Trolls Band Together Filmmakers Weren't Afraid To Get Experimental With Their Musical Sequel [Exclusive Interview]
DreamWorks Animation is going through a great period right now. Movies like "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" and "The Bad Guys" experimented with both tone and visuals and delivered two of the best and most acclaimed animated movies of the past few years. After the disappointing release of "Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken," DreamWorks wanted to end 2023 back on top with the third installment in the "Trolls" series. "Trolls Band Together" brings the trilogy of animated jukebox musicals inspired by the Troll doll toys to a close with a film all about boy bands — including an actual NSYNC reunion.
"Trolls Band Together" sees Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) reunite Branch's brothers — all part of a famous boy band — in order to rescue one of them from talent-stealing evil pop stars.
Though the "Trolls" movies aren't particularly known for their experimental animation or inventive visuals, "Trolls Band Together" looks back at the history of the medium for a standout sequence. It is a scene where, in order to reach their destination faster, the characters travel through a portal by "doing the Hustle." The result is a fantastic 2D-animated sequence straight out of the '60s (pictured later in this article), which director Walt Dorhn says was inspired by "Yellow Submarine," "Fantasia," and even "The Electric Company."
"We really went for it. We wanted to have some hand-drawn animation in there," Dorhn told /Film during a press event at the DreamWorks campus. "There's a great history of psychedelics and animation, so we wanted to pay homage to that."
"We didn't know it was going to be 2D initially," production designer Ruben Perez said. "Once we started tapping into the song, 'The Hustle,' and then psychedelic posters and art from [the '70s], it kept pushing us into, well, lava lamps."
Exploring new lands
The result is the best scene of the film, one that plays with different art styles, allowing the animators to flex their skills — even if only for a moment. It is unlikely we'll get an entirely 2D "Trolls" movie anytime soon, but it still shows that the studio is encouraging some experimentation. And "Trolls Band Together" still finds other places to play around with what 3D CG animation can do, particularly when it comes to textures. Given the film is inspired by real dolls, there's a tactile feeling to the movie and the different creatures and places we meet. The biggest example of this is the Vacay Island; like the name implies, it's an island where everyone is always on vacation.
"We had discussed that for the Vacation Islanders, their heads would be kind of like puppets," head of character animation, Benjamin Willis, said. "Their heads were a little bit more solid, but their body was made out of a water balloon and just wrapped in a terrycloth-like beach towel." Indeed, the final result is like seeing characters out of "Sesame Street," moving with the limitations of real puppets.
Likewise, the villains of the film, a brother-sister duo of evil pop stars, look straight out of a Fleischer brothers cartoon. "We got to try a whole new animation style with them where they moved a little bit more like rubber hose animation," Dorhn said.
This desire to break out of the mold culminates in a third-act chase sequence that is unlike anything the "Trolls" franchise has done until now. It has a sense of scale and kineticism you wouldn't necessarily associate with the trilogy of jukebox musicals that is mostly about dancing and singing. Indeed, it was even a surprise to director Walt Dorhn that the sequence got made at all. "We could do kind of a musical chase concert comedy extravaganza and a rollercoaster ride. How do we do all those things?" Dorhn said. "We just pitch it out, everyone gets excited, and then just slowly but surely, we build it step by step, from rough sketches into layout and the camera and our team's building models, and it still blows my mind that we actually did it."
It's all about the music
The sequence takes place in a big city populated only by teenagers, a sort of MTV metropolis. This meant designing the place in a way that did not feel meticulously planned out, but rather fun and kind of chaotic. For production designer Ruben Perez, the solution was in rollercoasters. "We wanted to have all these things that are part of rollercoasters, and then the cars that are throughout the city are all bumper cars. So it's also kind of giving it a theme."
According to visual effects supervisor Marc Scott, the vastness of the city also had the unfortunate effect of making it impossible to render it fully all at once. "So we had to basically break the city up and create dynamic movable roads for all of the characters to travel down."
All of this is not to dismiss the importance of the music to the film. But you know the musical numbers in a "Trolls" movie are already good. Part of this is because the animators learn to do choreography as if they were live-action performers. "The animators had a whole kind of dance camp before they came onto the film, learning about dance and talking about dance," Dorhn explained.
Likewise, Justin Timberlake's dance choreography team helped choreograph the movie. "We got to take advantage of all of their knowledge, and we shoot the reference and then the animators have to translate that," added producer Gina Shay. "It's complicated because of the proportions [of the characters], and they just use the dancing as reference and then they do their own interpretation of it, and it turned out great."
"Trolls Band Together" dances its way to theaters on November 17, 2023.