EXCLUSIVE Interview with Jared Bush at the Annecy Film Festival!

As some of you may know, this past week has been the Annecy Film Festival, an international celebration of all things Animation. I (thanks you some generous donations and ebay auctions) was able to attend this year on behalf of ZNN, and thanks to help from Disney, was able to secure an interview with Jared Bush!

I will be posting more about the rest of the Zootopia 2 events later today, but I wanted to get the interview out ASAP. So without further ado…

JARED BUSH INTERVIEW

 

Andy: Hello, everybody! I’m Andy Lagopus, here with the one and only Jared Bush!

Jared: Hello. How’s it going?

Andy: Good. So before we get started, we need to address the elephant in the room.

Jared: Go ahead

Andy: Jared.

Jared: Yeah.

Andy: Happy birthday!

Jared: Yeah, thank you very much!

Andy: You get that a lot?

Jared: You know what, this is the first time I’ve gotten it, so thank you. I appreciate it.

Andy: Alright, well, you certainly gave us all the gift with the presentation earlier today.

Jared: Very good.

Andy: That was way more than I expected. That was so cool. So good.

Jared: Yeah well I’d say everyone’s been working very hard. It was exciting to show off everybody’s work today.

Andy: I bet. Has it been hard keeping all that under wraps for so long?

Jared: Yeah, it really is. I think this is the nice part we get to start talking about it. But as you can imagine, for years we’re keeping this storyline under wraps. Honestly, it is the most fun to finally be able to talk about it. And more importantly, you know, there’s 800 people that work on any of these movies. To be able to put everyone’s work out to the world where other people can see it and appreciate it, it’s one of the best moments as you’re working through the movie, when that finally gets to be seen.

Andy: I bet. So how’s production on this been compared to the first, because like, first time y’all were over in that, uh, warehouse on-

Jared: yeah, Tajunga.

Andy: -Vine and Tajunga.

Jared: Yeah. I mean, Tajunga will always have a special place in my heart. It was such a weird, a weird location to make a movie, but it also sort of bonded everybody together. This one has been a really fun challenge, you know? I think that across the board, people are feeling the expectations and wanting to raise the bar. But it’s not just mammals, as you know, coming in this movie. We have reptiles and we have locations that we never saw, and so trying to figure out how to do that and make it feel completely of the world while, you know, dealing with animals. Like, Walrus and sea lions that are not bipedal, they move very differently.

Andy: Yeah. And dolphins. I saw a dolphin in there.

Jared: Yeah, there was a dolphin. So that’s a very different philosophy about how they move around. So one of the things we spent a lot of time with early on was, “okay, well we’ve seen a rabbit and a fox move around, but uh, you know, does the sea lion move the same way?”. And we found that they actually had to be a little bit more… the ratio of animal to bipedal had to be a little bit more animal for an animal like a sea lion for it to feel like a sea lion that you recognize and for the personality to be there.

Andy: Makes sense. And I saw in the marsh market scene, there were parts of the town that were fully underwater.

Jared: That’s right.

Andy: Like cafes and such.

Jared: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s another really fun part of this world is, you know, if you think about it, an animal that is made to be above and below water, why would they not have places to hang out underwater? And thinking about how they would use that, which animals would feel the most comfortable. And of course, you know, with marine mammals or semi-aquatic animals, some can hold their breath for a really long time. Some just for a little bit, some just like being in the water, but don’t really swim underwater that much. And so figuring out how to use that and how to showcase that, it was a really fun thing for us to take on.

Andy: Yeah, for sure. I bet. Will we be seeing any other, like large ones like whales and whatnot, or…?

Jared: Um, man, I can’t get into too many spoilers…

Andy: No worries.

Jared: Probably, what you saw today or what was implied today. I think for this movie, that’s probably about the extent of that location.

Andy: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I’ll take that as vague hints towards the future,

Jared: Who knows?

Andy: Maybe. We’ll see. We’ll see.

Jared: Yeah.

Andy: So when the teaser trailer came out, we saw just like flashes of characters.

Jared: Yes.

Andy: There’s like some, a single frame long and, and I went through and like paused and analyzed each one.

Jared: Yeah.

Andy: And, um, one of them looked a lot like the armadillo doctor from the original. Was that the cop?

Jared: Dr. Armadillo! [pronounced “ahr-ma-dee-yo”]

Andy: Yeah. Dr. Armadillo?

Jared: Yeah. I’d say,while it looks like that, it is not Dr. Armadillo in this film.

Andy: Is it the cop that was in the therapy scene?

Jared: That’s, that’s one of ’em.

Andy: Okay.

Jared: You see Marlon and Greg are the two of those two that are in that location.

