Series Showrunner Bobs Gannaway, Voice Actress Jeanine Mason and Book Author Tony DiTerlizzi talk to The Inside Reel about intention, style, representation and perspective in regards to their new animated series: "WondLa" on Apple TV+.
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00:00What if I'm alone?
00:13What if I'm the only one?
00:14However, you're not alone.
00:15Someone out there wants me to find them.
00:16Time to jump!
00:17Ava!
00:18Well, seeing all the art behind you, you know, perspective is such a big thing in animation.
00:43And obviously for Ava as a character, it's about that perspective from both the internal
00:49to the external, and that's visually represented.
00:53Could you talk about sort of that transmutation?
00:54I mean, you've done it with a lot of other characters.
00:59Could you sort of talk about it from your perspective approaching this?
01:02This show is crazy in a sense of like the world in regards to anything I've ever worked
01:06on before.
01:07In that once we, you know, we start out with her in this, you know, underground bunker,
01:14and then once we sort of break out into that, we start to sort of crack open the world.
01:22Here's a little inside baseball for you, Tim.
01:24When I develop shows, I usually, you want to spend that first episode really getting
01:28the audience to connect with your primary relationship, in this case, you know, Ava
01:33and her mother.
01:35And then in that second episode, you really want to start to introduce the people who
01:40are going to be kind of going on the journey with her, you know, we meet up with Rovender
01:44and Otto, and we meet the sort of Bastille.
01:49So that's sort of the next episode, and that third episode is where you want to crack that
01:54world open.
01:55Like, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's light some fireworks off, right?
01:59You know, and then the fourth episode is where you want to start deepening the relationships
02:04of the characters.
02:05And that's the kind of, that's kind of my structure for sort of taking the audience
02:07in, where you're not trying to do everything at once.
02:12And then Tony DiGiulisi's books sort of provided the sort of pathway for that in his, in his,
02:20in his first book.
02:21So that's my little way of tackling episodes.
02:25So we're not trying to do everything all at once.
02:29This is me, Ava.
02:34This is Mother.
02:37I was raised underground, in a bunker.
02:42The earth was sick and needed time to heal without us.
02:46Now after years of training, I am finally ready to meet other humans.
02:52What's on the other side of this?
02:58It's a journey and a search for connection for Ava.
03:02I mean, could you talk about looking at that psychology of this girl, where she comes from,
03:08but where she finds herself and how you had to sort of, sort of put your mindset in order
03:15to understand where she was going, where she's been, but where she's going to.
03:21Absolutely.
03:23You know, I think she, she is preparing for a world and that world is no longer.
03:32She doesn't know it.
03:33And it, it really, really resonated with me because no matter where you are in your life,
03:39you know, I think you always have your best intentions and you want to try to cover all
03:42your bases, but it's inevitable.
03:44Change is inevitable.
03:45And to, to adapt and to thrive and to approach that with optimism and, and to feel at peace
03:53when, when challenges approach you.
03:56It feels like such a loving message to give young people and to remind, you know, us old
04:01folk about too, you know?
04:04So that was, I loved, I loved how optimistic she was in the face of, of everything that
04:10is unknown to her.
04:11No!
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04:50Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:51I mean, I grew up in South Florida in the 1970s.
04:59I grew up in a town called Jupiter, which was on the East Coast, about a half an hour maybe north
05:04of Palm Beach. And it was dirt roads and fishing. And I was the kid who caught lizards and snakes
05:10and bugs and snorkeled. I loved being outside. I didn't mind the heat. And I found nature
05:19absolutely fascinating. And so, yeah, you're hitting upon one of the big themes of the books
05:26and also of the series, which is, as time has gone by, has mankind lost some of that connectivity
05:37with the other organisms we share the planet with? And what does that look like? And so,
05:44one look kind of came about. I was much younger when I wrote the book, but I had turned 40 then,
05:50and my daughter was two. And I was thinking about that disconnection with nature. But I was also
05:55thinking about what will the world look like when she turns 40? And I thought about, wow,
06:02we're really reliant on technology. How much more reliant are we going to become? And will that
06:06further disconnect us from the real world? And I was also thinking about the people that I
06:13met in my life that I loved as much as my brother and sister that were found family. And so,
06:19there gives you that, along with the childhood in Florida, gives you kind of the blueprint of the
06:25themes that I was thinking of when I started to write the books. And I think they're all
06:30present in the series.
06:31You are the only one who grew up by yourself. I did not tell you. I had to make a choice.
06:36What? What are you talking about?
06:39Come with me.
06:40I cannot leave sanctuary.
06:42Please, Mother, that thing will kill you.
06:44I was programmed to keep you safe. This is what I'm doing.
06:48Trust what you have been taught.
06:54But that it's interesting, because as an artist, and obviously your work with Magic the Gathering
06:58and all this kind of stuff, looking at your mind's eye of what this world would look like,
07:03and how it would be in animation, could you talk about looking at this iteration? And,
07:08you know, because the thing is, we see AI trying to create art, and it's slightly off,
07:14it doesn't feel organic. Can you talk about looking at the translation here as an artist
07:19yourself, and seeing that mind's eye of yours translate into the visual medium that is in
07:25this Apple series?
07:28Yeah, you know, I think the Skydance team is comprised of, you know, legendary animators
07:35from Pixar and Disney and DreamWorks, and some other amazing animation studios. And so
07:44we definitely talked about different animation styles, but settled on kind of the traditional,
07:50what I call traditional Disney-Pixar style, only because it's such a complicated story,
07:57and there's a lot of invented stuff. And we felt like adding a super stylized animation
08:03on top of that was only going to make it more for audiences to have to kind of take in.
08:09And we really want the characters in the story to be the thing that shines. So that said,
08:15I kind of knew what it was going to look like. And I'm a huge fan, we love those movies,
08:19we love Pixar movies, and the Disney CG movies. And so I was fascinated to see how it was adapted
08:27and changed. You know, some things translate very well, some of my art translated quite well
08:33into animation, and some of it didn't work as well. And we talked about it. And I think that's
08:37the key here is that I was incredibly involved all four years that this thing has been in
08:44production. And it's very collaborative. Animation by nature is a very collaborative process.
08:49And so, you know, I was in a lot of the meetings, I was there when we talked about this stuff. And
08:56there was discussions that were had of why things change and how things change. And that's rare,
09:02that doesn't normally go that way, Tim. It's usually like, you know, okay, we got your rights.
09:07Bye.
09:32Being so fragile should not be so bold. Perhaps that is why you're the last of your kind.