Kensuke’s Kingdom - From Page to Screen
Last weekend the BFI London Film Festival showcased the British premiere of Lupus Films' animated adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel, ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’. The film features audio post-production delivered from start to finish by String and Tins, headed up by sound designer and re-recording mixer, Will Cohen.
To expand on how the team collaborated during the making of the feature, Will is joined by composer Stuart Hancock, executive producer Barnaby Spurrier, and directors Kirk Hendry & Neil Boyle.
LBB> Will, what was the brief from the client and how did you approach the sound design for this adaption of such a well-loved children's book?
Will> I suppose there was more of a discussion on tone and immersion rather than a prescriptive brief as such. One aspect the directors were keen to emphasise was that the dialogue and sound design should be rich in detail and depth in terms of perspective, movement and layers. We wanted to push the environmental sounds for the world Michael is immersed in, be it on the boat with his family, or the unfamiliar environments he finds himself in later in the film. Being hand drawn, there's quite a lot of scope to explain elements of the story with sound that the picture leaves space for, but also the layouts / backgrounds in the film were so beautiful there was plenty of depth to marry to that sonically.
On a basic level my first job was to build up a toolkit of sound effects for the film: surround array captures of locations, my own field recordings of waves out at sea near Dartmouth and specific props on the boat the vessel in the film was modelled on, ambiences and animal sounds recorded in the pacific islands including some rare recordings of orangutans from field recordist Marc Anderson, a big chunk of material from my old colleague and mentor Richard Lambert (thanks so much Richard!); collecting sounds and sharing with the editor Richard Overall was the first step. Once I started getting the animatic through, I laid out first passes of backgrounds and then started working on some of the sound design sequences that would need more heavy lifting.
LBB> What approach did you take for recording dialogue in the film, especially considering the difficulties posed by Covid restrictions, and the desire to capture natural actor movements?
Will> Amongst the directors' references for dialogue were the well documented recording techniques used in Fantastic Mr. Fox - look it up! But as a lot of our dialogue sessions were remote or restricted due to Covid faff we had to make the best of the situation. Adam Smyth our dialogue maestro and I spent some time looking at the best microphone setup we could achieve for the brief - we wanted to make sure we could capture enough natural movement with the actors without having to get into doing tech pickups because of placement. We eventually opted for a quad recording setup involving head worn mics as well as the usual boom etc. This way, we could decide in the mix which mic best suited the shot while having backups for any potential proximity issues on the recordings. One session with Aaron (who plays Michael in the film) which turned out great in the mix, involved me throwing glasses of water into his face while he read his lines for some of the at sea moments... I won't spoil it... but he was a great sport and his mum watching on found it all very amusing.
LBB> What were the most challenging and or satisfying elements on this project?
Will> Probably the most challenging moment in the film was the storm at sea - it involved a lot of material as you might expect: boat creaks, water on the hull, waves crashing, ropes jangling, hooks and metal accoutrements tinkling, howling wind, the sails flapping, thunder booming, rain hammering on all the different surfaces on the boat, and the panicked dialogue of the family over the storm - it was a tough balancing act but hopefully intense enough to make the audience feel like they're on board with the family while still making all the story beats clear enough. Once this mass of noise was created and under our control in the mix, one of the best decisions by Kirk the director was to have near silence when under water to create the dynamic in certain moments - best to see it to understand what I mean. One excellent reference came from Barnaby Spurrier, one of the producers on the film - we had done a wip mix and he came in to review it - being an experienced sailor himself he knew how deafening it was to be in a storm like that. He showed me a video on his phone of a boat he had been on out at sea, with enormous waves engulfing it, and elaborated on how you couldn't hear each other over the din - this was great direction on it needing to be another few degrees towards the maximum one might tolerate in a cinema.
LBB> What are you particularly happy with in the end result?
Will> There's no particular section of the film to be honest but I'm super happy to have learned so much from the directors Kirk and Neil - they had brilliant intuition about the dynamic needed and how to push some of the more cerebral/imagined moments. Another aspect I'm most thankful for is the awesome work of our team bringing this special story to life, so big ups to Adam Smyth, Jim Stewart, Kaspar Broyd, Eimear Gorey and Julien Pirrie (plus his colleagues on foley) - it was great to have all this talent on board!
LBB> Stuart, as composer, did you have any particular inspirations or influence from other animated films?
Stuart> I could name many favourites, especially the scores of John Williams and Alan Silvestri (which featured in the temp scoring) and I love what John Powell does in animated films like How To Train Your Dragon. That said, whilst Kensuke is definitely a good traditional family adventure film, it’s also a thoughtful, relatively slow-burning and gentle piece of storytelling, and so the score supports that sort of pacing. It makes the action sequences, when they do happen, all the more effective and brutal!
LBB> How do you feel the music drives the classic adventure story forward?
