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Tim Miller and David Fincher want to scramble and rearrange the face of TV animation with their ambitious Netflix series Love, Death and Robots, which features short stories for adults told in a variety of styles. At SXSW this week, they debuted with six of the 18 short films posted on Netflix today. These daring short films range from comedy, thriller, crime, sci-fi horror and everything in between.
This is not the first time Fincher has teamed up with Tim Miller. Before Miller becomes famous as director of dead Poolhe owned the animation studio Blur and VFX and worked as a guy at Fincher for the opening of the title sequences. Both have even tried to get an animated adaptation from Eric Powell. The goon took off 10 years ago.
In this conversation with Tim Miller and his producer and wife Jennifer Miller, we talk about the process of Love, Death and Robots to life, how could this potentially help to make their keep on going Adaptation is also a reality and it's like juggling dozens of directors and production teams.
I had about 10 years when Liquid television hit and he certainly had a huge impact on me. This has opened the mind to what animation could do beyond the Disney style. I've had that same kind of mood of the six episodes of Love, Death and Robots you planned last night. Once you start getting into the story of animation, then you look at the 70s and you see Ralph Bakshi, things like Fritz the Cat …
Tim: Fire and ice, Heavy metalYeah. The rest of the world definitely has adult entertainment. We are a little late here in America.
Is that something that pushed you to do this, knowing that there is a story to this kind of animation and how effective it can be and how it works? is an untapped avenue of storytelling?
Tim: Well, you know, I think the reason why something succeeds or not depends on when. Is the world ready or not? And I think for some reason here in the United States, it just seemed like a good time to do it. These were really huge effects on me as a child. I was at Heavy metal Midnight screenings and I wanted to be an animator, so the idea that I did not have to make Yogi Bear cartoons was very appealing.
Netflix is your home for that. What was the installation process of this series there? Was it something where they were immediately on board or did it have to be convinced?
Jennifer: They were great collaborators. Absolutely. They were like a hand gently guiding you in the back. I thought that they were brave in embracing what this piece really could be. They were ready to create a new abbreviated format that is very different on their platform and I think they're really excited about high quality animation in small strands of fun. succulent mouths.
I think it's also worth noting that they're so willing to experiment and that's what we want too. You talk about Liquid television. It was really innovative and experimental and then, when you put stories in it, they are grounded, so it becomes something really different and I think they embraced it wholeheartedly.
Yeah. I think that's why when people think about Liquid television they remember Aeon Flux. It had a progression that had something that you can follow …
Tim: Barely. (Laughs)
I mean, there was always a point A to tell the story of B in a sexy, weird, leather way.
Tim: When we were doing Heavy metal Peter Chung made a segment. He developed a 12-minute story for Heavy metal it was in this world because we loved it so much.
In video game fan, I saw these breathtaking scenes that made me wish to see this level of narrative animation and storytelling. You have some pieces that you have projected that to feel like that The "Secret War" segment comes to mind. Was it something you were looking for?
Tim: Totally, since it's our world, but it was really very business-minded, from the point of view of the production model, but also from this world, we knew all these big … it was our competitors, but we are all friendly and it's kind of community. So, we all know these people. Even at the genesis of the idea, we all knew these great shopping places. Like Blur, it's 120 people now. They are not big enough nor interested in traditional functions and yet they have a lot of high quality artists and excellent pipelines. They can do everything in a cost-effective way, within five to fifteen minutes, because we know the margins on that side. business.
And a lot of artists are here because they do not want to work at Disney or in the talking animation type of talking animals, but they still love the animation. It seemed like the ideal solution for us. We have nice stories, there is a great company that is interested in doing it, let's put it together.
And Netflix was super open to that. They are so willing to try, while with traditional studios, it's a big risk. It may not work. It can make them look bad. This can cost a lot of money. Netflix says, we do not know if it will work, but we love it. Let's try. It was a completely different atmosphere.
Yes, they have different masters to please. They have subscribers instead of having to get people to go to the theater and specifically spend their money on one project.
Tim: Yeah. I'm not saying that studios are filled with people who are scared because they are not. Many good movies are made and many of them are innovative and take risks, but it's a bit different with the flippancy with which Netflix is able to take risks. "Yeah, it looks interesting, let's do that!" Instead of (whispering) "All right, let's go …" This fear of walking to the edge that David (Fincher) and I had when we were trying to do it as a film at the very beginning.
Jennifer: I thought "The Secret War" played so well last night, is not it? The company that did this, the Digic who are in Hungary, are just fantastic builders. The detail was so rich. I really had the impression that they were really pushing the style of animation. He was just stylized enough to exaggerate the features and make these characters truly rooted in a really great world, but not really photographic. It was really unique. And then just to deal with this fantastic violence. The last battle is just epic.
I do not think you and I talked about the time, but I talked to David Fincher and Eric Powell while you were all trying to get The goon on the floor about ten years ago …
Tim: We did not give up. This will happen.
Watch these episodes of Love, Death and Robots last night, I could not help hoping it would be enough for Netflix so that maybe they'll do the same thing and finally keep on going a reality. I would like this to pave the way for The goon is really happening.
Tim: I think it will only help, but we have not given up The goon. Never never. And I think you will be happy. Soon. I'm excited about it and I think it helps. It may take a moment. I do not think I speak outside of school, but the last problem was that Eric had an older company that needed to be cleaned up so that the lawyers would be happy and everything else. I feel it deeply, as if I were a fan and I would say, "These buddies took my money and what did they do with it?" We did exactly what we said. We have a whole reel. We also spent that money and more. We have a complete reel for the movie. It's going to be awesome. It's just that every movie is a hill. For (Love, Death and RobotsDavid and I tried for 10 years.
