Intervju med regissören bakom Pixars nya kortfilm 22 vs Earth

Det var kanske inte helt överraskande att Pixars jazziga äventyr Soul vann en Oscar för Bästa Animerade Film samt Bästa Musik, då Disney praktiskt taget dominerar den kategorin. Men det var också en film som många kunde relatera till med sitt vuxna budskap om att ta vara på livet, snarare än att vänta på det rätta ögonblicket och detta är något som Pixar-veteranen Kevin Nolting, som har arbetat som klippare hos Pixar i 21 år, har tagit vara på i sin debuterande kortfilm 22 vs Earth.

I kortfilmen tar 22, den cyniska lilla själen som spelas av Tina Fey och som vägrade hitta sin livsgnista i långfilmen, saken i egna händer och bildar en mindre armé av baby-själar för att gå emot strömmen. Då detta är en prequel till långfilmen vet vi dock att detta kanske inte riktigt går enligt hennes planer. När jag och ett gäng utländska journalister satte oss ner för ett digitalt rundabordssamtal blev vi alla genast nyfikna på varför just 22 fick sin egen kortfilm, där det framkom att Nolting relaterade till karaktären mer än vi trodde.

"I certainly related to 22 more than any other character. Just her questioning of "do I even wanna go and live?", that basic of a question, and her constantly questioning the rules of the world. It is revealed that she doesn't feel like she's actually worthy of living, and having self-doubt, and feeling you don't have a purpose in life. For me that was the character I related to most."

"We spent three years talking about what makes 22 22, and we had a lot of jokes, conjectures, a lot of stories, so it seemed like the logical thing to do. We examined Joe pretty thoroughly and with 22 we still had a lot of questions about her," fortsatte den ödmjuke regissördebutanten och diskuterade hur kortfilmen förhåller sig till den numera Oscarsbelönade långfilmen. "As companion to the bigger movie it answers the question of what makes 22 who she is or what makes a person who they are. She loses her friends and this is when it finally gets to her and she decides to do something about it. As part of a bigger theme I see it as more of an exploration of the character as opposed to having any big statement to say about it. I loved the characters and I loved the fact that it has more of an optimistic feel to it."

Personligen var jag nyfiken på Noltings resa fram tills nu och om det fans någon likhet med Joe Garners livsfärd i Soul. Efter att ha arbetat som assisterande klippare för verk Hitta Nemo och Inside Out, för att senare bli "lead editor" för Soul, frågade jag honom när, och hur, han hittade sin så kallade "spark" och om filmklippning alltid var hans passion:

"I look at Soul and Joe Gardner who's a person who knew what they wanted to do from a young age and has this passion to do it... and then you have 22 who has no idea that she wants to do anything, so I always related more to 22. Some people can look at the beginning of their life, look forward and say 'I want to do this thing' and they set out to do it. Now that I'm older and look back I see that certain things happened that lead to what I'm doing as opposed to having this driving passion from the very beginning. I didn't study film in school, I grew up around film in Los Angeles, my family worked in film... I studied writing and drawing, I was a translator for a while and all of these things lead to editing in a certain way, combining verbal and visual, and translation is sort of this invisible art where the less you see, the better translated it gets. I look at it in the same way. "

Som regissör kunde Nolting sätta sin egen prägel i form av påskägg - en lång tradition I Pixars filmer - där han specifikt nämner några Apocalypse Now-influerade kameravinklar. Men arbetet med en kortfilm kommer också med sina utmaningar, där det i synnerhet var svårt att ge de identiska baby-själarna individuella drag:

"That's probably the biggest struggle with these souls. We had them in the feature too, but especially in this short because the focus was how we are going to make them into an individual and so we did it by whatever it turns out that they to react to. It is their spark in a sense. There are subtler little things... The obvious one is the one who doesn't know how to put on a mask, but they all have slightly different shaped masks or wearing it a different way and just the quality of their voice. We tried to make it very distinct. That was the biggest challenge, for sure nämnde Pixar-veteranen, som dock menade att begränsningarna inte alltid behöver vara av ondo i den här typen av filmproduktion. With the time and resources that we couldn't build new sets or new characters. Conveniently we had this story about 22 that we hadn't fully told yet, so that gave us a runway. I don't think its a bad thing in art, to have limitations, it keeps you getting off on tangents and you just have to work with what you have."

Pixar-filmer brukar oftast rika sig till en så bred massa som möjligt, där filmerna är tänkta att vara tillgängliga för alla åldrar. Med Soul och 22 vs Earth tacklar man dock mer komplexa teman om passion och meningen med livet, men Nolting noterar att man inte ska underskatta småttingarna i publiken:

"Especially in a Pete Docter-movie, it starts off with this very adult theme and we sort of pursue it that way, and not to worry about how broad the audience was going to be. It's something that we are constantly conscious of when it comes up. We concentrate on a getting a story and the characters right first, and then you start to have fun with how you make this fun and entertaining and not take yourself so seriously and make it fun for audiences and make it fun for kids. I don't think we give kids enough credit personally, I think that they can understand a lot more than what we think they can, so what we did in Inside Out and Soul we had friends and families bring small kids to watch a rough cut of the movie, storyboard-version, and then do a mini-preview-focus-group-type-thing so we can test ourselves. In both cases it was amazing. Even in the early stage of the movie where we didn't have a lot of kid-friendly gags it was amazing how engaged they are and how much they understand if we only gave them the chance to. "

För Nolting har filmer som Inside Out och Soul varit betydelsefulla upplevelser då han har kunnat dra flera paralleller till sitt eget liv: "To me, the most fullfilling thing, was to just explore these ideas and put them out there in a way that would generate conversation out there and get people thinking. That's always the biggest challenge. [...] When we were working on Inside Out I had a young daughter who was having some issues and now that I'm older and started working on Soul and looking back on what it means, where you spend your time... for me it has been a great experience to be part of it. "

Under dessa coronadrabbade tider har även Pixar-teamet fått anpassa sig efter det kritiska läget och under röstinspelningsarbetet fick man alltså arbeta på distans, men menar att det var fröjd det är att arbeta med komikern Tina Fey även på avstånd:

"It was great, in the case of Tina Fey we recorded her for the short a couple of weeks after we all started working from home. We weren't used to Zoom at that time and we weren't used to record characters remotely like this, but her husband owns a recording studio, so that made it easier It made it relaxed in the sense that her daughter was home from school and [Tina] had to run out to deal with her daughter setting up with Zoom-classes, so the whole situation was very relaxed and very homey. She's so great anyway, she's so nice and smart and such a pro. Same with Richard Ayoade and Alice Braga."

Innan det korta rundabordssamtalet avrundades hann jag slänga in en sista fråga för att få lite mer visdomsord: vad skulle han säga är nyckeln till ett starkt berättande, både som klippare och regissör?

"I think it's observation, and listening... and absorbing things before you put them down. Certainly in editing its patience. You sort of lull over this material and just let everything sink in before you start making any big decisions. "

Med det sagt återvände alla till sina vanliga liv och rutiner för att fortsätta reflektera över vad som väntar efter The Great Beyond och om vi njuter av livet till fullo... medan vi bläddrar efter nyheter på våra prenumerationstjänster. 22 vs Earth finns nu att se på Disney Plus.