August 27, 2019 • 44 mins
Pull back that slingshot and launch yourself into this edition of Nerdficent! This week Dani and Ify are joined by Animator, Producer, and the Director of 'The Angry Birds Movie 2', Thurop Van Orman to discuss the many facets of the franchise. From the conception of the original mobile game to the inner workings of the second film, you get an inside look into Angry Birds on this week's episode of Nerdificent!
FOOTNOTES:
NYTimes Review: 'The Angry Birds Movie 2'
Angry Birds: The Story Behind iPhone's Gaming Phenomenon
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode. Though very difficent. I
am your host, if you Waddy Way and sitting across
from me as own Danny Fernandez. I thought you were
going to say something now, Oh well I can, I can,
but you know, it seems so funny, fabulous, so wonderful.
(00:31):
I know it is. It is a mic drop, just
saying my own name, just saying my own name. Oh yeah, today,
it's gonna be a fun episode. We had quite a
fun time watching we did. It was a good time.
We were falling, you know, it was. It was a good,
good one. I thought you were going to pee your pants,
(00:51):
you were. We sat next to each other during this
film and it was I think it was oh a
one thirty Mattinee, which I highly recommend because they're also
a bunch of kids in there too, and listening to
them giggle, um like the person behind us, the girl
behind us, remember, oh my gosh, they just laugh at
also inappropriate Yeah yeah yeah, and they sing a hut experience. Yeah,
(01:14):
it was fun. It was fun. So today we are
talking about angry birds. We almost got it. We almost
didn't it. I don't know why I thought you should
try and say today we're joined by the director of
Angry Birds to throw up Van Orman. Thank you, yeah, thanks, yeah,
thank thank you for And you also played the seal, right,
(01:37):
did the seal? I did the worms and um the
dog most of the time. Okay, both of those killed you.
I remember your I love a good recurring bit. You know,
it's it's you know, it plays fun. And that poor
dog frozen. Oh my gosh. We yeah, we're going to
(01:58):
hop into the film because, honest to god, I was
surprised at the I mean, the humor was just so
some of it. I was like, these kids are gonna
watch this ten years from now and be like, what
it was the perfect recipe for kids film where it's like,
you know, a little something for some kids, a little
little little light something for the adults if you're paying attention.
(02:18):
And yeah, it's funny mentioned sitting next to the kids,
because when I watch it's so fun Like the first
half of the movie, the kids are like laughing all
the way through, and then I don't know, fourth the
third of the way through, then the parents started, and
then that builds them. By the end of the movie,
you can't hear the kids at all anymore. Their parents
are laughing. It's such a good time. Um. But there
(02:42):
if I wanted to also talk about some of your
history before we get into the history of Angry Birds,
because you have such a ginormous is that a word?
Ginormous history. You were also the storyboard artist for Camp Laslow,
The power Puff Girls, The Grim Adventures a Billion Mandy.
This man has worked on essentially our childhood um of
(03:02):
everyone listening. Um. You were also the creator of the
Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. What drove you to wanting to
be an animation specifically, Well, I didn't have the Internet
when I was a kid, so I actually I had
no idea that you could have a job in animation. UM.
So like um Simpson's I came on UM when I
(03:24):
was like thirteen and and it was I loved it,
but I thought, oh, that's one guy. That's one guy
who got really lucky and got to make his own show. Um.
And then, uh, I don't know. I didn't know what
I was gonna do until I was twenty four. So, UM,
I stumbled into a job making video games. My friend
got a job and I was like, what, you can
(03:45):
have a job just doing cartoon stuff. UM. And so uh,
I went to cal Arts um because that's where you
went to school to do animation. Do you feel like
that's still the same today. Um. I think a lot
of the creative people out of the directors and show
creators and stuff do come out of Calerts because you
(04:07):
do UM. You get a pretty solid foundation there and
actually probably believe more than anything, it's just because it
already has that cloud. So when you get there, UM,
it's like, I'm not the best person I know at
arts anymore. Everyone is so good um, and and coming
into it so late and having no idea that existed
(04:29):
for me, it was like Hogwarts. It was like, oh
my gosh, this now everything makes sense why I'm a weirdo.
This is this is what you can do with it.
But but then you're really you push yourself because you
feel bad. You feel bad that everyone's so much better
than you at everything. Um. And everyone's better than you
at something no matter how good you are UM at CalArts,
(04:51):
so it really pushes you um to up your work
ethic um. And you learn things from these people. You
learned like, oh people really laugh at that joke they do. Oh,
people really get bored when you make really self indulgent
student phones. So we aside from the Simpsons, were their
cartoons that you were really drawn to growing up that
(05:14):
you feel like influenced you. Um, Renan Stimpy was a
big and um yeah, I mean all of the cartoons. Um,
Smurfs was my favorite. I think Smurfs and Hemane. I
would probably have said to my friend's Hemane was my favorite,
but totally Smurfs. Was you give off a Smurfs vibe?
I can see that. Um yeah, So why don't we
(05:39):
just dive straight in if you didn't want to dive into. Yeah,
Angry Birds, let's get this nitty gritty out the way.
How we kick it all off with an explanation like?
The Angry Birds is a video game franchise created by
the Finnish company Rovio Entertainment. The series focus on multicolored
birds which try to save their eggs from green colored
pigs their enemies. Inspired by Crushed the Castle, the aim
(06:00):
has been praised for a successful commodation of fun gameplay,
comical style, and low prize. It's popularity led to many
spinoffs uh spinoff versions of Angry Birds created for PCs
and video game consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters,
a televis animated series, and a feature film by Chain
where two thousand and fourteen, there had been over two
billion downloads across all platforms, including both regular and special editions.
(06:24):
By July two thousand fifteen, the series games had been
downloaded more than three billion times Collection three for Builgon,
making it the most downloaded freemium game series of all time.
Eat That Fortnite. The original Angry Birds has been called
one of the most mainstream games out right now, one
(06:44):
of the great runaway hits of two thousand ten, and
the largest mobile apps successes the world has ever seen
so far. An animated feature film based on the series
was released by Columbia Pictures on the twenty of the
May and two thousand sixteen, and the first main series sequel,
Angry Birds to What It Do was Really East on
July two thousand fifteen. Is that I don't think that's right?
(07:05):
Is that right? Um? Now, when you're reading something, Oh
they're talking about the game, Okay, we're there, the game
Angry but you're like looking at your friend. Yeah, that
was wild. So the sequel to the game Angry Birds
two was released in July. I thought we went back
(07:26):
in time for a second. I was losing my mind.
There's something really cool. We had Sam Maggs, who is
a game developer on and ufer Insomniac Games, and she
was saying that she talks, she goes and she talks
to groups of of little girls about gaming and that um,
she'll be like, how many of you consider yourself a gamer?
And a lot of them won't raise their hands. And
(07:46):
she's like, but how many of you plays say Angry
Birds And they'll all raise their hands. And she was like,
then you're a gamer. That is a game that you're playing.
It's just so funny that people have in their head like, oh,
if it's not Fortnite, if it's not you know, World
of Warcraft or something like that, they don't consider it
a game. But she likes to say like, no, this
is a game. If you look like you have thoughts,
Oh no, no, I totally agree. And I just think
(08:08):
it's funny that people are like, oh, if I play
Angry Birds, I'm not a gamer because it's mechanics are
very similar to a game I used to play a
lot called gun Bound, where my gun bound Heads. It
was this old Naxon game where you were in these
little gun ships and you you used basically physics to
aim your shots and they would shoot across the map.
And it was based off of like an even older game.
(08:29):
But you can customize the ship, but that's kind of
the the same kind of a skeleton of angry birds
as you're aiming the shot to uh to hit it,
and you have different types of ammunition. So to me,
it's funny when it's like, oh no, I remember being
stand up late to one on the phone what my
friends were strategizing and like ganging up against people, and
(08:50):
like it's just a simpler like version that you can
just play on your phone. Yeah, mobile games are games.
They require a lot of skill and then people get
really good at them. The speakining you mentioned Fortnite, a
huge bass plays mobile a lot of the kids. And
that's what I think. I've said this on an earlier
episode is the great equalizer because like consoles run for
(09:10):
like what to three D bucks, a cell phone most
kids have it, so like if you if you have
a smartphone, you can play this like triple a game Fortnite,
which is why, like you know, everyone you know, everyone
feels some type of way. I remember when I talked
about the Diablo mobile game and a few of y'all
slid into the MS and we had, uh, you know,
some civilized conversation. Uh. But like mobile That's why I
(09:34):
like am excited by the idea of mobile games because
I called this five six years ago, back when Infinity
Infinity Blade came out for the iPhone. Uh. But that's
just my whole like aside on mobile gaming and like
it's growth and how much it's impacted like back when
Infinity Blade. Like the concept of cross platform you can
literally play Fortnite with someone on a PS four. That
(09:58):
is crazy. So now you're not you know, like if
you want to go way back when you're the kid
who didn't have the Genesis or the S and E
s and you couldn't play long, Nope, you have a
cell phone. You can play with your friends whose parents
were able to get him a PS four or an
Xbox one. You you're you include Like that is beautiful
in its own self. I did not realize that Angry
Birds was breaking down class and economic barriers by allowing
(10:22):
gameplay to everybody. That's really cool. You learn new things
on this podcast all the time. So I know that
you have kids. Were they playing Angry Birds? Like? How
are you? What was your first introduction to it before
you tapped onto this as a director. I'm sure that
you saw it or might have had it on your
phone or your kid's phones or um. To be totally honest,
(10:42):
I'd never played the game or watched the movie. That's
fine asked me to make this one, but I did
after the research. Yeah, I I Actually I'm not a
gamer at all. My first job was video games, and
I realized really quickly if I get into video games,
like I want to be good at it and I
(11:03):
will not stop um and it's not really what I
want to do with all of my time. Um uh.
