00:13When you look at the films and you step back and look at Gru's story within each film,
00:20what you realize is that he's going through life experiences that are very relatable,
00:28but he's going through them with his own unique perspective and angle.
00:32Obviously, in the first movie, it's very much about becoming a father.
00:37In the second movie, he falls in love.
00:39In the third movie, we're looking at further life experiences.
00:44There's kind of a paradox when you do a sequel, because you have characters that you've worked with before,
00:49and so you know those characters more intimately.
00:52You know what they'll do.
00:53You know how they're going to respond in a particular situation.
00:56But you don't want to go back to those same situations that you've done before.
00:59You want to try to find something new in the storytelling.
01:02Maybe we'll have the twin thing when you can read each other's minds.
01:06No?
01:06We have three directors on this film.
01:08Two directors, Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, and then a co-director, Eric Guillaume.
01:17Pierre Coffin is one of the directors, and we've worked with him since the first Despicable Me.
01:22He's the voice of the Minions.
01:23He's the voice of the Minions.
01:24So much of what these movies are.
01:27Yeah, then we've got Kyle Balda.
01:28He really lays out the visuals.
01:30I mean, he really kind of puts the whole movie together as far as layout, and he kind of assembles
01:35the big picture.
01:36And the other director is Eric Guillaume, who is basically the guy who's designed every character, everything in the Despicable
01:45Me world.
01:45Having three directing partners on a film is very helpful because in an animation movie, everything's happening at once.
01:53You know, you're doing the acting at the same time as you're doing the cinematography, as you're doing the story
01:57development.
02:01I think the main difference between animation and live action is just how long it takes.
02:07You just spend a lot more time with the story.
02:09Claire Dodgson, our editor, she would take the storyboards, but she's also taking the voices and music, and she's assembling
02:17all these parts into a performance.
02:20So rather than trying to find what's the best take, she's creating a performance in a way through all these
02:25different moving pieces.
02:26Oh, please, come on.
02:28Just one heist.
02:30There's got to be something out there that you still want to steal.
02:33You know, the discovery of the voice for Drew by Steve was very different from his discovery of the Groove
02:41voice.
02:41We had quite a few sessions with Corel where he would experiment with different things, and then we would go
02:46away and listen and decide what we liked.
02:48They're twins, so it makes sense that there's an underlying similarity vocally, but they haven't grown up together, so we
02:57also need distinction.
02:58We'd done quite a few sessions, and I went back and listened to the second take he ever did when
03:04he was playing around with the voice, and there was something so warm and genuine in it.
03:08My brother!
03:13My brother!
03:14It kind of grew from this laugh that he did in the middle of the recording session.
03:18You did!
03:21It's the perfect foil to Gru is that internally there's just this kind of joy, and the fact that his
03:28voice kind of grew out of this laugh that Groove was doing, I think, kind of really embodied the character.
03:34When we first meet Drew, he goes through this process of making fun of Gru a little bit.
03:39Oh, and hair would make you better.
03:40Look at this face!
03:44One of the things that we noticed is that it was hard to recover from that moment and still make
03:48Drew likable.
03:50Oh, he's so mad!
03:51If Gru sincerely doesn't like a guy, then it's going to be hard for the audience to like him as
03:55well.
03:56If we pulled back a little bit what Drew was saying, we got a lot further with it.
04:00You boys have fun!
04:02Bye-bye, Wonder Twins!
04:04I've been a bad boy!
04:06These villains in the movie are very critical parts of the film, and you do need to give Gru a
04:13worthy adversary, a villain who presents a real challenge to him and to Lucy, and one who's worthy comedically.
04:21Gru!
04:22Balthazar Brat is voiced by the brilliant Trey Parker.
04:26He has an amazing voice.
04:27He's a comic genius.
04:29Evil Brat was a masterpiece.
04:32Does no one value true art anymore?
04:34Well, we were so excited when we realized that Balthazar Brat was going to be an ex-80s TV star,
04:39because we knew that the 80s was going to be a big part of his character today.
04:43And so we were so happy that we got to create a supervillain who was obsessed with the 80s.
04:48This narcissistic, like, rejected child star who is trying to get his revenge on Hollywood by interacting and replaying all
04:56the episodes of the TV show where he played this villain.
05:01Hello, Hollywood!
05:04I remember the first time that we were looking at a turnaround, which is a 360-degree view of the
05:11character of Balthazar Brat.
05:12But as we come around the backside of him, we notice for the very first time that Eric has designed
05:18this perfectly round bald spot into the character.
05:21So it's the design, it's the voice, and then it's spectacular animation.
05:33When you make one of these sequels, you have two driving goals.
05:38One is to honor the elements in the film that we now know that audiences love.
05:45And the second is to create new, fresh experiences, characters within the film that make it really dynamic.
05:54The challenge then becomes, how do you find the new material, and where can you take these characters that we
05:59haven't seen before?
06:00Now they're being faced with this conflict or this obstacle.
06:02Love you!
06:03Uh-huh, right!
06:05What's Gru going to do? How's he going to deal with this?
06:07And how's he going to deal with it in that way that makes us love Gru and appreciate who he
06:10is?
06:11I love you, too.
06:13Ah!
06:15All right, have you. Go, go, go to bed.
06:38All right, have you.
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