Jason Sudeikis The Angry Birds Movie

Jason Sudeikis The Angry Birds Movie

Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, Peter Dinklage, Keegan-Michael Key, Tony Hale, Ike Barinholtz, Hannibal Buress, Jillian Bell, Danielle Brooks, Romeo Santos, Smosh (Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla)
Directors: Fergal Reilly, Clay Kaytis
Genre: Animated, Adventure, Comedy
Running Time: 97 minutes

Synopsis: In the 3D animated comedy, The Angry Birds Movie, we'll finally find out why the birds are so angry.

The movie takes us to an island populated entirely by happy, flightless birds – or almost entirely. In this paradise, Red (Jason Sudeikis, We're the Millers, Horrible Bosses), a bird with a temper problem, speedy Chuck (Josh Gad in his first animated role since Frozen), and the volatile Bomb (Danny McBride, This is the End, Eastbound and Down) have always been outsiders. But when the island is visited by mysterious green piggies, it's up to these unlikely outcasts to figure out what the pigs are up to.

Featuring a hilarious, all-star voice cast that includes Bill Hader (Trainwreck, Inside Out), Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids), and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), as well as Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele), Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live, next year's Ghostbusters) and Tony Hale (Veep, Arrested Development).

The Angry Birds Movie
Release Date: May 12th, 2016

About The Production

Why So Angry?

In December 2009, people around the world downloaded a game to their phones and started a phenomenon. Little green piggies had invaded, intent on stealing the eggs of some flightless birds – and these birds were… well, there's only one word for it. How would you feel if someone came to your home and took your kids?

The most downloaded mobile game of all time – Angry Birds and their various editions have been downloaded over three billion times – comes to the big screen and moviegoers will finally learn how the Angry Birds got their name.

According to producer John Cohen (Despicable Me), the classic game was a great starting point for the movie the filmmakers wanted to make. 'Inside the game's core concept were the seeds of what we believed could grow into a fantastic animated comedy," he says. 'We had the chance to expand on the game characters, developing the birds into fully fleshed out characters with distinct personalities and fun, unique powers. But there's also a strong, emotional idea at the center of the movie: at the heart of the games is a story of angry birds who have had their eggs – their children – taken by these green piggies. And the birds must launch a search- and-rescue operation to get their kids back."

  Working with the Rovio team, the filmmakers developed and expanded the basic ideas from the game. 'The question Rovio gets asked more often than anything else is, -Why are the birds so angry?'" says Cohen. 'This movie is the origin story of how that conflict came to exist between flightless birds and green piggies. It was an incredibly fun opportunity to create a mythology for the Angry Birds universe. Billions of people have a close personal connection to the games, but the games didn't really have a backstory that was set in stone. Our playing field was wide open – as if we were starting from scratch with an original idea. Of course, there were certain important elements that fans know and love from the games – angry flightless birds, with special powers that people will recognize, fighting green piggies, who have stolen their eggs, using a slingshot – but beyond those ideas, we were able to create an original story."

In fact, Clay Kaytis, who directs the film with Fergal Reilly, says that the built-in audience of the game allowed them to subtly subvert audiences' expectations. 'People assume they know what the movie is going to be because they've played the game," he says, 'but the truth is, we're creating something that is going to surprise people when they see it. As filmmakers, we're making a movie that we would want to go see."

So, out of the basic premise of the game, the filmmakers created a new story – a character-based comedy. 'Red is certainly an angry bird, and Chuck and Bomb have their problems, but actually, they're just a bunch of misfits," says Reilly. 'You really care about these guys – because not only do they have their own problems to deal with, but then they're dealt the larger problem of the pigs. They have to save their civilization, even though they're the most unlikely guys you could ever pick."

Cohen adds that Red's mission to manage his anger is a theme that everyone in the audience can relate to. 'Every parent and every kid learns to find a way to work through those tough moments in their lives," says Cohen. 'I think a lot of kids will identify with Red as he finds a way to channel that energy in a positive direction."

