Patty Kihm & Aaron Hartline: Turning Red Interview
Pixar tackles the trials and tribulations of becoming a teenager in Turning Red, which premieres through Disney+ on March 11. The story follows perky teenager Meilin Lee (voiced by young actress Rosalie Chiang), whose rosy life literally turns red when she finds herself sporadically becoming a red panda as a strange side effect of puberty.
The enchanting tale is directed by Domee Shi, who previously wowed audiences with the Oscar-winning short film Bao. Aiding her in creating a new look and animation style in which to tell such a unique tale are animation supervisors Patty Kihm and Aaron Hartline, who were directing animators for Toy Story 4. Aside from crafting Mei's red panda persona, they also focused on her bringing her best friends and mother Ming (Sandra Oh, Raya and the Last Dragon) to life.
Related: Pixar’s Turning Red Trailer Shows Mei’s Mystical Red Panda Connection
Kihm and Hartline spoke to Screen Rant about choosing the right look for the fluffy transformation and working under pandemic conditions.
Screen Rant: How was the concept pitched to you, and what were the first steps you had to take to prepare yourself for Turning Red?
Patty Kihm: I feel like I didn't need to prepare. I've been waiting for this movie my whole life. As soon as I saw the storyboards, it instantly struck a chord with me because it has a really strong tone personality. Even reading the script and seeing really rough storyboards, you just instantly got it; we got what Domee was going for.
And it was an easy pitch for me, going from Domee's description of teenage fever dream. If everything was designed around that, I got it. Rona pitched having a pastel world and having it really stylized. She showed a ton of really amazing artwork, and
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