Angel Studios’ David is an epic new animated feature in theaters Dec. 19 (with nationwide early access screenings on Dec. 14). Directors Brent Dawes and Phil Cunningham share how they adapted the text of The Bible to create a dramatic, musical adventure experience for the whole family. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy:  Brent, it’s good to see you. We spoke in 2020 for “Jungle Beat: The Movie”, which was a lot of fun. And now you have this. You’ve taken the stories of David from 1 and 2 Samuel of The Bible. The film is excellent. There’s a lot of power here. Why did you decide to go to The Bible now for your next big animated feature here for “David”?

Brent Dawes: Because Phil asked me to, so I’m gonna let Phil tell you the answer to this! (laughs)

JM: Wow! Alright. Phil, tell me about the origins of this David animated feature.

Phil Cunningham: The origins of this movie start before Jungle Beat, actually 30 years ago. I was canoeing down a beautiful river in Africa called the Zambezi River. You could canoe for four days, five nights, won’t see a human being. But just beautiful thunderstorms, elephants, buffalo… And there for me, I fell in love with God. I was like, “Wow. He’s so awesome, so adventurous. This beautiful heart of God.” And I was reading in Acts it says, “I found in David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart.” And David’s story inspired me, so full of adventure of color, full of joy. And I was like, “Wouldn’t it be awesome one day to make a movie on David that just gives people an on-ramp onto God’s heart?” So we always were planning on David 30 years ago and we crawl, walk, run with Jungle Beat and other projects towards David, which was always gonna be our Arc de Triomphe movie that we were aiming at.

JM: Wow. 30 years. What a journey. And yes, this is quite an achievement. So Brent, how close to the text did you want to be and to get that sense of sophistication, which I feel like you get in the entire movie, especially the second half — really strong when it comes to the sophistication.

BD: It was super important for us to try and be as accurate and authentic as possible. You’ve got a lot of superhero movies these days and your comic book fans are watching things very closely, So we are drawing from The Bible and our comic book fans are likewise gonna scrutinize everything we do. The Bible is not a comic book, it is an important document for so many, billions of people. So to try and be as accurate and authentic as possible was so important to us. But the challenge was Phil always wanted to tell the story from David, from Shepherd to King. And that’s quite a lot. That’s quite a big chunk of his story. So trying to weave through and find a narrative arc that you could tell in a hundred minutes, from shepherd to king, while maintaining the authenticity and accuracy. I’m not sure if I’m distinctly answering your question, but it was tricky and hard work, but such a privilege to do it as well. It was quite the experience.

JM: Here’s what really impressed me about the movie, not just the visuals, which are great, and the voice actors and other elements we’ll get into, but Phil, you allow the movie to take its time. It breathes. There are longer scenes, I think, than the average animated movie that comes out these days. And for this, it really works because you want to feel immersed in it all. Why did you decide on longer scenes and the pacing of “David”?

PC: We really wanted it to be an epic. And I think for it to be an epic, you need a chance for it to breathe, for the story to land and for things to happen. So even the photography was shot for cinema. Everything was framed. The story was at that pace. The music. Our goal, and we hope we achieved it, was to create an epic film. And you need to breathe and feel that.

JM: You do. Brent, what was most important to you when it came to that scope in terms of… here are families together in the cinemas for the holidays, experiencing the look and the feel of this?

BD: We absolutely wanted to make this something that people could get lost in. This is not sort of throwing popcorn and candy at the screen. This is: sit down and be transported, And we were very careful to really trust the audience to go on this journey with us. We were very careful to not put any pop culture references in, to not try and put comic relief where it wasn’t required. Allow the story to be the story. Allow it to tell and trust that the audience is sophisticated enough to receive that. And I really think they will be, and I think people will be really surprised. Actually treating them with respect and giving it the time and space, I think they’re gonna find a very rewarding experience. [We] love movies like “Gladiator” and “Braveheart”, and what we found as we were making [“David”], our language started to shift more to live-action than animation. What if “Gladiator” was a kids movie? Not ‘let’s make this a cartoon’. And I think it feels a little bit more grown up because of that. And our amazing director of photography, Dave Wolfert, latched onto that and he kept reminding us, “Guys, you wanted a real film.” So he made sure that all the camera moves in the film you could do with a practical camera. There’s one, which is a God moment, which I think maybe would’ve been tricky, but we wanted it to feel real, to feel grounded, to feel believable and natural. It really pays off.

