Cape Town’s animation studio Triggerfish’s third animated feature, Seal Team, will be on Netflix from 31 December 2021. Greig Cameron directed the movie.
Greig, this looks like a romp. I cannot wait. You describe Seal Team as “a love letter to the silly, over-the-top ’80s and ’90s action movies that I really wanted to watch when I was a kid but had to sneak into”. Clearly, the little boy in you had fun on this one?
The little boy is very much on the outside: I’ve spent the last three years shrieking with delight, flailing my arms in the air and screaming, “Sooooo coooool!” as my amazing team brought the film to life.
I mean, it is about arfing, flipper-flapping, blubber-filled sea doggoes forming a military team. Every time we tried to play it straight, it felt wrong. But the more we leant into the genre tropes and revelled in the over-the-top fun, the more everyone said: “Yes, more of this!”
Eventually, it got to the point that our Miami vice-style speedboat chase didn’t seem over-the-top enough. So, we made it a leopard-print, Rick James-themed speedboat.
Adventures in Zambezia and Khumba did extremely well at the box office. Seal Team goes straight to Netflix. Is it COVID that forced this, or the need for international recognition, or a bit of both?
For me, Netflix means the most eyeballs on our film, which is fantastic. Of course, there is magic in going to the movies. Luckily, Seal Team did get a theatrical release in some territories, and we had a crew screening at the cinema. So, I Hannah Montana-ed things and got the best of both worlds. If I’m lucky, everyone who ever reads this will be either too old or too young to appreciate that reference.
My octopus teacher did swimmingly well on Netflix, and the reach did it a lot of good at the Oscars. I know Seal Team has about three strains of bamboo in common with it, but did this influence your thoughts?
Animation takes a really long time, so we were well into production by the time My octopus teacher came out. But the films do share a lot of the same animals and underwater locations. Other than the fact that our octopuses turn into a mech suit instead of teaching people about their own humanity, it’s pretty much the same movie.
This is your first big movie, if I am not mistaken, but you have had years of experience on a Disney XD show. My son was a fanatic supporter of Supa Strikas. Directing those high-pressure productions, one after the other, must have been a wonderful university?
Supa Strikas is an absolute talent factory. My head of story, Willem Samuel; lead character designer, Malcolm Wope; and head editor, Luke Mackay, among other crew on the film, all worked at Strikas at one time or another. Our philosophy on the show was that we wanted to make every episode feel like its own epic feature film. So, 60-odd episodes later, I was just about actually ready to make an epic feature. Most of all, Strikas taught me the work ethic required to do this job.
Is there a different approach to tackling a massive, new project, as opposed to working with a team of familiar actors and animators who constantly had to deliver fresh content in a series like Supa Strikas?
In TV, deadlines are tight, and you’re working on multiple episodes at the same time, so just finishing on time is an achievement unto itself. There’s not much space for deliberation on whether a particular joke or story moment is the best of the best of the best of the best. You work as hard as you can in the time you have, then move on. If episode five wasn’t as awesome as you wanted it to be, you make up for it by knocking episode eight out the park.
But on a feature, you are literally putting all your eggs in one basket, so there is a lot more critical analysis happening throughout production. It means that nothing is ever really done, as you re-evaluate the story from pre-prod to final grade, always looking to plus every moment.
Kane Croudace, your co-director on Seal Team, is a Triggerfish veteran. How did old and new visions gel into the final product?
I had only directed 2D animation before Seal Team, and Kane has so much experience in CG, so he was my constant guide through the medium. Every day, I was like: “Kaaaaaaane, make the thingy do the thing I want it to.” And, every time, he would indeed make the thingy do the thing I wanted.
I think we had one disagreement on the whole production, and it was about the placement of some rusted railing in the background, or something arb like that.
He also had the perfect temperament. He was the calm, contemplative yin to my loud, obnoxious yang. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner making this film.
The voice actors are next level. JK Simmons (who voices the Seal Team’s trainer) has worked on The Simpsons and many others. (I also remember him as Mac MacGuff from Juno.) Jessie T Usher, who voices Quinn, is much younger, but has movies like Independence Day under his belt. Heck, there are numerous awards among the likes of Matthew Rhys, Kristen Schaal, Patrick Warburton, Joe Swanson and the totally amazing John Kani. Are these guys fun to work with, or tough?
