Rio (2011) (with Michael Tanzillo)

In this latest episode, Chris and Alex examine one of the most important animation companies of the last 20 years in Hollywood – Blue Sky Studios – who made significant contributions to the shape and direction of U.S. animation, and particularly the computer-animated film. Formed in February 1987 by animator Chris Wedge, the studio recently hit the headlines as they are now sadly in the past tense – The Walt Disney Company acquired Blue Sky as part of their 2019 purchase of 21st Century Fox and then, in February 2021, announced that Blue Sky would be shut down as an animation division. This episode looks back at Blue Sky’s 2011 computer-animated musical Rio (Carlos Saldanha, 2011) with special guest Michael Tanzillo, who worked as a Senior Lighting Technical Director at Blue Sky on a number of computer-animated films, including three of the Ice Age films (Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 2009; Continental Drift in 2012 and Collision Course in 2016), both Rio and its 2014 sequel, The Peanuts Movie (Steve Martino, 2015), Ferdinand (Carlos Saldanha, 2017), and Spies in Disguise (Nick Bruno & Troy Quane, 2019). He is also the co-author, with Jasmine Katatikarn, of the book Lighting For Animation: The Art of Visual Storytelling (2016), and co-founder of the Academy of Animated Arts, an online academy teaching the artistic side of Animation and VFX. Listen as the trio discuss Blue Sky’s origins and influences on twenty-first century Hollywood animation; the studio’s commercial work and early animated advertisements; the craft of 3D lighting in computer-animated films, and its foundational role in creating mood, volume, weight, and legibility; Rio’s two blue macaw protagonists (Blu and Jewel) and traditions of anthropomorphism; the film’s articulation of Brazilian culture through colour scripts and colour keys; lighting contrasts and the distinctions between ‘heroic’ and ‘villainous’ lighting; and what Rio’s sumptuous fantasy of light can tell us about sophisticated digital lighting as a storytelling device. **Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**