Design, Editing and Music
Amid the story’s themes of family, resilience, and nature, Schurmann was also excited to transport global audiences to the vibrant villages of his home country of Brazil. “I saw a chance for a Brazilian director to portray Brazil as a Brazilian and not as an outsider sees it. I didn’t want cliches or a simplistic view. I wanted to capture the real flavor, use genuine color palettes, work with Brazilian actors and be faithful to this world that João lives in,” he says. Schurmann describes João’s village as “a lost corner of the world where he’s been able to isolate himself almost entirely.
I’ve experienced these kinds of villages in Brazil, where it feels like time has stopped, even in today’s fast-paced world. People might have cell phones now, but the pace of life hasn’t changed much.” The village exteriors were shot in the stunning coastal town of Paraty in the southeast of Brazil, a UNESCO heritage site that has retained much of its colonial architecture and cobblestone streets from the 18th and 19th Centuries. Set against the dramatic Bocaino Mountains and surrounded by sugarcane fields and the lush Atlantica rainforest, the port of Paraty was once the final stop along the Caminho do Ouro, or the Gold Route, from which precious Brazilian gold was shipped to Europe. Today, the charming seaside city is an entryway to areas teeming with some of the greatest biodiversity on earth, home to jaguars, peccaries, primates, and other endangered species.
The production brought aboard Argentine production designer Mercedes Alfonsin—whose many acclaimed films include Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Seven Years in Tibet, Fabian Bielinsky’s The Aura, and Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes—to create sets that take advantage of these rare locations. Her centerpiece was the lovingly detailed and lived-in home she crafted for João and Maria. “Mercedes blew me away because she thinks way beyond being a designer,” comments Schurmann. “She’s as attuned to story and character as she is to fabric and texture, and she asked constant questions that were illuminating for all of us. The home she made for João and Maria enriched the storytelling by magnitudes.”
After production wrapped, Schurmann headed to Madrid for an epic edit with Teresa Font, who worked with Pedro Almodóvar on Parallel Mothers and Pain and Glory as well as on such classics as Bigas Luna’s Jamon, Jamon and Alex De La Iglesias’s The Day of the Beast. 17 “Jamon, Jamon is one of my favorite films of all time, and I had recently whatched Parallel Mothers, which I loved, so I was very excited to work with her,” says Schurmann. “We had over 160 hours of film, including our big catalog of penguin images, so we were pretty anxious at the start. But Teresa saw me through and helped me give João and DinDim’s story all the space it needed. Teresa has the most innate sense of how to build emotion moment-by-moment. I’ve also never worked with such a fast editor in my life; she’s as sharp and precise as they come.”
While in Spain, Schurmann also brought aboard composer Fernando Velasquez, known for his lush scores for Juan Antonio Bayona’s acclaimed The Orphanage, The Impossible and A Monster Calls. “I wanted sensitive, emotional music that draws you into the heart of the beauty and the danger, and Fernando gave us something very special. He and Teresa collaborated in sync to create the rhythms of the film,” says Schurmann. “His music touches a part of your soul.”
Schurmann gave Velasquez free reign at first, challenging him to take his own approach. “Even though I had a list of references, Fernando is a true artist and I wanted to hear from Fernando first about how he heard the music without any other input.”
That turned out to come easy for Velasquez, who was instantly transported into musical ideas. “From the first moments of watching the movie, I was inspired, inspired by every shot,” the composer says. “I watched it many times with no sound, and then I sent my ideas to David, and he quickly sent back a note saying, ‘I think we’ve got it.’”
Only then did Schurmann begin to send Velasquez some of his own musical references, which added further layers of sonic emotion to the score. Velasquez then recorded the score in San Sebastian with a full orchestra. “For me the orchestra felt like another character in the movie. It was a real part of the storytelling and that’s how David used it,” Velasquez says.
Also key to polishing the film was the work of visual effects supervisor Ferran Piquer of Dare Planet Studios. “We used 3D only for those scenes too dangerous for our penguins, and for the ones impossible to film” says Schurmann. “Though it’s used occasionally, the process was extremely important because the transitions between the real and the digital had to feel believable and not take you out of the story. Ferran and his crew were able to create penguins who look completely seamless even next to the real thing.”
In the aftermath of such an unusual and intensive shoot, cast and crew still talk about a life changing experience. “This was a set marked by immense camaraderie, shared joy as well as a united commitment to hard work. Everyone felt knit together by a common sense of purpose,” says Lim. 18 That was always Schurmann’s goal. “Working with the animals, the ocean, and people from all over the world in all different languages to tell one story with one vision—that was what I wanted to accomplish from the beginning,” he says. “I hope it shows that we as humans can put all our differences to the side and come together around something beautiful.”