Disney and Pixar’s “Turning Red” introduces Mei Lee, a confident, dorky 13-year-old torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. Her protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming, is never far from her daughter—an unfortunate reality for the teenager. And as if changes to her interests, relationships and body weren’t enough, whenever she gets too excited (which is practically ALWAYS), she “poofs” into a giant red panda!
“Everyone had to tap their inner 13-year-olds to capture the style that Director Domee Shi wanted,” says Turning Red Producer Lindsey Collins. “It’s a world seen through the eyes of Mei. Everything is vibrant and colorful. The design is textured and tactile and chunky, and the animation style and, every now and then, facial expressions are pushed. The characters are caricatured, and the way they move and pose is fresh. Domee’s stylization is extended through art, animation, camera and lighting, and her passion for anime shines through.”
Exuberant, ambitious, and over-achieving, Chinese-Canadian Meilin Lee is a middle school force of nature. With her posse of loyal besties, Mei excels at school and obsesses over their fave boy band, 4*Town. At home with her mom, Mei is the dutiful and driven future keeper of the ancestral family temple. But when ancient magic turns Mei into a giant red panda, a gulf opens up between Mei and her mom, and forces a reckoning between Mei’s two selves: the obedient daughter and spirited teenager.
Eight feet tall, wild, raging with hormones, fun-loving and destructive, Red Panda Mei represents Mei at her most emotional, messy, and true self.
Elegantly turned out and poised at all times, Ming is the devoted keeper of the Lee Family Temple in Toronto’s Chinatown. Ming takes her duties as spiritual leader and local entrepreneur quite seriously, but the role she prizes most is that of mother to her precious only daughter, Meilin. Fierce, stubborn, funny, controlling, and even infuriating, Ming is—as Mei would put it—"A lot”, but her deep love for her family is always apparent.
Jin, the quiet, steady rock of the Lee family, works hard and aspires to a life of simple pleasures: cooking a good meal for his family, sneaking the occasional donut, gardening…. He’s a necessary balance to his strong-willed wife Ming, and a doting and loving father to his daughter Mei. But when an ancient magic throws his family into chaos, Jin’s quiet life is upended.
Tomboyish Miriam is fairly mature—or as mature as a thirteen-year-old girl who’s completely obsessed with the boy band 4*Town can get. Miriam is resolutely supportive, funny, loyal, and a total goof. In short, she’s the bestest best bestie a girl could ever have.
Meticulous yet artsy, passionate yet stoic—Priya is a quiet wild card with a deadpan sense of humor and a good student who follows the rules. But that doesn’t stop her from obsessing over the boy band, 4*Town.
Full of fury, tiny Abby is a stick of dynamite; a warrior who will not hesitate to launch herself at anyone who threatens her besties. Raised by strict parents, Abby plays the good girl card and follows the rules. But that doesn’t stop her from being unruly and passionate about boy bands, her friends and saving the earth.
4*Town, the hottest, coolest boy band of all time, is behind songs like “Nobody Like U”—the single from their latest album that’s climbing all the charts. Their concerts are truly epic, featuring high-flying theatrics, lights, pyrotechnics and—best of all—the five dreamy members of 4*Town.
According to Shi, if you set a 13-year-old girl’s coming-of-age story in the early 2000s, it’s pretty much mandatory to include a boy band. “We needed our character Mei to be obsessed with something that her mom would not approve of,” says Shi. “Boy bands were the first step into the world of boys for a lot of girls that age. The guys were all super pretty, polished, soft and loving, and they had of way of bringing girls and their besties together. Plus, I thought it’d be really cool to create an animated boy band.”
Tyler is that kid we all know from middle school: annoying, aggressive and always popping up when least wanted. But though he likes to play the snot-nosed jerk, inside, Tyler is just a kid trying to make it through middle school intact.
A woman of legendary elegance and fiercely high standards, Grandma sets the bar by which all is judged. With her daughter Ming in charge of the family temple, Grandma now enjoys her retirement, playing mahjong and nitpicking her family from afar. She expects her granddaughter, Mei, to be the next temple keeper and ensure the family’s legacy for years to come. And she expects Ming to be a mother just like she was: withholding, over-protective, light on praise and heavy on expectation.
SUN YEE is the Lee family’s most revered ancestor, an example of the strong women who came before them, and the central figure in their temple. Ming and Mei share Sun Yee’s story with temple guests in fun and vibrant fashion that culminates with Mei in a makeshift red panda costume.
Set in Toronto, Canada, during the early 2000s, “Turning Red” gave the artists and filmmakers responsible for building the environments a clear jumping-off point: Toronto is a real place, after all. But while the city’s recognizable skyline, architecture style, street signs and Chinatown proved invaluable resources to filmmakers, their re-creation would be unique. For starters, it all had to be chunky cute. Says production designer Rona Liu, “We are looking at this world from a 13-year-old’s lens, so we rounded sharp corners and angles and didn’t taper shapes. Everything is round and pretty.”
Toronto, Canada—hometown to director Domee Shi and the characters of “Turning Red”—is featured prominently in the film, calling for specific nods to iconic locales. But compared to the representation of New York City in “Soul,” “Turning Red” aims for a less realistic look. “It feels more like a very soft, colorful, magical, idyllic, almost youthful version of the city,” says executive producer Dan Scanlon.
To create the film’s representation of Chinatown and the Lee family’s ancestral temple, artists did extensive research—from careful analysis of two specific streets in Toronto’s real Chinatown to visiting the Asian Museum of San Francisco—and collaborated with a host of consultants. “Cultural authenticity was super important for us,” says director Domee Shi. “We took several trips to historic temples in California built by early Chinese settlers just to get a feeling of what these grassroots temples are like.”
The Lees’ home is a perfect representation of the family’s Chinese Canadian lifestyle. And while Mei blends seamlessly into her household, joining mom and dad for homemade meals and watching TV alongside her mom, Mei’s growing pains come to light within the walls of her bedroom. At first glance, it is quite tidy for a teenager’s room. But—like Mei herself—there’s more to that story. Says sets art director Kristian Norelius, “I think she’s been trying to live up to her mom’s expectations by having everything sorted and organized. But hidden beneath the bed is evidence of her emerging self with new interests that she shares with her friends.”
Several sequences take place within Mei’s middle school, showcasing her friendships and new interests away from her mother’s watchful eye (for the most part). Artists had to build the middle school with the film’s city setting in mind. Director Domee Shi pointed artists toward the school she attended—and sets supervisor Steve Karski actually found the blueprints for the school. “We used them as inspiration to see how an urban school in Toronto might be laid out,” he says.
Mei and her friends are determined to attend the 4*Town concert, so filmmakers knew they’d need a spectacular venue for the occasion. Artists started with the actual dimensions of Toronto’s SkyDome, then played with the scale to find the sweet spot, allowing the climactic ending to unfold to its greatest potential.
Effects supervisor Dave Hale and his team studied live concerts to help build the effects for the concert sequences. “We did a bunch of stage fog, pyrotechnics and vapor geysers,” says Hale.
Director of photography Mahyar Abousaeedi set out to create an authentic concert experience. “I was obsessed with the boy band scene to the point where I spent an entire weekend watching every NSYNC and Backstreet Boys music video I could find,” says Abousaeedi. “We really wanted our camera and choreography to capture the look and feel of videos from the late 1990s and early 2000s. I looked at technology from the era and found the Spidercam. It was brand new at the time and all the rage—it was attached to a cable so it could move across the wide spans of a stadium. There is a larger-than-life feeling you get with wide-angle lenses. And animation brought gold to that scene.”