JM: I agree. Phil, tell me about wanting to capture and present this sense of new responsibility that David has from God.

PC: He knew that the Lord was his shepherd. He had trust in God. What we really want to happen in the film, which I think is clear by the end of the movie… The hero changes the world around them. Like in “Hacksaw Ridge”. The character changes the world around him. [David] inspires the world around him to look to God, not to him, which he doesn’t achieve at the beginning of the film, but by the end of the film he does achieve that.

JM: Brent, the size of Goliath… It’s dramatic in the way we see him. How did you wanna look at the proportions of that and telling this story to kids, and showing this element of it, who may not have heard this story before?

BD: Obviously animation allows us to exaggerate more. I don’t believe Goliath was that big in real life, but we took some license there because when you read the Bible does it really matter how tall Goliath was or what age David was? The point of that moment was that God had the victory, not David. So where I said we’ve tried to be as accurate as possible within the movie and I think people will be surprised how much more we may have put into the movie than you’d anticipate… Our production designer, Lynton Levengood, did an incredible job of just layering an incredible authenticity. One of the places we took a bit of license was with the size of Goliath, just to make it more cinematic and what have you. But I don’t believe that it affected the intent or the heart or what was behind the biblical story. David himself in the movie says, “What difference does size make to a giant? Whether I fight him, you fight him, he’s big and it’s not me, it’s God.” So that’s what we really wanted to get across.

JM: Phil, one of the other elements of the movie that’s really strong: the songs, the music, the musical numbers. The one about tapestry is fantastic. What attention to detail did you wanna put into the songs? What makes the songs for you guys valuable to have in the experience of this David film?

PC: Oh, such a great question… With David, we know that he wrote half the Psalms in the Bible. So he was a genuine, incredible songwriter, incredible music. So we wanted the movie to be authentic and that is authentic. He was a musician, he was an incredible songwriter. We wanted to enthuse that into the very fabric and the spine of the movie ’cause that is who he was. And what I love about songs is that it just gives you the chance to bring out the real personality, the emotion. But what’s so cool about it is that this is all authentic. We’re not trying to shove it in and make it fit. He was an amazing musician and was actually called Israel’s Singer of Songs. We worked with the most incredible musicians, songwriters, the guy who did the score for us, Joe Trapanese, Jason Halbert, our executive music producer. Just the best of the best.

JM: Brent, Angel Studios is releasing this for the holidays. Glad that it has happened. I know at one point Angel was gonna release it and then some things were going on and now we’re back, which is fantastic because they are becoming a real powerhouse in terms of the cinematic experience and getting movies out there. What does it mean to you to have Angel be the one releasing this?

BD: I’m super thrilled. The thing that excites me incredibly is that it’s releasing in December. ‘Cause we weren’t sure if it was gonna release next year or whatever. But when Angel got hold of it, they were like, “We can’t wait. This movie needs to get out. So we are going!” But let me let Phil speak more to the angel dynamic.

PC: Why I feel Angel is just so awesome for this movie is because when David went to fight Goliath, he had to have the courage to take off Saul’s armor and go with the slingshot. And what I love about the Angel guys is how out of the box they think. Where the world zigs, they zag. And so they were for this movie such a great fit because… they’ve got that courage to take off Saul’s armor and go in a non-traditional way to the market. Linked to that in the battle with Goliath, I love it because it says “When he drew near the battle line, he ran towards the giant.” So this is fast, this is furious, it’s unusual, but this is Angel, and this is what makes them so awesome. They are brave and they’re willing to try things and really be out of the box thinkers. So I’m so excited this movie’s with Angel because I really feel they are Davids. They are willing to go with a slingshot and do something unconventional, which is what David himself did. So I think it’s so cool. Love them and love the way they think and go about things.