As the characters took shape on the page, it came time for the filmmakers to cast the actors who would bring them to life. 'When an actor comes into a recording booth to perform, they are stripped of all of the tools in their repertoire – they no longer have their physicality, facial expressions, any movements or gestures, other actors to play against – they are left with only their voice," says Cohen. 'Great improvisational comedic actors, like Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Maya Rudolph, Danny McBride, Keegan-Michael Key or Kate McKinnon, are able to not only come up with terrific observational comedy ideas, but by doing that, they give their performance a very naturalistic feel, which really helps to bring these characters to life in animation."

'It's a magical moment when you hear these actors for the first time in their characters," says executive producer Mikael Hed. 'That's when the characters start to properly come to life. The actors inject part of their personality into the characters, and they become so much more real than they've ever been before that."

The first conversations about turning Angry Birds into a movie began back in 2011 with Hed and David Maisel. Executive producer David Maisel, who had previously been the founder of Marvel Studios and an architect of its plans to begin a slate of movies including Iron Man, Thor and Captain America was looking for a new challenge. 'I had purchased my 80-year-old mother an iPad, and one day, I heard her swearing at some pigs," he recalls. 'I got very intrigued – this game is played by kids, by their parents, by their grandparents. It's one of the few things in culture today that people of all different generations share."

Maisel contacted Mikael Hed, the founder of Rovio and now executive producer of the movie. 'I got a phone call from Hollywood, asking whether they could create a movie around Angry Birds. And that was really the first time that it dawned on me that a movie could really actually happen. That was the starting shot for this adventure."

When John Cohen, who previously shepherded Despicable Me to the screen, heard that Hed and Maisel were contemplating a movie adaptation, he contacted Maisel immediately.

Cohen said, 'Once I was on board, I learned that I was actually the very first person to call David expressing my passion for producing The Angry Birds Movie. I had personally spent countless hours playing the Angry Birds games, which I can now happily justify as research for the movie."

To produce the film, Rovio created Rovio Animation, which would retain creative control over the characters and self-finance the motion picture. In this way, Rovio could ensure that the core elements that audiences love about Angry Birds would make their way into the final film. In 2012, Hed, Mikko Polla (a creative executive at Rovio) and Cohen collaborated to develop the film's original story.

Building an animation studio from scratch brought together a wide variety of some of the top talent working in animation. Cohen, Hed and Maisel first hired screenwriter Jon Vitti, who is a 'Simpsons" all-star, having written many episodes of the long- running series and collaborating on The Simpsons Movie, and who worked with Cohen on the Ice Age franchise, the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise, and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! Cohen then brought Catherine Winder onboard to produce the film with him. Winder had previously served as an executive at Twentieth Century Fox Animation and worked under George Lucas to take the Star Wars brand into animation.

For Maisel, combining this core group's sensibilities that contributed to these diverse successes is one of the ways that The Angry Birds Movie sets itself apart as an entertainment that spans the generations. In 2013, Sony Pictures came on board as the distribution partner.

Winder says that one of the most exciting parts of taking on the challenge of bringing Angry Birds to the screen was the fact that so many people had a connection to the game. 'Angry Birds has a 91% awareness around the world," she says. 'Everybody knows who these characters are, so the expectations are high. So our aspirations had to be high; we want to make sure the fans around the world are happy with this movie."

In every way, The Angry Birds Movie is the culmination of a long-term plan to expand the game onto the big screen. Though the graphic characters from the game have been featured in other media, such as Angry Birds Toons, the movie takes the franchise to epic new levels. For example, Rovio made the conscious decision never to show the birds speaking, or having wings and legs – until now. 'Rovio went to great lengths to protect that origin story, so that we would be telling it for the first time in this movie," says Maisel.

For these birds' home, the goal once again was to build on the foundation of the game, to but to create a full, lush, visually rich environment, one that production designer Pete Oswald calls 'stylized with a touch of realism" and, for fans of the game, 'familiar, yet unexpected." 'We wanted to bring a new dimension to the world of Angry Birds – from the look of the film to the color to the textures to the animation, we could build on the story and the comedy that the writer laid down."

Of course, the filmmakers built two major locations – the lush, organic world of Bird Island, and the off-kilter, teetering world of Pig Island. And into these worlds, the artists were able to let their comic imaginations fly. 'There's a ton of visual jokes," says Oswald.

