THE ART OF ANIMATION

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

www.theloraxmovie.com

Screenwriters
As 3D productions are on the way to becoming the norm, Ken Daurio (also Executive Producer) is right on trend with two high-profile 3D animated films on his résumé.  
Daurio and his writing partner, Cinco Paul, are the hot Hollywood screenwriting team who penned Despicable Me and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! for executive Chris Meledandri. After Paul and Daurio's work on Horton led to a box-office gross of nearly $300 million worldwide, the duo found themselves in demand in the animation world.  Daurio and Paul further forged their strategic relationship with Meledandri when Meledandri formed the film production company Illumination Entertainment, which specializes in animation.  It's no coincidence that Illumination's first three movies given the green light were all written by Daurio and Paul (Despicable Me, Hop and Dr. Seuss' The Lorax), something unheard of in the history of animation. Daurio and Paul are known throughout the entertainment industry for their unique pitching style, often singing their pitches to high-level studio executives.  For the Disney film College Road Trip, they belted out the '80s tune "Double Dutch Bus," complete with harmony and melody.  An estimated 90 percent of their pitches in the last nine years have involved musical performances.
Daurio met Paul while working on a church musical and they bonded immediately.  In 1999, they sold their first screenplay, Special, which they later turned into a short film that played the festival circuit due to its dark comedic story line.  Next came the 2001 cult classic Bubble Boy, a twisted take on the television movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.  Paul and Daurio also had the distinct honor of being handpicked by Audrey Geisel (the widow of Theodor Seuss Geisel) to pen the Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! and Dr. Seuss' The Lorax film projects on behalf of the estate of Dr. Seuss.  Daurio and Paul are currently working on Despicable Me 2.
Upon graduating from high school, Daurio began directing music videos for up-and-coming bands like Blink 182, AFI and Jimmy Eat World.  More than 100 music videos later, he teamed up with Paul to write his first feature script.  Daurio and Paul are now one of Hollywood's most sought-after screenwriting teams.

As 3D productions are on the way to becoming the norm, Cinco Paul (Executive Producer/Songs by) is right on trend with two high-profile 3D animated films on his résumé.  Along with Ken Daurio, he wrote the surprise blockbuster Despicable Me, which has made more than $540 million worldwide.
Paul and his writing partner, Ken Daurio, are the hot Hollywood screenwriting team who also penned the Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! screenplay for executive Chris Meledandri. Meledandri formed the film production company Illumination Entertainment, which specializes in animation.  Illumination's first three movies given the green light were all written by Paul and Daurio: Despicable Me, Hop and Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.  
Paul and Daurio are known throughout the entertainment industry for their unique pitching style, often singing their pitches to high-level studio executives.  For the Disney film College Road Trip, they belted out the '80s tune "Double Dutch Bus" complete with harmony and melody.  An estimated 90 percent of their pitches in the last nine years have involved musical performances.
Paul met Daurio while working on a church musical and they bonded immediately.  In 1999, they sold their first screenplay, Special; later, they turned it into a short film that went on to play the festival circuit due to its dark comedic story line.  Next came the 2001 cult classic Bubble Boy, which starred Jake Gyllenhaal as Jimmy Livingston (a boy without an immune system), a twisted take on the John Travolta television movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.  Paul also recently turned Bubble Boy into a full-length musical, for which he wrote the music and lyrics.  His other film credits include Disney's megahit The Santa Clause 2.  Paul and Daurio are currently working on Despicable Me 2.
Paul studied at Yale University, where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English.  Upon moving to Los Angeles, he received his MFA in screenwriting from the University of Southern California, winning a fellowship grant to pay for his second year.

The director
Having worked for Marvel and DC Comics from 1994 to 2000, Chris Renaud comes from a background in comic art.  From there, he moved to production design at Shadow Projects and Big Big Productions, where he oversaw all aspects of the animation process, including character development, creating concept storyboards and managing teams of digital modellers and artists.
He progressed to Blue Sky Studios/20^th Century Fox Animation, where he worked as a story artist on a number of feature animation projects, including Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!  His role was to translate the screen story into the visual language of cinema, inventing and staging both dramatic and comedic action.
In 2007, Renaud conceived, wrote and storyboarded the animated short No Time for Nuts, overseeing every creative aspect of production, including design, layout, lighting, rendering, music composition and sound design.  No Time for Nuts was nominated for an Academy Award^® and went on to win the animation industry's Annie Award for Best Short.
From 2008 to 2010, Renaud directed, with Pierre Coffin, the animated hit Despicable Me, the 10^th highest-grossing film in the U.S.

The Story
From the creators of Despicable Me and the imagination of Dr. Seuss comes the much anticipated feature Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, a 3D-CG adaptation of the classic tale of a forest guardian who shares the enduring power of hope.  The animated adventure follows the journey of a 12-year-old as he searches for a real Truffula Tree, the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams.  To get it he must find the story of the Lorax, the acerbic yet charming character who fights to protect his world. 
Dr. Seuss' The Lorax is both a funny and emotional adventure highlighting the importance of balance between nature and progress.  The film revolves around the Lorax, the hilarious and lovable character who goes to great lengths to protect the trees and the animals that inhabit them.  After the Once-ler chops down a tree, the Lorax emerges angrily from a stump with a dire warning for the young entrepreneur.
The pastoral landscape of Truffula Valley is filled with a variety of animals--from soaring Swomee-Swans to harmonic Humming-Fish.  Cutest of all are bearlike creatures known as Bar-ba-loots, who tumble among the Truffula Trees.
The Lorax's job as guardian of the forest is put to the test when the ambitious young Once-ler chops down a Truffula Tree and threatens to chop down more to further his lofty business plan.  Incensed by this uncaring act against nature, the Lorax angrily criticizes the Once-ler's actions.  From their first interaction, the Lorax and the Once-ler are at odds.  Each is determined to get rid of the other, but over time they develop a mutual fondness for each other.  Ultimately, the Lorax is no match for the greed and ambition that begins to consume the Once-ler, who stops at nothing to build his enterprise--even if it means chopping down every last tree and destroying the valley.
Years later, in a world devoid of trees, Ted ventures beyond the borders of his perfectly industrialized town of Thneedville on a journey to find the Once-ler and learn how he can bring home a tree for the girl of his dreams, Audrey.
Although hesitant at first, the Once-ler sees something in Ted that inspires him to tell the story of his encounter with the Lorax, which in turn inspires Ted's mission to restore balance to Thneedville by bringing back Truffula Trees for the whole town.

