Welcome to the Kung Fu Panda 2 commentary.
- I'm Melissa Cobb, the producer. - I'm Jen Nelson, the director.
I'm Raymond Zibach, the production designer.
I'm Rodolphe Guenoden, supervising animator and fight choreographer.
So this shadow puppet idea, Raymond,
can you talk a little bit about where that came from?
Well, it's funny. We had that one shot towards the end of the movie
where we needed something to kind of... We wanted to do a shadow play
and have the cannon cast a shadow.
But when it came to doing the opening, we were originally gonna do a tapestry.
And I thought, well, it would be cool to do the shadow puppets
telling the story, you know, the back-story, of Shen.
And who's doing the narration there?
That's Michelle Yeoh. She does an amazing job as the soothsayer's voice.
What's really nice about her is she gives that sort of wisdom
and the gravitas of that voice.
"Cause we wanted to make sure this area felt like a historical story.
And that it has to have a sort of grand weight to it,
SO you know to pay attention to what's going on here.
- And her voice is so velvety. - It's a great delivery, yeah.
Yeah, that sense of history is really strong.
And what was the animation technique?
It was sort of a combination of different techniques, right?
Yeah, it was combination of After Effects and...
But because After Effects is so smooth, you know, we had to add, actually,
kinks into the animation to make it look like it was puppets held by somebody.
I think when you came up with the fact that everything's kind of held
more from, almost the head, like a real...
- Right. - ...shadow puppet is,
with a stick, usually the anchor point is up high.
When you kind of got that pivotin it, it really started having the right feel,
and added with the jitter.
Feeling the actual hands holding the...
- Right. - ...puppets, yeah.
That was crazy cool.
And I think it really helped, too, when you went through
and got the exact facial acting, when you were going through and doing that.
That really took a real jump when you did that.
And then that transition shot into the CG is really,
- pretty much a matte painting. - Yeah, that...
One of the first CG shots you see in the whole movie
is a fully painted shot mapped on to some geometry,
but it's a beautiful matte painting.
I think what really helps it is the dimensional camera move-in
and the use of effects in the smoke stack
so it really looks like a real CG shot.
Yeah, it's quite a cheat, but it works.
It is. We kind of enter the movie on a matte painting
and leave it on a matte painting.
The wolves forging the metal, using that to bring the title in,
that was kind of an idea that came up towards the end.
It was another kind of last minute...
"We gotta finally do something and put it up on the screen”,
and I love that you had the beat of showing Peacock getting more metal.
And then we were like, "What are we gonna do for these titles,
and how do we transition?" I was like, "Let's make 'em metal
and just have that flash be... it's what Peacock's after
and it's also the title."
So coming off the title, there's a couple of kids playing
- with action figures there. - One of which is your daughter.
- That little pig right there. - Nice job.
I don't know.
And there's a little misdirect here with the reveal of Po.
Yeah. That was funny.
The idea that you hear all these sounds of violence in the background.
Extreme violence, and the more violent the sound effect,
the more you think something really, really extreme is going on
and then you see that.
And he says here "38 bean buns”, but I think it's nine
- that he actually has in his mouth. - It's only nine? Gotta be more.
It's hard to imagine how it would've looked with 38.
We had to pull back on the amount of slobber, didn't we?
Yeah. Definitely, we had an ultra-slobber pass
that effects was very proud of. Had to cut it back a little bit.
Beautiful effects, but it was a little bit too messy.
- Yeah. It was stringy and goopy... - Yeah.
- It was stealing the show. - Yeah.
We don't want people to get nauseous at the beginning of the movie.
So what about the 3-D effects on that dumpling?
- That's a super stereo moment. - Yeah, it is.
I think it's fun just seeing the camaraderie
between Po and the Five again at the top of the movie.
Yeah. This is a shot that you actually had painted forever ago.
This location, I just, I don't know, for some reason it was
so early on, but I wanted to make sure
that we had that mystical kind of beat.
And I think when... when Phil pitched the idea of a dragon statue,
I was like, "Let's build that out and do the grotto, and..."
"I know exactly where it should go."
We had this spot in the main painting of the first film.
So I loved fitting it in to the world of,
especially for the top of the Jade Palace.
Remember, Rodolphe, this whole water drop thing was actually your boards
- off the first movie. - Yeah.
It was actually the ultimate test for Po to be the Dragon Warrior.
It was Oogway that was giving him the test.
- Yeah, it was a great scene. - Yeah.
Yeah.
- I still have that stack of paper. - Yeah.
So many cool ideas didn't make it into the first one
and ended up in the second one, including character designs and...
- Yeah, the wolves. - ...and beats like this.
Yeah, 'cause this one... I think it was cut out of the first movie
because there really wasn't the room for it.
It needed more, you know, than what we had the time for in the first film.
It was nice to give it this level of weight in the second one.
Just really hinge a lot of the movie on this whole test.
Yeah, and this idea of Shifu being now more like Oogway,
more the spiritual leader of the Valley, I think is...
- It totally fit, yeah. - Yeah, it's really a cool use.
Setting up the green theme for later and the knowledge side for Po,
I think this whole sequence has just about everything,
you know, to kick off the movie in a great way.
Do you wanna talk a little bit about the water imagery,
and how you were using that through the movie?
Yeah, it's the whole yin and yang between Po and the peacock
and the liquid movement.
The water theme is something that I know you put a lot into, visually.
It always seemed like a great idea to try to somehow really have the themes
kind of oppose each other.
In the first one, Tai Lung was kind of bringing cool blue
and Po was always going towards gold.
But I don't think we ever had them clash
the way we build and set them up to clash in this movie.
So, even down to the materials are actually doing it, too,
and Po, in the end, is going right up against Peacock's firepower.
Yeah. And it just was such a beautiful image for this.
It's sort of... was all about that whole inner peace feel
and the clarity and the simplicity of it.
There was the worry, with all the beautiful water droplets
going on in this... I was thinking,
"Gee, I hope the kids don't have to go pee
- in the middle of the movie." - That is funny.
I was also worrying if it was gonna end up too loud, you know?
If we were really using real sound, we'd be drowning out everybody.
- I think it looks beautiful. - Such gorgeous water.
- Yeah. - I love this scene.
I wonder if people notice that it's actually Oogway's staff that Shifu has.
- It's been fixed. - Yeah.
- Repaired since the first movie, right. - Yeah.
Repaired very beautifully.
And this location is a really great environment.
I was just looking at that original concept art for this,
and we originally had it like an outpost in the middle of a field.
Yeah. We were just looking at some art the other day
and it was kind of on a flat land area of the Valley,
maybe towards the end of the Valley, or the river entrance.
And then, I think early on we realised it's gotta be more epic.
- It's Po living his dream. - It's the opening of the movie.
We gotta have a location that was pretty crazy epic.
And perilous, you know, at the cliff edge.
Yeah. And there are some shots in this sequence that are
right out of Po's dream from the first movie,
but rather than 2-D, they're executed in CG this time.
- Yeah. - Exactly.
And that's the whole idea, trying to re-live Po's dream in real life.
Now he's got it. He's actually doing what he always wanted to do.
- This one right here? - That's one.
- Now he's in it with... - It's the exact same composition.
He's still the geek, you know? Still the geek and enjoying it.
- Yeah. - That's what I like...
The great challenge was to actually find Po,
but the Po that we had left from the original movie.
He has evolved a little bit but still has got the same personality.
And in terms of his kind of fighting style, Rodolphe,
how do you feel like that's evolved when we see it in this scene?
Well, that's one of the... I mean, that's the sequence that we,
you know, we tried to show that he's still improvising into his fighting.
He's still not... He's not Bruce Lee, but...
- Yeah. - And it still takes a lot of work.
When he's fighting or when he's running away, he's always bug-eyed.
He's all bug-eyed and out of breath, and I think it makes him super cool.
I love some of Philippe's shots that actually set this tone for...
- When he's heavily breathing, and... - Yeah.
The teamwork side, I just love that you really felt connected between
all of them and they somehow have formed this unit.
It's a beautiful piece of choreography all through this.
This was just added in animation, wasn't it? This area?
- Yeah. - And you did a lot of 2-D reference
for all of this action through this area.
Remember we were discussing it very early that you wanted them to be...
...you know, shown as a team and everything, and...
"It would be so cool if he was calling out the names of the fights,
but also doing some of the moves of their own styles
- as the same time as calling them." - Yeah.
I mean aficionados will probably notice,
but a regular audience just sees them as fighting together
and being totally... intertwining their fighting.
It was cool. I was happy to do that.
It's one of those shots that, like, you wanna frame through, though,
because there's so much going on, you almost can't see it all.
It's really exciting and then you stop, frame by frame, and you're like,
"What's going on there and there?" It's really fantastic.
I think that's one of those things that's really cool about it,
that it is authentic.
You actually took the time and made those moves something cool.
I looked at each of the styles and tried to get Po to do, you know,
some of the moves from the original styles and... and, you know...