About The Characters

'We had two things going for us – the basic comedic premise of a clash of two cultures, and how the birds became angry," says Reilly. 'Jon Vitti grabbed that premise and wrote a very funny script. And when you're willing to embrace the silly business of that premise, it's easier to create really funny, engaging characters. The key that unlocked the story for us was the relationship between Red, Chuck and Bomb."

RED is an angry bird. He lives on Bird Island, a world populated with the most naively happy characters imaginable – so, needless to say, Red doesn't fit in.

The birds' cheery, carefree lives are in stark contrast to Red's own: he has few friends, preferring to live alone on the outskirts of town, wearing his crankiness, sarcasm, and aloof attitude on his sleeve. However, when the pigs arrive and begin to implement their secret plot, only Red will have the courage and nerve to ask the questions others are reluctant to ask.

Red has a habit of letting his emotions get the better of him. 'Every day, we find ourselves in situations in which others try our patience," Cohen explains. 'Maybe it's that guy in line at the coffee shop who's standing a little too close behind you, or the person sitting next to you in the movie theater who's sneezing and coughing through the whole film, and is probably going to get you sick. You or I would deal with those situations in a socially acceptable way, but Red has his own, unique way of handling it – he says and does the things that we wish we could. He's simply a guy who doesn't possess the same social skills that come more naturally to other people. And over the course of the movie, you begin to understand just why this guy is so angry."

To play the role, the filmmakers turned to Jason Sudeikis. 'Jason Sudeikis was perfect for this role. When you have a character like Red, who's a bit of a cranky curmudgeon, it's very helpful to have an actor like Jason – who can't help but be likeable – playing him. Even when he's saying and doing some very angry things. But most importantly, Jason is an incredibly gifted actor," says Cohen. 'Not only has he shaped Red as a character, he's given him a deliciously cranky sense of humor and embodied him with a real soul. Over the course of the story, the audience falls in love with Red as they begin to understand why he's so angry."

'He's angry from the jump," says Sudeikis of his character. 'He sees himself as the wise man on a ship of fools. He's a contrarian, a little frustrated, the black sheep. He definitely sticks out for what seems like the wrong reasons at the beginning, but it turns out that he might be on to something."

'At the beginning of the film, Red is the sole angry bird," says Sudeikis. 'But, obviously, the title is a bit of a spoiler, because as it turns out, there's more than one angry bird. And exactly how that happens is what we get to discover in the course of the story."

'The key to playing such an angry character is to get a lot of parking tickets," says Jason Sudeikis. 'Before I recorded, I'd come out to my car, find a big, expensive parking ticket, and I would be perfectly in character."

Joining Red on his campaign against the bad piggies are Chuck and Bomb – also outcasts with anger issues on an island where it seems that almost every bird is happy – all of whom have ended up in an anger management class.

CHUCK is fast. He moves fast and talks fast – sometimes quicker than he thinks, which lands him in a lot trouble. But there's genuinely a good bird behind his motorbeak, intent on making friends, and when Red needs a hand, he's among the first to volunteer.

Chuck is brought to life by Josh Gad, whose most recent animated film role was as Olaf, the snowman longing for bright summer days in Frozen. 'Chuck is almost the polar opposite of Olaf," says Cohen. 'Where Olaf was sweet, innocent and child-like, Chuck has a real edge. He doesn't have any kind of filtering mechanism, always puts his foot in his mouth, and has a real comedic bite to him. Josh Gad has created a fantastic character – and just like Chuck, Josh has an incredibly quick mind. He's one of the best improvisers in the world."

'Chuck does everything at a million miles per hour," says Gad. 'Everything – running, flying, talking… it was a lot of effort playing Chuck. Of course, since this is an animated movie all the action is in my mind, so I was mentally exhausted all the time."

'Chuck is truly one of the most exhausting characters I've ever played," Gad continues. 'He's a mile a minute and his mouth is going faster than his brain can compute things. So after playing him, I liked to take a warm bath.

