Crafting A Dream World: How Alexander Woo And Steve Pilcher Built Netflix’s Original Feature ‘In Your Dreams’

On November 14, animator Alexander Woo (Go!Go! Cory Carson) will realize his dream of releasing his first animated feature as a director.  In Your Dreams, co-directed with Erik Benson and distributed by Netflix Animation, also marks the first animated feature completed by Woo’s Kuku Studios, his independent outfit co-founded with fellow Pixar alumni Stanley Moore and Tim Hahn.

A long-time storyboard artist and animator for Pixar, Woo went solo in 2016 and started developing with his collaborators an animated feature built around the concept of dreams, and how to hold onto hope when your dreams maybe don’t come true. It eventually formalized into the screenplay for In Your Dreams, which he co-wrote with Benson and Stanley Moore, following the adventures of siblings Stevie (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) and her brother, Elliot (voiced by Elias Janssen), as they travel into the world of dreams seeking the granting of their very specific wish.

As part of his production team, Woo assembled seasoned veterans such as producers Tim Hahn (Go!Go! Cory Carson) and Netflix Animation co-founder Gregg Taylor; VFX supervisor and director of CG supervision at Sony Pictures Imageworks, Nicola Lavender; head of character animation Sacha Kapijimpanga (Over the Moon); and two time Academy Award-winning production designer Steve Pilcher (Soul).

With an expansive idea like realizing abstract dream worlds, the question immediately becomes where to start, especially when there are no ideation limitations in animation. Cartoon Brew spoke with Pilcher about the seemingly infinite choices that he whittled down with Woo in crafting their “rules” for taming the nebulous space where our dreams exist.

 “You also want to be original,” Pilcher says of his first inclination about crafting a dream world for Stevie and Elliott. “You don’t want to do something that somebody has already done before because you think it’s cool, and you want to copy that. No, no, no! Stay true to what the film is asking for. Those are the biggest things. And to me, that’s kind of freeing enough to make the film.”

After initially speaking to Woo about the concept and his visual intentions, Pilcher says he was first swayed by the fact that this was an original animated feature idea. After that, he was taken with Woo’s ideas about how to allow for creativity within the dreamscapes that the siblings traverse.

 “Whenever I go on a film, it’s not about me bringing a style to the film, it’s about me listening to the film’s story, idea, and concept, and thinking, what is appropriate for this and what would best express this type of film?” Pilcher says of his initial design process.

Working with CG animation, Pilcher says he then started asking himself questions to hone the design parameters they would be working within, such as, “Does this film require an entire 2D shader approach?”

“No,” he offers. “Why? Because we want range and a very relatable world. Audience members can relate to a tactile surface, a shiny surface, a rough surface, or softness. All those aspects, we can relate to, but we caricature things so it’s appealing. So you caricature to a point of taste and appeal that is reliant on yourself, Alex, and our team. And then when you start with that in the real world, it allows you the range to go into the dream world.”

In Your Dreams takes place in two realms: the real world, where the siblings are experiencing the turmoil of their parents’ marital issues, and the dream world, which is under the purview of the Sandman (voiced by Omid Djalili).

Pilcher says a primary decision early on in pre-production was setting up parameters for both places, which in turn made everything that came after a little easier.

“I have to set up parameters because I go, ‘How many styles do you want to do and why? And then the question is, why are you doing that style? So actually, the parameters are freeing,” he contends about creating their in-world rules. “There’s so much potential, so parameters nurture creativity. And that’s why you want to create those parameters. They’re loose parameters, but setting [them] up allows you to be more creative.”

“You create a base to go back to and out from, and back to and out from,” Pilcher says of the concrete delineation between the two realities. “At the end of the day, when the film’s all done, where are you? Reality. You’re back on something people can relate to, and you’ve been on this psychological journey, so what did you get out of that? What came from all that? It’s got to be appealing and relatable, and that’s a very key word — relatable — so that you can enjoy the other, right?”

Pilcher says they used the familiarity of the real world as an anchor, allowing them to go to town with the dream world creations. “When [the siblings] actually gain some control of their dreams, they realize, ‘We’re in a dream world. We can do whatever we want! Heck, yeah, I’m going full anime.'”

Above all else, Pilcher says his guiding principle, which remains the same for any of his projects, is always coming back to, “What is this story about?”

“What are we saying?” he asks. “If you’re thinking about style when you leave a movie more than the story it told you, you’ve failed. I really think you’ve missed the potential of it being a great movie. Because we’re making a film, remember that. It’s not about, ‘Oh, we’re trying this new technique. It’s really cool. It looks just like this…’ So what? Is the film about that? No, what’s your story about?”