{"id":93515,"date":"2016-12-09T10:09:42","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T10:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=93515"},"modified":"2016-12-09T10:10:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T10:10:05","slug":"trollhunters-guillermo-del-toro-is-incredible-to-work-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/news\/trollhunters-guillermo-del-toro-is-incredible-to-work-with\/","title":{"rendered":"Trollhunters: “Guillermo del Toro is incredible to work with”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naturally, we will always be on board with anything that has Guillermo del Toro’s name attached to it, but the prospect of seeing him assist in adapting his own book, Trollhunters<\/strong><\/em> (which he co-wrote with Daniel Kraus).<\/p>\n

When you pair in a cast that includes Anton Yelchin (in one of his last roles), Kelsey Grammer, Ron Perlman and Steven Yeun, and experienced heads like executive producer Marc Guggenheim (Arrow<\/strong><\/em>, Legends Of Tomorrow<\/strong><\/em>), and you have something to look forward to indeed.<\/p>\n

We were lucky enough to catch up with Guggenheim to talk about Trollhunters<\/strong><\/em>, which will soon be heading to Netflix…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For those of us who may be unfamiliar, what can you tell us about Trollhunters<\/em>?
\n<\/strong>Basically, Trollhunters<\/strong><\/em> is an all-ages adventure show that\u2019s animated from the mind of Guillermo del Toro… Guillermo was involved in the creation of the project back to the original novel that he co-wrote.<\/p>\n

What the show does \u2013 and what the novel did \u2013 is introduce the audience to this underground world of trolls, as well as goblins, gruesomes and gnomes and the Trollhunter, who is supposed to be the troll responsible for maintaining the balance between good trolls and bad trolls. The reason I say \u2018supposed to be\u2019 is in our first episode, the trollhunter amulet chooses a trollhunter that is the first human ever to carry the mantle, and that\u2019s Jim Lake Jr, who is basically an everyday kid. He\u2019s in high school, he\u2019s being raised by a single mother. In many ways, he\u2019s raising her.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got a best friend, he\u2019s got a girl he\u2019s got a crush on. He\u2019s got all the ordinary things that kids in high school have to deal with, but he also has this additional burden of being the first human trollhunter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How was Guillermo del Toro to work with? Was it exciting to work with someone famed for having such a vivid imagination, as has been made clear by his previous works?
\n<\/strong>The first thing you notice when you work with Guillermo is that he\u2019s such a gentleman. He is just the warmest, most gracious human being \u2013 just a wonderful, wonderful person. What you come to realise when you work with him is there\u2019s a reason why he\u2019s Guillermo del Toro; he really has the goods.<\/p>\n

Whenever I work with him \u2013 a meeting, lunch, it doesn\u2019t matter how small the conversation is \u2013 I end up walking away having learned something, either about the business or craft or storytelling. I liken working with Guillermo to going to film school. He has so much innate talent and knowledge, and a willingness to share both, it\u2019s incredibly rewarding to work with him.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s really exciting about this project is Guillermo\u2019s voice has tended to be not age-appropriate: Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/strong><\/em>, Crimson Peak<\/strong><\/em>, Blade II<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 these are not kid-appropriate projects, and what\u2019s so great about Trollhunters<\/strong><\/em> is it really is for all ages; it\u2019s not just for kids, there\u2019s a lot adults will find interesting, funny and compelling, but there\u2019s a whole generation of people who haven\u2019t been exposed to Guillermo\u2019s vision, and I think you see the character designs and you instantly know \u2018This is a Guillermo del Toro project\u2019, and it happens to be appropriate for all ages.\"trollhunters\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Similarly, you have a fantastic voice cast. Did you have a wish list of people for the show?
\n<\/strong>Ron Pelrman obviously Guillermo has worked with for decades, so it was always a given that we would ask him to participate. When we were talking about the casting of Blinky, Guillermo said, \u201cI keep picturing someone like Kelsey Grammer in my head.\u201d Rather than getting someone like<\/em> Kelsey Grammer, we went out and got Kelsey Grammer!<\/p>\n