I'm a method actor, so I would come home from a long night of working and my wife would say, -Hey sweetie, do you want to watch something?' and I'd say, -NO! CAN'T YOU SEE I PLAYED CHUCK ALL DAY? I'M EXHAUSTED!' But she knows that I love her and it was just the character talking."

Though the actors recorded their parts separately, Gad says that he went above and beyond to help ensure that the characters had an on-screen chemistry. 'I studied episodes of -Saturday Night Live' and -Eastbound and Down' to try to really understand my co-stars, Sudeikis, Hader and McBride," he says. 'I also printed cardboard cutouts of them and held numerous conversations and even tried playing boardgames with them, which proved very unsuccessful. The McBride cutout in particular was very uncooperative."

BOMB is a bit of dim bulb with a big heart. He's amiable and considerate – most of the time. But he's got a problem: he suffers from Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). If he gets surprised, or scared, or angry – kaboom. He has a tendency to literally blow up. He's always yearned to control himself but found self-constraint just out of reach. When the pigs arrive, however, his condition might be just what the doctor ordered.

'Bomb is proud of his ability to blow up, but he's not fully in control of it," Cohen says. 'He has a bit of performance anxiety, and that's a source of some struggle for him."

And though Bomb's disorder is played for laughs, IED is no joke –you can look it up in your DSM-5.

Playing the role is Danny McBride, whose screen persona seems to be a perfect fit. 'All of Danny's characters – from The Foot-Fist Way to Pineapple Express to This Is the End to -Eastbound and Down' – are such great expressions of comedic anger. They all possess a deep-rooted desire to be accepted and liked, but they also have some emotion just below the surface that at any moment could burst through to wreak comedic havoc," says Cohen. 'The only difference is that Bomb literally explodes, rather than metaphorically."

'Like Red and Chuck, Bomb is angry; he's also a bird, too," Danny McBride says. 'He has an explosive personality. He explodes when he gets angry. And he wants to improve. He's embarrassed that he can't control his anger, and he wants to focus it."

'Bomb is actually a pretty laid-back, fun-loving guy," Danny McBride continues. 'But any little thing can set him off. He's a tough guy to make microwave popcorn around."

And how does Danny McBride – he of the famously explosive characters – deal with anger? 'I've never been angry in my life," he says. Riiiiiiiight.

MATILDA was once an angry bird herself. Now reformed, and donning a Zen, peaceful exterior, she uses her experience to help others by leading an anger management class. However, all of the birds will learn that Matilda still harbors an inner rage that will come out at the worst – or best – possible moment.

'Maya Rudolph is so terrific at playing both sides of Matilda," says Cohen. 'There's a warmth that comes through in each of Maya's characters – they're always very relatable. That's what I see in her portrayal of Matilda as she juggles the desire to help others with her unresolved need to help herself. That's the emotion that's buried underneath."

'Matilda is a bubbly lady who really tries hard to find the positive in these fairly difficult students that she has to work with," says Maya Rudolph. 'Nothing really stops her – she's having her own party, pretty much 24-7. And even though things could really get her down, she's kind of got her Zen inner qualities that allow her to have as much patience as possible. But there's definitely an undercurrent, where she's just hanging on by a thread. Maybe she really needs this anger management practice as well."

LEONARD is the leader of the pigs, the one who launches the birds' beef against the pork. Proud, egomaniacal, and vain, Leonard's a real pig, so no wonder that he ruffles Red's feathers a bit.

Bill Hader takes the role of this porcine principal. 'Leonard is super charismatic – so charming that he wins over the birds straight away," says Fergel Reilly. 'Bill created a voice that had authority, but also charm – a showman personality. Bill has a velvety quality to his voice – warm and super funny – so when Leonard arrives on Bird Island, he wins the birds over effortlessly."

Regarding Leonard's distinctive cadence in speaking, Hader says, 'My first recording session for the movie was really trying to figure out the voice. The filmmakers were saying they wanted it to be like Robert Preston in -The Music Man' – a kind of a huckster. We started there, and then because Leonard is a big, round pig, the voice sort of became this Southern man."

