KUNG-FU PANDA
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Kung-Fu Panda is the first time I had an outsized role in story development. Starting on KFP from day zero and seeing it through multiple versions over nearly four years into production, I turned out volumes of work from storyboarding, to writing, development, and more. Here’s just a few sequences from the show when I started in 2003 through to 2007 when story wrapped.
Po’s Dream
ORIGIN
Po’s Dream intro began as part of a sequence I’d written early on in 2003 that introduced the idea of him fantasizing about being a Kung-Fu master.
LAUNCH
Every show has it’s dark period (usually midway into screening 3 ime), and KFP was no exception. Nobody liked “Dark Po” so we thankfully scrapped that and went back to the Po who loves Kung-Fu. The Directors wanted to return to the fanboy Po I had in my original pitches and also because I’d been a story lead on the show asked me to create an opening that showed them “Jed’s vision for Kung-Fu Panda”. From that I created this Dream Sequence that became a lighthouse for where to take the show.
STORY OUTLINE & THUMBNAILS
First I wrote a quick story outline then thumbnailed it out.
STORYBOARD
After reviewing thumbnails I storyboarded the sequence.
SCRIPT PAGES
Sometimes I write the pages first, and other times I work “Miyazaki Style” writing it as I thumb/board. Here are the pages I wrote for the sequence for record/screenplay.
– 2D INTRO –
RE-OPENING a 2D DEPT.
We knew we couldn’t afford to do everything in the dream sequence I’d boarded, so I suggested 2D and while the show liked it, they couldn’t get the studio to approve it. The studio had just closed down all of 2D animation following Sinbad and it was a hard NO on more 2D.
Knowing this was the direction everyone wanted to go but we couldn’t afford it in 3D, I decided to create a 2D animatic to try and sell the studio on. So…I went a bit rogue and borrowed my cintiq (the only one at DW at that time), and took it home to use with my rig that had the apps I needed. I spent a week rushing to turn this out and then pitched it to the studio which convinced them to give us a 2D unit for the opening! I also created a teaser in the same style we incorporated into the final edit.
LOOK DEV TESTS
Vis Dev did some amazing artwork of the sequence and there was fear it would look more like previous 2D films than this, so I created look dev animation tests to establish a method and pipeline to capturing the style.
STORY to FINAL
Final story reel comp to final.
Bridge Battle
This was the last sequence I developed and boarded for Kung-Fu Panda. Over the initial 3.5yrs developing the basis for this franchise I had been so busy being typecast as the character writer for Po I never had an opportunity to do much action with anyone who wasn’t Po. The story launch was to land Tigress’ insecurity of never living up to Shifu’s prized student “Tai Lung”, and causing a problem for the rest of the team in her eagerness to prove something to herself. We also need to demonstrate the imminent threat Tai Lung poses by taking down all five of Po’s heroes.
At this stage we still hadn’t locked down how our Kung-Fu would work and my take was instead of relying on magic or something to make it special, imagine what already made it special. I’d pitched an idea they wanted me to demonstrate where we treat the fighting through imagining the POV of a Shaolin Temple Monk watching animals movements and discovering animal styles for the first time. Approach it that humans were only a watered down filter of the animals true kung-fu limited by our anatomy, then flip that and imagine what the original, unfiltered style looked like as the animal did it, unencumbered by human anatomical limitations.
ACTION STYLE for CHOREOGRAPHY
A section of the sequence I developed as reference for Choreography to inform our “Animals doing Animal Style” Kung-Fu.
Midnight Snack
This was a first take on the idea of Po struggling with his vice of stress-eating and getting some parting wisdom from Oogway. It was also what helped push us back to doing the original take of Po who liked Kung-Fu but with more self-awareness.
“Eternal Outakes”
Throughout our three major re-writes of the film, these were a few ideas I came up with in other scenes that were cut, but later made their way back in other sequences.
Oogways Vision
This was a sequence meant to introduce us to Shifu, Oogway, Tai Lung, and a ton of exposition as efficiently as possible.
Vault of Hero’s
This was a from a version of the film where Po hated Kung-Fu, but Shifu had to make him try. Po was basically just a version of Shrek. A complete inversion of our concept that imho, wasn’t fun at all and I’m glad this was abandoned. Still, it was part of the story-road that helped us find Shifu’s character and his dark past. This is one I wrote first, then boarded.
Po goes to the Tournament
This was from the first screening of KFP when Shifu was Po’s Dad. It didn’t stay in but the bit with Po daydreaming was the beginnings of the intro dream sequence.
The Tournament of Champions
As the first Story Artist on Kung-Fu Panda this was the first scene launched and boarded in September 2003. At the time, Po was scripted as a very soft-spoken and charmless character with no charisma. Gary Trousdale who was directing it at the time gave me a ton of free range to re-write and develop, so I tried a take where Po was a ‘fanboy’ of Kung-Fu which ultimately stuck. This is where Po as a fanboy of Kung-Fu was born.