...a sparkling in there, and Pierre animated the CG shot. Yeah.
When martial arts experts come up to you after the fact and go,
"I'm so happy you showed off what we've known forever now
in an animated film for kids, with the integrity of the moves."
- They're always pretty stunned, yeah. - Yeah.
And then there's a flashback there which is now in a different kind of 2-D
than the opening of the movie. Wanna talk a little about that, Jen?
That was actually a tricky thing, 'cause there are multiple types
of 2-D in this movie, or animation in this movie,
and the opening would have that historical feel
and that's why there's that puppet Theatre look.
- Yeah. - It's ancient.
But whenever we go into Po's mind, it has to be that sort of sharp anime,
sort of stylised feel that we had in the first movie.
But we're also asking that look to do a lot more acting than we ever had
in the first movie, a lot more emotion.
So, there are a lot more frames involved.
It wasn't so much still frames that we could morph in between.
This had to be more fully animated this time.
And that little flashback, since, Rodolphe,
you actually animated it yourself,
it had to have an enigmatic question that was raised, but not tell too much.
Exactly. That was a really tough line to get, is not reveal too much
but still be emotionally, you know, involved, indicating a lot, you know?
So, yeah. Thanks to you, you know, we finally got there.
Because I always tried to follow your storyboards
and in the animation, I kept, like, going beyond the storyboards
and too far away from the boards
and I had to really stick with what you had done.
I gotta say that's gut-wrenching, though, when you have
this gorgeous animation and I go, "It's beautiful, but it's too much."
And then we go to the noodle restaurant
and now it's "Dragon Warrior Noodles and Tofu".
Oh, my gosh. You've completely pimped out that place.
Dad, he's the king of marketing.
So what's up with those posters, if you notice in the background.
What do those say on them or what are they doing?
Well, he's got a new sign above the entrance to his noodle courtyard.
At least that's what we call the location.
And it says "Dragon Warrior Noodles and Tofu".
And then each one has, like, I think "Dragon Warrior"
written on the poster. And, you know, he's got his...
...usually a graphic of a bowl of noodles or something.
He was really trying to tie it together with Po so that if people love Po,
they'll come to his place and eat his food. I love that.
And what about James Hong, working with him?
Oh, my gosh, James is such a peach.
I think he was the first actor that recorded.
And he came in, and he came in many times as we were building this story
between Po and his dad.
And he has such sweetness in his delivery,
but also has so much wit to it.
So you're dealing with moments that could come off
as being overly emotional, overly saccharin, but they always are so real
- because of his performance. - Right.
It always has that little bit of an edge to it,
which makes you just, you know, go with him.
And there's always that love for his son that permeates everything that he does.
Mr. Ping is probably one of my favourite characters of all time.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and this is a great scene that was...
I think one of the really early scenes supported by Phil Craven,
our head of story, and has really remained intact
- through the three long years, right? - Completely. It hasn't changed.
I mean, he did a pass of this and it stuck.
We did many different changes on it
and we always came back to the original version.
And the... It's just so sweet.
And these moments here where the baby Po was just
having so much fun in the kitchen and the bonding with his dad,
they were all in those boards.
Remember the days when we first were introduced
to the model of Po, of baby Po?
- Yeah. - Like, everybody just went instantly...
Yeah.
The biggest fan... The entire studio, we spread it...
The news spread so, so fast, everybody was just a fan.
We thought it would bring about world peace.
If we could all just look at baby Po...
Send baby Po into a battlefield and everybody stops the war.
So funny. And that's Nico Marlet, who designed the baby.
- I don't know if you want... - Yeah, he took...
Well, he took our kind of research trip, and we went and saw, you know,
and you got to hold a little tiny baby panda.
We took all those photos and gave them to Nico
and it took a little bit to get the eyes just right,
but, I mean, he is the most charming character.
And how Nico worked with modelling and how we were able
- to get that design through again. - To keep him so round.
- He's literally like a ball shape. - It's the way you draw it.
- In the boards. - Little circle.
- Like a dumpling shape. - Yeah.
Yeah. And it's beautiful just like how fuzzy, like, the surfacing on him.
- Yeah. - You know?
Originally, I painted some of the first digital paintings of him
over Nico's drawings and I was thinking of those kind of fan brush
watercolour ink paintings 'cause they're so soft.
I'm like, "How can we get that softness out of CG fur?"
I think Wes Burian in surfacing did an amazing job.
Yeah, baby Po... he's so cute.
Then, you know, the big question: adoption.
That was a tricky thing because it's a hot topic.
It's something you have to do right.
And you don't want to pander, you don't want to, you know,
do something that's inaccurate.
And also we want to make sure that we're not just saying
"birth parents” or "adopted parents".
- It's all families. - Yeah.
And so we wanted to make sure that we treated it right.
But it's something that was very carefully thought through
for the entire three years, every single moment,
trying to make sure the relationship between him and his dad is real.
And the revelation of what the truth was is real,
and that was just very, very tricky.
And then Gongmen City, amazing location.
Oh, my gosh.
Inspired a little bit by our trip to China, of course.
Yeah. It's kind of a combination of all the great things we saw
and then things we thought we were gonna need, you know,
to make an impressive place that Peacock would take over.
I think, in the end, I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out.
That the fact that the technology could let us have this?
It's all built, none of it's matte painted.
You're actually able to go anywhere in this place, to me,
and have it look the way it does, you know.
All the work that the art department did as far as detail
and then surfacing and modelling, it's... to me, it's a marvel.
But then, you're able to art direct on top of that something
that's got such a strong statement, and have it hold up and...
- This sequence is one of my favourites. - Yeah, it's one of mine, too.
And those three masters are all re-used from the first movie.
They were... I think a couple had already been drawn and, I think...
Well, the wolves were already started. A Croc had been model led.
Rhino was kind of built off of the rhinos from the prison,
but we did a whole new head. But they were all characters that we already knew
and it was great to kind of have them in this movie
and model them, final, and put them in this sequence.
Yeah, Master Croc and Master Ox used to, originally, be
- members of Tai Lung's posse. - Tai Lung's henchmen.
Yeah, they were designed for Tai Lung.
But then we thought, "Tai Lung is too bad ass to require a posse."
Yeah. They were all supposed to kind of square off,
each one against one member of the Five,
so that Po and the Five might have all been fighting at the same time.
But I think to make it more Po's story, it was simplified
and made Tai Lung stronger in the end, like you said.
There's some great cameo voices for those masters.
Yeah. Dennis Haysbert plays Master Ox, and Victor Garber plays Master Rhino
and of course Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Master Croc.
That was truly one of my peak experiences in life.
How was he to record with, Jen?
He was super nice and he did one of those...
He did a kick towards the camera for the EPK. That was pretty awesome.
I actually had a picture taken with him. I had a geek-out moment.
- He was pretty cool. - He was pretty cool.
And then the news comes back to the Valley of Peace.
We see the Five find out about what happened.
Yeah, that was...
That's the thing, because you're basically hearing something pretty dark,
but we wanted to make sure that it stayed light.
Until you get to the emotional beat when Po and his dad actually talk.
The first half is the set up for the journey, the mission.
But the real meat of that sequence is when Po goes down to talk to his dad.
Yeah, 'cause the thing was pulling the pieces of comfort away from Po.
First his adoption issue and then possibly threatening kung fu
and to kind of unsettle him a little bit at the beginning of the movie.
- Yeah. - It's also supposed to leave you
with a bit of a hanging unfinished business between the two of them
that should be a little distracting for Po as he's going on this journey.
We don't want Po and his dad to have a bad time.
We want them to make up. We want them to be good.
And to see them leave with that hanging moment and that
rather heart-wrenching moment where Dad says "Noodles" is like...
- Yeah. - That was a funny moment, though,
where Jeffrey kept asking,
"I need longer before he says "Noodles.' Let that moment hang longer."
We're like, "No, we can't hold on for that long."
But we did and it actually helped.
Yeah, no, it's really great acting by James Hong right there, too.
I think every screening I've been in, or public screening,
little kids always say "noodles".
When she says, "We'll be back before you can say 'noodles",
they say it, actually, before the dad does. I love that.
And Po's brought his action figures along.
Yes, that's a little thing. You notice that all of the Five are action figures,
and they're all in that basket and that comes handy later.
I think that's a really funny beat to bring that back from the first film
and then actually use it as a tool later on. I love that.
I really like the colour signature going from that red one to the gold sequence
and Po basically, you know, he's attained everything in that Valley.
Now he's gonna have to leave it and that's...
The palace, you know, over his shoulder and his dad,
and that kind of line that's drawn through them while they're talking.
I think that's really strong just as a cinematic, you know,
kind of visual, reminding you of what's important to Po...
- Yeah. - ...before he has to leave.
Yeah, and then through the montage you're kind of inter cutting
Po's point of view with the peacock, and there's some kind of interesting
split-screen stuff that happens in there as well.
It's always fun to do those montage...