Bill Hader describes the plot of the film this way: 'The movie's about this pig named Leonard who finds this island with these birds on it, and rightfully, he should have their eggs, but apparently, they don't want him to have their eggs. There's one bird, Red, played by Jason Sudeikis, who figures out Leonard's plan to get the eggs – which is crazy not cool, because Leonard has every right in the world to have those eggs – and the birds start this awful mission against him."

THE MIGHTY EAGLE is a towering legend on Bird Island. Literally – his statue dominates everything else on the island. But no one has seen him in years and some birds are starting to doubt that he ever really existed. But when Red, Chuck, and Bomb have nowhere else to turn, they have nothing to lose as they seek out the advice of this mysterious leader.

Peter Dinklage plays the hero. 'Peter Dinklage is a great comedic actor," says Clay Kaytis. 'He brings his great, booming voice to the Mighty Eagle."

'Mighty Eagle is the big, mythical hero on Bird Island, although he's getting a little old and not in as great shape as he used to be. When we meet him, the only shape he's in is round," explains Peter Dinklage. 'He's a recluse, past his heyday, and he's going to teach the younger birds how to be heroes."

In the supporting roles are an all-star cast of the most talented comedic actors in the world, including Kate McKinnon, Keegan-Michael Key, Tony Hale, Tituss Burgess, Ike Barinholtz, Hannibal Buress, Jillian Bell, Billy Eichner, Danielle Brooks, Latin music sensation Romeo Santos, and YouTube stars Smosh (Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla).

'I play Judge Peckinpah," says Keegan-Michael Key. 'He's the one that sentences Red to the anger management class where Red meets the rest of the gang. It was a great role for me, because I'm very judgmental. I watch a lot of daytime court TV shows, so I was more than prepared for this role."

Though the judge at first appears to be a very tall bird, he's harboring a secret – he's actually a little guy standing on another bird to gain a more impressive stature.

'Keegan-Michael Key created a character for the Judge who was very appealing and funny, but also had an attitude about himself as the most prominent bird on the island," says Fergel Reilly. 'Keegan Michael Key's mind can dance around different ideas for the character – it was a joy to watch and so much fun, I had a pain in my stomach from laughing so hard."

'This project was so crazy fun," says Tony Hale, who voices three different characters. 'My three characters are all very neurotic...but just different places on the overall neurotic spectrum."

Burgess, who plays Photog, gives the honest truth about what it's like to voice a role: 'Working on an animated film was really better than I expected," says Burgess. You know what my favourite part is?" Conspiratorially, he whispers: 'It's. Not. Really. Work."

About The Music

In addition to the hilarious performances by some of the biggest names in comedy, The Angry Birds Movie is loaded with fun, original musical performances to the film.

Country superstar Blake Shelton not only co-wrote and performs the original song 'Friends," but also voices a role in the movie, as Earl, a cowboy pig.

Blake Shelton says that when he was approached to do the song, he was excited by the challenge of writing for a film – something he's never done before. 'John Cohen showed me some key scenes, which told me the story and what the movie was going to look like and the story," says Blake Shelton. 'I left the meeting feeling so excited – I wanted to take a crack at it. It was a challenge – my friend Jessi Alexander and I had to write a universal piece of music that would fit the overall scope of the movie and the story, but also needed to be specific to this scene. We figured out a way to make all of that work! Jessi and I are still walking around with our heads in the clouds – not only that this opportunity came my way, but that we were able to come up with the perfect song for that scene."

'One of the very first things John was able to show me was his idea of what my character would look like, and I was pretty much hooked from that point on," Blake Shelton continues. 'Here's this fat green pig that had on chaps, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat. But the thing that sealed the deal for me was that they had put in my tattoo on this pig – but they had taken the time to replace the deer tracks with bird tracks. They put a lot of thought into it."

'Blake Shelton's song -Friends' has two very important meanings," says Cohen. 'Of course, it's the song that the pigs sing to the birds when they show up on their island and try to lull the birds into trusting them and being their friends. But more importantly, it beautifully sums up the central relationship of this entire movie – chronicling the unlikely friendship that develops between Red, Chuck and Bomb. It's extraordinary that Blake and Jessi were able to write lyrics that so perfectly serve both the immediate and larger story of the film, and it is also just a fantastic song!"

