Parenting isn’t easy — whether you’re a top-of-the-line robot or an Oscar-nominated composer. It’s a lesson Lupita Nyong’o’s Roz learns the hard way in “The Wild Robot,” DreamWorks’ three-time Oscar-nominated animated adventure film.
In addition to nods for best animated feature and best score, “The Wild Robot” was also nominated for best sound, making the film the first DreamWorks movie to be nominated in the category. At a Variety FYC Screening presented by Universal, director Chris Sanders and composer Kris Bowers sat down to talk about shaping the sonic landscape of Roz’s island and what drew them to the story of ‘The Wild Robot.’
“When I dropped into Dreamworks to see if there was anything in development that I might be able to work on, they showed me this book and from the very first few sentences I was hooked,” Sanders said. “The motherhood story at the core, the intricacies, the delicate emotional scale of the story, I was hooked. I immediately called back and said ‘Please, what do I need to do to be attached to this story?’”
Bower says his Oscar-nominated score for “The Wild Robot” was shaped by his expectations and worries regarding parenting: “One of the first themes I wanted to approach was the migration sequence. By the time we got to that point, my daughter was about one, and I remember watching it and the immediate thought I had was ‘Okay, I can imagine taking her to college, dropping her off,’ and I wrote this piece of music that was making me emotional.”
“I shared it with Chris, and Chris was like ‘Yeah, that’s not really hitting the right feeling,” he added. “Maybe you should imagine you’re taking your daughter to college and dropping her off.’ And I was like ‘That’s what I did!’ Maybe it’s cause she’s one, and it’s hard for me to imagine properly. But we had a conversation about that moment, and what I realized is that the scene in my head of dropping my daughter off at college was very sweet and naive.”
“Chris reminded me that this moment for Roz and Brightbill is very far from that. I remember going home and reflecting on this idea that years from now, no matter how hard I try, she’s gonna be disappointed,” Bowers said. “She’s gonna be upset with me. I’m gonna fall short of what she needs. All these things that were really painful to think about and that I didn’t want to imagine stirred a lot of emotion in me. I went to the piano and tried to find something that made me feel those same feelings, and found what is now the main theme.”