You know, we did a big one in the first movie when he's training...
...and then to echo that again here but now it's contrast against Peacock.
I remember Guillermo... that was a Guillermo thought,
and I thought it was really a good one, where he said,
"Treat it like an action scene. It's not a montage, it's an action scene."
You go from a heavy emotional beat to a very quiet, intimate talking scene,
and that moment really needs to have the excitement
and has to have the momentum of these two freight trains
coming together to face off.
Yeah, you definitely get a sense of the epic scale of China
and the fact that they're going on a big journey through that whole area.
Yeah, and Peacock's power is growing.
- Yeah. - It's great.
And Po can't even run.
Gets winded.
Yeah.
So this moment on the boat after Po wakes up,
there's just some great animation there from Dan Wagner.
Oh, yeah. It was just that one held shot where Po is trying to find inner peace.
And we just locked off the camera.
And there were thoughts of moving the camera around but, you know,
it's just gotta be all about the animation in that shot.
And Po's acting in that shot, Dan just did that.
He just did that in a pass and it was perfect.
- Just hilarious. - Yeah.
And the idea of sort of finding another side of Tigress, potentially...
Yeah, 'cause if we don't have Shifu,
we gotta have somebody that is Po's main relationship in the movie
and, really, it has to be Tigress.
And in the first movie, we get to see her being really hard
and he earns her respect.
But in this movie, you get to see their friendship grow,
and you get to see the softer side of her that we barely got a peek of
in the first movie when you see her sad when she was a little kitten.
When Shifu turned his back on her.
This scene is really all about, you know, having a heart to heart
with the scariest person in the world.
And the little peek into Tigress, showing that side of her,
and really realising that people's expectations of who she is
are not jiving with who she probably is inside.
Yeah and Angelina Jolie brought a lot to that, I think.
Yeah. 'Cause you think of her as being really hard-core
- because, you know, she's... - She's pretty tough.
...she's pretty tough.
But she's also very sweet, and I think this side of her
allowed her to explore Tigress as much more multi-dimensional.
And this sequence is... is almost...
...is probably the quietest, most intimate that we get for a long time.
It's just about Po trying to talk about this awkward subject.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
The beginning of sort of an interesting relationship and dynamic
between Po and Tigress in the movie that kind of evolves.
- Yeah. - I don't know where it's going.
- I'm just saying. - I loved setting all of that
against that softness of the misty, kind of pre-dawn.
And... it's hard-core for when it needs to be with her.
And then they've got this relationship that's kind of getting worked out here
and Po's working out his trouble. I just love it.
- I love... - It's a nice set to do it in.
It's that whole thing of guys don't talk about their feelings
until it's beaten out of them.
So that's what this scene's kind of about, you know.
The only way these two martial arts masters can talk
about it is if they spar.
- Yeah. - And she's, she's cool.
Yeah, and I love her reaction when he says that he just found out
that he was adopted, this really great moment of, like...
- She's trying to be constructive. - Yeah. Yeah.
- That was William's shot, right? - Yeah.
Yeah.
William Salazar, and it's just amazing... animation.
Yeah, it's really subtle, really great stuff.
And just that held look where her eyes dart over and back again.
And between that and Dan's shot here of Po,
- sort of saying his problem here. - Here's the eyes of that...
- My favourite. - I love that.
The eyelids opening on that... the punctuation of it, for that scene.
These are all these tiny, subtle things that are added in animation.
And you can't ask for it anywhere else but in animation.
And it's just brought by the animator on the shot.
You don't talk about it, you just do it, and you show it and go,
- "Oh, my gosh. It's alive." - Right. Everyone laughs.
Yeah.
There's a great line from Mantis here about his dad, his daddy issues.
- Didn't we have that in the first film? - We tried.
- We tried? - We tried to hint on the fact that,
yeah, that's what happens for those kind of bugs,
but... it never made it.
And I was so glad the day that that joke was put back in.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
And Seth Rogen's delivery is always just spot-on.
Always spot-on. And someday maybe we'll be able to see that female mantis.
- Get him a nice romance. - We did design her. We did.
We got the design, so maybe we'll have to see her someday.
- I just love that shot... - So this tower location is incredible.
Oh, my gosh, with that water.
And this whole interior is so beautiful.
I think it's a testament, though, to how gorgeous it is
by how you actually used the atmosphere and fuzzed some of it out.
Yeah, 'cause in order to be able to focus on parts of it,
you actually have to take some away, and lighting did an amazing job.
We have probably a better feel for atmosphere and light
in this movie than the first one.
Probably 'cause we even built more, and our sets are a little more layered
because we were very aware that we were gonna be in 3-D.
And then lighting just doing an amazing job putting all of that together
and with all that complexity, being able to focus on what you need to focus on.
That's a pretty tall order.
Isn't that that whole symmetrical composition you were trying to go for?
Differentiate?
I love that for the bad guy, to always kind of be on axis,
and he's always gonna be kind of driving forward,
straight on the line to the viewer, you know, so this one is perfect.
You put a cannon in the middle and that's the line
that he's gonna stand on, you know.
But then Sooth takes you off that and I love it.
Yeah, so even though the composition is straight on,
I know in animation we always had to...
You were the policeman for making sure we didn't get it too symmetrical.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Because he's got such a long neck, such a round head that if he's facing camera,
- he just looks like a lollipop. - Yes.
I was always, "No, no. Roll the head axis. Turn it slightly."
You know, just like any actor would have to find his best profile for a shot,
we would have to find his.
Michelle is great through here.
It's a really funny little exchange between the two of them.
Yeah, it's really, really funny.
And I think the key to her is just making sure that...
She carries a lot of weight as far as, you know,
serious compositional stuff that she's gotta do.
But in order to make sure she doesn't come off as stodgy,
I think Joel Crawford came up with this pass...
Yeah, a lot of great gags.
...where he just came up with this character for her where she's a goat.
And the fact that she's a goat lightens her character,
so she can go to dark places, but you still enjoy watching her.
It's not like, "Oh, no, she's coming on." It's dark...
There were passes where she was pretty dreary.
Yeah, that was before Joel's pass of the scene,
and she was very much a straight soothsayer.
- Yeah. - Then he made her a little bit peckish.
- Yeah. - And also he was playing with how
they would have a little bit of that repartee
where she was playing with his mind, more, in that pass.
I think that really showed off very well.
- And the boss wolf, great character. - Great character.
Danny McBride's voice I think is really... was a great idea.
I think it was interesting for him. He evolved as well, 'cause at one time,
he was more of like, the lug, just a straight lug,
more of a scary dude.
But him being too scary undermined the peacock being scary,
and it was like they cancel led each other out a little.
And to make him more "the idiot".
The sort of goodhearted guy that does bad things.
Right.
I think he's a little bit more redeemable.
But his voice, Danny's voice, is just amazing for that.
Yeah, that's funny.
So you see a lot of the city through this sequence which is beautiful.
These two first shots, I love these shots.
- I love this. - I wanna loop those shots forever.
- It's gorgeous. - Yeah.
I do know, from the beginning, one of the ideas was
that maybe Po wouldn't be so good at stealth mode.
Yeah, 'cause you don't want him to be, like,
super, super confident all the time, because then he's not Po any more.
And he can do kung fu, because otherwise you don't have a Kung Fu Panda movie.
But something like stealth mode, that's just not him.
And this sequence was actually really, really challenging.
- We were crazy... - A lot of passes on this sequence.
A lot of passes, because it's just purely about having fun with him
going from point A to point B.
That's all it is.
But trying to find the most fun way,
and we worked a lot of that through layout and animation,
trying to get through these sets in the funnest way possible.
Marc Scott's team in lighting, he actually lit that first wide shot
and then... this sequence came through pretty hot and heavy at the end,
and look how much stuff is in it.
They did an amazing job lighting this sequence.
And Po has his little drag moment here, towards the end.
Oh, dear.
Clever use of a kite.
A nice... yeah. Nice setup there.
I think we should bring up the fact that these crowds
played a big part in this movie. We have a whole city to populate,
and every shot has people walking and doing stuff, and...
New characters, sheep and antelope, were added to our crowd characters
to get a new feel in the new city.
Yeah, we couldn't do any of this in the first film.
Yeah. It's definitely more ambitious than the first film.
- Yeah. - Yeah, and you feel like
he's really gone someplace new compared to the Valley.
...which was so small. This is like this huge metropolis.
- Yeah. - Well, there's stuff in here that...
...when we're looking at certain shots,
- I feel like we're back in Pingyao. - Yeah.
- You know? - Yeah.
That was an inspiration where we stayed overnight in a banker,
an old banker city, which was really cool.
And shots here remind us, I think, exactly of what it was like to be there.
- The gates through the town... - The picture of the stone.
You can actually feel the warmth of the stone.
- Yeah. - Yeah, the way the light was playing.
That slight rosy colour, you really captured that.
And this beloved sequence of the wolf getting pooped out.
Remember the meetings, the animation meetings with that pooping moment?
- Oh, yeah. - And, you know,
there was the pass where it was too poopy and one sort of not poopy enough.
And, and... yeah.
There was a time when we should have had that...
- Yeah. - Too much straining in that pass.
Yeah, everyone's idea of what a poop is like
when it comes out is a little bit different.
But it led to the whole subsequent pooping montage that's about to occur.
Yeah. And all the swallowing of wolves and pooping them out.
Whose shot was it when Monkey gets pooped out?
- Michelle. - Michelle's shot.
And the fact that in talking through the shot when we're launching it,
that replacing Monkey for one of the wolves as being pooped out.
That's one of the ideas that we came up with as we were launching the shots.
- And it totally works, yeah. - Very funny.
Yeah, and it was just so good. All of these little additions,
every step of the way, just builds it.
I love that even the dragon costume that they're in...
...it actually worked in real space.
We didn't have to build a whole hero one for them to be inside of.
Yeah.
I think that adds to the believability of everything,
is that we're not cheating. You can actually go and shoot this city.
You could be in that costume, running around.
Yeah, I really found that costume point of view in 3-D, particularly,
as you're running through the city, it was really fun.
Remember as you were animating it, too,
it was a question of making that costume a real character,
so it behaved like a character.
- It wasn't like a guy in a suit. - Yeah.
It was a large dragon sneaking through town.
- With his little eyes switching back... - So funny.
- Yeah. The googly eyes. - It's great.
So this scene went through a lot of different versions.
- Oh, my gosh. - Had some trouble with this one.
- This one was trauma. - It was a fight club, it was a tavern,
as far as locations go, let alone what was happening within it.
Yeah, because it really had to just fulfil the same story point,
which is the... meeting these people that you thought was hope.
And it's taking away everything that Po could hang his hope on
and go, "OK, I gotta do this myself."
That's what this scene was supposed to be.
And that story point could be fulfilled in many different ways.
And that's why we boarded it in every way possible.
They're in tutus doing a little stage show for wolves...
Oh, my...
Oh, my goodness, there were so many different ways of doing this.
They were fighting for money because they had fallen down to gambling.
It just went all over the place.
And, really, the only thing that showed them giving up completely and clearly
was them sitting in jail, not fighting.
Yeah. And fighting to stay in.
Yeah. And it just seemed so simple afterwards.
And this choreography through here
of the fight with the jail cell door, I think really gave it some...
Yeah. It's a nice thing to have that sort of line in the sand
where you have to keep them in or get them out.
And any of these fight scenes, you gotta have a clear objective.
Otherwise, you don't know who's winning at any given point.
- That's brilliant. - That's a Dave Pate shot.
- So funny. - Just hilarious.
It's so crazy and I think Joel boarded that one.
- Yeah. - And Dave Pate took it and said,
"No, I'm just gonna follow exactly what the board did.
As complete single panel as that was, I'm just gonna do that."
And all you see is a little jiggle in the butt and that's it.
The music in this sequence is really fun, too.
It has kind of a retro... kind of kung fu feel.
Originally, we had a version of music that was much more traditional.
And it just gave the scene a real, sort of, tonally down.
And this is supposed to be a fun conversation
where he's trying to assert his point that kung fu is not dead.
And I think Hans was there late one night...
- It was very late, I think. - It was very late.
We were sitting there, kind of being a little punchy after a while.
He said, "I got an idea." And he played this and it was just... Oh, man.
Wasn't this Lauren's cue?
- I think it was, yeah. - I think it was Lauren's cue.
She just really brought this
whole fun energy to the scene.
Yeah, it's very retro martial arts movie.
Yeah.
That shot right there with boss wolf is Rodolphe.
- I could tell. - That was terrific.
I wasn't even animation and when I saw this shot in lighting, I was like...
- "That's Rodolphe." - It looks just like him.
They filmed you doing this.
Helped the animator get that, and it's exactly your facial expression,
the way you bob your shoulders. Oh, my goodness.
Oh, the rickshaw.
This is one of the early scenes, one of the early ideas
for the big city rickshaw chase, sort of a car chase idea.
Yeah, the idea of having a car chase in ancient China
with no engines was quite challenging,
but made for a cool idea for an action sequence.
But we cover, pretty much, half the city.
Yeah. This city was built for the rickshaw chase, in a lot of respects.
We figured out all the technology to create the city,
you know, because of this.
Yeah, you and Damon would sit there and you plotted out
every single block that we could use, every eye line that we were gonna see.
It was insanely complicated.
And making sure that we had all the elevations
- to make all these moments work... - Yeah.
- Look how vast that city is. - It's huge.
- And that's all practical. - Yep.
That's not matte painting. It's a real city.
And that's something we never could've done in the first movie.
No. And I think for... and it pays off in stereo again,
where you really just believe the whole thing. I mean, it all works.
Didn't, on the first movie, when Tai Lung and Po is on that firecracker cart,
there was like one city block and we could barely get that.
Yeah. Yeah, the technology's gotten better, computers have gotten fast...
You know, just in three years, you know, what happened with the technology
- allowed us to go crazy, really. - Yeah.
This is a moment I very much enjoy.
I think it's one of those, again, one of those cranky weekend thoughts
where I needed to have Tigress hit Po in the butt
and create a fire stream for the inertia.
Yeah, that's great. Like a sonic boom moment there.
Yeah, and that beautiful effect from afar of that fire stream is amazing.
Yeah. And the close-up shock wave with the air bending, then refracting,
you know, what you're seeing, it just really adds to that moment
before they jettison Po down the street.
Didn't Lawrence have to look at a bunch of shots of planes?
There was a lot of sonic boom footage we were looking at.
- That was really fun. - Yeah.
Just beautiful research gone to a butt-hit.
Yeah.
That's Philippe, again, that animated that. Philippe Le Brun.
This is a great animation thing here, too. Just...
- Yeah. - I love the timing of that hit, there.
Yeah. Bang!
It's like pancake batter hitting a counter. It's like, splat!
Everybody in the Theatre always goes, "Ooh!"
Everybody feels that. The timing's perfect.
For it to all be in wide, as well.
Yeah.
There's some great crowd work here with the wolves,
the wolf army and the movement of those characters.
Again, we never could have had this in the first movie.
This many characters in a shot and you can't tell which ones are crowd
- and which ones are main. - Right.
They're all very carefully integrated
and it just gives that sort of threat that they're surrounded.
This was tricky to figure out how to actually lock these guys up
because they're all such strange creatures.
I think I had Jason build, like, four or five different sets of manacles
and they were all chained together at one point,
and it just got too crazy, so...
Wasn't it a case of "If we chain them together, it would be the complexity
- of an entire battle sequence?" - Yeah, so that was out.
Now the gorilla just has a stick with a hook on it and he grabs Po.
And then sort of everybody else follows,
so they didn't have to be all chained together.
This is a beautiful moment to see, really, what that rig is capable of
and the cloth and... cloth and feathers working together.
The peacock fighting,
all that beautiful choreography that you did, it's just so gorgeous.
We had to cut it down a lot, but... just to hit more of a story point,
but, yeah, it was fun to just make a showcase of his elegance and still being
- very fierce and dangerous, but... - This was actually a tough call
because we actually animated a pass of that sequence before.
And it was a talking sequence where they were just talking,
standing and talking, and it did not feel like it was interesting.
You know, it was beautifully animated, but just was not interesting.
And it didn't show his issue. It didn't show his fear very well.
We showed his fear, at one point, by having him
practising in the mirror, seeing how he looked.
And then decided to go with a little bit more action slant on it.
- Not bad ass enough. - Yeah. It wasn't very cool.
It definitely makes it more of a cage.
Like he's ready for a fight and he's practising
and it builds that moment when Po is gonna get there.
- Po's headed into trouble. - Yeah.
And this is a little...
The stairs.
It's probably the biggest laugh in the movie.
Yeah.
And I think we made that atrium originally, just like,
it would be cool to have this in the movie,
and then as we kept working on the movie, everybody started brainstorming:
"How can we use this?"
And I think that all led to the demise of the whole tower, but...
I love that shot of looking up at all those stairs.
Oh, that's right.
There was a whole pass early on where we did not blow up the tower.
No. Po got blown out of the tower.
Yeah, they ran out of the tower and they jumped into a sewer.
Yeah.
If it's that beautiful, we gotta destroy it.
Yeah.
- Destroy. - Yeah.
This scene is one of the first times, or one of the only times
we had Jack Black and Gary Old man together to record.
Yeah, imagine the universe imploding, the two of those guys in the same room,
riffing off each other. That was pretty crazy.
Yeah, it was really fun.
The fact that they're both fans of each other was pretty cool,
and you could tell that they're checking each other out,
making sure they're doing a good performance in front of the other one.
And they came up with really good ad-lib lines that we used for this.
Yeah, the scene had been struggling for a while and then we got
the two of them together and they just started working off each other.
You get this energy between them, and...
...they're similar enough to their characters in real life, you know?