Pop star Charli XCX joins in with 'Explode," electro house musician Steve Aoki provides the new track for a rave scene, Matoma's 'Wonderful Life" is featured, and the audience will get up and dance as Demi Lovato brings down the house with her brand new rendition of the classic 'I Will Survive."

'Demi Lovato's brand-new rendition of the classic -I Will Survive' is so fantastic," says Cohen. 'She's managed to reinvent the song while also honoring and paying tribute to the original."

About The Production

For the animation team at Sony Pictures Imageworks, the primary challenge was the immense scope of the film. In contrast to the game, famous for its graphic characters and simple backdrops, the filmmakers sought to design characters and a world that were rich in detail and worthy of a feature film.

The first challenge was to make the transition with the characters from the flat, graphic icons to fully formed characters that could be animated in three dimensions on the big screen. 'The characters in the game are really simple. They don't walk or talk. I had to bring some complexity to these characters, so they could live up on the screen," says character art director Francesca Natale, who designed most of the major characters. 'The goal was to find a character that could be complex enough to perform for the film but still feel recognisable for the audience and three billion fans."

Red, naturally, is a good example of a character who had to make the transition. Even before a computer model could be built, Francesca Natale did 100 possible designs for Red with ink and paint. 'We had so much to figure out – at the beginning, it was whether the birds should look like real birds or if they should have a more anthropomorphic feel. The first drawings were very far from where we ended up. But you never want to limit or censor yourself – it could happen that during the process you'll find things that you'd never have thought about before on purpose."

In the end, it was determined that Red (and the other characters) would indeed be more anthropomorphic than looking like real birds. 'We found a design of a bird-like creature, with the feeling of a bird," explains Francesca Natale. 'The stance, the acting, and the look of the character all look anthropomorphic. Similarly, they don't have actual wings, instead, they have arms that have the feel and look of wings in the silhouette and shape."

The pigs presented a challenge that was similar in some respects – to translate the graphic icons into fully-formed characters – but entirely different in another: there are tons of pigs, and the question became whether they should be all the same or different. After all, the numerous pigs seem to move together like a hive, all working toward the same purpose. 'We finally chose to make them unique," Francesca Natale recalls. 'When you look at them as a mass of characters, they should move as one unit, but getting closer, each one has a very distinctive personality and a very specific role."

When a final design was realised, Francesca Natale turned over her work to Leo Sanchez Barbosa, a digital sculpture artist, who translated her two-dimensional drawings into 3D objects. In the end, over 130 distinct birds and over 100 pigs deliver the action.

For Visual Effects Supervisor Danny Dimian, the simple design of the pigs was one of the greatest challenges faced by the digital artists. 'It's deceptively hard to get very simple things right," says Danny Dimian. 'Francesca and Clay were very clear that they wanted the pigs to have very smooth forms, very clean shapes – and also that the pigs would have to have a very wide acting range. However, the simpler a character is, the more the audience can notice every imperfection and every change in that shape. So our characters had to transition these simple, clean shapes in crazy animation. As a result, our rigs are actually very complicated – even though the pigs look simple, underneath, they have a very complicated, sophisticated model that required a lot of technology. It was an impressive thing to achieve."

Of course, the challenge wasn't always hidden underneath. 'For the birds, we pushed our feather system," Danny Dimian continues. 'Again, the birds have very simple designs, but their material properties are very complicated. So the questions kept coming: where do we put feathers? Where do we put fur? How do we groom these characters? To keep them simple, but also appealing, fluffy, bird-like creatures, was quite a challenge."

Animation Supervisor Pete Nash says that the filmmakers didn't take it easy – often planning large, complicated shots with many animated characters moving all at once. 'When I came on board, they showed me some early storyboards, so I knew it would be a very ambitious project," says Pete Nash.

'For me, the main challenge was the pure scope of the movie. I knew there were going to be lots of characters on screen at all times – large, complicated shots with many characters moving all at once. For example, there's one sequence in which the pigs steal all of the eggs – it's an orchestrated heist, the pigs are running all over, and it's all choreographed in a very complex way – with 50 to 100 characters on screen at any one time. The whole movie is filled with shots like that – it was going to be epic, and the epic-ness was the fun challenge."

