Directors Chris and Justin Copeland, and producer Shabrayia Cleaver, discuss their collaboration on the new DreamWorks animated short about a teenage boy who visits his Gramps at a seemingly boring assisted living facility, only to find they had more than he thought in common.
DreamWorks Animation’s latest short, , an inventive and uniquely designed film written and directed by brothers Chris and Justin Copeland, and produced by Shabrayia B.Cleaver, tells the story of a teenage boy who visits his “Gramps” at a seemingly mundane, boring assisted living facility, only to find out they have much more in common than he ever imagined.
Ultimately a film about connection, communication, and commonality, draws you in with its humor, emotional honesty, and retro-vintage video game styling.In this extended conversation, the filmmakers discuss the origins of the short, how its bold, 8-bit gaming look took shape, the challenges of telling a dialogue-free story, and how the film became much deeper than any of them expected.First, enjoy the trailer, then read about how the film was produced: Dan Sarto: Wednesdays With Gramps Justin Copeland: It started with a call from DreamWorks about doing a short in partnership with Lenovo.
We were working on a feature at the time, so at first, we weren’t sure we could take it on.But the studio pitched it as an opportunity to get familiar with the DreamWorks production pipeline and meet some of the production staff.Then Lenovo dropped out, and the studio basically told us, “Make whatever story you want.” Chris and I began by talking about relationships.
The idea of a grandson and grandfather popped up almost immediately.I remember saying, “What if the grandpa used to be the greatest old school gamer ever? And now he’s just this elderly dude.And what if the kid has no idea?” Then one night, I was washing dishes, and the ending came to me — what if he dies? Or, what if you think he’s dead? Once we had that, we knew we had the whole thing.
Chris Copeland: At that point, it was just a matter of what do we want to happen within these seven minutes.How do we want things to play out, to get you invested in these characters? Once we had that beginning and ending, Justin and I just started exploring ideas for a second act.DS: Shabrayia Cleaver: It started with me and development.
I’ve been at DreamWorks for 12 years, and I was working with the Copelands on a feature.The studio wanted to make a short, so, as we started working with development, trying to craft ideas for the film, it came that time to find some directors.And so, our previous head of production and I advocated having the Copelands come on, because we felt this could be a great opportunity for them to get to know the players at DreamWorks.
They were new to our world and new to the feature pipeline, so it just seemed like it made sense.We already had a really great working relationship.I loved the ideas that they came up with, and so it kind of started with that.
We started talking more about their upbringing and they’re not knowing their grandparents; I always feel like the best ideas come from personal experience or personal aspirations.I grew up with my grandparents, so I brought a lot of that lived experience to the table.I was like, “My grandma couldn’t spend any time with me because she was at bingo.
She had very strict bingo responsibilities.” As their producer, my job was to help them navigate the system, protect their creative vision, and connect them with the right collaborators.DreamWorks can be a big machine, so part of producing is making sure the energy and intimacy of a small project don’t get lost.Knowing Chris and Justin, I was able to put people in front of them that I thought could best execute their vision.
Because it was a short, we had to be creative about everything — time, crew, assets.My background in indie filmmaking helped.You learn to make limitations work for you.
That scrappiness helped get the short made.My production supervisors and coordinators all handled multiple assignments.Credit goes to the studio for letting us run creatively.
That is so rare.DS:Gramps CC: Storyboarding is everything for us.Justin and I are very hands-on directors.
When we get a story idea, our first inclination is to board it.We’re not putting a team together until it’s ready.We have so many things rattling around in our minds that for our sanity, we board it and put it on the table so when we bring people onto it, we can see what they can turn it into.
That came from working at Warner Bros., working at Cartoon Network, on different TV shows.You’re always presented with a deadline and a budget, and then you have to get moving.JC: We literally sit next to each other making sound effects.
Chris would bring stuff up and eventually it would make sense to me.We played with LEGO as kids.That’s a 3D space.
That’s worldbuilding.Then we played video games, then there was drawing.I only started drawing because we didn’t have a camera.
Had I a camera, I would never have learned to draw.Thank god I learned to draw because I can draw out an idea really quickly.So, us being able to communicate, to get on the same page, that’s helpful for everyone.
But storyboarding helps us nail everything down.I ask him questions that I think I know the answers to, and I see what he’s thinking.If we’re off, we get to the bottom of it.
CC: And as far as the TV versus feature landscape, in features, nothing is sacred until it’s sacred.You have more time, but you’re tasked with throwing a lot more ideas up there.In TV, everything is sacred immediately because you don’t get to go back and try it again.
Literally, one brushstroke means a whole lot more.You get really fast at identifying that brushstroke.JC: So, for the short, it’s seven minutes, let’s just board it.
It didn’t take a super-duper long time.We showed the studio.The studio liked it.
Our boards were really rough.We don’t normally board this way.Normally, our boards are gorgeous, beautiful spectacles.
Honestly, a lot of times the studios are like, “It doesn’t have to look this crazy.” So, we threw some quick boards down thinking we’d go back them.But once the studio saw and approved them, they went right into layout.Those very rough boards became the movie.