Because Gary Old man is a little intimidating.
Yeah, he's a little scary. But, no, he's a wonderful person,
but he's scary like in a performance set up. Oh, my gosh.
He just becomes that intense, you know, like on a dime,
he'll just become that intense peacock character.
Yeah. This sequence batted through a million different versions again,
'cause if you're having the good guy and the bad guy meet for the first time,
that's a pretty big event.
And finally when Phil Craven cracked it, he just went away into his room
and we left him alone for about two weeks, I think?
Yeah.
We didn't hear anything, see anything, and then he comes out,
and it is absolutely an amazing sequence he just, you know, pulled out of ether.
Yeah. Although, you know, in any of these things,
SO many people work on it over time, it's all these little bits and pieces,
and it takes somebody to just... finally pull them all together
and create the final version, just the great collaboration.
Originally, this was all taking place over dinner.
- Dinner of deception. - Dinner of deception.
- Long ago... - That was a great sequence.
That was really funny.
- And everybody was dying of poison. - Yeah, everybody was dying...
We killed a lot of people on that version.
Shen's trying to poison Po, and Po's not eating the right poison,
- he's eating everything else... - Everybody else's food.
Yeah.
But that was when the peacock was trying to be more stealthy.
- He doesn't have to hide. - Yeah.
- Many different versions for that. - This whole exchange here, I love it.
Yeah, that was part of the whole ad-libbing
when the two of them were facing off against each other in the same room.
It just gives that energy between the two of them. That was really cool.
This scene's a great one to really see the cannon, too,
the design of the cannon and what the inspiration for that was.
Well, we always... in our world, if we could,
we wanted to push an animal theme, and with the cannons,
we actually pushed more towards, like, these fire-breathing demons
"cause we wanted the lore
of what Shen's doing to kind of spread throughout the land.
And you would, you would design things to be more intimidating, you know.
So, it fit perfectly, I think.
We did that in the first film with some of the equipment in the dojo.
And then this one is just taking it to a whole new level of just cool,
you know, in demon technology.
- Demon technology. - Yeah.
- Very cool. - Yeah.
And that whole action figure thing in there,
that was a tricky thing, how to make sure that you could see it.
And not see it, right?
"Cause you don't wanna blow the gag for everybody until you have to.
And I think we just moved the bars enough apart
for that one angle on Mantis' little toy head
and then the touch of actually moving the head
so everybody would realise it was just, like, on a hinge.
And then we have a big, big story turn here
where Po has another flashback and makes a realisation.
This is the big pivot, the really big pivot
where everything all comes together for Po,
where this mission is now personal.
And he's now off-balance as a master.
And I think that shift was really...
The whole point of that lead-up, it's all fun and games until...
...that moment where everything changes for Po
and he now has real reason to be scared of the peacock.
Yeah.
And this whole thing, this whole escape is to sort of show
how Po is so off-balance that he's putting his friends' lives in danger.
This was originally not meant to have an exploding tower in it.
No.
No, but with the cannons being developed more and then Peacock,
and in almost everything, Peacock's always ahead of Po.
I love that addition to this story,
that it made him that much bigger of a threat.
Right.
And this is just a really fun sequence in 3-D,
and I know you worked a lot with Damon to get that.
Yeah, trying to make sure that we get the scale,
'cause it's sometimes tricky when you're pushing things really depthy.
Things might become miniaturised.
And Damon was always very, very careful to make sure that we kept the scale
of this tower, so it feels like this massive thing.
It's not a little toy. It's not matchsticks.
It is a massive building that is coming down.
And all that sort of depthy shots of them going in and out of the tower
and running up the tower and this huge thing falling down,
was a huge feat for them to do in layout.
Yeah. And then obviously the effects team, Lawrence and that whole gang,
really pulled out everything to get this one to work.
Yeah, I think to be able to take what layout did
and then keep working with it and enhancing it
on the scale that they did, I think effects just really...
It's totally impres... I think...
We kept watching 1600 over and over because it was a hard one to do,
but we never got bored because it's got everything you want.
And all the little tiny additions through this...
I remember when Tigress and Po are flipping each other up the tower,
Lawrence and his team was like, "Can we add a little flaming arrow
barely missing them? Can we just put one in there, please?"
I mean, it's not like I have to ask for anything.
They're like, "Can we put something in because it's cool?"
- That's the fun part, yeah. - More cool stuff.
- Yeah, it's just so beautiful. - And the lighting is beautiful.
Yeah. Showing off the red, you know, with this kind of paler blue-gray,
and just really showing off Peacock's theme, it's just growing and growing
as we move through these sequences.
He's getting more out of control. Now that he knows that Po is off-balance.
Now that he knows the relationship...
Now... Shen is now growing in his instability and his sense of power.
And the thing that's cool about that is that intensity of the colour.
And the growing of his threat... is now ratcheting up in the movie.
- Poor wolf. - He's very intense, isn't he?
That's one of the great shots that I loved from Jeremy Shaw.
You know, the wolf boss lowering his head and looking away.
Totally being like a dog that has just been reprimanded.
I loved it. The first take he did that, I was...
It just gives more texture to the character, you know...
You feel for him. The little lick of his lips, like...
- Yeah. - Nervous.
- His boss is kind of mean. - Yeah. He's so mean.
There's another great crowd shot on the rooftop. I love that shot.
And along with the camera work, raking across the roofs
that the wolves are streaming past.
That one is one of those 3-D moments, too.
Where you're just coming sort of diagonally down
and you see layer upon layer of these guys running.
I think Damon even, like, kicked the camera a little bit
as something goes... a wolf goes close by, you get a little, like...
You really feel like you're right there.
Right.
And this is some really sweet acting from Jack Black through this scene.
- Yeah. - You feel his vulnerability.
Now he has to explain to his friends why he screwed up, and that's awkward.
They were working so well together in the beginning and now it's...
Again, a guy won't talk about his feelings until it's beaten out of him.
He gets a nice beating in this scene.
He gets a little bit of a beat-down in this scene.
Especially when it's admitting something to Tigress, which is so hard.
And this is also the bookend of the boat sequence,
'cause all those compositions between Po and Tigress are the same.
What they're doing is the same. She's sparring with him,
exactly the same gestures, but now it's serious.
Before it was light and playful and now it's ratcheted up where it's real.
- Yeah. - Yeah, she sort of has to step up
as the leader of the group right here, and it's... pretty intense for him.
Yeah.
Again, that "ready", that's exactly the same gesture,
her expression is totally different.
And Po's gonna get his butt handed to him on a little platter.
Because she's definitely better than he is at this.
That's one of the sequences that totally gets me every single time.
I get choked up every time I see it, you know, toward the end.
- Yeah. - I've seen it like 20 times, but...
You're such a softie, Rodolphe.
Poor...
The acting on Po and Tigress and the moment,
it's that turn you're talking about, about their relationship.
Yeah. This is where he admits it.
- And that one expression, yeah. - The delivery.
And this moment that you came up with, this unexpected hug here,
I think, it's just such a great idea.
I think that was, again, one of those cranky weekend thoughts.
You've had a lot of cranky weekends with Jack...
It was a weekend. I had a weekend... because I was sitting there and going...
"I'm working on a weekend."
But the idea that... "Cause she didn't originally hug him.
And the idea that she shows her feelings instead of talking about it.
She's a person of action.
And that hug is, again, if...
It's the most quickest way of going to an uncomfortable reaction on a boy.
Hug him.
For me, it always made the stakes really real.
That's what you would do because you have no idea what's about to happen.
This thing is blowing up, it's getting crazy,
and I'm gonna, you know, have this moment with my friend before I leave.
They may never see each other again.
They may go off to get themselves killed.
And she's really doing this because she cares for him,
- and I think that's really important. - And getting to see that tenderness.
It's the first time we've really seen that emotion from Tigress.
It's pretty cool.
Again, you undercut the emotion with Crane.
- Yeah. Gotta have a joke. - It's awkward. They're hugging.
This scene with Peacock actually is one of my favourites. I think the acting
in this scene... Pierre did was just really, really extraordinary.
That's Sharon Bridge man's boards on this one.
It just really caught some of the damage in that.
And Pierre, wasn't this one of the scenes where he really concentrated
on animating himself, being the lead on Peacock?
Well, yeah. I remember, he put a clip together,
putting up different clips from Gary Old man from different movies,
but having still the text from the Panda movie.
And over his acting and just getting the right mannerisms and stuff,
it's... It's brilliant. All those close-ups are fabulous.
Yeah, and you just see the depth of how hurt this guy is,
and how dangerous that can be.
And this is the moment where he had that choice, really,
of finding out his parents loved him
and then, you know, he could say, "Oh, it was all a misunderstanding.
I guess I did all this for nothing. Maybe I could be redeemed."
But I think it just shows how far gone he is that he would
rather continue doing something he knows is wrong.
Because he can't admit that it was all him.
You know, he's been blaming everyone else for a long time.