Since you tried to get The goon off the ground, you've made one of the most successful superhero movies of all time …
Tim: Which also took five years, but we never gave up. David never gave up. On this show, literally on weekends dead Pool went out, David called and said, "Okay, you'll get something out of it and we'll use it to combine it with my power and we'll get things done." The thing that was nice dead Poolwhat David saw was something everyone said it would not work, then they found that it worked not only, but that it worked well and there was a thirst for that type of material. That's the same door we pushed against with this animated anthology rated R. So you can see the corollaries, and I think the same thing will be for The goon. Why not?
This source material is so much fun. It's a tragedy that this has not happened yet, but I love that you keep going ahead.
Tim: David never gives up and neither do I. It's not like I could not give up because I had so much time invested. I have never stopped loving it. I did not get bored with that. Sometimes you simply can not do it. You hit a wall and you have to find another way.
Jennifer: I think that's one of the things that makes your success. You will cross a wall to get to this project. I saw you do it. You hang on for years and years. This tenacity is great. You need it, especially in this area.
You produce all these shorts and you have also made one of your own. Did you find that there was a big difference between the achievement and the production of the other projects? Did you find yourself in a different state of mind?
Tim: I do not think the directors make the best producers because it's hard for you not to say, "How would I do that?" or "I would never do that." But I think that by working in a studio for years, Blur is almost 25 years old. We have a lot of directors who realize projects and I am used to helping them or, I hate that word, but framing some of them or just a notice when asked. I never felt that I had to control everything. I'm not that kind of guy. And David is definitely not. I mean, we did the Girl with dragon tattoo David opened it and said, "Tell me I'm the best customer of your whore you've ever had." I mean, that was his vision of what it was, but to say, "No, do this" or "Cut five pictures earlier," he never said anything about it.
In fact, the last criticism was: "I want to go and see him." And I said, "Oh, why?" It's like "because it's cool, I just want to go see that and I'm in the neighborhood." It was so for the whole project. And I try to be like that. On the other hand, Netflix expects Blur, as the hub of this entire company, to produce something big. If we do not deliver, David will go first, "Dude, what is it that damned? It sucks." And secondly, Netflix will say "Uhhh …" So we feel responsible for ensuring that the product reaches a certain level of quality, but I think you can do it without taking your hand. Perhaps you should ask the other administrators. (laughs) We only made two or three people cry during production.
Jennifer: One of your superpowers finds an excellent talent. You would browse the Internet and find all those great artists who come to work at Blur. Now you are browsing the Internet to find these fantastic new directors. You gave them a lot of latitude and you gave them success with fantastic stories and it worked. I think that the excellent recruitment of talent allowed you to let yourself resign as a director and let him do his job.
Tim: As far as timing is concerned, it worked quite well for us. When Netflix said go, we had a lot of time before having to go and make The terminator. We went through the whole story selection process. We looked at the entire selection of filmmakers and studios doing the work. We have completed the initial presentations here is what we would like it to look like and here are our storyboards, and in some cases even the animatics before I had to say, "See you later! terminator was a business seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Jennifer and the production team are also involved in all of this, so I do not have to worry about that. Blur can do it without any intervention on my part. It was really an excellent approach to team work.
When you are dealing with so many storytellers and companies, you need a basic quality. He must be checks in the system to make sure everyone is on the same page. When did this quality check come in? Was it just right at the beginning or did it start well in development?
Tim: Our process, with the exception of two of them, was to choose the story and develop the script with Phil Gelatt, a writer with whom I worked a lot. Phil and I would talk about it and Phil would write a rough draft. He would do a trick or two then I would do a polish and then we would send it to whoever would do it. And it was usually before even choosing who was going to do it. It was right, here is the story that works. You can change it, you can improve it, assuming we all agree to change it and improve it, but at least we know that there is a basis for this what I think, what story to tell. This is a good safety net. You can always say, "Yeah, you drift here a little bit."
Although I am one, I think the directors are … you have a much greater likelihood of meeting morons in the director division than in almost any other part of the filmmaking. There is a lot of ego. Less, of course, in this group we have worked with, but you want to be able to make sure no one feels like, "Now it's my chance to show what I can do!" No, it is now the opportunity to contribute to what should be an excellent gestalt for the show. It's not your story to do what you want with it.
This may seem decisive, but I do not think so. I mean, I never felt that way doing game cutscenes. It's not like I'm going to say, "You know what?" My vision of Batman is that he wears white and I think that as an artist, he Is my privilege to do that. " F ** 8 you, Batman is wearing a black suit! You will not change that. So why should it be different? But I do not think it was heavy. And then when you enter the production of it …
Jennifer: We started with thousands of stories that we read, so when you talk about numbers, it's not really decisive, it's like you're making that clear. It's a mix of a lot of different stories, but there are 20 directors, there are 11 countries and when you communicate that, you need a process.
Jennifer: But all you really do is exploit the passion. All partners in this project, production companies and directors, knew that it was a team sport. Animation is a team sport. In the end, I think everything has finished on this screen. The beauty of their passion is that they can have this very focused vision on their story. Then we have the prospect of saying, "You know what, we can see a bit of tweaking here, a bit of editing to fine-tune the rendering and make it perfect and adapt it to this whole series"
I think the good thing too is that you have the branding and design methodology of slot machines, a sense of variety, no? You do not know what you are going to get at any given time. You have a little surprise. It's unexpected. And I think it all came together in a nice and orderly package. So, when we talk about controlling, I do not know that controlling is the right word. You know what I mean? Organize maybe.
Each director is responsible for their story, but we are responsible for it and how it fits into the whole show.
Love, Death and Robots debuted today on Netflix.
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