Star Interview

Chris Sanders Interview!

Domenico Misciagna: I met Chris Sanders in Rome. Sanders is co-directer of The Croods, the new cartoon from DreamWorks 

Animation. The Croods is about a family of cavemen forced to leave their home due to the imminent end of the world. 

Before moving to DreamWorks, Chris worked at Disney, storyboarding The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin 

and The Lion King. He was promoted to co-writer and head of the story on Mulan, then made his debut as a director with 

Lilo & Stitch, along with Dean DeBlois.

 

Chris Sanders: Before The Croods, I always co-directed with DeBlois. It's easy to be infected by his joy. 

 

 

 

D.M.: John Cleese, ex-Monty Python, is credited as co-writer of The Croods. Would you please share his history with the 

film?

 

C.S.: John and my co-director, Kirk De Micco, had already written a first version of the film. I came on later. Kirk and 

I kept the main idea, that Grug's father -- played by Nicolas Cage -- has an exaggerated fear of all that is new. That 

new technologies terrorize. And this was John! John does not love technology. [...] His contribution is the DNA of the 

film. 

 

 

D.M.: I really admired The Croods from a visual standpoint. The style is hyper-realistic, we might say. Realistic 

and cartoon at the same time. Was this a deliberate choice? 

 

C.S.: We played with fantastic shapes. The main characters are a good example. Their arms and shoulders are huge, even 

the character of Eep. She has broad shoulders and a swimmer's body. Yet their forms manage to be graceful. The shapes of 

plants, animals and humans are exaggerated, but their surfaces are realistic. This is because we wanted the story to have 

a strong emotional core, as well as realistic consequences to the actions. We wanted people to feel the Croods' world was 

real, although imaginative. 

 

 

D.M.: If you had to point out the main themes of The Croods, what would you choose? 

 

C.S.: There are so many different themes. There is the fear of change. We set the story in a prehistoric world because 

it is the most subject to change. The land itself changes under their feet. And this is the story of a caveman whose sole 

purpose is to protect his family, to keep it alive. The central theme becomes their change. Grug tries to hide the change, 

but the change still happens to him. It's an experience that we all share. You have to change jobs, you have to change 

schools, the children will grow up, you get old. This is the aspect that all viewers will identify with on a strong, 

emotional level. The Croods talks about how change is something that we all have to accept sooner or later. 

 

 

D.M.: I do not think that all the actors in the film had previously voiced animated characters. As a director, how did 

you help them? 

 

C.S.: Wow, this is one of my main tasks! Kirk and I carefully introduced our players to this strange world. We always 

tried to spend some time with the actors before putting them in front of the microphone. We didn't want to rush them with 

a quick, "Nice to meet you. Okay, you're a caveman, now! Do it!" We'd show them graphics, we'd talk about the world. We 

record our actors in a dozen sessions over at least a year, sometimes even more. In that year we have more and more things 

to show them. We record their voices first, then animate and show them the scenes. During that time, we all grow to know 

the characters better. The interesting thing about working on an animated film is that it grows over time. At the end of 

the process, you actually understand everything. Then we'd want to redo the movie from the beginning, because we knew the 

characters and their dynamics so much better! 

 

 

D.M.: You gave your voice, or rather your sounds, to both Stitch and Belt. Could you describe the process that leads a 

director to do a voice for the film? You are not an actor, after all. 

 

C.S.: [Laughs] Every now and then it happens. In the case of Stitch, we did not want him to speak. We thought we'd be 

embarrassed hiring an actor and then asking him not to speak. It seemed strange and we thought that one of us should just 

do it. When I began to record Stitch, I worried. I knew I was not an actor, so I'd better be careful! For Belt, the same 

thing happened. Originally the character -- believe it or not -- didn't even move. Was just a 'belt,' a small hairy thing. 

Then, while working on it, we thought it would be nice if every time he moved, his eyes or hands moved, too. So we built 

a very simple rigging. The rigging is something that is not seen, but through which the animators move things. Belt was 

the character in the movie with the most basic rigging. He could do nothing, but the animators managed to work wonders 

with him. Of course, when we were in full production, we realized that it was one of our best characters, and we had given 

him the most demented gags! 

 

 

D.M.: You were part of the animation renaissance in the nineties, after the crisis of the early eighties. What do you 

remember most of those difficult years? 

 

C.S.: I was in school during what was perhaps the most difficult period for animation. I was finishing college [at the 

California Institute of the Arts, 'CalArts,' ed.] during that time. I remember many people from Disney roaming the school, 

because they were not working. I had gone to that school to study and work with those people who were not doing anything! 

I thought, "Oh my God, what have I done!" I was in the third year, I had almost finished, and I was wondering, "Will I 

find work?" I never imagined [at that tine] that animation would come to have such importance. 

 

 

D.M.: Most animated films in Hollywood are computer graphics or stop-motion. It's obvious that you love the two-dimensional 

hand-drawn graphics. Will we ever see another American big-budget, hand-drawn animated feature? 

 

C.S.: Maybe. We'll see. Maybe we'll see more hybrids, as is happening now. CG has its advantages, as does the traditional 

technique. I believe that engaging people emotionally is easier with a freehand drawing. There is something in that analog 

process, something more emotional and engaging. There is much more work to do to convey the same emotion with the characters 

in CGI. So I hope so!