A Wild Movie

Back in 2008, author and illustrator Peter Brown asked himself, “What would an intelligent robot do in the wilderness?” Eight years and many drafts later, he had his answer: She’d make the wilderness her home. Her story became the best-selling book The Wild Robot.

DreamWorks Animation is bringing Brown’s novel to the big screen on September 20. This animated version tells the same story, just bigger. ROZZUM unit 7134—aka Roz—is a robot who boots up to find she’s been shipwrecked on an uninhabited island. Roz learns to survive in the wilderness and befriends the wild animals living there. Writer and director Chris Sanders and head of character animation Jakob Hjort Jensen brought her story—and all of its characters—to life.

Peter Brown is an author and illustrator. In 2008, he asked himself, “What would an intelligent robot do in the wilderness?” He spent the next eight years writing a book about it. In the best-seller The Wild Robot, a robot makes the forest her home.

Now Brown’s novel is coming to the big screen. DreamWorks Animation is releasing it on September 20. This animated version tells the same story as the book—just bigger. The main character is a robot named ROZZUM unit 7134, or Roz. She boots up to find she’s been shipwrecked on an island. Roz learns to survive in the wilderness. She befriends the wild animals living there.

Brown’s original black-and-white art in the book is very stylized and abstract. But Sanders and Jensen wanted to make The Wild Robot’s look much more realistic. So they started with the animals. Usually when making an animated movie, Sanders and his team are used to creating animals that do things like humans do: They drive cars, go to a job, and wear ties. “But this is the first film where we got to work on animals who are animals, and it has been absolutely fantastic,” Sanders says. The team spent hours watching film of animals. Not only did they want to understand how real birds and bears move, but they also studied how the critters behaved. “It was important to us to inject as much animal behavior into the characters as we could,” says Jensen.

The realism also extends to The Wild Robot’s overall style. With advances in technology, they could add what Sanders calls “analog warmth.” These tools make the movie look more like classic hand-drawn animation—but without the hundreds of extra hours of work. “Every background is digitally hand-painted,” Sanders explains. “And a well-painted painting can sometimes look, in its own way, more real than a photograph.”

Chris Sanders wrote and directed the movie. He and lead animator Jakob Hjort Jensen brought the story to life. The art in the book is black and white. It has a dreamy cartoon style. But Sanders and Jensen wanted to make the movie more realistic. They started with the animals.

Sanders and his team had animated animals before. But in other movies, the animals do things humans do, like drive cars and work at jobs. “This is the first film where we got to work on animals who are animals,” says Sanders. “It has been absolutely fantastic.”

The team spent hours watching film of animals. They wanted to understand how real birds and bears move and behave. “It was important to us to inject as much animal behavior into the characters as we could,” says Jensen.

The movie’s overall style is realistic too. The filmmakers used new technology to make it look more like classic animation. Animators used to draw thousands and thousands of images by hand. Modern tools save them hundreds of hours of work. But there’s still a human touch. “Every background is digitally hand-painted,” explains Sanders. The result can look as real as a photograph!