Feb 22, 2024

Robot Dreams" breaks the mold in every way, including the way it is storyboarded - Exclusive

Pablo Berger's "Robot Dreams" is a different animal among this year's Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature Film. Made for only $6 million and animated in a pop-up studio set up in the heart of Madrid, the director, a veteran of live action films, had never worked in animation before.

Another exceptional feature of the film was its unique storyboarding process. Berger, art director José Luis Agreda, and storyboard artist Maka Gil spent a year and a half together in Berger's Madrid office, collaborating daily to create the film's storyboards and highly detailed animation mattes:

For Berger, "Robot Dreams" is his first animated feature film, he is a master of live action, perhaps best known for his contemporary masterpiece "Blancanieves" (2013). When Agreda and Gil joined the production of Robot Dreams, Berger had drawn his own storyboards for all of his previous films.

Intrigued by the unique setting, we interviewed Gil about how she got involved with the film, what the film's innovative storyboarding process was like, and what it would take to replicate it.

Cartoon Brew: How did you end up storyboarding "Robot Dreams"-and how long did you work on the film?

Maca Gil: Jose Luis Agreda, art director for "Robot Dreams" and I was at Cartoon Saloon at the same time. We had never worked together, but when he asked for nominations, my name came up. The timing was perfect. Right around the time they were looking for a story artist to start work on "Robot Dreams," I was going back to Madrid, and it was very important to Pablo that people actually go and work together. I spent a year and a half next door to him and Agreda, and the three of us worked on the animation at Pablo's office, Camarote, in Gran Via.

How did the storyboarding process for Robot Dreams compare to what you had experienced on other productions? Having the director and art director right there with us allowed us to cut a lot of corners. Agreda's beautiful New York concept is ready for clean-up, approved from the start, and put straight into the story.

The process went like this: they would brief me on the scene, I would work on the animation using Agreda's concept and the thumbnails that Pablo and I had prepared, and when it was done the three of us would watch it together. Then we each gave our impressions and feedback, and we refined it until we felt it was perfect. Then we moved on to the next scene. The script changed quite a bit, so we had to push it in many ways, both visually and emotionally.

Do you think this process could be replicated or implemented in an existing animation pipeline? I liked the fact that there were only three of us, each with a distinct role, so the comments we made were precise and direct, and could be addressed immediately without any hierarchy or email exchanges.

The process worked because it was agreed from the beginning that Pablo knew the story he wanted to tell and that it was up to us alone to craft it. He listened sincerely to our comments and feedback, but no executive demanded changes to the story. We did not show animatics to anyone until we knew we had created something we could be proud of, something special.

Pablo told me that he storyboarded every live-action film. What was it like working with him on this film and how involved was he in assembling the boards? He had very clear instructions and intentions. Taking direction from Pablo and Agreda was one of the most creative and fulfilling experiences of my life. He appreciated the extra detail in facial expressions, gestures, or even about the background characters because he wanted it all in the animatic, all the storytelling points, and to make us laugh or cry when we needed it. So he appreciated the extra detail in facial expressions, gestures, or even about the background characters. The initial editing process for the entire film was also a very enjoyable new challenge. Yuko (Harami, producer and music editor) and Fer (Fernando Franco, editor) came in later and took the animatics to another level. The music brought us to tears every time the ending was shown.

Pablo also truly cares and loves the art of filmmaking. Every day Pablo, Agreda and I would talk about the movie we had seen the day before. We saw so many films that year. Their parting gift to me was a big book called "1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die."

To what extent did "Robot Dreams" influence your storyboarding? And how much did you have to add or change in order to adapt the story into a feature film? Reading the ending of the comic book gives me the same bittersweet flutter in my heart that Dog gets from listening to the notes coming from the robot's boom box. In the first pass, there was a funeral for the Snowman, who melted away when spring came. This raised a red flag from the editorial fell. In Sarah Vallon's graphic novel, the appearance of a loose world in which humans and animals coexist, surrounded by a kind of magical frame, gives it a sense of realism. When we saw the Snowman in our film, it seemed odd when something supernatural suddenly happened, because of the grounded New York and its more robust rules. In the last movie, Dog wakes up from his dream. The Snowman did not exist. He remembers initially objecting to it. I remember objecting that "the audience would feel cheated.

Another major point is New York as a character. It was very important for Pablo that the city feel completely real. Every doorknob, every radio, every car had to look like it did back then. In one scene, Pablo noticed that in reality the streets go in the opposite direction and had to be changed. This alone was a lot of work, but Yuko gathered a lot of reference material, so Agreda and I were able to draw the scene while knowing exactly what we were drawing. I think it paid off, because I heard nothing but praise for how well New York was represented.

"Robot Dreams" will be released theatrically in the US later this year by Neon.