There were other casting choices that were really just about getting wonderful actors, Anton Yelchin is obviously Jim Lake, and brought so much warmth, energy and humanity to the role. Steven Yeun I think is one of the big surprises of the cast because we all know Steve from The Walking Dead<\/strong><\/em>, and he is a wonderfully kind, sweet person, and here he is playing a jerk, a high-school bully. It\u2019s been a wonderful experience watching Anton and Steve develop their characters so different from their personalities. Charlie Saxton \u2013 who\u2019s a name that a lot of people don\u2019t know, but eventually will know \u2013 practically steals the show as Toby.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s a wonderful mix of super well-known voices that were always on our wish list, came and were attracted to the project, and brand new voices who were very, very talented and really embodied their characters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Visually, what sort of look were you going for?
\n<\/strong>Basically two different looks to sell two different worlds: you\u2019ve got Arcadia, which is everytown USA, and we were really going for a timeless quality. One of the reasons for that was one of our touchstones were Amblin films of the Eighties. I think even though they were rooted in the Eighties, they had a timeless quality to them, and the town of Arcadia feels like 2016\/2017, but at the same time it also wouldn\u2019t be out of place design-wise in the Eighties or Seventies or Fifties. So Arcadia is very warm and timeless.<\/p>\n

Underneath Arcadia is the second world of our show, which is Trollmarket. Trollmarket is completely different; everything is constructed from rocks and crystals. One thing that Guillermo talks about is that there\u2019s a lot of motivated light in Trollmarket \u2013 in other words, things will be lit, but not necessarily from a light source, or the light source won\u2019t be immediately apparent. What that does is first of all, it fools your eye into seeing that you\u2019re in a magical place, because subconsciously you recognise that there\u2019s nothing generating this light, so it makes the whole world feel very magical.<\/p>\n

The other thing it does is really brightens things up, and makes incredibly colourful what could otherwise be a very drab, dark underground lair. So the ambition of Trollmarket I think is really remarkable, and the two worlds feel very different, as they should, because the show\u2019s about many things, but one of the things is the bridging between these two worlds.\"trollhunters-4\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What were the biggest challenges in adapting the source material?
\n<\/strong>I would say certainly the biggest challenges were all on the production side. This show started out a movie \u2013 originally it was a feature, and the biggest challenge of the feature was how do you cram all of Guillermo\u2019s ideas and this deep mythology into an hour and a half? Fortunately, when Netflix offered to make the series, that problem went away, we suddenly had the real estate for all of the things that we needed to do.<\/p>\n

But the show always kept \u2013 I think in a very good way \u2013 its roots as a feature film. It looks like a movie. I think we were really pushing the envelope in what you can do and what an audience can expect from an animated series, as opposed to an animated film. That\u2019s obviously very challenging: it required the work of five different animation studios, cutting-edge special effects technology, cutting-edge particle dynamics, really a remarkable combination of technology and artists to pull off something that no one else has ever pulled off before.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You\u2019re better known for cable shows and films \u2013 how were Netflix to work with, and how did it differ from other shows?
\n<\/strong>Really night and day, to be honest with you. Netflix were always supportive of basically doing things in a very atypical way.<\/p>\n

Unlike a lot of animated shows, this is serialised, each episode has a beginning, middle and end, but there are subplots, character development. I think in most animated shows, the characters in episode 100 are the same characters in terms of their personalities than they were in episode one.<\/p>\n

Netflix was always very encouraging and supportive of our desire to really tell a long-tale story where the characters would grow and evolve and change. When you have three of your protagonists being kids, there was a real craving on our part to watch those kids do what kids do, which is grow up and develop and learn from their experiences, and not be the same people that they were in the pilot. Quite frankly I can\u2019t think of a single thing that we proposed or pitched on the show that Netflix wasn\u2019t supportive of.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trollhunters<\/em> will be available to stream worldwide on Netflix from 23 December 2016. For all the latest TV news, pick up the new issue of SciFiNow.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exec producer Marc Guggenheim talks us through Trollhunters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":93522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1718,7,3,207],"tags":[5524,4938],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Trollhunters-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}