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A scene from “In Your Dreams.” (Courtesy of Netflix)<\/p>\nBERKELEY \u2013 Just two miles or so from Pixar\u2019s 20-acre Wonderland-like campus in Emeryville, a smaller but still-impressive animation studio has sprouted up and is starting to flower even more.<\/p>\n
Launched in 2016 by former Pixar colleagues Alex Woo, Stanley Moore and Tim Hahn, Kuku Studios now commands one floor of the Zaentz Media Center in Berkeley and is seeing one of its biggest dreams materialize: the debut of its first feature-length film, \u201cIn Your Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PG film dropped last week on Netflix after a recent limited run in theaters<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an original work that features first-rate animation, a talented voice cast that includes Marvel \u201cShang-Chi\u201d star Simu Liu and a poignant but fantastical storyline about squabbling siblings Stevie and Elliott seeking the counsel of the mythical Sandman so they can help save their parents\u2019 troubled marriage.<\/p>\n
The idea to set the studio\u2019s first film around dreams, which include a breakfast land that turns extra creepy, got tossed around early in the company\u2019s brainstorming process.<\/p>\n
\u201cDreams are such a universal experience,\u201d said Woo, the CEO and the film\u2019s co-director and co-writer. \u201cThey transcend culture. They transcend time. We also still don\u2019t know why we dream, which is a great space for mythology and prediction.\u201d<\/p>\n
A scene from “In Your Dreams.” (Courtesy of Netflix)<\/p>\n
But to make the story truly connect, it required getting grounded in reality. That\u2019s where Woo\u2019s background helped shape the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sort of drew on my own personal experience when I was 6 or 7 years old,\u201d the St. Paul, Minnesota native and San Francisco resident said. \u201cI woke up one morning and my mom, was at the front door of our house with her bags packed, and she had to gently explain to me and my brother that she was going away for a little bit to figure things out for herself and my family. As a kid, that\u2019s really scary. I just remembered at the time watching my mom drive away.\u00a0 All I wanted in the whole world was to try and find a way to keep my family together.\u201d<\/p>\n
That story inspired some of what happens and is guaranteed to give viewers all the feels. And that\u2019s exactly the studio\u2019s primary purpose: seeking to be the go-to studio for making audiences laugh till they cry and tear up with emotions. Ku, in fact, translates in Chinese to cry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Your Dreams\u201d marks the next big step for the growing company.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spent the first year just sort of dreaming up ideas for TV shows and movies that we wanted to see, that we felt no one else was making,\u201d said Woo, who attended New York University Tisch School of the Arts and was a director of development at Lucasfilm before he went to Pixar, where he became the lead story writer on \u201cFinding Dory\u201d and worked on \u201cRatatouille,\u201d \u201cWall-E\u201d and \u201cThe Good Dinosaur.\u201d He left the studio about 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
Kuku Studios first burst on the scene with the sweet-natured and adorable Netflix series \u201cGo! Go! Cory Carson,\u201d an energetic blast that follows the adventures of a small anthropomorphic car that\u2019s suffering from confidence issues. The Emmy-winning series is on its sixth season and was inspired by the Go! Go! Smart Wheels line of toys.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s \u201cIn Your Dreams\u201d that pours the foundation of what future studio offerings will be like and what Woo wants to bring to the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an artist and a filmmaker, I just want to tell the truth and that\u2019s what people gravitate towards,\u201d he said. \u201cSo everything that we do we try to find the emotional truth of what the characters are going through, what they experience. We never want to sugarcoat anything. We never want to present a contrived version of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
That approach appealed to the in-demand Liu, who voices a dad and struggling musician who is also struggling to realize his own stalled dreams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a dad, but I think I want to be someday and that was one of the big reasons that drew me to the project, and when Alex first sent me the script, I was just really moved by the family dynamic and really excited to step into the role of father for the first time, albeit in a voice form,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Woo is particularly happy about being part of the Bay Area film community.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the films that I grew up with that really inspired me were made by Bay Area filmmakers,\u201d he said, singling out \u201cStar Wars,\u201d Pixar\u2019s numerous titles and, of course, the Oscar-winning \u201cOne Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest,\u201d which was produced by Saul Zaentz\u2019s Berkeley-based Fantasy Films.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never got to work with Saul Zaentz, but his movies have deeply impacted me,\u201d Woo said. \u201c\u2018Amadeus\u2019 is one of my favorite films; \u2018One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest.\u2019 Our studio name is Kuku Studios. So I was like it was just meant to be. The universe is telling us we should be in this building. There are so many Bay Area filmmakers that have deeply impacted me. I just want to carry on that legacy of all those cinematic forefathers. We\u2019re proud to be in the Bay Area, and we\u2019re going to stay here as long as they let us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liu sees Kuku Studios bringing something special and important to the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s something really historic about the fact that you\u2019re an Asian American storyteller and joining the ranks and setting up shop and then putting your footprint on not only the SF scene but really all of animation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKELEY \u2013 Just two miles or so from Pixar\u2019s 20-acre Wonderland-like campus in Emeryville, a smaller but still-impressive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[329,967,971,180,143,145,144,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-63788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-arts-and-entertainment","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-lifestyle","11":"tag-newsletter","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news","15":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}