So it was all or nothing, and I was like,
maybe I'll just not I'll make them. I'll play through
as much as I need to know, um to know
how it works. But UM, I think one reason that
I went into storytelling is I like the stories. I
(11:25):
like I like telling the stories. I like taling a tale. Um.
And in video games, something that's super cool about video games,
they say, like the golden rule of making the perfect
video game as it should take a minute to learn
in a lifetime to master UM. And so like you
suck them in quick and then you once you got
your hooks, and like they're they're just like trying to
(11:47):
reach a higher, unattainable level. And I think that's super cool. Um.
It's kind of similar to TV because you don't give
them too much UM and movies, though, you want to
wrap it up. You want to give them um uh
inclusive ending and make them feel like they accomplished something
and they gained something at the end of the day
and there's not more out there and have like this unsatisfied.
(12:09):
I gotta get right back into it. Um. And I
love that. I love that about TV and movies. UM.
I guess just the storytelling aspect of it. Yeah, yeah
in video games that that definitely has a overlap with
video games as well. I feel like, um and one
of the reasons why this was so successful, I feel
(12:30):
like people really latched onto the characters. Well it's funny
because yeah, like I feel like, you know, Anger Birds one,
you know kind of like wrote the wave of the
popularity of the game and too you know, And I'm
not just saying this because you're in here. I'd say
it if you weren't in here really kind of like
the improv term is heightening and and just like blowing
(12:53):
out the world. And it really did like flash out
these characters and like I think tackled some very interesting
themes and just the the aspect of like doing things
to too for because you want to be wanted and
not necessary, you know, and just like that was really
exciting and fun. Yeah. I think also an improv, it's
playing at the top of your intelligence, and I feel
(13:14):
like that's what the film did as well. Yeah, So
just wrapping up about the development. In early two thousand nine,
Rovio staff began reviewing proposals for potential games. One such
proposal came from senior game designer Jacko Lislo in form
of a simulated screenshot for youatweing some angry looking birds
with no visible legs or wings. While the picture gave
(13:34):
no clust to what type of game was being played,
I love that, just like taking it in. Like remember
that whoever first pitched um Mario, that would have just
been this plumber who has rescue a princess. Uh, stay
with me here, everybody again. It was after crushed the castle.
This is the funniest part to me. At the time,
the swine flew epidemic was also in the news, so
(13:55):
the staff made the birds enemies pigs as you do.
Um and Angry Birds was the studio's fifty second produced
game and its initial release, and like you said, it
did huge numbers here, m hmm yeah so yeah when
it first came out though, it didn't sell that many copies.
And it was after it was featured uh um. After
(14:17):
it was a featured app on the UK App Store
in February two, it quickly reached number one and it
blew up. It's funny how a little visibility, you know.
It was like this is tight, y'all, Like that's what
the app store was like, like, yo, don't sleep on this.
And being on the front page of Netflix, I feel like, um,
they always get that huge boost. I would not have
found ships Creak that way. Yeah, me neither. So good.
(14:41):
I've rewatched it so many times. Which which character do
you gravitate towards? Um? It started with David, He's such
a good character, and then slowly like um, I love
more and more Alexa and actually the mom who was
my least favorite character because I was like all right, yeah, yeah,
(15:02):
Moira her she's the most fascinating now. She just owns
like characters so much. It's amazing. I just love that
they let her take whatever risks she wants, Like if
she's she just like says like baby or whatever. She's
pronounces things how they shouldn't be pronounced. Um, there's like cool,
go with it. I love it. We have to take
(15:22):
a really quick break then we're going to jump into
the films of Angry Birds right after this. All right,
and well come back to Nerdificent. We're back and we're
going to jump right into the movies. Uh yeah, so
(15:44):
Angry Birds. The first movie was the Angry Birds movie,
also known simply as Angry Birds is released in the
UK as such, So the Plant because this is important
when we talk about two, yeah and one. It was
about a reclusive, temperamental, outcast bird named Red who lived
in a village called Bird Island with other flightless birds
(16:04):
who lead angerless lives. When his temper causes a premature
hatching of another bird's egg, he is sentenced to attend
an anger management class, the maximum penalty on the island.
Red's classmates Chuck, who is hyperactive and can move at
hyper Velosophy and Bomb, who can cause explosions with his
anger and fear, try to befriend him, but he avoids
(16:25):
them because he's angry. One day, a boat docks at
the island shore, damaging Red's house. The birds agreeded by
green colored pigs and their captain, Leonard, who claimed to
be peaceful explorers, bringing offerings of friendship. The pigs ingratiate
themselves with birds by introducing them to various innovations, notably
a giant slingshot, but begin to overwhelm the island with
their numbers. Red becomes suspicious. He recruits Chuck and Bomb
(16:46):
to find Mighty Eagle, the only flying burden island, who
has not been seen for many years. They find Mighty
Eagle on top of Bird Mountain, but he's overweight, self absorbed,
and leads the life of a slacker is not flowing years,
and refuses to help them. Red discovers that the pigs
planting dynamite around the island while other birds are distracted
with the rave party, but they arrived too late to
sound of warning. The pigs escape with the eggs and
(17:08):
activate the dynamite, destroying the village. The other birds apologize
to Read for not believing him. Under his leadership, they
organized an army and construct a boat from Rubble Fall
the Pigs to Pig Islands and the battle ensues. They
win and Red as a champion. He's a hero. He's
a hero. Yeah. So we had Jason Sadakis, Josh Gad,
Jenny McBride, Bill Hater, Maya, Rudolph, Peter Dingli just a
(17:31):
part of the cast. Um and uh then we hop
into Angry Birds too, and you so we had we
had all of the cast returning, right, Um, not most
of them. I wish that we had Keith McKinnon. She
is my hero, and boy, we had to make room
(17:53):
for some new characters and unfortunately she didn't come back,
but I love her. Yeah. Yeah, So what was it
like to work with let's say, Jason as Read, I
mean taking on that role again. Um, it was amazing.
He's so smart. I mean, most of these actors you
think they're just reading scripts or whatever, but he is
so such a smart collaboratorator, such a great improv verb. So, um,
(18:16):
you throw him a line, he's never seen it before,
and he has like this catalog of funny lines that
serve the same purpose, but are like, oh man, that's better. Um,
um super good, super smart and and actually most of
this movie was very improv really. Yeah. So we we
didn't have writers for most of the movie, like for
(18:39):
a few months at the beginning and then a few
months like three fourths of the way through. UM. But
we treated it like like in TV UM we do
board story driven shows, UM where you have an outline
and we figured out like the backbone of the movie
and then we improv. So with the storyboard artist it
was a very yes and oh and then we could
do this this, then we could do this UM. And
with the actors we did the same thing. So we
(19:01):
and we tried a lot of ideas up front. We
had like you know, basic idea of what the movie was,
um and where we needed to get to, but we
did a lot of playing around with the actors and
with all of the artists. It was fun. Yeah. Yeah,
So that's what I wanted to say, is like, well,
so you know, Anger Birds one comes out, was there
anything from one that kind of like where that you
(19:23):
were like, okay, I want to take it this way,
Like how was the baton handed off to you on
the first movie they had. Their job was to sell
why they're why they're making a movie based on the game,
um and it's Angry Birds. It has to be about anger,
and that is such a hard thing to tackle, like
this is why anger is really good? Um, which maybe
(19:47):
it is, but it's still hard to do a story
about that. UM so uh So in this movie, we
didn't really have to do that. I mean, we could
delve deeper into his issues, but it's not just about
anger issues. And that was very nice um to just
(20:07):
be able to get into like more real emotions and
why he's vulnerable. And then as far as like this
storytelling that we got to explore on this movie, we
didn't have to have them enemies, And I think that's
that's really hard and I think it's hard to like
feel good about making this movie, Like, yeah, we were
justified hating these guys what they had to do in
(20:28):
the first movie, and and this one we could like, Okay,
they hated each other at the end of the first movie.
Let's pare him up. Let's force them to work with
the people they don't I'm not people birds and pigs
that they didn't want to work with. Um and and
that's hard. Um. And it's hard even amongst Red's friends
and his friend's sister. Like he's got some issues, he's
(20:51):
got some trust issues to work out, and I think, UM,
working working on a movie, UM with a bunch of
other people. It was kind of the metaphor for working
on the movie. The movie Uh metaphor was also the
behind the scenes metaphor. It's it's definitely harder to work
(21:12):
with a bunch of other people and to collaborate, and
everyone has their own ideas that they're trying to cram
in there, um, and they don't know what you say.
There's too many hens in the henhouse. I did want
to say that kind of One of my favorite movies
is a Nightmare before Christmas, But like, essentially the messages
stay in your lane. I still think it's fabulous and
(21:37):
I love it. I love so many things about it.
But it's like at the end, people are like, so
don't venture out and try just do what you're good. UM,
So we did. It was so funny. If he leaned
over to me, was like, who is that? Uh? And
for Zada and it was Leslie Jones. Yeah, what was
it like getting to work with her? Um? It was amazing.
(21:57):
She'd worked on one thing before an animation, and I've
think it wasn't the best experience for it was a
smaller role, and I think she came in like nervous,
which was so weird for me because I wasn't nervous.
Um but um, but I love Leslie Jones and I
was just like, it was weird going into this, like
these famous people are nervous and I'm not because I
should be the one. But she was a freaking hoot.
(22:19):
I think within like five minutes she was like, we're
laughing at each other's jokes. I'm playing around and she
saw like, oh I can just be myself. Okay, I
can do that. Um. And so I would feed her
lines like okay um and and she was comfortable, like
just like reading the script. But I was like, hey,
we don't have to do exactly that. Here's here's what's
happening in the scene. Um uh, this is how you're feeling,
(22:42):
this is where we need to get to. And then
she would riff, and by far that's the best stuff. Yeah,
just allowing the artist, like allowing the comedians to take
risks and be themselves. Yeah, now that that it was
real fun having her play and stuff. And I think
just you know, just because we keep bouncing and talking
about the comedy in this film, is was was super fun.
(23:04):
Uh you know, I'm gonna keep it like all the
way real and I don't feel bad because you didn't
work on it. But I didn't see the first one,
so I came in with two and I really regretted
didn't bring my daughter because the there was like a
little baby shark nod and I knew that, but yeah, no,
that's it really, Uh like it's so funny because we're
(23:25):
raving about it online and people were like really and
I'm like, please just go see it be And it
seemed like if I had to, like, you know, do
like an armchair analysis, and I think it was kind
of like they the first movie had the hard task
of kind of being more of an adaptation of us
of a mobile app, and y'all have to have fun
with just telling a story using a character that they
(23:48):
introduced in the first movie, and that's what. It's such
a fun, fun story. I mean, yeah, Les Lake Tiffany
uh is great and just even you know the eagle,
you know, you guys picked up the torch from the
arc that they kind of like introduced from the first
one and like dunked it in such a fun way. Um,
(24:08):
you know, I feel it's it's like, look y'all, I
know you're gonna be like if he's over, you're being
on a shell. I'm like, look, go see it. Go
see it and tell me what you think. You're in
the Discord. You can tell me what you think. Thorape
won't be in there, so you can be honest. But
I'm sure you're gonna love it. There's no Yeah, it's
actually the Discord. I don't want to kick you out
the Discord. You can be in it. But it's actually
(24:29):
the highest rated video game adaptation movie. Right yeah, right
now it is taking the throne as the highest rated
video game movie, and it deserves that praise because residels
An experience the first one started off real good. Uh,
And that's what I'll say I wanted. Before we wrap
up on Leslie Jones, is Zata what can you tell
(24:52):
people about essentially that new character that was introduced. Um yeah, um, yes,
so Zada um is the villain in this movie. She um.
When we were trying to figure out who the villain
is and what her personality was. Um, we saw an
old I don't remember if it was Jimmy Kimmel, but
she was on a toxic show and said, you know
what I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to
(25:12):
be a villain in a movie. And so we're like, oh,
huh m, maybe we got to get first. Okay, So
you saw her and you were like wow, So the
character was made for her. Yep, Oh my gosh, that
is so cool. Yeah, totally, and so um we we
(25:35):
designed the character um after her, I think personality wise,
especially um and we tried to write for Leslie Jones
and tried to um anticipate what her real character would
be feeling or whatever. Um. And it kind of worked
before we had her recorded, but it was kind of
(25:56):
like flat and dry and it's like mustache poorly villain.
And then she came in and really put her personality
into it, and then it was like, oh my god,
this is the best character. Um. Yeah, she really she
really had fun with it and really put a lot
of a lot of herself into it, which was amazing.
So here's my big question, because it's always interesting working
(26:17):
with like an already established I p was Rovio precious
with you know the I piano where they you know,
nervous about any like new characters, where they kind of
gave you like they're they're great, good gracisms like we
trust you do what do what you do? Um for
the almost a million percent, that's what they did. The
(26:41):
only thing that they threw out there was like, just
to the end, could you have them go back to
the pigs and the birds going back to fighting. That's
not really but we'll we'll throw in a few like
jokey jabs that And they were totally cool with that.
They were they were amazing. Um all though, um, the fans, Uh,
(27:03):
some of the fans have had the hardest time because
we weren't precious about the video games at all. And
uh and there's a new character and the video and
the video games. Uh Silver um was a character and
we I never even played the game. Yeah, I didn't
look at it. I was like, no, we're gonna do
her own thing. She's gonna be really cute and really
(27:25):
smart and really fun. Uh. And actually I've got maybe
a hundred what a hundred d ms today from fans
are like I hate this new Silver alone y'all leave
this man alone? Was a great what is there? Wait? Okay,
so what is their complaints about her? Or that she's
(27:48):
just not like the game? To two different things, She's
not like the game, so her character is different. Most
of those have kind of died away. The whole world
that I didn't know existed was Angry Birds, um fan fiction,
and so a lot of them are like, yeah, you know,
(28:08):
my OC is dating Red, so he can't like this
other girl. Yes, the fan fiction comming. I mean, I'm
not gonna lie. I have been on those boards. Um,
not in the Angry Birds level, but definitely on the
anime level. I felt like she was done in such
(28:28):
a it was perfect because it was like, yeah, I'm
so used to being the girl that has the answers
and she's smart, and it's like she's kind of looked
over and people don't trust her and she has to
prove herself twice as much. And it was like such
a great commentary and and and especially for you know,
young girls to see. Um, I just I love that
aspect of it and kind of read I think I said,
(28:50):
I tweeted this out that it was something that did
tackle like toxic masculinity and and this feeling of identity
and insecurity that he has um where he feels like
he has to be in control or else people won't
or he has to be the center of the hero,
or people won't love him as he is. But just
the fact that she is brilliant and that kind of
(29:12):
gets you know, pushed aside for a while. I just
I loved that that was done. So I I just
did a quick because I wanted to see what the
Angry Birds Silver was. I'm in the Angry Birds, wicky.
They are detailed, they are strong. You can't underrest me
how many communities there are around there and there will
be someone who's like um, actually, and let me know,
(29:34):
nerd fam, do we have any nerd fam who's like
our our Angry Birds stand because I'm sure you will
have more than a few choice words for us. But yeah, no,
it's I think thought Silver was super fun and great
and now played by Rachel Bloom. I know, good friend
also a fellow l A native like me. Hey, Rachel,
do you listen? I don't know, I doubt it. She
(29:57):
just follow me. I'm I should say back back to Rachel.
And but there are maybe five people who are mad
about the suffers, like don't worry, yeah, you know, and
and sometimes those people are really loud. And I would
say the majority of people have been super supportive. And
I've seen it on my Twitter. And that's not just
(30:19):
because I follow you and Matthew Cherry. I can see
everything you guys are retweeting UM. But I have seen
so many people that have really praised this film. I
do want to talk about Rachel Bloom though, and the
rest of the cast, including Sturley Kay Brown, but we
have to take a really quick break, so we're hop
back in right after this and we're back. One thing
(30:44):
that I wanted to say about Rachel Bloom. My favorite
thing that I always tell people is that she she
talks about how she got rejected like six times in
one day when she was pitching crazy ex girlfriend. On
one single day, she went out and she had, you know,
throughout the weeks, had pitched to a bunch of networks
and they all called her back on the same day.
She got like six rejections, one after the other after
the other, and UM c W was the only one
(31:05):
that gave her a chance, and that totally paid off
for them. UM taking a risk on her. But I
just remind my friends of that whenever they're having a
hard time that it's like, you know, you can get
rejected that many times. It just takes that one yes
to pop in there. That's it takes. What was your
first yes? Or like when when did you feel like
that was your a moment that it was like, yes,
(31:28):
I have made it in Um it was slow. It
wasn't a moment. Because I pitched UM when I was
at cal Arts. Um, I knew, all right, I have
to bust my ask because for the rest of my
life I could work at a coffee shop and probably
either fire to get quit, either get fired or quit
every couple of months because what I want to do
(31:52):
is be an artist. Or I can bust ask now
and um make something happen for myself and then have
a decent job as an artists. Um. So I developed
Flapjack while I was at cal Arts, and I pitched
it UM, and I was so stoked to get in like, wow,
I did it, I made it. I'm gonna pitch this
and they're gonna love It's gonna be their favorite show.
And then well I was pitching it. The lady I
(32:14):
was pitching too. Was like waving two people out her
door and like reading stuff on her desk, UM and
walk looking out the window. And it was like very clear, Okay,
I get it. Yeah, you're you're just waiting for me
to finish, so you can say no because I'm a
kid and I'm a student at school. UM. And and
she gave me a few notes and feedback or whatever
(32:36):
after and then I came back like Okay, so I
addressed those notes and I want to pitch to you again,
and she's like, oh, you know, UM, I kind of
just thought of that as a student pitch UM, come
back when you have some experience and already. And it
was like so so heartbreaking UM for me, and I
like kept taking tests to do storyboards on different shows UM.
