Illuminating the Future of Animation
by Gabriel Chong | 6 July 2010

Chris Meledandri may not be as familiar to you as John Lasseter or Jeffrey Katzenberg- but the new animation “Despicable Me” may just change that. He is the founder and CEO of Illumination Entertainment, the latest ‘kid on the animation block’, whose debut feature is the family-friendly comedy that’s opening in cinemas this week.

Unlike Disney, DreamWorks Animation or Sony Pictures Animation, Illumination Entertainment is an independent outfit set up outside the confines of the studio system- though Chris’ name was enough clout to interest Universal Pictures to co-own and distribute all of its films (think of it like the arrangement Paramount currently has with DreamWorks Animation). But Chris is quick to stress the creative latitude that he retains over all of Illumination Entertainment’s projects.

“Universal is our distribution partner and co-owner, but Illumination is an autonomous buyer,” said Chris in an interview with Variety two years ago. “The structure allows me to work in concert with Donna Langley and Jimmy Horowitz's group, as well as Focus or Rogue when appropriate. But the structure is that of a production company as opposed to a corporate division.” It was precisely this autonomy that enticed him to leave his previous position as head of Fox’s animation group from 2000-07.

During his time at Fox, Chris helped acquire and oversee Blue Sky Studios, the computer animation studio behind Fox’s biggest animation franchise, the Ice Age series, as well as “Robots”. But it is evident from Chris’ portfolio that he isn’t content with just making the kind of family-friendly fare that studios typically find safe to invest in- after all, Chris was also producer of the Wes Anderson animation “The Fantastic Mr Fox”, as well as animations such as “Titan AE” and “Final Fantasy”. Flexibility is one of the main reasons that Chris set up Illumination.

Indeed, Illumination isn’t set up like animation studios such as Pixar. These studios typically have much of the same in-house creative team on board for all their films. Chris, however, is keen for Illumination to tap on the explosion of talent in the animation field- which explains why “Despicable Me” is animated by a French company, not by Illumination’s own pool of artists.

“If, as a new company, I had decided to produce Despicable Me in Los Angeles or in California, I would not have had the access to the consistency of talent that I’ve had on this film, because there are so many companies competing for that talent. So for us, the way in which we would get world-class talent was actually, as crazy as it sounds, to go to Paris,” he said in a recent interview. “France has a wonderful tradition of animation, but they don’t even have seven major companies competing for that talent.”

His approach of casting the creative talent for the movie certainly shows in the character and production design of the film. Chris brought production designer Yarror Cheney, who worked on the popular computer animated short film “The Chubbchubbs”, on board “Despicable Me” and Yarror is responsible for the cute yellow little minions featured prominently in the ads and the trailers. On the other hand, Carter Goodrich was responsible for the design of the human characters and Chris is quick to point out that he offered Carter the job after seeing Carter’s work on “Ratatouille”.

Chris is equally meticulous when it comes to finding the right voice talent for his characters. Despite sporting an all-star cast including Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Ken Jeong and Danny McBride, Chris says that he starts by picking the actor whom he thinks is likely to embody the role (and not by creating a character around a certain actor). “If you don’t start with that, then it sort of defies the whole purpose of trying to make the best film that you can make.”

“But we tend to look towards, even though our stories have dramatic components in them we tend to look at actors who are comedic and certainly look and listen for actors who can use their vocal tools to create that comedy,” he added. “It is important to us that our actors are able to help us communicate about the film because we’re not branded. We’re not Pixar. We don’t have any brand and we need to excite our audience about our movie and one of the ways that we can reach an audience is by our actors.”

Another way that Illumination aims to reach its audience is by tapping into the 3D bandwagon. “There are a lot of sequences in ‘Despicable Me’ that take advantage of the dimensional space in a dynamic way,” said Chris. In fact, Chris points out that all the projects Illumination is working on are planned for 3D- and so far, that number is a very promising three.

After “Despicable Me”, Illumination has an Easter 2011 release date for Hop, the story of a man (Russell Brand) who fills in for the Easter Bunny after running him over in a car. While Hop will be a live-action motion picture, Illumination’s focus is still on animation. In the works are an animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax for 2012 and a stop-motion animation version of The Addams Family with Tim Burton on board to direct and produce.

As far as early reviews go, “Despicable Me” may very well by this summer’s breakout hit- which of course can only be good news for Chris and his company. Yes, Chris Meledandri and Illumination may not be as well-known now as John Lasseter and Pixar or Jeffrey Katzenberg and DreamWorks, but Chris and Illumination may very well light up the animation industry very soon.

"Illuminating The Future of Animation" continues...

A scene from Despicable Me


Actress Miranda Cosgrove and producer Chris Meledandri arrive to the premiere of "Despicable Me".
(Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images North America)
James CameroTitani (1997)

Steve Carrell (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images North America)
Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Actor Jason Segel with minions
(Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images North America)
Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York (2002)