As Red is the central character, Nash's group gave him careful focus. Naturally, Red's anger played a big part in the way the animators brought him to life. 'When you're animating, the first thing you ask is what's the motivation?" Nash explains. Through some trial and error, he says, they found that a little anger goes a long way – choosing an understated approach after first going very broad. 'We did some early tests with Red in which we played with concepts – quick cuts, almost like a spaghetti western, with cuts to his eyebrows, cuts to his fist clenching, cuts to his toes clenching, cuts to his teeth grinding. Later, we ended up abandoning that for a much more subtle take. I actually videotaped myself; I tried to imagine myself boiling over in frustration, and acted that out, and tried to take the subtle clues that I saw: very small facial twitches, the way your neck stiffens up as your head rolls around."

With Jason Sudeikis cast in the role, the filmmakers also looked to video reference to inform the performance. 'It wasn't only what he did while he recorded his lines, but we also looked at his comedy in general," says Nash. 'We saw the little things he does – like when he says something that's sarcastic, he'll do it with a smile on his face. It's part of his charm, his appeal. We borrowed that for Red."

With Chuck, by contrast, there was no need to be so subtle. 'Chuck is the most pushed character in the film, because his power is super-speed. Josh Gad performs him like someone with ADD – talking a mile a minute, changing ideas in mid-thought – so we tried to treat his animation that way. We tried to cram as many ideas as possible into the performance as we could. We could do things like an impossible pose change without worrying about the actual mechanics of getting there. It was surprising how many ideas we ended up putting into his performance."   With Bomb, the animators' challenge was the best way to express Bomb's challenge, which is thinking complex thoughts. 'Bomb's tries so hard to think," says Nash. 'We really exaggerated him trying to think, hand on the chin, pursing his lips, crunching his eyebrows down, eyes darting around. And then we could show that even though he's trying very hard, it's producing no results."

As for Bomb's ability to blow up, Nash explains, 'It's like someone building up with pressure. He never wants to explode. He doesn't have control over it. He's trying really hard to hold it back. And then at the last second, we have his eyeballs suddenly bulge, the dam bursts, and then he explodes."

Matilda provided yet another challenge. 'In the beginning, she's new age, touchy- feely, always trying to be overly pleasant, so we wanted her movement to be overly graceful and fluid and perfect," Nash recalls. 'But then, because she's actually harboring a deep anger herself, you'd see a quick flash of a demonic face – snap – and then she'd be back to her extremely pleasant self in an instant." The overall look of the film was designed by Pete Oswald, the film's production designer. 'His task was huge. Honestly, this is the biggest movie I've ever worked on, in terms of scope," says Clay Kaytis, who knows something about big projects, having headed animation on Tangled. 'It has two civilizations. The bird community has 130 unique characters, not accounting for the supporting crowds of characters. And there are thousands of pigs. The style is pushed, the lighting is pushed, the color choices not standard, real-world lighting. It's all very designed, and Pete's hand is behind it all. He brought a whimsical and comedic flair, creating the universe that the Angry Birds live in."

Oswald says that because the characters themselves have more basic designs, the filmmakers had the opportunity to make the world they inhabit very real and complicated. 'The film is very stylized with a touch of realism. We wanted to design a film that was familiar, yet unexpected. So, the shapes in our film are very bold and exaggerated, and some are really cartoony. But we textured them with real-life materials – for example, the bark of the trees have a bird feather motif. It harks back to the fact that the birds are flightless and have never been off the island."

The color palette, too, was designed to reference the real world. 'The color palette of the game is very simple – primary colors," says Oswald, 'So for the film, we chose a color palette that was sophisticated, naturalistic, and bold. The birds were the most important part of the color palette – the birds had to pop and contrast against the backgrounds. Red, in particular, because he's the main character – his hue is very specific; none of the other birds have that specific hue of red. When you're shooting a giant crowd shot, you know exactly where Red is."