Yeah, well, if he massacred all those pandas by accident.
- You gotta justify your evil actions. - Yeah.
- Just stick with the plan. - I guess I was in the right, right?
And that last shot where he's left,
rimmed by that red light, all alone, is really his choice.
Yeah. That's one of my favourite shots,
again, where it's just like a strong silhouette,
his colour theme, you know what it's all about, you know,
and every time that gets echoed further down the line,
it takes you back to that emotion, you know, that you saw with him
and you kind of know just how deep all this is to him, in a bad way.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's not gonna recover very easily from what he's done.
- This is a great location. - I love that location.
That jagged towered, cool place.
The factory setting, I think Ritche Sacilioc started it,
and Mike Yamada helped us flesh it out further,
and Tang art directing.
- The colour is amazing on that. - Incredible.
Again, this is like the fire theme in this sequence.
This is the fight sequence, the confrontation sequence.
It's really based on the idea of fire. Trial by fire.
Yeah, it was all about all the design, all the colour, all those ideas
kind of culminating here when Po really is gonna go confront Peacock
and try to find out what really happened.
And I remember the original concept art for this sequence. It was all misty.
It was always filled with smoke and mist and...
Yeah.
And it always made it, actually, feel even more dimensional,
that things, you knew they were disappearing into something
and I actually think that ended up being a cool detail
or addition in 3-D to have things in smoke and in mist, layer the shots.
And also it reflects a story point,
where he's trying to find the truth through all this.
He's actually searching for something,
and that sort of layers of sort of illusion... is always very cool.
Yeah, and just how the peacock kind of comes in and out of the mist
and creates that mystery and uses that mystery to his advantage.
It just makes him... maybe a little smarter than Po.
Yeah, just a little bit. And he's theatrical, too, which is cool.
What was really cool about this, too, is, and challenging,
is it is a rescue for the Five.
And Po is driven on this quest to do what he's gotta do,
but the Five are trying to save him because they know
bad things are gonna happen when the two of them meet up.
Yeah. And he knows it's wrong, but he can't help himself.
So that's a kind of vulnerability I think that's really interesting.
And the layers is what makes this, their relationships, all very interesting.
It's not just cookie-cutter. It's very layered.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like that this... This whole structure and figuring out
all the choreography, it was quite complicated to figure out.
How are you gonna keep the Five on this side?
- Po's down there on the conveyer belt. - Where's the scaffolds?
Yeah. Peacock is with him. How are we gonna... Where's it all gonna go?
And setting it up for the end of the sequence.
We just saw go by the wok with Tai Lung's face from the first movie.
If you look closely, if you freeze-frame.
- Little Easter egg there. - You'll find it.
Where did they get that, anyway?
It's a little odd. It was in the junkyard.
We dug through the trash and found that sucker.
That's the fun thing about a sequel. You can find all those little pieces.
- Yeah. - It keeps 'em alive.
We're masters of re-use. We just don't let anything go to waste.
I felt so proud the day I noticed that. It was the dailies, and it's rolling...
I know. We never really told anybody.
We were just like, "Here effects, take this."
When you look at a shot 50,000 times, you start noticing things.
And this final confrontation, you know, this moment here...
This confrontation has always been like...
It is the moment where Po gets all his fears realised, essentially.
All his worries, it's all played on by the peacock and it's so cruel of him.
And that emotional death is just really powerful here.
I think the acting on their faces are amazing.
The read that Gary does is amazing.
Everything culminated to make this just... so mean.
- Yeah. - He's so mean.
He's even surrounded by Peacock's you know, theme of colour red.
It's at his back and Peacock's red, in front of him,
and then... and then he's blasted. Amazing.
And the conversation he's talking about, he's talking about himself.
He's talking about what he thinks of his parents
and what his parents thought of him.
He's not talking about Po at all, that's the part that makes it interesting.
He's starting to be able
to put voice to what he's been feeling all this time.
Yeah. And that's part of what I like about the peacock.
He's just so messed up.
And then we get to see Shifu again. He's been missing for a while.
- Yeah. - A little glimpse of Shifu.
Didn't William do that entire sequence himself?
Yeah. Those... three shots, four shots?
Yeah. We finished that one pretty early. That was a good one.
That was early. Very pretty, watery, but very early.
This sequence, we see the huge centrepiece of the movie,
in a way, one of the very first sequences that you did.
It was very, very... The first sequence we boarded.
And the ideas in this sequence were the images
that we used to pitch the movie to Jeffrey to say,
"This is the movie we're gonna make."
And the two images were little baby Po with radishes,
and then the image of his mom, the point of view of the baby in the basket,
looking up and seeing his mom for the last time.
And those two images are what we've built the entire movie around.
And after the initial talks with Jon and Glenn, the writers,
and Phil, the head of story, and Melissa and me,
we're sitting there and talking about it
and I said, "I volunteer to board that first."
And Phil volunteered to board the part right after this.
And so I went in my room and I thumb nailed out this sequence,
and it was the first boarded sequence that we had.
And then your sister actually cleaned up your...
Yeah, my sister made it gorgeous and fleshed it out
and made it into a sequence.
But really, every beat in this was there from the very beginning.
Yeah, and even the idea of the 2-D and the CG working together
was one of the really early concepts as well.
It's very important, too, when that moment of 2-D becomes 3-D,
because once Po finally fully understands what happened,
then it becomes real, and before that, he can't do that.
He can't get to the real version.
It still stays in his mind, which is why it's 2-D.
Yeah, it can't unlock until he does the move, which is so powerful.
And the moment where it was supposed to go to 3-D
was originally that point-of-view shot
that was the first image that we pitched when pitching the movie.
It was supposed to be the shot of the mom,
as seen by the baby from the basket.
But we pushed it forward by one shot so that we made that transition to 3-D
when the baby was put in the basket,
because the shock of seeing it go from 2-D to 3-D made you go,
"What the...?" for half the shot with the mom,
and it didn't read, emotionally.
Yeah, you would've been too distracted, I think, by that changeover.
Rather than now, you cut to the shot of the mom, and it's so much more powerful.
I just did this little thing of shifting the whole shot right before it to gold.
As a transition, it almost feels like it's going to CG,
but it's actually, it's just the colour changing,
and then the next shot matches that gold colour exactly.
That transition was great.
This environment is beautiful in terms of really touching Po's colour theory.
This was really based on that trip, wasn't it?
When we were in Qingchengshan in Chengdu, China,
and we were all there in the mist, on this...
...where Taoism was formed, and we kind of all had
this crazy mystical connection to this mountain, at least I did.
I think everybody, when we talked about it,
you just had a deep connection to the mountain and...
...kind of at a natural level, and we just wanted to get that in here.
And we also kind of wanted this green against red to play, also,
and it seemed to fit perfectly against what we saw there.
And to have that tied to where Po was born, I thought was really strong.
Those images of the trees with the red eyes are based off Tang's paintings.
Yeah. We actually did that idea of birch trees with eyes in the first movie
for a Wu sister idea, kind of a spooky forest that we never used.
But then, Peacock's tail-feather-eye theme
became so strong in this movie that we were like,
"We gotta use it here because this is the moment to do it."
This moment here makes me cry every single time I see it,
and I've seen it so many times, it's crazy.
- The animation is gorgeous. - It's just beautiful.
Dan Wagner's, yeah. It's gut-wrenching.
Yeah, right there. When she touches his little soft face, you're just like...
- The sound. - It hurts.
Yeah.
And the fact that you realise what she did
with just that little gesture there, it's heart-rending.
And that's why he's been stuffing it all this time.
And the 2-D in this sequence, throughout the sequence,
is really beautiful, the graphic nature.
You and Pierre just went to town on this.
Yeah. That coordination of CG to 2-D,
and then you guys animating in and out of that.
And the screen direction, it's such a great flow, along with his move,
it's flowing and the cinematog... Everything's flowing together.
The way you've used that water drop as a transition between the two mediums,
- it's beautiful. - Matching it perfectly for the position
on screen, and depth and stereo.
It's a very beautifully cut sequence.
And the flashback, with some images from the first movie
was kind of an idea that came along later.
This was an addition. I think it was Bill.
Where we didn't have this and we went straight from that emotion
of Po realising what happened, going into battle, and it was so sad.
You were left with the sadness for a very long time.
It was hard to dig out of that during the battle itself.
And so this euphoric moment, which was all about bringing him back up
and finding out what he did with all that his mom sacrificed,
it was empowering. This moment was just such an uplifting moment,
and it came out of a review meeting in editorial with Bill Damaschke
and he said, "I feel like we need to have something here."
- Something uplifting. - Something uplifting.
And also that helps with the adoption theme,
the idea that even though his parents couldn't raise him, that his life
became what he made it and it was a sum of all the different kinds of family.
- Yeah. - You know.
Tigress and the Five and Mr. Ping and all those things become his family.
Yeah, the rest of the story, which is very, very sweet.
- I'm glad we had that. - Yeah. It's really beautiful.
