Pixar tackles the trials and tribulations of becoming a teenager in Turning Red, which premieres through Disney+ on March 11. The story follows perky teenager Meilin Lee (voiced by young actress Rosalie Chiang), whose rosy life literally turns red when she finds herself sporadically becoming a red panda as a strange side effect of puberty.

The enchanting tale is directed by Domee Shi, who previously wowed audiences with the Oscar-winning short film Bao. Aiding her in creating a new look and animation style in which to tell such a unique tale are animation supervisors Patty Kihm and Aaron Hartline, who were directing animators for Toy Story 4. Aside from crafting Mei’s red panda persona, they also focused on her bringing her best friends and mother Ming (Sandra Oh, Raya and the Last Dragon) to life.

Kihm and Hartline spoke to Screen Rant about choosing the right look for the fluffy transformation and working under pandemic conditions.

Screen Rant: How was the concept pitched to you, and what were the first steps you had to take to prepare yourself for Turning Red?

Patty Kihm: I feel like I didn’t need to prepare. I’ve been waiting for this movie my whole life. As soon as I saw the storyboards, it instantly struck a chord with me because it has a really strong tone personality. Even reading the script and seeing really rough storyboards, you just instantly got it; we got what Domee was going for.

And it was an easy pitch for me, going from Domee’s description of teenage fever dream. If everything was designed around that, I got it. Rona pitched having a pastel world and having it really stylized. She showed a ton of really amazing artwork, and the design of Mei herself was just ridiculously cute. I remember turning to Aaron and saying, « You don’t understand, I love Mei. You don’t understand. »

So, for me, it was an easy sell.

Aaron Hartline: The way it works is that they have big company meetings once in a while. It’s almost like Christmas morning for me, because they show the films that are going to be coming out in the next 2 to 4 years. Each director gets to show a clip, or [just explain] what the idea is. We don’t know; sometimes they work on these in secret. Even though we work together, you don’t know what the director is cooking up.

When we saw this at the company meeting, I was like, « Whoa! » That first five minutes is so strong, just the character talking into camera and telling you who she is and what she’s about and what she’s going to do. I was hooked. I was like, « This is really fun. It’s such a strong voice and such a unique point of view. I love it. I want to be part of it. »

And what really excited me is talking to the director Domee. She really wanted the animation style to match the energy that you see in the story, so it was a lot of fun.

What was the collaborative process like in order to get the right animation style and create the look for Mei Lee’s transformation?

Patty Kihm: It was a slow start, primarily because we did stylize the animation and we did ask the animators to go out of their comfort zone.

Many of the animators on our crew have been here for years and years and have learned what most directors are looking for, and the computers really great at these really highly detailed images, which in the end leads the animation to look more realistic or subtle. It’s beautiful, but we were asking the animators, « No, forget all of that. Now, let’s try something totally different. Don’t move the body, just move the arm, or just move the head. » And I remember they were like, « What? What do you want me to do? »

I have to show this in front of the whole crew and dailies, and it’s like, « Please, let’s just try it. » But I think once people got a feel for it, the animators were amazing. They took off and went beyond what I could ever imagine.

Even though puberty is a universal experience for young girls everywhere, Turning Red is in a very specific time and place. Was there any kind of research that you had to do so that the team knew where they could start from before jumping off?

Aaron Hartline: It was crawling into Domee’s head, understanding her influences and what she loved and what she was going through when she was a tween during that time.

A big part of it is anime, all of her love and the influences of that, so we wanted to make sure that we studied a lot of anime films and shows from her youth. We wanted to make sure that we got girl behavior down; we didn’t want her to be a tomboy, we wanted it to be green girls and wanted to make sure to honor that.

You want to look at red pandas; you want to go to the zoo, and you want to make sure that you infuse some of the panda behavior and how they move. It was a lot of influences from all over the place, and then putting it together.

Speaking of young girls, we have the whole crew: Mei, Abby, Miriam, and Priya. What was it like to imbue each of them with their own personality, in terms of the animation? How do you contribute to differentiating them and making their stories unique?

Patty Kihm: I would just say that animators love that challenge. When you present a very specific character, and then they have to work within this range, it’s the best. It’s a challenge to find out how Priya, with her half-lids and always kind of cool, looks when she’s excited. How are you supposed to do that? It’s great, and it’s a really fun challenge.

And I think with those boundaries, you come up with really unique solutions. I think they hopefully end up being very character-specific, and something slightly different than you would expect.

Aaron, you mentioned looking at red pandas. What was the process of transforming them into eight-foot-tall fluffy creatures like? What conversations led to the right look for Mei Lee’s transformation?

Aaron Hartline: Oh, yeah. That’s just such a cool idea, right? Where you basically do a cotton candy poof – I love that. I’ve worked on other shows where you’ve got to take this finger, and you’ve got to scale it up. And then you got to transform, and all this stuff.

But no, it’s just fun and energetic. That was there from early on in the storyboards. It was just capturing that energy of « Poof! » and she pops. « Where’s her clothes? What happened to her hat? » Who cares! And then poof, she’s right back, she’s got all her clothes or PJs back on, and everything’s fine. There’s a certain freedom and fun to it that we loved.

I think the only thing as animators that we wanted to make sure of is that whatever energy she’s feeling or emotion, we want to match that in the « Poof! » as well. So, there are times where she’s really excited, and it’ll be a big poof. When she’s kind of angry and upset, it’ll be a poof that goes down.

So many animated films have had to change their methods because of the pandemic. What was it like for the two of you to be working under those conditions?

Patty Kihm: The movie itself, from conception, started about four years ago. But we in animation started our pre-production process when everything shut down. And I remember there was one decisive day where they said, « Everyone leave the studio. Take your equipment, » and it was like a mass exodus. It looked like looting. Everyone was getting their computer and monitors in their cars. It was a surreal day.

And then it took about a week for everyone to get up and running. Pixar has an amazing tech team that just helped everybody. It’s like 1000-plus employees here, but everybody was up and running within a week – at the most two weeks. We were back in business, we were having our normal reviews with Domee and showing animation.

It was a special experience. Of course, it was really hard for everybody at home. But at the same time, we learned a lot about animators by seeing their kids crawling on them as they’re trying to show something. Or their cat’s butt walks by and you’re like, « Aww, I didn’t know you had a cat. » So, we learned a lot and actually bonded our crew in a weird way.

And we missed each other. We still haven’t seen them in person. One day we’ll be back together.

Aaron Hartline: Every time they would sit to talk, you hear this « meow! » And then it would run up, and the cat would sit and want to look right into the camera, looking at us. Only with Zoom.

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