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Magnificent Malfunction The creative team behind the new animated feature Ron’s Gone Wrong discuss the making of this fall family release. By Karen Idelson
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avigating the challenging and at times cruel world of middle school has never been easy. In Ron’s Gone Wrong, the new 3D CG feature from Locksmith Animation, the filmmakers explore a young boy’s harrowing trip through this world when his father gives him a “B-bot,” the personal robot that every tween wants. Barney, the film’s main character, thinks his new digital friend Ron will make him cool and become a surrogate friend. Instead, the robot quickly breaks down and embarrasses him beyond words. “It’s a universal experience,” says Sarah Smith, who co-directed the film with J.P. Vine and co-wrote it with Peter Baynham. “We all feel that everybody else has got it all sorted and that we’re the one who’s feeling awkward. The message of our movie is that everyone feels that way and you will find your friends along the way: You are worthy of friendship.”
Standing Up to Cyberbullies Smith, who directed Arthur Christmas (2011) and co-exec produced The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) for Aardman Animations before founding Locksmith with Julie Lockhart and
Elisabeth Murdoch in 2014, says she was also struck by how the older child of one of her colleagues was being bullied online. “The other kids were bullying him online by anonymously saying things like, ‘You should kill
yourself,’” she notes. “I just thought that never would happen in a world where kids could see each other. We all know that communicating by text is dangerous. We don’t handle it well emotionally. We just thought, these are
‘It’s a universal experience. We all feel that everybody else has got it all sorted and that we’re the one who’s feeling awkward. The message of our movie is that everyone feels that way and you will find your friends along the way.’
www.animationmagazine.net 8
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— Co-director Sarah Smith
november 21
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