This moment here where Tigress is chained up and she's still snarling...
She's so menacing here.
We had that as well in the factory, you know, when she faces the gorilla.
I thought, "Oh, and add it here."
The CFX department added all the creases on the nose.
Finally, we have some animalistic traits.
That's what I really like about Tigress. She is so cool.
And this whole idea of putting this, the water versus fire battle,
was something I think, the art department really helped.
Yeah, you guys just made it up.
I think it was all supposed to take place on a desert battlefield
and I think we had a chance to do a quick blitz.
I think it was two weeks and we had like four or five guys,
and we just did big what-ifs.
Yeah, it's like, "What could make it special?”
Yeah. And the only thing I told them was
I thought fire against water would be a cool idea.
And they knew the things that we had built already
and the Gongmen Harbour and a lot of them just naturally were using that.
And we had a ton of imagery that came out of that.
None of it really had a story, but it was just like:
"the Five are gonna be on rooftops while the city is filled with red torches.”
All these visual ideas that looked really epic
were kind of just a launching point for,
I think Ale took that and fleshed it out as an actual sequence.
- That was a lot of fun. - It was very much an inspirational pass
just to see all that art come out because every image,
even though they're all different, was unique.
Yeah.
They were all things you had never seen before.
You've seen an army on a field.
You've never seen some of the images that were brought up.
And you had barges and huge scaffolded rivers and stuff all over the place.
And this also gave real structure to what the battle was about.
Yeah, where Shen needs to go.
Yeah, 'cause otherwise you don't know who's winning.
You don't know what progress is made
and you've gotta have that on something this big.
Yeah. And it felt right to have it confined, too,
that it would be more of a close combat, or close quarters, you know, fight.
And that the Five and Po would have to figure out what to do with this army.
And that was the real structural thought
that Ale had when he was doing the board sequence of this,
contrasting the tunnel, which is the canal section of this,
to the wide, open waters of the harbour,
which was the more sort of Zen moments of this battle,
which goes more to the emotional core of what Po has to deal with.
So you go with the physical battle
and then the emotional battle on the second part.
But some of these ideas were from the earlier pass that Gary Graham had done
out on the battlefield, like this whole idea of Po making a speech and...
No one can hear him. That was from the desert pass and Gary had just added it
in a storyboard pass of his, and it was so hysterical.
We were just cracking ourselves to pieces re-watching that thing.
And this idea of Po kind of outrunning the cannons.
Yeah, where he has to sort of do the blitz-dodge
and then get down amongst the cannons so they can't fire on him.
That was all stuff that we had in that previous pass
and it was a great previous pass.
That desert fight sequence finale was really awesome
and this was really about trying to get the location to feel as special.
Gary also went through and boarded a lot of this new version as well,
trying to get the nuances of this battle to work.
And once Po frees the Five, this is the first time in Kung Fu Panda world
where we've had them fighting against an army of characters.
And then there's... Rodolphe, want to talk about the opportunities there?
Absolutely.
I'm seeing always some of those scenes there. I'm just...
No, but it was... It was a great challenge to have so many wolves
onscreen at the same time, you know, fighting with Po...
Yeah, it was so cool.
Logistically, to work with crowds and layout and setting everything up
as a moving chain through the city and... it was a lot.
One thing on some of these specific moves I think you came up with
towards the end there, Rodolphe, where we really just see,
like, each of them gets their moment to do something kind of extraordinary.
It was so neat to fit all the animation team with all this.
Discuss it with Jen, you know, finding the right tone for everybody.
And that return of Shifu... it's epic, you know.
I remember I was so glad when we had the screening
and the audience was cheering and clapping. It was like... wow.
- They like that little guy. - Yeah.
This whole section, coming up here,
I remember it was a brainstorming session with you, Rodolphe,
and Gary and Phil and me sat in a room
and tried to figure out how to get, you know,
the Five to be super cool in their each, individual moments.
And the barges, this whole barge thing was something from the first movie
that you had actually thought of for the final battle against Tai Lung,
and we couldn't figure out how to do.
And we actually got this barge, boat sequence to work in this one.
I'm pretty sure Rodolphe came up with this, and that moment, too.
"I love you guys."
Yeah.
Like, "Yeah, you sure you don't want this super slow-mo?"
And you acted it out. It was so funny.
That is cool.
The animation through here, that revolving shot... it's amazing.
Yeah, and you made every single move. It's like... It's crazy.
Yeah, trying to find moves that fit the characters,
each of the characters, you know?
All working together despite the camera and the entire crowd behind.
It was fun.
This little inter cutting to the peacock finally blowing them all to pieces...
...that was a whole very challenging thing to get right.
To get the timing right through there.
'Cause it is, like, it is a dance. It is trying to get the rhythm of
that momentum right before you just yank the rug out from them.
I mean, throughout the movie, I think you worked so closely with
the editor, Clare Knight, on all of those timings and really, you know...
- ...it was ongoing to the very end. - Yeah, she's so good.
She's so good with the pace
and trying to get that to really have that emotional hit.
Wow, we just were working with a lot of previz shots on that as well
and she somehow constructed that to really hit you really hard.
The Wolf Boss has his heroic moment there.
Yeah, he wasn't all bad. He couldn't blow up his dudes.
Didn't we originally have a line where he says, "I know that guy.
I play with his kids on Sundays" or whatever. I forget.
We cut that line out.
At least he had a little character arc.
But he's not dead. He just fell off...
Yeah, I always wonder, "Did he die? I don't know."
- Does anybody really die in this world? - I think the wolves are OK.
And the explosion, that explosion of those gates is huge.
- Beautiful. - Effects...
I love that they were able to stylise it enough
so that it has that graphic punch, you know, and not...
We were always on the edge of, "Don't make it look like a gasoline..."
You know, like a real fire, but it needs to have as much impact.
- Yeah. - I thought they did that beautifully.
To have it be graphic and have it be intense,
but still have some design to it so it doesn't have to be so realistic.
Yeah, throughout the movie, the explosions of the cannons
was a really visually unique kind of cannon explosion.
David Tidgwell. Yep.
Incredible work with the spiralling smoke plumes
and the trails of swirling sparks and how all that works... It's incredible.
And then we take full advantage of it here at the end of the movie,
"cause we stage it in a darker sequence that this light show just looks amazing.
And the sound effects guys really worked hard to get a unique sound for that.
Yeah, they want to make sure that it wasn't, you know, recognisable.
It's a fireworks-based sound effect.
We wanted to make sure that it was fizzy and different,
and it didn't sound Civil War or World War II or anything like that.
It was definitely ancient-animal-run China.
Yeah, they went out to the desert and they recorded all these explosions
- of fireworks and then... - It was pretty cool.
...created a whole kind of unique sound
so there was that kind of signature feeling to it.
Very unique.
That moment where Po is gathering himself to reflect the cannon ball,
that was one that has been around for a long time.
We had that in every version of the final battle.
Yeah, it seems like that was the one thing you knew from the beginning,
which was he was gonna have to fight a cannon.
And it actually was that second scene, you know.
There was the first scene that I boarded and the second scene that Phil boarded
and that had, again, those elements from the first movie
where the water test that you had, Rodolphe.
And he had done that and that was originally taking place in the village.
It wasn't in the midst of the battle.
But the problem with doing it all in the village was it gave away everything.
He had nothing to resolve in the battle, and there was no tension.
So this moment where he sees the cannon finally coming to him
and he deflects it in that last moment
and you see the cannonball turning into the water drop,
that was in every version... of that final battle.
Yeah, you're putting those two pieces together, resolving his past
and finding his inner strength in this moment to defeat the cannonballs.
Really crucial piece of storytelling.
But I thought putting it on that water setting just gave
that water drop even more resonance.
"Cause you have the water on the fire, as you said,
when you're doing that visual development.
And, visually, it still takes advantage of kind of what the desert scene did.
It was one guy and almost in the middle of nowhere is gonna block a whole army.
And the fact that that just... putting that one guy standing on water
and he's gonna... What's he gonna do, you know?
Then you just have this amazing show of how it plays out.
It was even more pathetic with that little bit of flotsam
that he's standing on, you know?
Like a little wood boogie board that he used to drag over there to...
Yeah.
This is a great scene that Jon and Glenn wrote.
I think just a really fun, interesting way
to kind of get at the final moment between the two of them.
Great little dialogue between them where he's talking about, you know, scars...
- Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's brilliant. - It was just so funny.
"Cause it's hitting the theme and all of the issues,
but in such a kind of sideways way that it's really entertaining.
It's almost the parody of the big final, you know, moment of understanding speech
between the good guy and the bad guy.
But only Po could do that where he really, honestly, is not equipped
for that kind of gravitas.
Yeah, there's just a brilliant piece of animation from Dan
where he talks about how his shoulders...
- "Keep the shoulders loose." - It was really cute.
Yeah.
But it was also a challenge, too, to make sure that Po comes off as sincere.
He's not making fun of the peacock through all this.
- He sincerely wants to help him. - Yeah.
And any pass that we did where Po came off as being a little bit too goofy,
we had to dial back to make sure he was deeply sincere through all this.
- Otherwise you don't like him. - Yeah, he has to stay sweet.
That was always also the highest goal of kung fu was to actually,
if you could fix your opponent, if you could actually heal your opponent...
- Yeah. - ...that's the highest,
that's the best thing you could ever try to do, so.
I always love that kind of message, that Po is operating at that level.
But, yet, you still want them to fight.
Oh, yeah. You still gotta see something blow up.
- You want the two of them to go at it. - You still gotta do that.
That's the yin and yang of it.
And this little moment with Tigress...
That was one of the latest things that we did.
One of the very last animated shots that we did.
Yeah. It seems so obvious now that of course
this is what would have to happen, he'd have to hug her,
but we didn't think about doing it till towards the end.
Yeah, wasn't that, again, a cranky weekend thing?
I think it was another one of your cranky weekends.
- I think you need more of those. - I need more cranky weekends.
And this sequence, my goodness.
Yeah, then we get to go back and see Dad, and...
- That kid gets a laugh every time. - He's pretty miserable.
It's such a heart-tugging moment to this,
and it was always hoped for that it would be a deeply emotional moment.
And it was a matter of crafting the subtleties on this
to get it to the point where it could make you sort of choke up.
It's amazing, though, that you leave him for a whole movie
and you come back and that emotion's still there.
When you come back to this, everybody is totally invested in what...
"What are they gonna say to each other?"
It's really only three scenes. The moment where dad tells him he's adopted,
the moment where they say goodbye
and then the moment where they make up at the end.
There's three sequences that their entire relationship is hinged on.
Yeah. It's such a primal relationship.
You feel it tugging Po throughout the movie and so,
knowing he's finally worked it out is just such a release.
And I think the voice acting, both James and Jack in this scene is just...
- Yeah. The way Jack just... - ...really beautiful.
...he just had so much emotion in his voice, and I think that really inspired
William and Dan when they did their animation.
I remember when you came back from the recording session,
saying "You're not gonna believe it."
We cried in the recording booth, and that doesn't happen very often.
We were like...
- We cried. - Yeah.
And then you showed me...
We showed you the record and it was put up against rough board and...
And even off the rough board it's like... "Oh, gosh."
It's so emotional.
And then Dan and William got super excited
and they ran off and they did, like Dan did all the Po shots
and William did all the Dad shots and it was just so beautifully animated.
This shot was no easy feat.
Yeah, and everybody loves it. They start clapping here.
And they go, "Wait a minute, what's going on..."
"Where are we going?"
Matte painting. Look at this. The length of China.
That's a matte painting feat. That's insane.
Yeah.
Yeah, and you really wanna know that you're going somewhere.
It's a really important story point to get that sense of distance.
Jen kept pushing for distance. "I wanna feel like we're really moving
and getting out of here."
Yeah, far, far. Not the next valley.
And that, you know, looks like it might be Oogway there.
I love that. I don't even think we thought of that misdirect
when we were kind of originally working on it
and then as soon as we saw the shot,
people started saying, "I thought that was Oogway."
- It's great. - And this is just... I don't know.
I always get a little teary on that spot, too, 'cause it's such a...
That's the shot that we
added later because it was after we went to China.
- Yeah. - And we saw how people
revered the panda so much.
Can't leave people thinking that every panda in the world is dead.
- Yeah. - There are kids going home, going,
- "Hey, Mommy, did all the pandas die?" - Yeah.
- Just a downer. - It's a little grim.
Yeah, we have to have a few of them alive somewhere.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
We used a little bit of architectural reference and location reference
a little bit from that trip, you know, from Qingchengshan again.
It was nice to kind of echo that through that bit because
- that's where the pandas are from. - Right.
There's a little something written on the rock there.
Yeah. Yeah, it's actually the name of that mountain.
- Yeah. Little Easter egg. - Yep.
And these end titles, also sort of a...
We always like book ending, right? We like book ending our movies.
The first movie started with a 2-D sequence and ended with a 2-D one.
And this one starts with the shadow puppet sequence and ends with one.
And it was another fun one to kind of figure out and work out.
Yeah, the guys at Shine created this
but Tang, I think, did all the art himself.
I think he pretty much...
I think Jason... Jason Brubaker did a couple also.
Tang was like booking, trying to beat his baby being born.
He was expecting his son and I was like, "I need this done."
We're, like, full-blown in lighting.
He's like, "I hope she doesn't have a baby right now."
We're half-expecting him to be gone, half painting.
And then I love these ideas that the story team came up with
of what it might've been like to be Po growing up in the Valley of Peace.
Januel.
Januel, who was one of the board guys, came up with a lot of these scenarios,
and came up with quite a few,
and that inspired Tang to go and make a lot of these images.
And the legend of how Po got, you know, to Mr. Ping's back door,
I love that whole little bit of travelling
during the voice acting credits.
And you never know what really happened.
No. Yeah.
Who knows, maybe it did involve a volcano, but...
I think so.
- Surely. - I believe it.
There's eating the bamboo furniture, which was imported.
I do like seeing little bits and pieces of that.
"It was imported, too."
That was very cool.
Little Po.
- Yeah, we have long credits, don't we? - We do.
We do. We have a lot of people making these movies.
We try to make it look pretty, though,
so people will sit through and watch all the credits.
Yeah and give the crew something to kind of look at while they're looking
- for their name or whatever. - Yeah, this was all done, finally,
I think, at the very, very eleventh hour.
The last pass of this came in right under the wire.
Credits are always the last thing,
"cause otherwise we might miss somebody.
I didn't help them either by...
You know, every transition is actually an animating one,
so it's not like you can really find a clean cut point to redo things.
So when they were re-rendering, there's only three cuts to the whole thing.
And so when anything had to be changed,
they re-rendered, basically, a third of this thing.
And one of the things we decided to do right during the mix, obviously,
right at the end of the movie, was adding the song,
- or this remix by Junkie XL. - Yeah.
And, again, it's a matter of tone.
It was after an Angelina Jolie screening,
where she had brought all her kids and afterward, her only comment was
"You know, you might want to pick a really, really upbeat song.
Have you thought of a song yet?"
I thought, "Well, we haven't had a song yet."
Because in the first movie we had a big, upbeat song,
but we didn't have one yet.
And so it was one of those eleventh-hour things where Junkie XL
came in and came up with a remix for us
and it just had a nice, happy, upbeat tone to it.
Yeah, and it really, like, lifts your mood when you're coming out
and you connect back to baby Po and the Po themes in a really fun way.
I think it helps a lot.
It celebrates the film in a great way,
and I love that the, the way Shine put the art together
from the shadow puppet things that we gave them,
it was just kind of focusing in a little bit on
how these shadow puppets were kind of created in art.
- It's a nice detail to show everybody. - Yeah.
Yeah, there's so much gorgeous art that gets created
over the course of these movies, just infinite piles of art.
- It's staggering. - Yeah.
Very cool.
We didn't get to talk much about Guillermo.
- Would you like to? - Yeah, like for instance,
the peacock... the peacock fighting.
I think he talked me out of all the logic camera stuff,
'cause I was always feeling very sad that we had
a Mr. Burns of a peacock who doesn't fight.
When we had all of that cool action stuff, you know?
And you get stuck in the logic loop.
And he said, "How can you have a martial arts movie
with a bad guy that doesn't do martial arts? He's like Mr. Burns.
I mean, he's such a lame villain if he can't do martial arts."
And I thought, "You're absolutely right."
And we have a villain that was designed to do martial arts.
His initial concept is that he should be a martial artist
who also has this thing that beats everything he personally can do.
It's far more menacing if a guy can beat something he understands
than can beat something he can't understand.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Guillermo came in, you know, about halfway through the movie making process
and really helped us identify things like that
where we had maybe talked ourselves out of good ideas.
Yeah. He said, "Well, why don't you do this."
I was like, "Well, we had all these logic issues."
Like, "Well, forget that." I'm like, "Yes!
Let's do what's cool!"
He was the 14-year-old boy in the room
who was rooting for it to be cool all the time.
Yeah, and that was such a breath of fresh air.
He just was like always looking for, "What's cool? What's cool?"
And I thought, "That's brilliant."
Yeah. It's so valuable to have just a fresh pair of eyes
and such a big-hearted person come in and really kind of...
Yeah, and often it just brought back what the movie was trying to be.
I mean, that's the thing that he was really good at.
He didn't assert himself on the movie.
He was just very good at seeing what the movie was asking for.
Just as a story, as... what the characters are asking for.
He just looked at it and said, "This is what it's screaming to be."
And I thought that was just so nice, SO invigorating.
And he, in a very short period of time, came up with so many great ideas.
- Thanks for listening. - Thank you very much.
- Thanks a lot. - Thanks.
- We love talking, so it's great for us. - Yeah.
Hang out.
Bye.