Brad Bird is an iconic filmmaker, both in animation and live-action, being the man behind classics such as The Incredibles. But for his next animated venture, Bird has left his usual home of Pixar and set up his next adventure at Skydance Media and Netflix: Ray Gunn.
The film, which hits select theaters on December 4 and Netflix on December 18, follows Sam Rockwell's Raymond "Ray" Gunn, a private eye in the gigantic retro-futuristic city of Metropia. Being one of the last human detectives in a world filled with intergalactic aliens, Ray finds himself taking a high-profile case involving pop star Venus Nova (the MCU's Scarlett Johansson), which thrusts him into the depths of the city's underworlds and a world-shattering scandal.
The Direct was invited to Netflix Animation Studios for a special look behind the curtain of the film, where we were sat down in an interview with Ray Gunn director Brad Bird. He shared why Pixar was not the right home for his new movie—and why Netflix was the perfect one.
Netflix Was the Right Choice for Ray Gunn
"I Wanted It to Be a Little More Aimed at Adults..."
- The Direct: "You obviously have done a lot of animation work at Pixar. So then, comparing all the places that you've been under, now that you're with Skydance Animation and Netflix, what are some of the biggest differences working with this environment compared to something like Pixar?"
Brad Bird: I don't know because I can't really separate it from other things. Like, I never pitched this movie at Pixar because I wanted it to be a little more aimed at adults than what I thought Pixar would be mainly interested in.
The filmmaker explained that elements of the pandemic also played into the movie's home:
Bird: But there are things like the pandemic that affected it tremendously that had nothing to do with animation. It just has to do with—You know, people are way [too] comfortable with Zoom now, and I have mixed feelings about Zoom. I think that it's great that inconvenience doesn't make it impossible to meet with people all over the place, which is great.
"I miss eye contact," the filmmaker noted:
Bird: But as a methodology of making things, I miss eye contact, and we Cinesite, which was the animation studio in Montreal that executed the film, we tried to make several trips physically up to Cinesite to work with them there and to have a presence there, because that was where the action was happening, and I didn't want to be completely reliant on the Hollywood Squares, or, you know, Zoom.
How Brad Bird's Live-Action Experience Informed Ray Gunn
"Animation was My Gateway Drug to Film..."
- The Direct: "You've done plenty of live action as well. I'm curious, how much does your experience with live action play into and inform what you're doing here with Ray Gunn?"
Brad Bird: Well, I think it absolutely affects it. I think that animation was my gateway drug to film, and once I started making decisions, I started making films at an early age, and once I had to start making decisions, like, this part is in a close-up, this part is in a medium shot, this will be a pan. I started paying attention to those things in live-action films, and that opened up everything to me.
"I started doing things that were not typical for animation," Bird explained, adding that the idea of super-long takes was one of those things:
Bird: And when I got into animation, I started doing things that were not typical for animation, like super-long takes. There were production reasons why people didn't do that, but I felt like it limited [the] film. So, in 'Family Dog,' which was the first thing I got to make, the first idea I got to make an animation that was on TV, I had a shot where the camera panned around the room two or three times unbroken, and the background of it was probably like 50 yards long. I mean, just unbelievably long painting, and some poor person had to shoot that one frame at a time, and there were all these challenges to it.
At the end of the day, in Bird's animation films, there are clear live-action influences, and in his live-action projects, there are inspirations from animation.
Bird: But it was cool because it set up expectations that were then played with. And each time the camera went around to the dog and the door, it got closer to the door and to the dog, even though it was one long, you know, strip thing. And so what I'm getting to is my reputation in animation was that I staged things like live action. Then I get into live action, and everybody goes, 'You make things like animation,' you know, like the kind of Chuck Jonesy jokes that were in 'Ghost Protocol.' It's all film.
Ray Gunn's Unintentional Similarities With Modern-Day Happenings
Despite Some Clear Similarities With Today's Events, This Script Was Completed a Long Time Ago.
- The Direct: "You mentioned in our session with you and Michael [Giacchino] that this was obviously written a long time ago. You've had this idea for a while, but even now that it's being made, there are things in there that feel like they're referencing modern-day events, but they aren't. Can you talk a little bit about that happening? And is it something that you embrace, or if something gets a little too close, you're like, it's not on purpose. Do you try to distance it a little bit?
Brad Bird: I like it, and if it connects with people, then it's always good. If anybody tries to say that I got this from something recent or something like that, and I didn't, I might get a little uppity about that. Yeah, I might get a little crabby and go, 'Hey, this was in the script before that time,' you know.
Despite that, Bird isn't against the idea of the material connecting with people in any way.
Bird: But basically, you want to connect with people, and you want people to feel like things conect with their own lives, and so that's all good. I'll just be interested to see how people receive it because you know I think that the issues that it brings up...
The filmmaker made it clear that this movie isn't a sociological treatise and how "it's meant to be a good time at the movies:"
Bird: This sounds like we're serving broccoli instead of, we're giving you a whole meal. You get wine, you get dessert, the whole thing. Don't worry about it. Yeah, it makes it sound like it's some kind of sociological treatise or something, but it isn't. It's meant to be a good time at the movies. But if people connect with it, that's great.
A brand-new trailer for Brad Bird's Ray Gunn can be seen below:
