‘Turning Red’: How Anime, Teen Bedrooms and Easter Eggs All Feature in Production Design

variety.com:

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorColor wasn’t the only consideration for production designer Rona Liu and director Domee Shi when they were developing the look of Disney Pixar’s “Turning Red,” available on Disney Plus March 11.

They also wanted “chunky cute.”That meant building everything to look bigger and rounder for the coming-of-age story of a middle school girl, Mei, voiced by Rosalie Chiang, who transforms into a giant red panda each time she feels anxiety or gets angry, as she navigates between being a free-spirited teen with her posse of best friends and an obedient, all-A student for her mom.Liu says it was Shi who wanted to use the idea of a red panda, an animal native to Asia that has not been widely portrayed in media. “They’re reclusive and sleep all day,” says Liu. “As Domee and the team were working on the story, we all thought, ‘Wait, that describes a teenager going through one of their phases, and so it was perfect.” There were numerous design iterations for red panda Mei; the key was to highlight that this was Mei out of her comfort zone. “She’s chunky, has a big belly; she’s messy and smells,” says Liu. “We wanted her hair to be clumpy and matted.” Liu looked at alpaca hair, which, despite being soft, she says, is “grimy” and “sticks together.”The character’s color was vital, Liu explains.

Red panda Mei’s orange-red shade made it pop in every scene —from the blue of the ancestral temple in the family’s home to the green of Mei’s bedroom.“Chunky” and “cute” were also watchwords for the design of the movie’s version of Toronto, where the film is set.