Stuart> The sound and music play a crucial role in the storytelling – it’s how the directors always imagined it, given there is so little spoken dialogue in the film. It’s a big orchestral score that’s built on clear musical themes to drive it along. Early on in the creative process, I sketched motifs and melodies for the characters and situations, including a big exuberant ‘Peggy-Sue’ opening main adventure theme that connects Michael to his family (even when you hear two or three notes of it); also a recognisable ‘love theme’ for the bond between the castaways, and a simple theme for the dog, which I based on the two syllables of her name ‘Stella’. There’s also a slightly smoky ‘island’ motif that we hear subliminally when Michael is first washed ashore, but which naturally emerges as the chant that I wrote for Kensuke to sing to summon the orangutans. It was a gift to have the opportunity to create a properly symphonic work that is really narrative with a considered, coherent thematic structure to support such a beautiful film!
LBB> What challenges or considerations did you encounter when producing an animated film that deviates from the contemporary 3D animation norm and leans into a more nostalgic style from the past?
Barnaby Spurrier> The story itself is in one sense timeless – it is a classic adventure story that goes all the way back to Robinson Crusoe, and logically our narrative is most probably set in the 1980’s. But the whole point was to emphasise this timelessness. It’s a story for everyone for all times, so in fact avoiding the use of the more contemporary animation styles was the obvious decision to make. Moreover the story is one about the fragility of the natural world and our capacity to damage it – and our potential to preserve it. Therefore a hand drawn, organic approach to the production felt much more attuned to the core of the story than a computer generated, VFX heavy process.
LBB> Given the rich history and beloved status of Michael Morpurgo's novel, how did you approach ensuring that this adaptation lived up to fan expectations, while also introducing the story to a new generation of viewers in a fresh way?
Barnaby> Firstly we are indebted to the screenplay writer, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who was responsible for delivering the screenplay. But it has to be said that the screenplay and the film itself did not depart from the spirt of Michael’s novel. Some details might change to add drama and help with storytelling or build emotional impact more visually, but the wonderful thing about classic stories is just that. They are classic because they are rooted in a truthfulness that is as relevant now as when they first appeared. I think the single most important thing we did that only a film can really do is to make the island - Kensuke’s kingdom – a character in its own right in the narrative. I hope you get a visceral sense of the beauty of the place, the vitality of the fauna and the richness of the flora, so that when it is under threat you understand the decisions of Michael and Kensuke more easily than you might as a reader of the book. It’s also worth adding that sadly the environmental message of the story is even more powerful and relevant to an audience now than it was when first published and that fact alone makes the film absolutely contemporary.
LBB> Considering the animation styles of the late 90s and early 2000s, what drove your decision to combine the aesthetics of 2D characters and 3D environments for Kensuke's Kingdom? Were there specific moments or scenes where this style significantly enhanced the storytelling?
Neil Boyle> Kirk and I have always felt that there is an innate charm to hand drawn animation. There is something about it that feels almost like a book illustration coming magically to life in front of your eyes. It allows the viewer to suspend their disbelief almost instantly. But for all the charm of hand drawn imagery, we also wanted to be able to immerse our audience into the world of Kensuke and Michael, and move our camera in 3D depth when we needed to. For example, there is a scene where Michael walks through a small doorway and steps out onto Kensuke's treetop balcony, which reveals a vast jungle vista all around him, and we wanted this moment of revelation to happen to both Michael and our audience at the same time. So, in a single tracking shot, we followed our 2D hand drawn Michael out onto a balcony that we had constructed in 3D space, making sure to blend and light everything seamlessly, so it feels like one coherent world.
With Stuart Hancock's rousing musical score, and all the creaks of bamboo and distant bird calls that Will Cohen and his sound team added to the picture, it becomes a really beautiful and powerful moment in the film.
LBB> Kirk, your approach to children's filmmaking, as seen in Kensuke's Kingdom, is sincere and shies away from slapstick or overt comedic elements. Could you discuss the inspiration behind this approach and how you hoped it would resonate with younger audiences?
Kirk Hendry> Neil and I have always been fans of cinematic storytelling, where you try and limit the dialogue as much as possible, so you have something closer to a silent film, that utilises blocking, performance, sound design and music as the main tools to get across the thoughts, intentions and feelings of the characters. By its nature, this requires the audience to get invested a bit more in working out what is going on than in films that rely more on the characters telling you what is going on. We feel this approach treats the audience with respect and doesn’t talk down to them.
Additionally, the most memorable early film experiences from Neil and my own childhoods were the films that didn’t shy away from more mature themes and included some hard-hitting scenes that stayed with us the rest of our lives in ways other films didn’t. So now we are making our own films, we are conscious of trying to deliver that same experience for a younger audience today, because its actually quite rare. There are a few scenes like that in Kensuke’s Kingdom, the Nagasaki flashback for instance. In design terms it is very simple, Japanese brushstroke drawings come to life, but the content is hard-hitting and it stays with you long after you leave the cinema. We have found that when you play drama straight, audiences of all ages respond and get pulled in and there is no need to tailor the action specifically for children.
In the English speaking world there is a misconception that animation is for children, but this is not the case in other countries where they realise it is a medium that can tell any type of story to any age group. It's a type of magic.
Kensuke's Kingdom is due for release in 2024, but here’s a sneak peak of some released footage:
