This article originally appeared in the June/July ’23 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 331)

Being a teenager is a time of normal change and growth. But there’s not much normal for typical Oceanside teen Ruby Gillman, who changes and grows large enough to unintentionally wipe out the school library and face down in battle a giant evil mermaid to decide the fate of the world.

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is this summer’s big release from DreamWorks Animation, and the first to feature a titular female hero. Directed by Kirk DeMicco (The Croods, Vivo), and co-directed by Faryn Pearl (Trolls Worlds Tour), the movie introduces the world to Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor), who is trying to live a normal teenage life in the town of Oceanside while staying away from the water on orders from her mom, Agatha (Toni Collette).

But such rules are meant to be broken and, when they are, Ruby finds out she and her family are actually krakens — and that she has a weighty family history to live up to. Throw into this the normal anxieties about getting a date for prom night; the arrival of a mysterious, super-cool, red-haired student named Chelsea (Annie Murphy), who’s really a mermaid; and meeting her grandma (Jane Fonda) for the first time; and well, what happened to the school library is at least understandable.

Beautiful Creatures

Produced by Kelly Cooney Cilella, with a screenplay by DeMicco and Pam Brady, based on a story by Brady, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken premiered at Annecy before a wide release in theaters on June 30.

Cooney Cilella brought more than 20 years of experience at DreamWorks Animation to her first role as full producer on a feature. She was hooked by the way the script flipped the hero and villain roles for mermaids and sea creatures — and that it all culminated on prom night. “That just feels like a playground I really want to play in,” she says.

DeMicco returned to DreamWorks to direct Ruby Gillman, at least in part to do a mother-and-daughter coming of age story to complement the father-daughter tale he told as co-director on The Croods. In addition to being a generational story about women, it was also an opportunity to tell an adventure story on epic scale — and mash it up with a John Hughes-style 1980s high school comedy. “That was very appealing to both sides of who I am,” he says.

The movie had been in development under the title Meet the Gillmans, with an ensemble approach to the story. But over time, it became clear that this was Ruby’s story, and the script changed to reflect that.

“She’s the hub of the wheel; every story comes off of her,” DiMicco says. “Her superpower is something that’s inside of her, that the real power is just not to hide it, you know? And that I think it’s such a strong message for kids.”

While there’s no easy part of making a movie, getting right the emotional side of Ruby’s story was only half the battle. Getting right the adventure part, and the scale that was required to challenge a kraken on a physical scale required some deep diving.

“In typical movies, krakens are slate-wipers,” he says. “They end films.” But making a kraken like Ruby the center of the story meant they had to start with something big — and then go bigger.

“In typical movies, krakens are slate-wipers … I wanted to make sure that the final battle felt earned. That Ruby put in the effort, she put in her time and she earned that.”

• — Director Kirk DeMicco

“Everything that she had to go through had to be larger than life, because she’s larger than life,” he says. That took some time for the team to figure out. “I just wanted to make sure that the final battle … that it felt earned. That she put in the effort, she put in her time and she earned that,” he says.

Even in the storyboarding stage, the story seemed to call for everything to get bigger with each iteration.

Co-director Faryn Pearl started her career as a storyboard artist at DreamWorks TV Animation, which was mostly a board-driven writing environment. Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken appealed to her as a chance to work on an original story idea. As the movie morphed from the family perspective to Ruby’s point of view, Pearl says she saw the potential in Ruby and put in for the co-director job.

“The thing that makes her different is that what’s at first something that she should hide, is actually something that makes you powerful,” Pearl says. “We always knew we wanted Ruby to be kind of goofy, someone who is sweet but doesn’t realize the power of who she was.”

One of the keys was Condor’s voice performance, which influenced how the story and character developed. “Lana had this great quality to be very anxious and awkward and charming,” Pearl says. The animators, in particular, enjoyed that interpretation and really leaned into that version of the character. “How could they not have an absolute blast with doing a character like that? Who stumbles over her words, but is so earnest and sweet?”

The film’s acclaimed production designer, Pierre Olivier-Vincent, has more than a quarter century of experience at DreamWorks Animation, and is best known for his work on the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy.

“Playfulness was something that I try to follow through the design process, like having everything a little bit curvy, a little bit round.”

— Production Designer Pierre-Olivier Vincent (aka POV)

Having the story go between a version of the real world and the fantasy undersea world of the kraken and mermaids was irresistible to Vincent. “I love knowing that, yes, there is the real world, but then there is a whole new world that we don’t know about,” he says. “It’s a real pleasure to just wonder, you know, what would it look like?”

Vincent found the character designs for Ruby and the krakens used a playful line that could be softer and more playful. “Playfulness was something that I try to follow through the design process, like having everything a little bit curvy, a little bit round,” he says.

He also played with saturated colors, taking inspiration from the bright colors people paint their homes in places like Maine and the northern parts of Canada, as well as the iconic designs of the 1970s, which were popular and made an impact on him when he was a child. “I remember the joyfulness of that era,” he says.

The filmmakers had a free hand to design the look of the mythical Kraken, which were based on octopuses and have no bones. “(We) wanted to make sure the Gillmans essentially didn’t have joints, that the whole arm would be able to move in one wave like motion,” Pearl says. “We really leaned into that rubber hose, kind of tentacle feel with their bodies.”

The animation team, led by Carlos Puertolas, focused on the cartoony nature of the kraken to make them stand out from the mermaids and the humans of Oceanside, Pearl says.

For the ocean sequences, the story goes deep. This isn’t a coral reef or something happening near the surface. And it’s dark down there. “”We’re gonna go to the abyss, and we know that in the abyss, it’s pretty dark,” Vincent says.

The kraken castle looks ominous from the outside, but once Ruby enters, it’s a much brighter and more colorful place with lots of light, glass, and gold. Vincent says this reflects that the Kraken empire has been around for generations, and their palace reflects their sophistication and their aspirations for the future.

“It’s very easy to go monster-y,” he says. “It’s a lot more difficult to do aspirational kind of characters. That’s what we’re kind of trying to do.”

Much of the final battle sequence benefits from the use of Previz, DeMicco says, which he differentiates from the layout process that DreamWorks has been using since the days of Shrek. “I don’t want to call it layout,” says DeMicco. “Now there’s animation in there. There’s acting. There’s timing. So having that in the toolbox for those sequences, I think, was invaluable.”

With a giant sea creature battle, there was no way to escape the influence or feel of a kaiju movie, DeMicco says. What sets it apart is that it’s a beautiful one. “Glowing strong women battling it out in this massive scale ….  That was something that we had always hoped for,” he says.

The Perfect Prom

But like many teenagers, all Ruby really wants is to go to the prom. And designing a modern one was a lot of fun for Vincent. Art Deco was the original inspiration, partly because it’s such as global design statement, he says. “It’s a good-looking prom, I think,” he says.

Vincent says knowing most everyone who works at the studio made it easy to come on Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, which started production the week he started on the movie. It also made communicating with everyone easier and more enjoyable — even with everyone working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m very proud of the look we achieved, but at the end, I’m proud of how the crew reacted,” Vincent says. “And the way we worked together, it was flawless, and specifically during the pandemic quarantine time. I still can’t believe that we have managed to do it.”

Universal will release DreamWorks Animation’s Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken in theaters nationwide on June 30th. 

Watch the trailer below: