Director Carlos Saldanha Returns Home with ‘Rio’

Carlos Saldanha, the Brazilian-born director of the “Ice Age” films, has stuck with a frigid temperature for his past three movies. He was understandably eager to return to warmer climates with his most recent film, “Rio,” which is being released today. Speakeasy caught up with Saldanha to discuss keeping colors vibrant in 3-D, the strange eating habits of cockatoos and fitting into Brazilian cinematic tradition.

The Wall Street Journal: The colors in the film are eye-popping. How did you make them so vivid?

Carlos Saldanha: The first 3-D movie we did was “Ice Age 3.” We were caught off-guard when the movie became much darker being in 3-D. We had to do a lot of work to catch up and make sure it looked right. Knowing that, from the get-go on “Rio” we knew had to make everything brighter. It’s a very colorful movie. The pallet that we chose was much more vibrant and much more exciting. We didn’t want it to be lost in 3-D.

How did you make it more vibrant? Did you use different technology?

It’s less about the technology and more about the creative choice, art direction and the pallet that we chose. We did a lot of planning to make sure all the characters’ colors follow the same rule or pattern. We had all the characters have primary colors to complement each other. Especially where you had a lot of the birds in the club, we wanted to make sure each color was represented.

The music in the film is as important as the art direction. What was your approach?

I brought in Sergio Mendes to be my music guru and online living library. He’s probably the most active Brazilian musician of all time. He’s friends with Brazilian music legends and he’s friends with will.i.am and Pharrell. He created amazing relationships and has worked with all these amazing artists. We wanted to create a new take on Brazilian music, but we wanted to give some different flavors, a little bit of samba, a little bit of hip hop, a little bit of funk. My composer is British but loves Brazilian music. So it was a great combination of working together, of creating a score but at the using original music to make it feel more organic. We didn’t want things to stand out. The movie was not constructed to be a musical, but music is a huge element in the movie on all levels. It was a challenge because I didn’t want to do the Disney musical structure, where they break into song and the song has a full story. Ours is more like, ok we’re going to throw a concert, so they sing at the concert, but it’s more organic and not “let me tell you my story.”

Did you study the birds in depth before animating?

We went to the Bronx Zoo and talked to an expert on macaws because we wanted to see how they moved, how domesticated they are, and what their personality is like. Macaws get very attached to their owners, almost protective, and they’re very loyal. So they truly become companions. They’re extremely smart birds; they learn how to open their cages. They have all these life skills. They’re also bright and lively. We used all those elements to help build the characters in the movie. Later on, we met with parrot experts who brought in cockatoos and African greys. We wanted to create the contrast between the cockatoos and the macaws. We found out that domesticated cockatoos do eat chicken. [Editor’s note: cannibals! Quell horreur.]

Christopher Nolan couldn’t do “Inception” until he had done “The Dark Knight” — until he had shown he could do a large-scale movie. Did you have to prove your worth with the “Ice Age” films?

I had always wanted to do this movie but had never found the right moment. The “Ice Age”s  definitely helped me create a reputation; it created a trust from the studio to allow me to elaborate on this. This is very personal property, it’s my own content, it’s something no one was familiar with but me – so they had to trust that they would like it. I think similar to Nolan was the fact that “Inception” is his own baby. He had to prove a little bit that he could do it. When they gave me the task of doing “Ice Age 2,” it was my process starting to prove myself as an independent director. It was very successful, and then “Ice Age 3” was an even bigger success. So in a way I don’t think they could have said no.

There were echoes of “City of God” in the film when the characters zoom through the alleyways. Do you see yourself as a Brazilian auteur, or do you want to keep making films that are more globally focused?

My whole movie career is in America. I’m Brazilian by birth, but I’m an American filmmaker. I left Brazil when I was 21 and came to the School of Visual Arts. My sensibilities are more guided toward my reality here. It’s a global reality. I don’t make movies with Brazilian flavor; I make a movie about whatever I decide. Rio happens to be very personal because I am from there. But I don’t know if it’s considered a Brazilian movie. It’s something I made for Americans and the world.  I do love Brazilian cinema. There’s a lot of great stuff. I may make a movie that appeals to the Brazilian sensibility, but I consider myself an international filmmaker.