Interview with Producer and Director of Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast

TB NeverBeast-Nyx

“Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast”, is now available on BluRay/DVD. Last week, I had the chance to watch the film, and interview the producer Michael Wigert, and director Steve Loter, at the London Hotel in Manhattan.

The film features Tinker Bell’s good friend, Fawn.  Fawn is an animal lover, who is always willing to risk her safety to help an animal in need.

The story begins with Fawn trying to release an baby owl she has rehabilitated back into the wild, but she can’t let anyone in Pixie Hollow see…owls are a dangerous predator for fairies.  When the plan is interrupted, and the owl revealed,  chaos ensues.  We see that Fawn’s big heart can sometimes get her into trouble.  When a mysterious and ominous howling reverberates through Pixie Hollow, Fawn decides to go with her heart, not her brain, as she seeks out the animal that is in need. The story unfolds as Fawn discovers a unique beast and decides to study him, all while hiding him from Nyx and most of Pixie Hollow, with the help of Tinkerbell and friends. The story is rich and captivating, with a sweet and visually stunning ending.

Sitting down with Steve Loder, and Michael Wigert, we discussed the film’s audience, music, use of color, and Blue Sky Disney Parks dreams!

Rebecca: I really enjoyed this film!  I watched it with a kindergarten girl and 3rd grade boy, who were excited to see it, and, especially the 3rd grader, critique it.  Just minutes in, he was completely absorbed into the movie, and, at the end, declared that he loved it!  Were you careful to be inclusive of both girls and boys when you were making this film?

Steve Loder:  Oh, yeah! I wanted to create a family film, that was first and foremost. Talking to John Lasseter, the Executive Producer of the film, I said “I really want to make a film like Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Bambi”  Those are the films that really have these emotional peaks and valleys.  They really take you on a journey, and, in a lot of ways, kind of prepare you for life.  I have a son, as well as a daughter, I wanted to be sure they would enjoy it…and the parents!  The parents are watching these movies too!

Rebecca: The extras at the end of the film discussed the color scheme, moving from bright and colorful to black and greys.  It’s noticeable for adults, but I find it interesting, using that in children’s movies to help them transition through the emotion of the story.

Steve Loder:  Yes, color is a powerful tool in animation. You can saturate, you can do primary colors…you can’t do that in real life.  You use it to your mood, almost as a subliminal element.  At the beginning you’re in primary greens and reds, very saturated, then when Fawn meets the beast, we start pulling the colors out, and it becomes black and white, monochromatic and cold.  Then as the relationship builds, the color starts to come back in.. (etc)  Color is crucial.  One of the first things we did was create a color script, which is literally no details, no characters, just blocks of color, all the way across the film. (etc)

Rebecca: I loved the music in this film, especially KT Tunstall’s song, “Strange Sight” which had that feeling of being familiar, even though it’s new.

Michael Wigert: Steve talked about importance of color in this film, but music was also very important to us. I’m going to let him dominate this, because he’s the music nerd.  We both have long commutes to work, and Steve listens to soundtracks every morning and every night.  When we started to talk about music, it became apparent that we wanted to do something different.  We wanted to build on the films and on the series, so we brought in Joel McNeely, who’s the composer, and does an excellent job, but we added on to that, and I’ll let Steve take it from here.

Steve: So Blue, who is a power pop singer songwriter producer..I was always a big fan of his work, and we brought him in.  He wrote “Float”, the opening song, and he wrote the closing song, “Thousand Years”. He also is the featured instrumentalist.  He put an layer on the entire soundtrack, of sounds from found objects (etc) and it’s the sound of the Beast, its the sound of his world.  It’s primal and earthy, it’s not manufactured, it’s real.  It adds a very special layer because the Beast’s world is different.  KT Tunstall came on at a very crucial point.  We got to the point where we knew we needed a vocalist, and we had to make sure the vocalist was precise, because the songs are Fawn’s inner thoughts (etc)  We had to find a compatible voice to Fawn’s emotions, and KT Tunstall has a lot of wonderful grit and appeal.. its charming, and worked perfectly.

Rebecca: I am an East Coaster, so WDW is my park.  I couldn’t help thinking, watching this film, about the Animal Kingdom: Avatarland, Mythical beasts, the NeverBeast…any Blue Sky dreams of seeing your character in the park?!

Michael:  We do, we do!  I don’t know if you’ve seen pictures, but we actually have Gruff (the NeverBeast) built out at our studio, his head is there,  and as you walk up to him, he growls!  It’s super cool.  We would absolutely love to see more of Gruff, see something where you could carry on his character. (etc)

Steve: We’ve been really happy with the reception we’ve been getting on Gruff.  He has been connecting in a lot of ways.  (etc)

Rebecca:  I love that the NeverBeast was created using many real characteristics of animals, it gives Fawn a chance to educate during the film, as she studies his behavior and features, and lends him to being a great candidate for Animal Kingdom.

Steve: We had to make sure that he was grounded in realism, otherwise, the film wouldn’t work.  We would even go as far as creating an early CG walk cycle of Gruff, because walk cycles are very rudimentary, a building block for animation.  We got to a point that we liked.  We have these scientists in Zurich, Switzerland, specialists in muscle structure and movement.  We sent the link to them and they did some work on it…again, all towards the “make this as real as possible”.

During the interview Michael found a picture of the Gruff animatronic that’s at the studio, and Steve said that he believes it will be touring with D23…it’s amazing, I hope to see it in person.

It will be great to hear what you all think of the movie!  I personally think Gruff the NeverBeast would be perfect in Avatarland, but we’ll have to wait and see.  Leave a comment with your thoughts after you watch “Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast”!