One of those giant crowd shots comes early in the film as Red exits the court and walks down Main Street. 'We get to see the entire scope of the village through this sequence," says Oswald. 'You're tracking him as he's walking through the village. My department created the designs of the village – we did some sketches, then paintings, worked with pre-viz to mock up some of our designs, and we'd figure out how far apart the huts had to be to play the scene in the right tempo and we could fit in all of the gags. It also had to feel like a small town, so there was a lot of discussion about how wide Main Street should be – too wide, and it's too big of a city; too narrow and we couldn't get in the gags."

One of the key locations on Bird Island is Red's house, which he has built on the beach, to get away from the rest of the island residents. 'While all of the other birds' huts are soft and weave, Red has constructed his hut of a hard, stucco material – we thought that was a good metaphor for Red's hard exterior. He has cacti all over his garden, and a big palm tree that has spikes on top of it. It's beautiful, but it's foreboding."

Between Bird Island and Pig Island, there are over 90 locations in the film. 'We were constantly contrasting between the two islands," Oswald continues. 'On Bird Island, everything is organic. They have no electricity. On Piggy Island, they have everything – they have electricity, TNT, automobiles, airplanes. A cup on Bird Island might be made of chiseled wood, handmade, natural. A cup on Pig Island would be made out of metal or glass."

'I like to call the pig world -the architecture of idiocracy,'" says Oswald. 'There's no rhyme or reason to how they construct things. In contrast to the birds – the birds are very thoughtful and they really aesthetically care about what their place looks like, and every little detail is right – the pigs are just throwing structures together. The pigs' sense of design is more vertical, so they love to stack things, and their buildings end up just being wobbly, off-kilter and off-balance. That's a great catalyst to making the game come to life: once the birds get to Pig Island, they have a target to hit – these really tall, wonky structures are a really rich place to begin an action sequence.

'Pig Island is kind of a Rube Goldberg type of world," says Danny Dimian, the Visual Effects Supervisor. 'It's built to fall apart. As we built this large world for the pigs, we had to think of it in smaller blocks; the city itself is built of simple, distinct pieces, like a child builds out of Lego bricks. When they're assembled, they can give you many, many permutations."

And those building blocks can be reused over and over again. The team followed a similar strategy in creating the foliage for Bird Island. 'We built an extensive library of plants, trees, shrubs, all in a very bird-inspired motif," Dimian continues. 'That library allowed us to mix-and-match, scale, and create an incredibly rich world out of a lot fewer pieces than the audience might see."

And like any child building something out of blocks, one of the fun parts is knocking it down. 'We also put a lot of effort into destroying this world," Dimian concludes. 'When the birds finally take it out on the pigs in the final sequence, we get to blow up everything we've put together. Maybe that's the kid in me, but that's still a very satisfying thing to do."

About The Story

Welcome to Bird Island, where flightless birds lead a mostly happy existence. Whether you're visiting the Early Bird worm shop, or getting your feather extensions at the Birds of a Feather beauty salon, Bird Island has everything a happy bird could   want. And their entire existence revolves around their eggs – because after all, they believe the children are the future.

But, of course, every apple has a worm. That's Red – he's an angry bird. It's not his fault – he just can't get past the daily annoyances that the rest of us let slide. And it's not long before his temper lands him in anger management class, where he meets his fellow misfits, Chuck and Bomb.

With no technology, no electricity – and, of course, their useless, tiny wings – the birds are completely naïve and totally unaware of the larger world around them. And life is fine… until one day, a boat comes ashore, helmed by mysterious, green pigs. (And – wouldn't you know it – they crash their ship right into Red's house on the beach.)

For most of the birds, the coming of the pigs is the greatest event in the history of birdkind… so when the pigs step hoof onto the island, the birds welcome them with open wings.

And why not? The pigs bring amazing technology that they are all too happy to share with the birds. They have TNT, which you can use to blow stuff up; they have a device they call a trampoline; and best of all, they have built an amazing long- distance delivery system called a slingshot.

Only Red has any idea that there is more to the pigs than meets the eye. These pigs really start to get under his skin. And, remarkably enough, he – along with Chuck and Bomb – will use his anger to unite the birds as he figures out what really brought the pigs to Bird Island.

(Spoiler alert: it's the eggs.)

The Angry Birds Movie
Release Date: May 12th, 2016