‘Puss In Boots: The Last Wish’ Director Joel Crawford Talks Creating A ‘Contemporary Fairy Tale’ – CNET – ApparelGeek

Made a decade after the 2011 Oscar nomination Puss in Boots, the sequel which premieres on December 21 takes a darker turn as the eponymous feline, voiced by Antonio Banderas, is forced to face his mortality. “He’s been through eight of his nine lives, and he’s on his last,” said director Joel Crawford, explaining that while a cat’s nine lives is a fun premise, the filmmakers used it to talk about a more serious subject. “You only have one life, how are you going to live it? It is such a powerful theme that is relevant for everyone.

He adds that Dreamworks Animation Puss in Boots: The Last Wish aims to offer “what everyone has been waiting for: the swashbuckling pleasure of a Puss in Boots, but also expand the world, right down to the look. The story begins with a song and a playful action sequence. After an unfortunate accident, Puss learns from his doctor that he is on the last of his nine lives, which he dismisses, then retires to a bar for a glass of leche. There he is confronted by the Wolf, a bounty hunter (who later reveals he is Death himself), and a sword fight ensues.

For the pivotal sequence, Crawford and co-director Januel P. Mercado drew inspiration from Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns and Akira Kurosawa’s films. “That’s when it gets gritty and everything changes tone. You get faster cuts in the action, you get longer pause moments, kind of like a western,” says Crawford. “The moment Puss gets cut [by the Wolf’s blade]Januel did this close-up of Puss’s eyes – it’s Sergio Leone’s close-up – and then he did this little drop of blood running down his head.

That’s when we see Puss’s emotion change as he realizes the stakes of his situation. “It’s a surprisingly dark scene,” says story lead Heidi Jo Gilbert. “Most viewers don’t expect to walk in and see such a dark scene in a Puss in Boots movie.” Crawford adds that it was editor Jim Ryan’s idea to create the moment when Puss’ life flashes before his eyes.

Viewers will notice a new visual style, which production designer Nate Wragg said was intended to make the film “look like a contemporary fairy tale”, designed by seeking a “more impressionistic approach” to the painting.

“The Puss in Boots character before the Shrek franchise was born out of fairy tales, and the Shrek franchise [the first film, 2001’s Shrek, won the first Oscar for best animated feature] is having a lot of fun in this creative space,” he explains. “When these films were created, what we could really do well in CG animation was a more naturalistic feel.” He says that with the latest computer animation software (including some written by DWA for the last wish), “we are able to bring a different creative vision to the computer and the big screen. Rather than focusing on a naturalistic sense of the world, [we] really [tap] in an illustrated, fantasy, fairy-tale experience for audiences, to help them get back to their first roots – but then with all the amazing bells and whistles, if you will, that we can apply with [today’s] tools.”

This is evident in the bar moment between cat and wolf. Crawford explains, “The purpose of the scene was to make Puss feel fear and be aware of her mortality for the first time. To be able to express that, not literally but in an impressionistic way, was like having another tool in our toolbox.

This story first appeared in the December 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.