Supervising director Andrew L.Schmidt and Carlos Baena, director of the last 2 episodes, talk about the third and final season’s epic climax - a sweeping, emotional battle for the future of Orbona as Eva 9 tries to bridge 2 divided worlds and prove the ultimate truth; now on Apple TV.
Sweeping battles, tragic deaths, stunning betrayals, final resolutions… Apple TV and Skydance Animation’s wraps its journey with an epic, roller coaster final season packed with everything needed to break the hearts of fans in one episode while making them shed tears of joy in another.
But even though the storytelling is smooth, production on this final chapter was not.It was full of challenges.In Season 3, based on “The Search for WondLa” book series by Tony DiTerlizzi, war erupts between humans and aliens.
With Orbona's fate hanging in the balance, Eva must embark on her most dangerous mission yet: recapturing the stolen Heart of the Forest.Along the way, she gathers old friends and unlikely allies for one last stand. But to save Orbona, Eva must do more than find the Heart; she must bridge two divided worlds and prove the ultimate truth: “There is no ‘them.’ There is only us.” Check out the trailer: Now streaming on Apple TV, the final season features a star-studded voice cast that includes Jeanine Mason as Eva; Brad Garrett as Otto; Gary Anthony Williams as Rovender; Alan Tudyk as Cadmus Pryde; John Ratzenberger as Caruncle; John Harlan Kim as Hailey; Ana Villafañe as Eva 8; and Peter Gallagher as Antiquus.New cast members include Shohreh Aghdashloo as Darius and Arius, and Maz Jobrani as Zin.
DiTerlizzi executive produces alongside Bobs Gannaway, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell, Julie Kane-Ritsch, and Skydance Animation’s John Lasseter, David Ellison, and Dana Goldberg.Tony Cosanella produces while Andrew L.Schmidt serves as supervising director.
AWN chatted with Schmidt and Carlos Baena, director of ’s final two episodes, about the finale’s intimidatingly large scale, compelling character arcs and endings, and what makes the show stand out from other “coming together” stories. Victoria Davis: WondLa Andrew L.Schmidt: Absolutely.You always wish you had more time so you could do more.
But story-wise, yes, we feel like we really wrapped it up beautifully.And we worked really hard with Tony hand-in-hand to make sure we got everything he wanted in there to bring it to a close.VD: AS: I was really keen on Rovender because he's a father figure and I'm a father to a stepson myself.
I could see some parallels in that.And just watching him mature from a grumpy curmudgeon and begrudgingly accept Eva, taking her on, then understanding the responsibility that he needs to be there for her and help her navigate through this world was fun to explore.VD: AS: Whenever you're making some kind of creative endeavor as an artist, you're always trying to put yourself into it, trying to connect and find personal moments that you can convey into the acting or the writing.
I think that's a way of linking the audience more directly to the material because they see an authentic performance and they recognize something in that.If you've experienced something like that, undoubtedly someone else has as well.VD: Carlos Baena: The final scenes between both Eva sisters, as well as the surprise ending and epilogue, were a lot of fun to see evolve.
I loved seeing the different rendering passes coming from the studio ICON, as they took their effects, lighting, and scope of work to a much more pushed place.It’s what these final episodes needed, and the team fully delivered.VD: AS: It was.
We were building up to it.We wanted to close out the season powerfully and emotionally and bring some tears.We wanted people to feel deeply for these characters, feel for the loss, feel for the wins, all that.
VD: AS: And every step of the way, the story artists, the writers, directors, everybody tried to plus the story as well as add a bit of themselves into it.I think that's why it resonates so well.VD: CB: For these final two episodes, the toughest part for me was the limited time we had while aiming for something bigger in scope, such as the big battle.
We had limitations in terms of what we could do technically and animation-wise at times. VD: CB: We explored every creative solution we could within the time and resource constraints.Our ability to have many big crowd moments was limited.So, I had to find visual solutions that kept the sense of scale and intensity in the battle, and implied large crowds, using atmospheric dust, silhouettes, specific character staging and other tricks.
The good thing is that by doing so, it added a raw, gritty quality to the episodes I really enjoyed. Animation-wise, while the pillar guards weren’t that big, I still tried to slow them down in animation to make it feel like they were even bigger.I also tried to place the camera in the middle of the battle to make it feel as if we were there.I do have to give credit to both my storyboard team and the previs team, who really embraced these big moments and worked very hard to elevate the action, spectacle, and overall sense of scale.
The music and the sound design were also crucial in pushing these battle scenes further and giving them that extra impact.AS: You have the scale and scope of this massive battle going on, but you also have this epic and intimate moment with Rovender dying and the goodbye.I wasn't up with the animation team, but we were sending people up there to work with them directly to just try and coordinate and help solve any problems that they might be having with the scale.
I was just trying to figure out how to be smart in using and reusing animation, building some cycles and replication and things like that in order for this scene to look natural and alive.I think it all turned out beautiful, beyond my expectations.VD: WondLaWondLaWondLa AS: Oh, that is a good question. CB: The coming together type of story has been done many times, indeed.
But there are a few reasons stands out for me.Eva 9’s journey feels unique.She wasn’t born with a grand destiny.
She grows into herself through curiosity, patience, and understanding.There is an honesty to her journey, in my opinion.Her leadership emerges from that learning process, making her story feel real, human, and educational to the audience. Also, the stakes come from characters (humans and aliens) learning to understand each other.
What happens in the world physically mirrors the emotional journey of the characters, especially Eva 9.Lastly, there is a big sub-theme regarding forgiveness and how much we are willing to forgive in the darkest times. AS: And I think it was built in from the start that we knew it all had to be earned.The feelings at the end needed to be inevitable, but surprising at the same time, which is difficult to do.
How to make sure moments in the story felt earned were being figured out from the very beginning by the writers and story team.We didn’t want to be sentimental, but you had to feel those characters’ pain and feel the reward at the end.And I think we pulled it off. Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.
She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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