(32:57):
And then eventually only got in UM Cartoon Network because
I kept pushing them to start a free internship program
and then I came in on the free intern UM
And then once you're in, it's like it's so much
easier and and I'm not advocating work for free, but
that's totally the only thing that has worked for me
because I was like paying tuition, which was a ton
(33:18):
of money and I couldn't afford school anymore, but okay,
I'll pay tuition so that I can go work this
free job. And then UM, and then I think I
think it was the first day, at least within the
first couple of days. UM, I was on powerpuff Girl,
which is a show that I loved, and UM, and
I was in the writer's room. They let me go
on the writer's room and they're like, well, we're out
of ideas, We've already done everything, and so UM, I
(33:41):
was like, Okay, this is my chance, and I can
do it. So I went home and wrote uh six
episodes and I brought them in the next day they
bought them, and then they let me storyboard. UM. And
then when I started storyboarding, UM, people would compliment me
and say, oh my gosh, that was so funny or whatever.
And every one of those people, I was like, Hey,
could you go tell the development exact um that you
(34:01):
thought it was really UM. So that next time I
went in to pitch my show. I mean, this was
my plan was they were looking for a reason to
say yes instead of a reason to say no. They'd
already heard from ten people say oh, you know, the
next person who should have a show, you should have
thorough pitch. Um. So the next time I went into pitch,
they already went in with that confidence like this guy
(34:22):
knows what he's doing. Um so uh. And then they
picked up Flapapa. Yeah, I love Bubby. Bubby is like
just comedically so funny in the hard action, all the
wild stuff Flapjack gets into. I love Flapjack. Thanks. Actually,
ros Ryan and I have almost exactly that relationship. She
(34:45):
treats me like and I love her. She is so
like a motherly figure to me. And still like every
time I talked to her she gives me a big hug.
Oh the baby, how are you doing then? Like exactly
exactly the relationship of flab Jack and Bubby And actually, um,
Brian del Murray and I very similar relationship. Or he's
(35:07):
just like alright, shut up, that's done. See people, it
takes some rejection. Are you don't give up? Yeah, that's
the grind is Like I always say, um, people always
think it's like a shot and it's really more so
just a battle of attrition. Like it it feels like
(35:27):
every everyone who you know, it was like I didn't work.
It was because they just got done and everyone like
you know, if you just here, eventually, eventually they got
to say yes, yeah, a million percent. Everything that I've
pitched has gotten rejected so many times, and then I
rework it and I figure out like, okay, and I
(35:47):
still believe in this um what is working for me
and isn't working for them? How do I find the
way into everyone so that they this resonates with them
the same same way that it does with me. Yeah,
But do you ever just like for me, I wrote
something that like some really respected people just loved and adored,
and some other people just didn't like. And I just
(36:09):
was like, I think I gotta let that go a
part of me at least, I you know, I guess
I I thought like, maybe it's not going to resonate
with everyone. Yeah, And I think it really is. Just
like you, they're there are people who are going to
be fans of you, and there's people who you're not
gonna be for And if you're as long as you
(36:30):
don't hang up on that and just make sure you
find your people, that's who you want anyway, you know,
I oftentimes see a lot of people fighting for people
to be there people when they're not, And then you
see like they eventually do get them, and then they're
kind of almost beholden to what this like fringe group
of their fan base likes because they don't want to
(36:53):
lose them, not realizing that the fan base at large,
you know, is there for them, are a fan of
that they create, So let that, Yeah, just make like
and that's that's kind of like the basis of I
think a lot of creative stuff, because I think when
the creative growth process in my like weird mind is
(37:15):
like you start off doing what you what you like,
and by what I mean what you like, you like
that you're kind of be making homages to the things
that inspire you, and then you start to venture more
into professional stuff, and then you start to try and
make things you think that people will want. Well that
you try and make things that you think people will like,
(37:38):
and then eventually you mature and then you just go
back to right making the stuff you like, but the
stuff that really you your voice you like, and then
that's when you really find the most success, Yeah, because
you're the most passionate about it. Yeah, And I think
like within the last few years, there's so much more
of a market for that because you don't have to
appeal to everyone anymore. You don't have to peel to
(37:58):
like every seven to twelve year old kids. You can
just make something you love and the audience will find it.
With with streaming because you don't have to uh aim
commercials at them. Yeah, you can only sell a show
or a movie or whatever. Um. If you can sell
the commercial time to this age demographic and that's gone
out the window, it's amazing. It's such a cool time
to be making TV shows. Yeah. So we did tease
(38:23):
Sterley kay Brown. Uh he is a new character, Gary
pig Um. I didn't even realize that that was him.
I was trying to I was like, man, almost has
a tinge of Idris in there. But I was like
I would know like Idris, I would have locked in
also because I just saw Hobbs and Shaw, so he's
(38:45):
but I was like, who is it? And when I
saw Sterling at the end, I was like, oh yeah,
how did that combo come together? Like picking him for
that particular character. I think that we just loved him. Um.
I think he was on Saturday Night Live and stick
(39:07):
was that he would just start crying all the time,
because that's what he does on this is us. Yeah,
he's like such a good crier and like you're like
emotionally with him all the time. And so um they
ran that as a bit and so we're like, all right,
this guy is getting upset all the time. That'd be
really funny if he was Sterling K. Brown. Um, but
we didn't want to do that exact bit. Um. So uh.
(39:29):
And it's funny because most of the characters, um, we
just drew so much from their personality and they became
their character because of the personality of the actor. Sterling K.
Brown is the least like Gary you could possibly these
that like the nicest, most sincere, like down for whatever
(39:51):
person and and maybe that's why, um we ended up
um making his character the opposite because we thought that
was funny, like it's like this guy an asshole. Um.
And then uh, he just started playing around with the
British accent and yeah, that's funny, that works, let's do it. Um.
So so he just rolled with it. We'll start wrapping up.
(40:11):
But what I did want to say is that I
saw your tweet that you said there's no better place
to be right now than at Sony Animation. It sounds
like they're really allowing filmmakers to take the risks. We
definitely saw that with a lot of not only the
heart but also the humor that you were allowed to
do in this film, which I love that. Yeah. UM.
Christine Bilson, who's the head of the studio, is amazing
(40:34):
and I think, UM, I've worked with some really amazing
UM execs, and I've worked with some who are less amazing.
And usually the reason they're less amazing is because there's
really self conscious and they give you a note and
they just want you to do it and they don't
want to talk about it. And someone like Christine, who
(40:56):
if you didn't know better, it might seem like the
opposite because she always says, I don't know, maybe something
like this. She knows exactly what she's talking about, but
she's giving you freedom. That's that's you're out to not
have to do exactly what I just said. But along
these lines, this is what we need and that's the
best UM, the best creative note that you can give
like it's missing this thing and somewhere around here, just
(41:19):
think about a better way to do it. And that's
that's everything. UM. And I think she really sees the
value in UM more original ideas. I think the new
UM Sony lineup is going to be a lot more
original movies, which is amazing, a lot more like creator
(41:40):
driven ideas, which is amazing. They're not all I p
s that are not all um uh, these well known
entities that you already know what it is. It's like
it's exciting because it's like the new stuff. All right,
let's see a bunch of new stuff, um by people
who know how to tell a story. And that's super
exciting to me. Yeah, that's what a lot of people
(42:02):
have been asking for too, So it's cool that they're
doing that. Um. I guess just to wrap it up,
what what do you hope that audiences take away from
Angry Birds too? Um? I think I think the movie
is really a metaphor for life. I think it's a
metaphor for every everyone. It's about working together with others
who are different than you, went together, being able to
(42:23):
do something you could do on your own. It's not easier,
it's almost always harder, but it's way more fulfilling and
at the um in the long run, you get something better.
Yeah whin than uh? Where can people find you? Um?
Literally just google thorop Twitter. Just type in up, just
(42:50):
type in Thorp. Yeah, I think so. You don't have
to take your your screen name from someone else. There's
like forty Danny Fernances, and there's a very big soccer
player finally beat on Google and a magician who I'm not.
He actually has a show on Netflix, so he and
I are really going. I'm just waiting. Um actually, um,
I think it's a little thro up on Instagram because
(43:11):
I created a throup and then I forgot my past.
We have both I love it and Angry Birds is
out and Your Birds Too is out right now in theaters.
Check it out. And also our friend Matthew Cherry has
hair Love the short that he directed is also before
it so both awesome, Uh pieces that you can see
(43:35):
you will cry and growing like a baby before anything
even happened. Just when the dread Dad came, I was like,
I'm a dread Dad. I knew it was going to
get you. Yeah it was who boy? But yeah, and
you know me, if you want to wait on Twitter
and Instagram, if d's on Twitch, if you want to
see me playing video games, uh, and uh, you know,
(43:59):
check Twitter for upcoming show dates. I'm at miss Danny Fernandez.