Andy: That was the name!

Jared: So no, no. Dr. Armadillos not back, but oh man I love an armadillo, and finding a way to take advantage of this movie has been really fun.

Andy: Alright. Yeah, I was wondering if there were gonna be any other characters that had got cut before and-

Jared: snuck back in? Well, I mean, you’ve probably seen there’s these two Razorback hogs.

Andy: Yeah. From the T.U.S.K..

Jared: Yeah. I always loved them and so they now play a pretty significant role in this film. I mean there are, I’d say, there’s a lot of Easter egg characters in here that hopefully people will see and recognize that are coming back around.

Andy: Alright. And so you said in the presentation it takes place like immediately after the first film?

Jared: Yeah.

Andy: Like they get home from Gazelle’s concert the next day type thing. Yeah?

Jared: So, it’s about a week after the event of the first film. I think the trick that a lot of people forget is that, when Nick and Judy arrested Mayor Bellwether, there was a time skip where Nick then went to the police academy.

Andy: Right! Yeah!

Jared: And then became a cop, and then that’s actually when the movie ended, so, it’s a week after that. Not after the arrest.

Andy: Right. That makes sense.

Jared: There’s been a little bit of time there. But in terms of Nick and Judy being official partners and him being a true member of the force, it’s been about a week, so they’ve still got a lot of stuff to work out.

Andy: Okay. So go from what I understand, from what you showed, basically he gets on the force, has this job for a week, but doesn’t even get his full, first legit paycheck before he’s on the run again.

Jared: You know, I think Nick makes different choices in life. And I think that Judy also makes choices for him in life. So, we will see how the movie ends. But I’d say that, yeah, I think he’s just starting to acclimated when things get turned upside down.

Andy: Alright. And given the short timeframe, are we still going to see repercussions from the first movie, like the societal upheaval bellwether caused, like, is there gonna be consequences or…?

Jared: Well, interesting, so I think again, with the six month time skip at the end of the first film. I’d say that there’s… I don’t wanna give away too much, but I’d say that, largely, the events of the first film are just, you know… it’s kind of human nature. There’s, moments that there’s flareups of something that happens, but there’s there’s not really a direct correlation of something where you go, “oh, that happened here. And the characters are sort of still dealing with that.”

That said, you know, Nick and Judy, which the movie is so focused on, they are still trying to figure out themselves and what happened with them and as you saw in one of those scenes, even [Judy is] referencing, “well, we did kind of do a great job there.” And so it’s really, I’d say more than anything focused on their character journey in the first film. And that’s something that will be coming back around in this one.

Andy: Alright. And one last question.

Jared: Sure.

Andy: And I know you’re short on time and stuff, but I am obligated to ask on behalf of all Zootopia fans…

Jared: please.

Andy: WildeHopps?

Jared: I don’t know what that is.

Andy: Nick and Judy relationship?

Jared: (Coyly) I, I will say again, I don’t know what that is.

Andy: Ah, Uhhuh.

Jared: I’ll say that I’ve seen many opinions about what should happen. I will give away nothing.

Andy: Okay.

Jared: …But I will say that their pairing is one of my favorite things in the world. I believe that they are soulmates. And I think continuing their, their journey is something I’m hoping people are really gonna like because this, this really is a movie about these two trying to understand each other better and themselves better.

Andy: Yeah. You mentioned that the first movie was like the honeymoon and this was the moving in together phase.

Jared: Yeah.

Andy: Yeah. That’s not really a phase, most movies about relationships and such explore.

Jared: No. You know what, and, and part of that is that there’s not a whole lot of sequel stories to buddy cop movies.

Andy: No, there aren’t!

Jared: Or [relationship] movies in general because, by the time these odd couple comes together, you’re like, “that’s as much as I need and I’m, I’m good.” So for this one, knowing we wanted to go back in, [we thought] “how can we tell a story that continues their journey that makes sense and feels organic?” And I think because they had just barely gotten to know each other, the sense that they still have a lot to learn was on the forefront of our development from the beginning.

Andy: Alright, well thank you so, so much.

Jared: My pleasure.

Andy: It is a true honor to be able to interview you.

Jared: Well dude. Good to see you again.

Andy: Yeah, good to see you too.

Jared: Uh, I can’t wait for you to see the rest of it.

Andy: Yeah, we can’t wait to see it either.

Jared: Good.

Andy: Looking forward to it!

 

And there you have it! Was it worth the trip halfway around the world? Absolutely!

By the way, if you support us on Patreon, I posted a blooper that I ended up cutting out of this. Nothing of consequence, but it was funny!

Remember friends, as always…

Try Everything!

-Andy Lagopus