From Page to Screen: The Lorax Returns
The relationship Meledandri built with Audrey Geisel on Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! led to the decision to make Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.  Meledandri gives some background: "The genesis of the decision to do The Lorax as the follow-up to Horton Hears a Who! actually came from Audrey Geisel.  We had talked about wanting to do another film together, and she came to me and said: 'This is the one that I want to do.'  She explained that it had been Ted Geisel's favorite book, and it had been dedicated to her.  She felt this underlying love for the book, as well as a relevance to what the story was about."
The filmmaker gave great thought to the weight and seriousness of adapting a book with such an important legacy and message.  He explains: "I sat with the book for quite some time and shared it with my partners at Illumination.  With every Seuss property, it is imperative to find a way to tell the story in a way that honors the underlying work he created.  It took us about six months to determine whether or not we could successfully do that." 
Dr. Seuss' The Lorax is the fourth film that Meledandri has crafted with screenwriters/ executive producers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio.  The writing duo had worked with him on Universal's Despicable Me and Hop, but their first project with Meledandri was Fox's Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!.  They had a familiarity and understanding of the world of Seuss and how to successfully translate it to the big screen.
While the responsibility of honoring such a talented artist is vast, so was the opportunity to create a colorful and imaginative filmic world.  Meledandri says: "Dr. Seuss had one of the richest imaginations of anybody living and working in the 20^th century.  His worlds have a sense of whimsy and playfulness, and his characters are immediately appealing.  He wrote these delightful stories, but inside them are ideas and themes that are absolutely timeless."
Back on board for another Illumination production was Despicable Me's blockbuster director, Oscar^® nominee Chris Renaud.  When asked about the influence of Dr. Seuss in his life, Renaud responds: "He has been part of my life since I was a child, and his stories, especially 'The Lorax,' are ones that that I've passed on to my own kids.  He teaches us to be aware of a world that is bigger than ourselves and that each individual can make a difference.  That's something that sticks with you.  If we retain these lessons as children, you carry them through your life."
"The Lorax" is a beloved and established property that serves as a touchstone for many young readers.  To craft a feature production that would draw audiences further into its story, the team would need to flesh out the book's characters and create a complementary world.  They didn't set out to rewrite the story, rather to fill in what happened before the book began and after it ended.
Filling in these gaps was no small challenge.  Reflects the director: "You want to stay true to the material and honor it, but you must expand it and make it into something that works in a 90-minute movie, something very different from a children's book.  You have to decide how to not only take these iconic images and words and turn them into a movie, but how to expand that book's world."  Fortunately, Seuss had given them the ideal jumping off point.  "When the Once-ler throws the seed to Ted, it seemed like a perfect place to expand and figure out what that part of the world would be like…in addition to telling the book's tale of the Lorax and the Once-ler in the past."
Because "The Lorax" is so cherished, attention to detail for this adaptation was paramount.  Shares Renaud: "We know what the Lorax looks like.  We have to adapt him to make him a three-dimensional character, but we had the basic structure, and we've expanded upon that."  For additional delineation, the director took Daurio and Paul's imagined world of Thneedville and found visual inspiration from the minutest of details of the town that were shown in the book.  He says, "There's a little drawing of Ted's town in the corner of the first page of the book.  We used this as our inspiration for Thneedville."

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Classic Imagery to CG Though Renaud, Meledandri and Healy were quite practiced in supervising CG animation, taking Dr. Seuss' creations and reinterpreting them in this world was as much of a challenge as their last project.  Read more

3D Adventure From the insane scooter ride throughout Thneedville to the Once-ler's runaway ride down the river rapids with Pipsqueak, each element of the story was intended to draw the audience into the film and give them a truly 3D adventure.  Read more

Shaping the In-Theater Experience Lighting is as important to a CG-animated film as it is to a traditional live-action one.  Read more

Celebration and Inspiration For the new characters and scenes that populate Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, the team and Renaud insisted on one dictum: follow the spirit of the book.  Read more

Truffula Valley  "The Lorax" gave the design team a wealth of source material for Truffula Valley.  They were able to take advantage of the book's colors, shapes and all the animals, as well as the Truffula Trees and the rolling green hills.  Read more

Truffula Valley to Thneedville: Who's Who in Seuss' World? From giant, furry peanuts and ambitious entrepreneurs to a wide-eyed 12-year-old and the girl of his dreams, the world of Truffula Valley and Thneedville is populated with people and creatures of every stripe.    Read more

Comedy Legends and Young Superstars: Casting the Film When casting the actors who would voice the characters, the filmmakers looked to a variety of performers to find not just the ideal actors for the film, but also the perfect people to embody Dr. Seuss' iconic characters.Read more

Let It Grow: Music of the Film Though the filmmakers wouldn't categorize Dr. Seuss' The Lorax as a musical, the animated adventure uses music extensively to further enrich the narrative.  Read more