'Despicable Me' Study

On watching the directors commentary (Chris Renaud & Pierre Coffin) of the animated production Despicable Me (Universal Pictures), I felt there were more than a few things mentioned that would apply to my project and help me through my development of it.

The character designs were done by Carter Goodrich, who worked on some of the Pixar films, namely Ratatouillie, he has a very distinct approach to human characters which broke away from the regular CG style. The character of Gru was designed to be appealing but also to look like a villain. One thing they concentrated on was his scarf. His character is established at the start of the film as someone who is not very nice to children, when he pops the little boy's balloon, and this is set up to change at the end of the film. The design has a sort of John Cleese, Mr Bean, Peter Sellers essence to it. His movements show that he has joy in his villainy, he loves being evil. His little dances and smiles as he uses his freeze-ray are examples of this.

The girls were originally designed to be very realisting but the design did not translate welll into CG at all, and so they made them much more stylised. The inspiration came from the Peanuts characters, the Simpsons, they are very graphic designs.

The minions started off like typical stormtrooper characters, but then became more like drones, little cloned mole people. There are literally countless numbers of them. There are 3 different body shapes, 6 different haircuts and 2 different eyes, with all the different combinations. Their voices are high, very stereotypical, but very effective.

Gru's very unique voice adds character to him beyond physical design.
Miss Hattie was designed as a nice person who says terrible things.

One thing the directors looked at was contrasts. Contrasts between Gru and his mother during his flashbacks and encountersn with her, between Gru and his minions, between Gru and Vector, it all adds to the comedy of the story. Gru's childhood is shown as why the character perhaps made the choices in life to follow the path of evil.

Vector was designed originally as a rival hero, but they decided a rival villain would be much more interesting. It's amazing how much of the original pitch is still present in the final film, the various milestones and the core of the story remained much the same.

The banker was designed as a Larry Flynt character, a quintessential heavy.

The scene where the foreign scientists test the shrink ray was one of the earliest scenes to be produced as it featured no main characters. The scene which follows highlights the differences between Gru and Vector's technology.

The minons speak french :O They gradually became a bigger and bigger part of the movie.

The scene where Gru is trying to break into Vector's house is portrayed as a Warner Brothers Wyle E Coyote style, with sharks eating him and missiles exploding at him yet he is alright in the end, keeps it humorous and not as threatening.

The girls were once all the same kind of character, mostly like Agnes' cute innocent type, but it was decided to split them into 3 elements, the cute innocent, the boyish rebel and the informed sensible one, which really informed the design. Edith has a kind of husky distinct voice, with a curious element to her. She has these little physical movements and you have to make effort to understand how she feels.

The timing and the pacing of the film were a huge issue. How do you know when it feels just right?

Great animation is trying to do something unexpected but identifiable.

Character arcs include also the small minon, the floating minion, and kyle the dog. As the characters progress through the story and chance, the environments gradually change with them too, such as the girls' bedroom.

In the end, Gru has completley changed how he feels about these girls, and this is shown by him kissing each of them goodnight. The reactions of the girls show their surprise and happiness of this through simple smiles and the warm lighting. This is immediatley given comedic value as the minions then each ask for a kiss goodnight.


I think this was definately a worthwhile excercise. The character of Gru alone is worth studying for his progression in personality and performance throughout the story and i plan to go into more depth about him during my research. I have also learned a few things regarding pacing and composition that i never really considered difficult until hearing professionals detailing their struggles.