To be honest, the toughest part was waiting for them to arrive at the studio. I would lose myself in dark fantasies of all the ways I could embarrass myself in front of movie stars, Oscar winners and my animation idols.
But once they were in the booth, we all knew our roles, and they improved every line I had written tenfold.
Overall, the entire process was a joy. I always try to make a fun environment where the actors can enjoy themselves. I think that genuine joy translates into the film. Also, it’s easy to forget, sometimes, but we’re making cartoons for a living. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.
The casting itself looked like fun. I mean, did you call up the musician Seal to say: “Dude, you’re gonna play a seal called Seal Seal?”
This is a case of rolling a dumb joke down a hill and watching it grow into an avalanche of stupidity. In early pre-production, we were talking about everyday life on Seal Island, and someone pitched a singing seal. Then, we decided to name that seal, Seal Seal. I remember saying: “That is soooo dumb. I love it!”
Never in a billion years did I think the legend himself would play the part. But our amazing casting director, Ned Lott, worked his magic, and the next thing I knew I was in session with the Seal, asking him to bark like a seal. At first, he was like, “You want me to do what now?” But once he realised the tone we were going for, he went all in, and the film is so much better for it.
And Dolph Lundgren plays the dolphin called Dolph. There must have been jokes in the recording studio?
This actually was born out of our dedication to unflinching realism. There’s a real aquatic animal military unit, and it has seals and dolphins. So, we added a dolphin. The real-life versions don’t wear sunglasses or bust out catchphrases, but that’s just because they haven’t been trained well enough!
Making one of my favourite grizzled action stars “ek ek ek” like a dolphin was one of the highlights of my career. If only we had Sean Penn playing a penguin, we would have had ridiculous stunt casting bingo!
Yet, despite the fun, the movie addresses unease in people who see their neighbourhoods suffering from crime, and it is not only a South African problem. How did you balance relevance with fun?
This was both a thematic and a dramatic challenge. In case my nonsense answers haven’t made this abundantly clear, silly comedy is my natural gear. But feature films need a strong emotional core and real stakes to keep the audience’s attention for 90 minutes.
So, the film has some serious, emotional moments. We spoke a lot about wanting to avoid tonal whiplash, where you go from sad to serious to silly so quickly that it’s jarring for the audience.
Ultimately, we decided that a scene doesn’t have to be one or the other. Comedic characters can still be funny in their dark moments, just in a more bitter-sweet way that doesn’t lessen the emotion. I’ve joked my way through every difficult experience I’ve had in my life, and despite what my wife, family, colleagues or therapist may say, I think I’ve still dealt with those real emotions.
Last question, with a bite. We know sharks constitute primal fear in people, but some conservationists would argue that vilifying sharks may actually harm creatures who are, in reality, not major killers of people? (Unless you are disguised as a seal, of course!)
Woohee! I’ve spent the last three years preparing myself for this inevitable question: my foolproof plan here is to give an answer so long and waffling that people forget what they’re upset about by the time they get to the end.
The premise of the film is drawn from the real-life Seal Island, which is surrounded by great white sharks that literally jump metres out the water to munch on pups. Imagine if your house were surrounded by flying Freddie Krugers? You’d hate those guys. So, there’s no getting around the fact that, to seals, sharks are bad guys. But we made them over-the-top, silly bad guys, not “I’m never gonna swim again” bad guys.
Similarly, the action films I drew inspiration from were renowned for having cartoony, tropey villains. You think sharks got it bad? What about poor Russians, or people with posh British accents? I’m sure that in manor houses all around England, the gentry are still crying into their tweed jackets about how everyone thinks they’re baddies.
All that being said, the film is packed full of so many different sharks that I think they get a pretty all-rounded representation. There are good sharks, bad sharks, adorable sharks, funny sharks, Austin Powers laser sharks and so, so many dumb sharks.
By the end of the film, which you can probably watch in less time than it takes to read this answer, I don’t think anyone is going to come away thinking that sharks are evil, only that, if they know what’s good for them, they shouldn’t mess with Seal Team.
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