TMNT Mutant Mayhem: Director Shares Behind-the-Scenes Insight

Article by Ben Mallock

Photo courtesy of Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for SCAD

SCAD’s 26th annual film fest has had loads of amazing panels happen throughout its duration (October 21st to the 28th), and one that RenderQ surely can’t shy away from is the screening of “TMNT: Mutant Mayhem”, with director and writer Jeff Rowe. Like many events at the fest, the screening was followed by a Q&A with the director, moderated by senior artisans Variety editor Jazz Tangcay. While it’s safe to say that the movie was just as amazing seeing it my second time around, I’m here to answer the question that readers who missed the panel should be asking: “What did Rowe have to say?”

After the credits of the movie rolled, Rowe appeared on stage with Tangcay to get the Q&A session started with an easy question for the director. “Who’s your favorite turtle?” Rowe laughed in his seat before composing a response. “I can’t choose any of my sons… but it’s absolutely Donnie’ (Donatello)” Glad we got that one out of the way.

It didn’t take long for serious behind-the-scenes questions to arise regarding the development of the movie. “Since there’s a lot of 2D elements to this 3D animated movie, I was really curious how you guys went about integrating those elements together into a cohesive film?”

Rowe responded. “I mean, it was a long journey, and this isn’t fully exactly what we expected when we started, but the 2D stuff I think was just a way to differentiate it. There’s something about the nature of 3D in the film that is very based in our 2D drawing style”. 

Rowe apologized for a “long-winded answer”, but then started to break it down. “There’s stylistic elements, like the way we model the environments, and do things that are specifically CG and 3D that mimic 2D drawings; like broken perspective, and things that we found in the way that Woodrow White, our character designer, draws. On top of that, it just made sense to have lines extending off the characters. We wanted the turtles to feel like they drew themselves, and they lived in a world of their own creation. Putting 2D effects on top of that made sense. I think it would’ve looked silly to see perfect CG explosions next to it.”

“Since the Ninja Turtle’s franchise is like- along the same movies and shows, how would you differentiate your film out of the ones that were made in the past? What made yours unique?” 

Rowe pondered this question for a moment before producing a response. “I think the number one thing, and the first big differentiator, was we really wanted them to feel like actual teenagers. Like, historically the Ninja Turtles have been voiced by grown men, and (resulted in) super muscular ‘roided out turtles, that, is not like any teenager that I’ve ever known in my life, and we’re like ‘They should feel like authentic real teenagers and real people’ and that kinda lead to the performance style, the way we recorded the voices, and then also the artstyle. And I think we made a choice early on to never make a decision based on Ninja Turtles canon. Like, our duty as filmmakers was to tell an effective story, and an emotional story, so we never wanted to (be) like; ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be cool if we put the Ninja Turtles theme in here? That would be a fun easter egg for fans!’ But, is that the right piece of music to use? Will that actually communicate the emotion? We really wanted to make something that exists on its own and doesn’t require previous knowledge of the franchise to appreciate.” It can be really appreciated that Rowe didn’t shy away from producing a fulling answer.

“What 3D animation software did you guys use, and what software did you guys use to paint those textures onto the 3D animation.”

While a lot of fans all over have voiced their appreciation for the film’s artstyle, it’s important to know how it’s actually produced. Rowe answered the question. “I think it was mostly done in Maya, the animation at least, and then- it’s a very technical answer for the tech people (animators) in the crowd-” SCAD students studying technical animation cheered from the audience. Rowe cheered as well before resuming his response. “And this movie would not exist without pipeline people, ‘compo people’ (composition artists), layout artists, like so many things that are a little bit less celebrated than the vis-dev artists, but it’s really a marriage of the ;“technical and the artistic;” to get one of these things (textured objects) to look like this, so, it was a really comp-heavy show. Many things were rendered with different layers of surface texture turned on and off, and then combined together in comp to reveal- If you look at the transition areas from light to shadow on the characters, it has a kind-of sketchy, hand drawn breakup. I don’t know what surfacing software they used, but surfacing and comp was really what delivered the look for us.”  

“One of my favorite parts was the “No Diggity” scene, and I loved all the music that was chosen for this movie. What came down to (the process of) ‘Yea this is the song we should use for this scene?’”

