ANIMATING AN AMERICAN LIFE

Award-winning animation veteran Robert Valley is attached to a new 2D-animated pic about songwriter, producer and activist Billy Rose.

Acclaimed animation artist Robert Valley, who is best known for his Oscar-nominated short Pear Cider and Cigarettes and the acclaimed “Zima Blue” and “Ice” episodes of Love, Death + Robots (the latter of which won the short form animation Emmy as well as two individual achievement honors), has embarked on a new long-form venture: a 2D-animated feature titled American Rose, based on the life of songwriter, Broadway producer and social activist Billy Rose. “Valley is bringing his immense talent and unique artistic vision to this bespoke project and our team is thrilled beyond belief to work with him,” says the film’s exec producer Steven Finkelstein, who has been pursuing this project for over four years. “Not only is Robert both brilliant and creative, he is also a genuinely nice person. He’s a joy to work with. He also has a depth of soul that allows him to access the material and do justice to such a great and little-known true story. We’re so excited, honored and blessed to work with him as a true partner.”

Finkelstein believes 2D animation is the ideal medium to tell Rose’s story. “Animation, especially with the talented Robert Valley at the helm, continues to stretch the boundaries of sophisticated storytelling,” he notes. “It allows us the freedom to expressively tell the story of his incredible life with all its grit and glamor. Despite standing only 4’11”, Billy Rose was a creator of outsized fantasies and spectacles. He was born into poverty, tangled with mobsters during the Prohibition and became a mogul during some of the most tumultuous years of the 20th century.”

Visionary Talent

Valley has had a colorful and well-respected career in the animation business. In addition to his recent award-winning episodes for Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots, he wrote and produced the 2013 animated Wonder Woman series and worked as storyboard artist on shows such as Aeon Flux, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, X-Men: Evolution, TRON: Uprising, Firebreather, Invincible and the famous Gorillaz animated music videos. Robert Valley Billy Rose was raised a poor child of Jewish immigrants from the lower east side tenements of New York, and became a shorthand writing champion, a songwriter and a producer of Broadway shows and massive outdoor spectacles. At the height of his career, he was the largest employer on Broadway, ran the hottest nightclub in New York and was married first to Fanny Brice (famously played by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl) and later to Olympic champion swimmer Eleanor Holm.

The entertainment magnate was also an unlikely political activist. He spoke out against American silence on the atrocities of the Holocaust, despite anti-Semitic pressure from prominent figures such as Joe Kennedy and Charles Lindbergh. In 1943, he produced Carmen Jones, the first allBlack Broadway grand opera, as a direct response to the racism espoused by the Nazis. Rose also owned venues in Times Square and operated the Ziegfeld Theatre from 1949 through 1955. ◆

Producer Wanted: This feature production is seeking an animation industry pro to join its team. We have a scripted musical biopic feature film in pre-production. Period piece, 1920’s – ‘40s. NYC. This is a passion project with some funding, so you’ll get paid! We need a producer who can create a business plan/budget for our investors. Strong experience and industry relationships/reputation is absolutely key. We have an Academy Award-nominated director and a wonderful team lined up. Must have an old soul. Send info to: Finkelstein6@icloud.com.

Hypebeast Hearts

Director Fletcher Moules discusses the inspiration for and animation process of the new Kid Cudi/Kenya Barris Netflix show Entergalactic.

- By Devin Nealy -

For the last decade in entertainment, studios and creators have made numerous attempts to line their coffers by speaking the language of Millennials and Gen Z to varying levels of success. Although certain films and series may comprehend the behaviors and colloquialisms of both generations, their content often proves too formal to feign familiarity. Through his new Netflix show, Entergalactic, director Fletcher Moules and his team aimed to craft a series that was not only hip to youth lingo but embedded in the culture enough to converse with its natives.

“That’s the language of it. That’s what we’re actually aiming for,” says Moules, speaking of

Entergalactic’s frequent, yet subtle, touches of hip hop and the fashion-centric “hypebeast” culture that permeate the series. Entergalactic — the brainchild of hip hop visionary Scott

“Kid Cudi” Mescudi, black-ish creator Kenya

Barris and Ian Edelman — was conceived as an exercise in seamlessly fusing music and narrative while speaking authentically about contemporary romance. Consequently, it was of paramount importance that the series accurately reflect the zeitgeist. “That’s something that Cudi and Kenya said right from the start. [Entergalactic] is hitting that hypebeast community, hitting that connection to New Yorkers.” Entergalactic follows Jabari, a street artist turned comic-book professional (voiced by Mescudi), as he moves into an opulent Manhattan apartment while grappling with feelings of disillusionment begat by his success. Opposite Cudi’s Jabari, both in billing and geographically, is his neighbor and love interest Meadow, a photographer voiced by Jessica Williams. The budding connection between

“What I said to the animation team was, ‘This whole thing, it needs to feel like it’s handmade.’ So, no spline animation, no inbetweens, no mo-capping; none of that. Everything has to be on step. Every pose needs to be hand positioned by every animator.”

— Director Fletcher Moules

Kenya Barris

Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi

CITY BEATS:

Described as a “TV event” by Netflix, Entergalactic is an adult animated music offering based on the upcoming album by musician and actor Kid Cudi.