I'm gonna be at New York Comic Con. How did
I say that? New York. I'm gonna be at New
York Comic Con. I will be posting my panel, so
check me out on Twitter and Instagram. I'll definitely have
the dates and rooms you know, in the next week
(44:20):
of those so but I will see you there New York.
And as we always say, stay neardy, Stay neardy.
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode. Though very difficent. I
am your host, if you Waddy Way and sitting across
from me as own Danny Fernandez. I thought you were
going to say something now, Oh well I can, I can,
but you know, it seems so funny, fabulous, so wonderful.
(00:31):
I know it is. It is a mic drop, just
saying my own name, just saying my own name. Oh yeah, today,
it's gonna be a fun episode. We had quite a
fun time watching we did. It was a good time.
We were falling, you know, it was. It was a good,
good one. I thought you were going to pee your pants,
(00:51):
you were. We sat next to each other during this
film and it was I think it was oh a
one thirty Mattinee, which I highly recommend because they're also
a bunch of kids in there too, and listening to
them giggle, um like the person behind us, the girl
behind us, remember, oh my gosh, they just laugh at
also inappropriate Yeah yeah yeah, and they sing a hut experience. Yeah,
(01:14):
it was fun. It was fun. So today we are
talking about angry birds. We almost got it. We almost
didn't it. I don't know why I thought you should
try and say today we're joined by the director of
Angry Birds to throw up Van Orman. Thank you, yeah, thanks, yeah,
thank thank you for And you also played the seal, right,
(01:37):
did the seal? I did the worms and um the
dog most of the time. Okay, both of those killed you.
I remember your I love a good recurring bit. You know,
it's it's you know, it plays fun. And that poor
dog frozen. Oh my gosh. We yeah, we're going to
(01:58):
hop into the film because, honest to god, I was
surprised at the I mean, the humor was just so
some of it. I was like, these kids are gonna
watch this ten years from now and be like, what
it was the perfect recipe for kids film where it's like,
you know, a little something for some kids, a little
little little light something for the adults if you're paying attention.
(02:18):
And yeah, it's funny mentioned sitting next to the kids,
because when I watch it's so fun Like the first
half of the movie, the kids are like laughing all
the way through, and then I don't know, fourth the
third of the way through, then the parents started, and
then that builds them. By the end of the movie,
you can't hear the kids at all anymore. Their parents
are laughing. It's such a good time. Um. But there
(02:42):
if I wanted to also talk about some of your
history before we get into the history of Angry Birds,
because you have such a ginormous is that a word?
Ginormous history. You were also the storyboard artist for Camp Laslow,
The power Puff Girls, The Grim Adventures a Billion Mandy.
This man has worked on essentially our childhood um of
(03:02):
everyone listening. Um. You were also the creator of the
Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. What drove you to wanting to
be an animation specifically, Well, I didn't have the Internet
when I was a kid, so I actually I had
no idea that you could have a job in animation. UM.
So like um Simpson's I came on UM when I
(03:24):
was like thirteen and and it was I loved it,
but I thought, oh, that's one guy. That's one guy
who got really lucky and got to make his own show. Um.
And then, uh, I don't know. I didn't know what
I was gonna do until I was twenty four. So, UM,
I stumbled into a job making video games. My friend
got a job and I was like, what, you can
(03:45):
have a job just doing cartoon stuff. UM. And so uh,
I went to cal Arts um because that's where you
went to school to do animation. Do you feel like
that's still the same today. Um. I think a lot
of the creative people out of the directors and show
creators and stuff do come out of Calerts because you
(04:07):
do UM. You get a pretty solid foundation there and
actually probably believe more than anything, it's just because it
already has that cloud. So when you get there, UM,
it's like, I'm not the best person I know at
arts anymore. Everyone is so good um, and and coming
into it so late and having no idea that existed
(04:29):
for me, it was like Hogwarts. It was like, oh
my gosh, this now everything makes sense why I'm a weirdo.
This is this is what you can do with it.
But but then you're really you push yourself because you
feel bad. You feel bad that everyone's so much better
than you at everything. Um. And everyone's better than you
at something no matter how good you are UM at CalArts,
(04:51):
so it really pushes you um to up your work
ethic um. And you learn things from these people. You
learned like, oh people really laugh at that joke they do. Oh,
people really get bored when you make really self indulgent
student phones. So we aside from the Simpsons, were their
cartoons that you were really drawn to growing up that
(05:14):
you feel like influenced you. Um, Renan Stimpy was a
big and um yeah, I mean all of the cartoons. Um,
Smurfs was my favorite. I think Smurfs and Hemane. I
would probably have said to my friend's Hemane was my favorite,
but totally Smurfs. Was you give off a Smurfs vibe?
I can see that. Um yeah, So why don't we
(05:39):
just dive straight in if you didn't want to dive into. Yeah,
Angry Birds, let's get this nitty gritty out the way.
How we kick it all off with an explanation like?
The Angry Birds is a video game franchise created by
the Finnish company Rovio Entertainment. The series focus on multicolored
birds which try to save their eggs from green colored
pigs their enemies. Inspired by Crushed the Castle, the aim
(06:00):
has been praised for a successful commodation of fun gameplay,
comical style, and low prize. It's popularity led to many
spinoffs uh spinoff versions of Angry Birds created for PCs
and video game consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters,
a televis animated series, and a feature film by Chain
where two thousand and fourteen, there had been over two
billion downloads across all platforms, including both regular and special editions.
(06:24):
By July two thousand fifteen, the series games had been
downloaded more than three billion times Collection three for Builgon,
making it the most downloaded freemium game series of all time.
Eat That Fortnite. The original Angry Birds has been called
one of the most mainstream games out right now, one
(06:44):
of the great runaway hits of two thousand ten, and
the largest mobile apps successes the world has ever seen
so far. An animated feature film based on the series
was released by Columbia Pictures on the twenty of the
May and two thousand sixteen, and the first main series sequel,
Angry Birds to What It Do was Really East on
July two thousand fifteen. Is that I don't think that's right?
(07:05):
Is that right? Um? Now, when you're reading something, Oh
they're talking about the game, Okay, we're there, the game
Angry but you're like looking at your friend. Yeah, that
was wild. So the sequel to the game Angry Birds
two was released in July. I thought we went back
(07:26):
in time for a second. I was losing my mind.
There's something really cool. We had Sam Maggs, who is
a game developer on and ufer Insomniac Games, and she
was saying that she talks, she goes and she talks
to groups of of little girls about gaming and that um,
she'll be like, how many of you consider yourself a gamer?
And a lot of them won't raise their hands. And
(07:46):
she's like, but how many of you plays say Angry
Birds And they'll all raise their hands. And she was like,
then you're a gamer. That is a game that you're playing.
It's just so funny that people have in their head like, oh,
if it's not Fortnite, if it's not you know, World
of Warcraft or something like that, they don't consider it
a game. But she likes to say like, no, this
is a game. If you look like you have thoughts,
Oh no, no, I totally agree. And I just think
(08:08):
it's funny that people are like, oh, if I play
Angry Birds, I'm not a gamer because it's mechanics are
very similar to a game I used to play a
lot called gun Bound, where my gun bound Heads. It
was this old Naxon game where you were in these
little gun ships and you you used basically physics to
aim your shots and they would shoot across the map.
And it was based off of like an even older game.
(08:29):
But you can customize the ship, but that's kind of
the the same kind of a skeleton of angry birds
as you're aiming the shot to uh to hit it,
and you have different types of ammunition. So to me,
it's funny when it's like, oh no, I remember being
stand up late to one on the phone what my
friends were strategizing and like ganging up against people, and
(08:50):
like it's just a simpler like version that you can
just play on your phone. Yeah, mobile games are games.
They require a lot of skill and then people get
really good at them. The speakining you mentioned Fortnite, a
huge bass plays mobile a lot of the kids. And
that's what I think. I've said this on an earlier
episode is the great equalizer because like consoles run for
(09:10):
like what to three D bucks, a cell phone most
kids have it, so like if you if you have
a smartphone, you can play this like triple a game Fortnite,
which is why, like you know, everyone you know, everyone
feels some type of way. I remember when I talked
about the Diablo mobile game and a few of y'all
slid into the MS and we had, uh, you know,
some civilized conversation. Uh. But like mobile That's why I
(09:34):
like am excited by the idea of mobile games because
I called this five six years ago, back when Infinity
Infinity Blade came out for the iPhone. Uh. But that's
just my whole like aside on mobile gaming and like
it's growth and how much it's impacted like back when
Infinity Blade. Like the concept of cross platform you can
literally play Fortnite with someone on a PS four. That
(09:58):
is crazy. So now you're not you know, like if
you want to go way back when you're the kid
who didn't have the Genesis or the S and E
s and you couldn't play long, Nope, you have a
cell phone. You can play with your friends whose parents
were able to get him a PS four or an
Xbox one. You you're you include Like that is beautiful
in its own self. I did not realize that Angry
Birds was breaking down class and economic barriers by allowing
(10:22):
gameplay to everybody. That's really cool. You learn new things
on this podcast all the time. So I know that
you have kids. Were they playing Angry Birds? Like? How
are you? What was your first introduction to it before
you tapped onto this as a director. I'm sure that
you saw it or might have had it on your
phone or your kid's phones or um. To be totally honest,
(10:42):
I'd never played the game or watched the movie. That's
fine asked me to make this one, but I did
after the research. Yeah, I I Actually I'm not a
gamer at all. My first job was video games, and
I realized really quickly if I get into video games,
like I want to be good at it and I
(11:03):
will not stop um and it's not really what I
want to do with all of my time. Um uh.
