths and emotions coming through these characters."

Story artist Regina Conroy admits, "It was an emotional experience every day when we worked, going through the gamut of what these characters are feeling."

Acker elaborates, "The actors deliver the subtleties of the dialogue, while the animators deliver the performance. We shot video footage of the actors, even when they were sitting around a table, and the animators used that for reference. This way, they could take those qualities that the actors had conveyed and apply them consistently throughout. Every character was distilled down to its vitals."

Supervising animator Charlie Bonifacio says, "The footage was so interesting to watch. Shane pointed out to us some takes where Christopher Plummer would be readying to speak, so we put in that detail of #1's mouth to start moving even before Christopher's voiceover comes on; #1 is preparing to say what he's going to say."

Ksander reveals, "In addition to Elijah Wood, there's some Shane Acker in #9; a great big grin that can break out on Shane's face found its way onto #9's face too."

Bonifacio comments, "From Jennifer Connelly, the animators recreated for #7 the head tilts that Jennifer has, and the way that she would stand between takes."

Ksander adds, "I would work with Shane closely after he and the art team had done character design. We would discuss which specifics I would be conveying to the animators. We had animators who worked their butts off to get onscreen the most subtle facial twitch and the shadow falling across that face.

"But it's not just sitting down and moving keys around on a computer. We would also shoot video reference footage of ourselves acting, because there were lots of little things you would need to keep in mind before sketching or animating; studying the weight of a staff in someone's hands, for instance. Mirrors were stationed at animators' desks for them to glance into while they were working on their computers, for quick references to facial expressions or saying words. Since #3 and #4 have no dialogue at all, it was up to the animators to come up with those performances entirely; for those two characters, we were inspired by meerkats and silent film actors."

Solid notes, "We had to make sure to get everything into the time frame we had for the shot, and that meant us doing everything from acting out lines to clambering around - for which we piled up a bunch of office furniture to simulate a junk pile."

Supervising animator Adam Beck elaborates, "In looking at the sequence we were working on, we would listen to the dialogue and really try to put ourselves in that situation or scenario; how and what would this character do? All the time, we were keeping in mind our talks with Shane about who the characters were. A reference point for #1 was a Shakespearean-actor quality. For #2, it's almost as if he was the others' grandfather.

"Aside from the complex action sequences involving monster machines, the biggest challenge for the crew was to make these little beings full of emotion and life. I think we did so."

Ksander concurs, "That's what I'm personally most proud of, how we were able to pull the characters together; while animating them, we discovered a lot of who they were and where they were going. Through all the characters, we are telling a story."

Wood says, "I'm so excited to have been a part of 9, because there's much more to animation feature filmmaking that goes beyond the mold people too often put it into."

Ultimately, Lemley feels that "9 will resonate with audiences; you will be entertained and, as in the best fantasy adventures, you will feel that you are part of a whole new world."