Jabari and Meadow sends both artists on a journey of maturation, allowing them to find professional inspiration and poignant personal epiphanies. The series’ all-star cast also boasts Timothée Chalamet, Ty Dolla $ign, Keith David and Vannessa Hudgens.

Fans of Kid Cudi might feel like they’re seeing double while looking at the series title, as Entergalactic is both a classic song and an upcoming album in the rapper’s discography. “[Cudi] wanted to write an album of love songs,” says Moules, “and that song ‘Entergalactic’ off his first album was such a huge, loving moment for him, about a new relationship, that he took that one song and wanted to make a whole album based on that.”

“The main inspiration was ... a new way to release music,” Moules continues. “We’ve seen Lemonade with Beyoncé, and thinking back to Purple Rain [about how] you could use narrative to really help release an album in a new way.”

The project’s ethos crystallized for Moules when Cudi allowed him to listen to tracks from the Entergalactic album. “I sat down with Cudi in the studio back in mid-2019,” says Moules. “He played ‘Willing to Trust’ and I, like, slapped him on the thigh and was like, ‘What the hell was that?’ I hadn’t heard a song like that. I was so overtaken by the warmth and the love.’”

One Small Step, One Giant Leap

The experience proved wildly influential for Entergalactic’s thematic and visual direction. “All that stuff, Black culture, modern dating, love and optimism … that all came from the songs,” says the director. Luckily for Moules, the themes of Entergalactic were consistent with his approach to working in the medium of animation. “The animation I’ve always made is sort of fun, very colorful,” he says.

Moules and company decided to use painted CGI to embody the “analog love story in an increasingly digital world” that Entergalactic endeavors to portray. “This is a piece of art. Music is a piece of art that you have a visceral reaction to,” says Moules. “Entergalactic visually needs to live in that same world. You need to see the artist’s hand on every frame.”

After a lengthy search for the perfect aesthetic, Moules found the right artist for the job. “I was working with Mike Moon, the exec at Netflix, and we found our art director, Michal Sawtyruk, in Poland,” recounts Moules. “His paintings are so brushstroke heavy and very loose, supersaturated,” he says, “and so he was the first guy I brought on because I could see New York in that way.”

Despite the growing ubiquity of painted CGI, such as in Netflix’s Arcane from Fortiche productions, Moules feels that Entergalactic takes the style in a fresh direction. “Obviously, there’s the great work Fortiche are doing. [They were] an inspiration,” he says. “We thought, ‘Okay, what’s our version of that?’”

To further solidify Sawtyruk’s design sensibilities, Moules developed some ground rules for his crew. “So what I said to the animation team was, ‘this whole thing, it needs to feel like it’s handmade,” he says. “So, no spline ani-

mation, no in-betweens, no mo-capping; none of that. Everything has to be on step,” Moules insisted. “Every pose needs to be hand positioned by every animator. And I don’t care if it actually ends up more choppy because what’s more important to me is that every expression, every movement has to be a choice.”

Preparing For Liftoff

Like the entire entertainment industry in 2020, Moules and the animation team at DNEG had to contend with COVID restrictions while constructing Entergalactic. “In January 2020, we locked the cast,” says Moules, “and I was like, ‘With such great actors, I want to record them in a room together.’” However, quarantine drastically stalled the process. “We couldn’t record the actual actors until, like, super late … like mid-2021,” he says. “We boarded the whole film in Scratch, and actually locked boards and locked the story reel, and had the whole edit approved by Netflix,” says Moules. “So, that was the biggest challenge: Then [having] to record our actors, and then having to go back and put that in.”

Although the process was taxing, having a global team of 350 people across 18 countries helped keep the production on track. “We’d start our day in Russia with our fashion designer working with Virgil Abloh,” says Moules. “We’d work across Eastern Europe through Ukraine, into London, and then go across to the U.S. and end all our days in Korea.”

DOPE CAST:

A charming artist (Kid Cudi) decides to make room for love in his life after a chance encounter with a hip photographer (Jessica Williams). The cast also includes Timothée Chalamet, Ty Dolla $ign, Vanessa Hudgens, Christopher Abbott, Jaden Smith and Macaulay Culkin.

The stunning quality of Entergalactic’s animation showcases the fantastic talent of Moules and his team, as they relied on standard industry tools to create magic. “All the matte paintings and textures, we designed them in Photoshop with our Netflix team,” recounts Moules, “and then it all just ran through Maya and Nuke.”

In addition to painted CGI, Entergalactic often infuses segments of 2D animation, produced by Titmouse, for the POV of supporting characters. “Entergalactic is a show of contrasts,” says Moules, “When Ky (Ty Dolla $ign) is telling his story, or we have Karina (Vanessa Hudgens) telling her story, I really wanted to highlight the fact that those moments were different.”

By allowing each character a unique perspective, Moules was able to distill Entergalactic’s macro thesis of diversity on a micro level. “Cudi and Kenya wanted to hire a Black director,” admits Moules, “but there wasn’t enough availability. So we worked really hard on our show team … to hire as many African Americans as we could to help the animation industry. [So] that Entergalactic could be a beacon to help that in our whole community.” ◆

Entergalactic premieres September 30 on Netflix. The project was produced by DNEG Studios, Mad Solar, Netflix Studios and Khalabo Ink Society.