So it was all or nothing, and I was like,
maybe I'll just not I'll make them. I'll play through
as much as I need to know, um to know
how it works. But UM, I think one reason that
I went into storytelling is I like the stories. I
(11:25):
like I like telling the stories. I like taling a tale. Um.
And in video games, something that's super cool about video games,
they say, like the golden rule of making the perfect
video game as it should take a minute to learn
in a lifetime to master UM. And so like you
suck them in quick and then you once you got
your hooks, and like they're they're just like trying to
(11:47):
reach a higher, unattainable level. And I think that's super cool. Um.
It's kind of similar to TV because you don't give
them too much UM and movies, though, you want to
wrap it up. You want to give them um uh
inclusive ending and make them feel like they accomplished something
and they gained something at the end of the day
and there's not more out there and have like this unsatisfied.
(12:09):
I gotta get right back into it. Um. And I
love that. I love that about TV and movies. UM.
I guess just the storytelling aspect of it. Yeah, yeah
in video games that that definitely has a overlap with
video games as well. I feel like, um and one
of the reasons why this was so successful, I feel
(12:30):
like people really latched onto the characters. Well it's funny
because yeah, like I feel like, you know, Anger Birds one,
you know kind of like wrote the wave of the
popularity of the game and too you know, And I'm
not just saying this because you're in here. I'd say
it if you weren't in here really kind of like
the improv term is heightening and and just like blowing
(12:53):
out the world. And it really did like flash out
these characters and like I think tackled some very interesting
themes and just the the aspect of like doing things
to too for because you want to be wanted and
not necessary, you know, and just like that was really
exciting and fun. Yeah. I think also an improv, it's
playing at the top of your intelligence, and I feel
(13:14):
like that's what the film did as well. Yeah, So
just wrapping up about the development. In early two thousand nine,
Rovio staff began reviewing proposals for potential games. One such
proposal came from senior game designer Jacko Lislo in form
of a simulated screenshot for youatweing some angry looking birds
with no visible legs or wings. While the picture gave
(13:34):
no clust to what type of game was being played,
I love that, just like taking it in. Like remember
that whoever first pitched um Mario, that would have just
been this plumber who has rescue a princess. Uh, stay
with me here, everybody again. It was after crushed the castle.
This is the funniest part to me. At the time,
the swine flew epidemic was also in the news, so
(13:55):
the staff made the birds enemies pigs as you do.
Um and Angry Birds was the studio's fifty second produced
game and its initial release, and like you said, it
did huge numbers here, m hmm yeah so yeah when
it first came out though, it didn't sell that many copies.
And it was after it was featured uh um. After
(14:17):
it was a featured app on the UK App Store
in February two, it quickly reached number one and it
blew up. It's funny how a little visibility, you know.
It was like this is tight, y'all, Like that's what
the app store was like, like, yo, don't sleep on this.
And being on the front page of Netflix, I feel like, um,
they always get that huge boost. I would not have
found ships Creak that way. Yeah, me neither. So good.
(14:41):
I've rewatched it so many times. Which which character do
you gravitate towards? Um? It started with David, He's such
a good character, and then slowly like um, I love
more and more Alexa and actually the mom who was
my least favorite character because I was like all right, yeah, yeah,
(15:02):
Moira her she's the most fascinating now. She just owns
like characters so much. It's amazing. I just love that
they let her take whatever risks she wants, Like if
she's she just like says like baby or whatever. She's
pronounces things how they shouldn't be pronounced. Um, there's like cool,
go with it. I love it. We have to take
(15:22):
a really quick break then we're going to jump into
the films of Angry Birds right after this. All right,
and well come back to Nerdificent. We're back and we're
going to jump right into the movies. Uh yeah, so
(15:44):
Angry Birds. The first movie was the Angry Birds movie,
also known simply as Angry Birds is released in the
UK as such, So the Plant because this is important
when we talk about two, yeah and one. It was
about a reclusive, temperamental, outcast bird named Red who lived
in a village called Bird Island with other flightless birds
(16:04):
who lead angerless lives. When his temper causes a premature
hatching of another bird's egg, he is sentenced to attend
an anger management class, the maximum penalty on the island.
Red's classmates Chuck, who is hyperactive and can move at
hyper Velosophy and Bomb, who can cause explosions with his
anger and fear, try to befriend him, but he avoids
(16:25):
them because he's angry. One day, a boat docks at
the island shore, damaging Red's house. The birds agreeded by
green colored pigs and their captain, Leonard, who claimed to
be peaceful explorers, bringing offerings of friendship. The pigs ingratiate
themselves with birds by introducing them to various innovations, notably
a giant slingshot, but begin to overwhelm the island with
their numbers. Red becomes suspicious. He recruits Chuck and Bomb
(16:46):
to find Mighty Eagle, the only flying burden island, who
has not been seen for many years. They find Mighty
Eagle on top of Bird Mountain, but he's overweight, self absorbed,
and leads the life of a slacker is not flowing years,
and refuses to help them. Red discovers that the pigs
planting dynamite around the island while other birds are distracted
with the rave party, but they arrived too late to
sound of warning. The pigs escape with the eggs and
(17:08):
activate the dynamite, destroying the village. The other birds apologize
to Read for not believing him. Under his leadership, they
organized an army and construct a boat from Rubble Fall
the Pigs to Pig Islands and the battle ensues. They
win and Red as a champion. He's a hero. He's
a hero. Yeah. So we had Jason Sadakis, Josh Gad,
Jenny McBride, Bill Hater, Maya, Rudolph, Peter Dingli just a
(17:31):
part of the cast. Um and uh then we hop
into Angry Birds too, and you so we had we
had all of the cast returning, right, Um, not most
of them. I wish that we had Keith McKinnon. She
is my hero, and boy, we had to make room
(17:53):
for some new characters and unfortunately she didn't come back,
but I love her. Yeah. Yeah, So what was it
like to work with let's say, Jason as Read, I
mean taking on that role again. Um, it was amazing.
He's so smart. I mean, most of these actors you
think they're just reading scripts or whatever, but he is
so such a smart collaboratorator, such a great improv verb. So, um,
(18:16):
you throw him a line, he's never seen it before,
and he has like this catalog of funny lines that
serve the same purpose, but are like, oh man, that's better. Um,
um super good, super smart and and actually most of
this movie was very improv really. Yeah. So we we
didn't have writers for most of the movie, like for
(18:39):
a few months at the beginning and then a few
months like three fourths of the way through. UM. But
we treated it like like in TV UM we do
board story driven shows, UM where you have an outline
and we figured out like the backbone of the movie
and then we improv. So with the storyboard artist it
was a very yes and oh and then we could
do this this, then we could do this UM. And
with the actors we did the same thing. So we
(19:01):
and we tried a lot of ideas up front. We
had like you know, basic idea of what the movie was,
um and where we needed to get to, but we
did a lot of playing around with the actors and
with all of the artists. It was fun. Yeah. Yeah,
So that's what I wanted to say, is like, well,
so you know, Anger Birds one comes out, was there
anything from one that kind of like where that you
(19:23):
were like, okay, I want to take it this way,
Like how was the baton handed off to you on
the first movie they had. Their job was to sell
why they're why they're making a movie based on the game,
um and it's Angry Birds. It has to be about anger,
and that is such a hard thing to tackle, like
this is why anger is really good? Um, which maybe
(19:47):
it is, but it's still hard to do a story
about that. UM so uh So in this movie, we
didn't really have to do that. I mean, we could
delve deeper into his issues, but it's not just about
anger issues. And that was very nice um to just
(20:07):
be able to get into like more real emotions and
why he's vulnerable. And then as far as like this
storytelling that we got to explore on this movie, we
didn't have to have them enemies, And I think that's
that's really hard and I think it's hard to like
feel good about making this movie, Like, yeah, we were
justified hating these guys what they had to do in
(20:28):
the first movie, and and this one we could like, Okay,
they hated each other at the end of the first movie.
Let's pare him up. Let's force them to work with
the people they don't I'm not people birds and pigs
that they didn't want to work with. Um and and
that's hard. Um. And it's hard even amongst Red's friends
and his friend's sister. Like he's got some issues, he's
(20:51):
got some trust issues to work out, and I think, UM,
working working on a movie, UM with a bunch of
other people. It was kind of the metaphor for working
on the movie. The movie Uh metaphor was also the
behind the scenes metaphor. It's it's definitely harder to work
(21:12):
with a bunch of other people and to collaborate, and
everyone has their own ideas that they're trying to cram
in there, um, and they don't know what you say.
There's too many hens in the henhouse. I did want
to say that kind of One of my favorite movies
is a Nightmare before Christmas, But like, essentially the messages
stay in your lane. I still think it's fabulous and
(21:37):
I love it. I love so many things about it.
But it's like at the end, people are like, so
don't venture out and try just do what you're good. UM,
So we did. It was so funny. If he leaned
over to me, was like, who is that? Uh? And
for Zada and it was Leslie Jones. Yeah, what was
it like getting to work with her? Um? It was amazing.
(21:57):
She'd worked on one thing before an animation, and I've
think it wasn't the best experience for it was a
smaller role, and I think she came in like nervous,
which was so weird for me because I wasn't nervous.
Um but um, but I love Leslie Jones and I
was just like, it was weird going into this, like
these famous people are nervous and I'm not because I
should be the one. But she was a freaking hoot.
(22:19):
I think within like five minutes she was like, we're
laughing at each other's jokes. I'm playing around and she
saw like, oh I can just be myself. Okay, I
can do that. Um. And so I would feed her
lines like okay um and and she was comfortable, like
just like reading the script. But I was like, hey,
we don't have to do exactly that. Here's here's what's
happening in the scene. Um uh, this is how you're feeling,
(22:42):
this is where we need to get to. And then
she would riff, and by far that's the best stuff. Yeah,
just allowing the artist, like allowing the comedians to take
risks and be themselves. Yeah, now that that it was
real fun having her play and stuff. And I think
just you know, just because we keep bouncing and talking
about the comedy in this film, is was was super fun.
(23:04):
Uh you know, I'm gonna keep it like all the
way real and I don't feel bad because you didn't
work on it. But I didn't see the first one,
so I came in with two and I really regretted
didn't bring my daughter because the there was like a
little baby shark nod and I knew that, but yeah, no,
that's it really, Uh like it's so funny because we're
(23:25):
raving about it online and people were like really and
I'm like, please just go see it be And it
seemed like if I had to, like, you know, do
like an armchair analysis, and I think it was kind
of like they the first movie had the hard task
of kind of being more of an adaptation of us
of a mobile app, and y'all have to have fun
with just telling a story using a character that they
(23:48):
introduced in the first movie, and that's what. It's such
a fun, fun story. I mean, yeah, Les Lake Tiffany
uh is great and just even you know the eagle,
you know, you guys picked up the torch from the
arc that they kind of like introduced from the first
one and like dunked it in such a fun way. Um,
(24:08):
you know, I feel it's it's like, look y'all, I
know you're gonna be like if he's over, you're being
on a shell. I'm like, look, go see it. Go
see it and tell me what you think. You're in
the Discord. You can tell me what you think. Thorape
won't be in there, so you can be honest. But
I'm sure you're gonna love it. There's no Yeah, it's
actually the Discord. I don't want to kick you out
the Discord. You can be in it. But it's actually
(24:29):
the highest rated video game adaptation movie. Right yeah, right
now it is taking the throne as the highest rated
video game movie, and it deserves that praise because residels
An experience the first one started off real good. Uh,
And that's what I'll say I wanted. Before we wrap
up on Leslie Jones, is Zata what can you tell
(24:52):
people about essentially that new character that was introduced. Um yeah, um, yes,
so Zada um is the villain in this movie. She um.
When we were trying to figure out who the villain
is and what her personality was. Um, we saw an
old I don't remember if it was Jimmy Kimmel, but
she was on a toxic show and said, you know
what I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to
(25:12):
be a villain in a movie. And so we're like, oh,
huh m, maybe we got to get first. Okay, So
you saw her and you were like wow, So the
character was made for her. Yep, Oh my gosh, that
is so cool. Yeah, totally, and so um we we
(25:35):
designed the character um after her, I think personality wise,
especially um and we tried to write for Leslie Jones
and tried to um anticipate what her real character would
be feeling or whatever. Um. And it kind of worked
before we had her recorded, but it was kind of
(25:56):
like flat and dry and it's like mustache poorly villain.
And then she came in and really put her personality
into it, and then it was like, oh my god,
this is the best character. Um. Yeah, she really she
really had fun with it and really put a lot
of a lot of herself into it, which was amazing.
So here's my big question, because it's always interesting working
(26:17):
with like an already established I p was Rovio precious
with you know the I piano where they you know,
nervous about any like new characters, where they kind of
gave you like they're they're great, good gracisms like we
trust you do what do what you do? Um for
the almost a million percent, that's what they did. The
(26:41):
only thing that they threw out there was like, just
to the end, could you have them go back to
the pigs and the birds going back to fighting. That's
not really but we'll we'll throw in a few like
jokey jabs that And they were totally cool with that.
They were they were amazing. Um all though, um, the fans, Uh,
(27:03):
some of the fans have had the hardest time because
we weren't precious about the video games at all. And
uh and there's a new character and the video and
the video games. Uh Silver um was a character and
we I never even played the game. Yeah, I didn't
look at it. I was like, no, we're gonna do
her own thing. She's gonna be really cute and really
(27:25):
smart and really fun. Uh. And actually I've got maybe
a hundred what a hundred d ms today from fans
are like I hate this new Silver alone y'all leave
this man alone? Was a great what is there? Wait? Okay,
so what is their complaints about her? Or that she's
(27:48):
just not like the game? To two different things, She's
not like the game, so her character is different. Most
of those have kind of died away. The whole world
that I didn't know existed was Angry Birds, um fan fiction,
and so a lot of them are like, yeah, you know,
(28:08):
my OC is dating Red, so he can't like this
other girl. Yes, the fan fiction comming. I mean, I'm
not gonna lie. I have been on those boards. Um,
not in the Angry Birds level, but definitely on the
anime level. I felt like she was done in such
(28:28):
a it was perfect because it was like, yeah, I'm
so used to being the girl that has the answers
and she's smart, and it's like she's kind of looked
over and people don't trust her and she has to
prove herself twice as much. And it was like such
a great commentary and and and especially for you know,
young girls to see. Um, I just I love that
aspect of it and kind of read I think I said,
(28:50):
I tweeted this out that it was something that did
tackle like toxic masculinity and and this feeling of identity
and insecurity that he has um where he feels like
he has to be in control or else people won't
or he has to be the center of the hero,
or people won't love him as he is. But just
the fact that she is brilliant and that kind of
(29:12):
gets you know, pushed aside for a while. I just
I loved that that was done. So I I just
did a quick because I wanted to see what the
Angry Birds Silver was. I'm in the Angry Birds, wicky.
They are detailed, they are strong. You can't underrest me
how many communities there are around there and there will
be someone who's like um, actually, and let me know,
(29:34):
nerd fam, do we have any nerd fam who's like
our our Angry Birds stand because I'm sure you will
have more than a few choice words for us. But yeah, no,
it's I think thought Silver was super fun and great
and now played by Rachel Bloom. I know, good friend
also a fellow l A native like me. Hey, Rachel,
do you listen? I don't know, I doubt it. She
(29:57):
just follow me. I'm I should say back back to Rachel.
And but there are maybe five people who are mad
about the suffers, like don't worry, yeah, you know, and
and sometimes those people are really loud. And I would
say the majority of people have been super supportive. And
I've seen it on my Twitter. And that's not just
(30:19):
because I follow you and Matthew Cherry. I can see
everything you guys are retweeting UM. But I have seen
so many people that have really praised this film. I
do want to talk about Rachel Bloom though, and the
rest of the cast, including Sturley Kay Brown, but we
have to take a really quick break, so we're hop
back in right after this and we're back. One thing
(30:44):
that I wanted to say about Rachel Bloom. My favorite
thing that I always tell people is that she she
talks about how she got rejected like six times in
one day when she was pitching crazy ex girlfriend. On
one single day, she went out and she had, you know,
throughout the weeks, had pitched to a bunch of networks
and they all called her back on the same day.
She got like six rejections, one after the other after
the other, and UM c W was the only one
(31:05):
that gave her a chance, and that totally paid off
for them. UM taking a risk on her. But I
just remind my friends of that whenever they're having a
hard time that it's like, you know, you can get
rejected that many times. It just takes that one yes
to pop in there. That's it takes. What was your
first yes? Or like when when did you feel like
that was your a moment that it was like, yes,
(31:28):
I have made it in Um it was slow. It
wasn't a moment. Because I pitched UM when I was
at cal Arts. Um, I knew, all right, I have
to bust my ask because for the rest of my
life I could work at a coffee shop and probably
either fire to get quit, either get fired or quit
every couple of months because what I want to do
(31:52):
is be an artist. Or I can bust ask now
and um make something happen for myself and then have
a decent job as an artists. Um. So I developed
Flapjack while I was at cal Arts, and I pitched
it UM, and I was so stoked to get in like, wow,
I did it, I made it. I'm gonna pitch this
and they're gonna love It's gonna be their favorite show.
And then well I was pitching it. The lady I
(32:14):
was pitching too. Was like waving two people out her
door and like reading stuff on her desk, UM and
walk looking out the window. And it was like very clear, Okay,
I get it. Yeah, you're you're just waiting for me
to finish, so you can say no because I'm a
kid and I'm a student at school. UM. And and
she gave me a few notes and feedback or whatever
(32:36):
after and then I came back like Okay, so I
addressed those notes and I want to pitch to you again,
and she's like, oh, you know, UM, I kind of
just thought of that as a student pitch UM, come
back when you have some experience and already. And it
was like so so heartbreaking UM for me, and I
like kept taking tests to do storyboards on different shows UM.