 The scene in question was a sequence in the film’s second act, featuring all four turtles beating up criminals for intel on a missing device, synchronized to Dre Dre and Blackstreet’s hit song, No Diggity. What did the director have to say about this process of idealization? “My process is one of ‘what sparks joy?’ It’s very intuition based, and it’s very, like, trying stuff, and then just knowing when I like something and committing to it. That sequence was a paragraph in a script that was like, ‘The turtles beat up a bunch of criminals and get information.’ And then we gave it to a storyboard artist, this guy John Jackson, who’s really great, and he was like ‘Hey, can I try this like, thing, this like intercutting, match cut, Everything Everywhere All At Once kind of thing?’ And I was like ‘Yea, sure, go for it, that sounds fun!’ And then he came back with that sequence, almost boarded exactly as it is, and he was like ‘Was this too much? Can we put this in the film?’ And I was like ‘Fuck yea man, thats incredible!’ So we took it into editorial, we built it out, and we’re like ‘We need like a song, like a driving piece of music over this.’” Rowe discussed how he and his team went through a lot of trial and error to find a song that matched the upbeat and exciting mood they were aiming for. “The way this works in edit, is I’ll kind of say to Greg (Machine room operator Gregory Mitchell), or Evan (Writer Evan Goldberg); ‘Hey play that!’ And I’ll just like, play a song on my phone and kinda listen to it and be like ‘Nah that’s not it, that’s not it.’ It was eventual that Rowe pitched No Diggity as the song for the sequence, realizing it was perfect. “There was a long struggle where we maybe weren’t gonna be able to clear that song, and we had to like, search for replacements, and thankfully it all worked out in the end. Yea, it was just a thing that we tried and it came alive when we did it.” Fantastic insight for creating an equally fantastic sequence.

Before anyone knew it, a fan in the audience asked the final question for the session. “How did it feel knowing you were taking some risks with some of what you were putting into the film, and how you would recommend that we can take some risks with our own work”

Rowe obviously made big changes development-wise for this entry in the TMNT franchise, which is why Rowe acknowledged how great the question was. “It’s scary, it’s terrifying. I’d love to lie to you and be like; ‘We were bold, and fearless, and we knew everything would work because we’re brilliant.’ But we had no idea. We did a lot of things that they tell you you can’t do in animation. It’s a dark film, visually, and in totally too. Character’s faces are in shadows sometimes, and not lit. We do a lot of things that are common in live action but not really in animation. We did these things because we liked them and we thought they told the story well, but there was a lot of people the entire time that were like; ‘We don’t know if this is gonna work, can we try something else? Can we do this?’ And we kinda had to lock arms as a team and say ‘We believe in this. We like this. We trust ourselves as artists, and if we think this is going to pan out, then we’re gonna roll the dice.’ And it was really in these honest, vulnerable conversations between me and the team, that we kind of came to a consensus of what the film should look like.” Discussing the forces that tried to halt Rowe’s work for the movie made him elaborate on the topic of not letting anything halt work in general. “And I think when it comes to your own work, like, don’t try to think about the world, don’t try to think about school, don’t try to think about what will get you a job and what won’t. Just think about what makes you happy. Trust your own taste. If you’re drawing a face you’ll put a line down and then you’ll say; ‘Wait no, that’s a stupid line, that’s a bad line, I hate that line.’ And just don’t listen to that voice. Try to shut it off, try to keep going, try to do the thing that makes you happy.” Very wise words to share.

On the way out of the theater, I had the privilege to ask Rowe one last question of my own. “What was it like coming to SCAD, presenting and doing this panel;  impression-wise?” For his first time being a guest at SCAD’s Film Festival, I was curious what thoughts the director had on coming here and seeing the animation population that mainly filled the audience of his panel. “It was so cool! The passion is so huge among the students, everyone is like, so nice and enthusiastic, and I really think you guys are the future of animation. The future’s in good hands.”

SCAD owes Kyle Rowe a ginormous “Thank You” for coming to speak at SCAD’s 26th annual film festival, and hope to have the privilege of hearing more of his filmmaking insight again in the future.