CC: Shout out to Shabrayia.She was like, “Look, I know Jon Gutman [head of cinematography, layout].” She knew by the time he got his hands on this and did some previs, like a layout animatic, our boards would be just enough.She knew what we had put together was good enough that the team she put together was going to grow it into something really fantastic.
DS: JC: Once we realized the story revolved around gaming, we knew the visuals had to reflect that.Chris suggested that we look at the history of gaming — from early, simple, blocky 8-bit, to higher fidelity as the movie goes forward.Everything would look pretty as you arrive at the modern-day animation.
But I figured we only have seven minutes, if we’re lucky, and I doubted we’d be able to nail that down.So, we started talking to our production designer, Fred Stewart, who loves video games.He said the early 3D video games had a certain ugly quality to them.
And if you took some of those very abstract ideas, put them together, and lit and colored them in a certain way, you’d have a really different look.He and our VFX supervisor Mark Edwards are geniuses.They knew how to make that a reality in a 3D space.
Fred started doing artwork and we said, “We don’t know, Fred.This looks too abstract.Not sure this is going work.” And he said, “Just trust me.” This is where you as a director earn your stripes because you have to trust your team.
And as he continued to explore, he’d bring stuff to us in every stage and we were like, “This is amazing.This is gorgeous.” And once the team started modeling the quote unquote mistakes, these slammed together polygons and weird geometry, it looked incredible.With color and lighting, it was unlike anything we’d ever seen.
CC: We grew up in Chicago, surrounded by hip-hop and graffiti.That sense of rhythm, color, and imperfection is part of who we are.Video games and street culture were part of our language growing up, so it felt apt to activate that on this movie.
SC: I have to give a lot of credit to Fred.We came to him with a prompt of, “We’re super inspired by 80s and 90s video games, that 8-bit style.We told him, “Take it far.
If it’s too far, we’ll pull you back.” But we never had to.He found these different patterns and textures that were so abstract, you’d say, “I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at.But it’s cool.” But then, he’d fold that into the practical aspects of textures on clothing, of skin, and hair.
He showed us a paint over of the Gramps character, and you could see the super large pixels in his face, almost translucent.It was a challenge for our crew to take a simpler approach that was needed on the film.In the old video games, the textures almost looked like mistakes.
And a lot of those mistake elements became part of the film’s aesthetic.One story I love is from Mark Edwards.In the arcade set, one of the basketball hoops never got its surface material applied.
He was going to fix it, but when he looked at the shot, he realized the missing surfacing actually fit the aesthetic.DS: JC: From the very beginning.Without dialogue, you’re forced to be precise.
Every gesture has to mean something.It’s like a silent movie.The animators had guardrails.
They’d come up with stuff that would be funny, but since there’s no dialogue, it didn’t make sense.All the performances had to make sense.We had to find ways to make it feel like there was dialogue even though there was no dialogue.
They’re sitting down on the couch.There’s an uncomfortable hello.There’s a lull in the conversation.
How long has it been? Two minutes? Good lord! That was hard to figure out at first, but it was fun to figure out.DS: SC: We didn’t have endless schedules or resources.But that made everyone sharper.
When you’re limited, you focus on what matters most — performance, emotion, story.The smaller the project, the more personal it becomes.With a short, you have to be crafty about how to build out the world.
A lot of credit to Chris and Justin, who were not so particular about where we got certain elements.So, there might be some buildings that are from that we remodeled for the background.That let us focus more on the important things like building out the entire arcade.
A lot of that was Mark Edwards, pulling different things from different shows, reusing lots of things.One of my favorite things he did was when we were trying to figure out all the gaming consoles in the arcade.What would we see on those screens? Mark took it upon himself to use Unreal Engine and create video games that would be playing on each of those consoles.
He used old DreamWorks properties.So, there's a game.There's a game; there's a game.
Those are my favorite little Easter eggs.CC: We just wanted to show life as we know it — diverse, complex, full of love.When people come up to us and say, “That reminds me of my family,” it reminds me why we make films.
Those moments make it worth it.JC: It’s a story about empathy.About understanding people different from you — or realizing they’re not so different at all.
If makes someone feel a little closer to their family, then we did our job.DS: Gramps SC: It’s been incredible.We premiered at the American Black Film Festival and the Detroit Black Film Festival, and the response was emotional.
People laughed, cried, and shared their own stories afterward.We’d hear, “That’s my grandpa,” or “That’s my grandson.” That’s how you know you’ve tapped into something real.CC: My favorite moments are watching grandparents and grandkids react together.
You see that connection — the spark of recognition — and it’s beautiful.That’s the whole reason we made it.SC: For me, it’s about connection — between artists, between generations, between cultures.
This film reminded me why I love what I do.When people tell me made them call their grandparents, that’s everything.And if you let me get on my high horse for a moment, it’s still rare to see Black animated characters in stories made by Black filmmakers.
And so, I'm really proud of this film.Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
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