(32:57):
And then eventually only got in UM Cartoon Network because
I kept pushing them to start a free internship program
and then I came in on the free intern UM
And then once you're in, it's like it's so much
easier and and I'm not advocating work for free, but
that's totally the only thing that has worked for me
because I was like paying tuition, which was a ton
(33:18):
of money and I couldn't afford school anymore, but okay,
I'll pay tuition so that I can go work this
free job. And then UM, and then I think I
think it was the first day, at least within the
first couple of days. UM, I was on powerpuff Girl,
which is a show that I loved, and UM, and
I was in the writer's room. They let me go
on the writer's room and they're like, well, we're out
of ideas, We've already done everything, and so UM, I
(33:41):
was like, Okay, this is my chance, and I can
do it. So I went home and wrote uh six
episodes and I brought them in the next day they
bought them, and then they let me storyboard. UM. And
then when I started storyboarding, UM, people would compliment me
and say, oh my gosh, that was so funny or whatever.
And every one of those people, I was like, Hey,
could you go tell the development exact um that you
(34:01):
thought it was really UM. So that next time I
went in to pitch my show. I mean, this was
my plan was they were looking for a reason to
say yes instead of a reason to say no. They'd
already heard from ten people say oh, you know, the
next person who should have a show, you should have
thorough pitch. Um. So the next time I went into pitch,
they already went in with that confidence like this guy
(34:22):
knows what he's doing. Um so uh. And then they
picked up Flapapa. Yeah, I love Bubby. Bubby is like
just comedically so funny in the hard action, all the
wild stuff Flapjack gets into. I love Flapjack. Thanks. Actually,
ros Ryan and I have almost exactly that relationship. She
(34:45):
treats me like and I love her. She is so
like a motherly figure to me. And still like every
time I talked to her she gives me a big hug.
Oh the baby, how are you doing then? Like exactly
exactly the relationship of flab Jack and Bubby And actually, um,
Brian del Murray and I very similar relationship. Or he's
(35:07):
just like alright, shut up, that's done. See people, it
takes some rejection. Are you don't give up? Yeah, that's
the grind is Like I always say, um, people always
think it's like a shot and it's really more so
just a battle of attrition. Like it it feels like
(35:27):
every everyone who you know, it was like I didn't work.
It was because they just got done and everyone like
you know, if you just here, eventually, eventually they got
to say yes, yeah, a million percent. Everything that I've
pitched has gotten rejected so many times, and then I
rework it and I figure out like, okay, and I
(35:47):
still believe in this um what is working for me
and isn't working for them? How do I find the
way into everyone so that they this resonates with them
the same same way that it does with me. Yeah,
But do you ever just like for me, I wrote
something that like some really respected people just loved and adored,
and some other people just didn't like. And I just
(36:09):
was like, I think I gotta let that go a
part of me at least, I you know, I guess
I I thought like, maybe it's not going to resonate
with everyone. Yeah, And I think it really is. Just
like you, they're there are people who are going to
be fans of you, and there's people who you're not
gonna be for And if you're as long as you
(36:30):
don't hang up on that and just make sure you
find your people, that's who you want anyway, you know,
I oftentimes see a lot of people fighting for people
to be there people when they're not, And then you
see like they eventually do get them, and then they're
kind of almost beholden to what this like fringe group
of their fan base likes because they don't want to
(36:53):
lose them, not realizing that the fan base at large,
you know, is there for them, are a fan of
that they create, So let that, Yeah, just make like
and that's that's kind of like the basis of I
think a lot of creative stuff, because I think when
the creative growth process in my like weird mind is
(37:15):
like you start off doing what you what you like,
and by what I mean what you like, you like
that you're kind of be making homages to the things
that inspire you, and then you start to venture more
into professional stuff, and then you start to try and
make things you think that people will want. Well that
you try and make things that you think people will like,
(37:38):
and then eventually you mature and then you just go
back to right making the stuff you like, but the
stuff that really you your voice you like, and then
that's when you really find the most success, Yeah, because
you're the most passionate about it. Yeah, And I think
like within the last few years, there's so much more
of a market for that because you don't have to
appeal to everyone anymore. You don't have to peel to
(37:58):
like every seven to twelve year old kids. You can
just make something you love and the audience will find it.
With with streaming because you don't have to uh aim
commercials at them. Yeah, you can only sell a show
or a movie or whatever. Um. If you can sell
the commercial time to this age demographic and that's gone
out the window, it's amazing. It's such a cool time
to be making TV shows. Yeah. So we did tease
(38:23):
Sterley kay Brown. Uh he is a new character, Gary
pig Um. I didn't even realize that that was him.
I was trying to I was like, man, almost has
a tinge of Idris in there. But I was like
I would know like Idris, I would have locked in
also because I just saw Hobbs and Shaw, so he's
(38:45):
but I was like, who is it? And when I
saw Sterling at the end, I was like, oh yeah,
how did that combo come together? Like picking him for
that particular character. I think that we just loved him. Um.
I think he was on Saturday Night Live and stick
(39:07):
was that he would just start crying all the time,
because that's what he does on this is us. Yeah,
he's like such a good crier and like you're like
emotionally with him all the time. And so um they
ran that as a bit and so we're like, all right,
this guy is getting upset all the time. That'd be
really funny if he was Sterling K. Brown. Um, but
we didn't want to do that exact bit. Um. So uh.
(39:29):
And it's funny because most of the characters, um, we
just drew so much from their personality and they became
their character because of the personality of the actor. Sterling K.
Brown is the least like Gary you could possibly these
that like the nicest, most sincere, like down for whatever
(39:51):
person and and maybe that's why, um we ended up
um making his character the opposite because we thought that
was funny, like it's like this guy an asshole. Um.
And then uh, he just started playing around with the
British accent and yeah, that's funny, that works, let's do it. Um.
So so he just rolled with it. We'll start wrapping up.
(40:11):
But what I did want to say is that I
saw your tweet that you said there's no better place
to be right now than at Sony Animation. It sounds
like they're really allowing filmmakers to take the risks. We
definitely saw that with a lot of not only the
heart but also the humor that you were allowed to
do in this film, which I love that. Yeah. UM.
Christine Bilson, who's the head of the studio, is amazing
(40:34):
and I think, UM, I've worked with some really amazing
UM execs, and I've worked with some who are less amazing.
And usually the reason they're less amazing is because there's
really self conscious and they give you a note and
they just want you to do it and they don't
want to talk about it. And someone like Christine, who
(40:56):
if you didn't know better, it might seem like the
opposite because she always says, I don't know, maybe something
like this. She knows exactly what she's talking about, but
she's giving you freedom. That's that's you're out to not
have to do exactly what I just said. But along
these lines, this is what we need and that's the
best UM, the best creative note that you can give
like it's missing this thing and somewhere around here, just
(41:19):
think about a better way to do it. And that's
that's everything. UM. And I think she really sees the
value in UM more original ideas. I think the new
UM Sony lineup is going to be a lot more
original movies, which is amazing, a lot more like creator
(41:40):
driven ideas, which is amazing. They're not all I p
s that are not all um uh, these well known
entities that you already know what it is. It's like
it's exciting because it's like the new stuff. All right,
let's see a bunch of new stuff, um by people
who know how to tell a story. And that's super
exciting to me. Yeah, that's what a lot of people
(42:02):
have been asking for too, So it's cool that they're
doing that. Um. I guess just to wrap it up,
what what do you hope that audiences take away from
Angry Birds too? Um? I think I think the movie
is really a metaphor for life. I think it's a
metaphor for every everyone. It's about working together with others
who are different than you, went together, being able to
(42:23):
do something you could do on your own. It's not easier,
it's almost always harder, but it's way more fulfilling and
at the um in the long run, you get something better.
Yeah whin than uh? Where can people find you? Um?
Literally just google thorop Twitter. Just type in up, just
(42:50):
type in Thorp. Yeah, I think so. You don't have
to take your your screen name from someone else. There's
like forty Danny Fernances, and there's a very big soccer
player finally beat on Google and a magician who I'm not.
He actually has a show on Netflix, so he and
I are really going. I'm just waiting. Um actually, um,
I think it's a little thro up on Instagram because
(43:11):
I created a throup and then I forgot my past.
We have both I love it and Angry Birds is
out and Your Birds Too is out right now in theaters.
Check it out. And also our friend Matthew Cherry has
hair Love the short that he directed is also before
it so both awesome, Uh pieces that you can see
(43:35):
you will cry and growing like a baby before anything
even happened. Just when the dread Dad came, I was like,
I'm a dread Dad. I knew it was going to
get you. Yeah it was who boy? But yeah, and
you know me, if you want to wait on Twitter
and Instagram, if d's on Twitch, if you want to
see me playing video games, uh, and uh, you know,
(43:59):
check Twitter for upcoming show dates. I'm at miss Danny Fernandez.
I'm gonna be at New York Comic Con. How did
I say that? New York. I'm gonna be at New
York Comic Con. I will be posting my panel, so
check me out on Twitter and Instagram. I'll definitely have
the dates and rooms you know, in the next week
(44:20):
of those so but I will see you there New York.
And as we always say, stay neardy, Stay neardy.
Nerdificent News
Hosts And Creators
Dani Fernandez
Ify Nwadiwe
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