Rosa Tran received an Oscar nomination for producing 2015’s Anomalisa, the adult stop-motion feature directed by Charlie Kaufman. Tran re-teams with Kaufman on his latest live-action film I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which debuts this Friday September 4th on Netflix. The drama, based on a 2016 novel, stars Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons and Toni Collette. Tran serves as Animation Producer and discusses the key animated sequences used in the film. (This interview was conducted as an email Q&A.)

Jackson Murphy: How did you and Charlie Kaufman decide to reunite on this?

Rosa Tran: He texted and said ‘what’s up!’ LOL. He reached out to both Duke Johnson and myself, and said he needed some animation done. We both love working with Charlie so it was a happy surprise.

JM: I know in the book the characters visit Dairy Queen. How did you come-up with Tulsey Town?

RT: This is ALL Charlie. When he talked to us about the Tulsey Town spot, he already knew what he wanted. Production even had the logos designs with napkins and bags printed.

JM: The first animation we see is the billboard that the young woman and Jake drive by. How did you design that?

RT: Mollie Ong used oils for this piece. With CK being on the east coast and us here on the west coast Mollie started with thumbnails. They were aiming for a take on Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World”, pig farm edition. She hand painted this piece in oils, scanned them into the computer then composited all of the layers together. She tried to make sure that the pig and the other animals’ designs stayed consistent with our hero pig.

JM: The Tulsey Town cartoon jingle sequence is excellent. What were your inspirations for it, and did you always know it was going to be in black-and-white?

RT: Another Charlie original. When he contacted us for the animation, he already had an idea of what he was looking for including a recorded jingle! He referenced the old timey Dairy Queen commercials, so, we use that as our jumping off point. Simon Wilches-Castro joined the team and really brought that sequence to life. He wanted to stay true to the era of animation by using live action dancer reference for the clown, blending live action movements with very cartoony exaggerated.

JM: What was the design process of the pig (voiced by Oliver Platt)?

RT: At first it was looking like the pig style was going in the cartoony style however, we continued to develop the pig, Charlie wanted a more painterly style. Charlie gives us great references. He pulls fine art images and photos for references that really help convey the tone and style he is looking for. We had a few different interested artists submit pig sketches, but once Charlie started talking about the painterly style Mollie Ong knocked it out of the park. We had the usual look dev via thumbnails, and an animation test to see if we were on the right track and everything fell into place fairly quickly. Mollie created the pig by hand painting each layer ON PAPER. So, the pig pink base layer, the pig bluish layer, the spots layer, the face layer, the blood drips. I think at one point the pig had 8 layers. After each layer was scanned into the computer, our VFX artist Derek Smith worked with Charlie’s input to come up with a treatment that gave the pig a ghostlike appearance. Voila…our pig!

JM: I like that we see the pig tracks in the hallway. What were some of the challenges of placing the pig in a live-action scene?

RT: Charlie wanted a ghost-like transparent pig in front of a naked man. So how do you obscure his bits and make a believable ghostlike pig that doesn’t look too cartoony? HAHA. The first step of the VFX treatment was to use the painted layers to blur and obscure the underlying live action video. Overall every time you bring animation into live action there’s always that worry in the back of your mind that this is going to look out of place. But Mollie’s pig design, animation, and the pig’s glow really came together to create a believable hallucination.

JM: What’s your fondest memory of attending the 2016 Oscars as a nominee for producing Anomalisa?

RT All of it. LOL. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would make a movie and let alone get to go to the Oscars. Hilarious. I still think it is all a dream! But looking back, it was all magical. There are so many movies that get made in a year and to get recognized for your work is pretty rad!

JM: I know you’re involved in another major animation project: Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman’s Santa Inc. What details can you share?

RT: Not much really, we are still in the very early stages of production and I’m just really excited to be working with such talented people. I’m just truly truly grateful that I get to work in animation every day.

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Jackson Murphy

Jackson Murphy is a movie critic and entertainment columnist. He is the creator of the website Lights-Camera-Jackson.com, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio.

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