The hard work was worth it. All the actors involved remained curious about one thing: how would their animated selves be represented on screen? Voice acting to a script is one thing, but they all express excitement about seeing the finished project. Ferrell sums up their enthusiasm: “Curiosity is that built-in mechanism we have for learning how we are going to exist. Without it, we stop growing. It fuels our lives.”
“It’s an animator’s dream to create a character in pantomime where you don’t have the aid of dialogue… but solely your pencil and expressions to carry the feel of the scene.” —Director Matthew O’Callaghan
Having decided on traditional 2-D animation for Curious George, now came the question of who would create the animation. Universal has only been sporadically involved in animated films over the years, the last being 1995’s Balto, but the studio has never had an in-house animation unit. Other studios that were known for their animated projects had abandoned traditional animation in favor of CGI and dismantled their inhouse animation teams. With few 2-D animated films being produced, there was a surplus of unemployed animators eager for the opportunity to practice their craft. The studio put together an ad hoc animation team for the film, made up of some of the very best freelance animators in the business.
With the key production players in place, it was time to animate the monkey for movie lovers across the world. It would assuredly be dictated by the beautiful artwork and spirit of H.A. and Margret’s work, and Ron Howard knew they couldn’t go wrong with this plan. Howard lauds, “The degree of passion and care coming from the art department in support of this movie is really like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There is so much passion and focus put into getting the color pallet just right—expanding it just enough to make it work for a movie audience—but never veering too much from that wonderful feeling that you get from looking at a Curious George book.”
Kirschner agrees. “I feel like the artwork of the film has fallen off the pages of a Curious George book. Any animator knows it is unbelievably tough to capture the images with simple lines and keep the story compelling. It looks so simple, but to keep that line work consistent for 80 minutes is impossibly tasking. All of us set out to create a world inspired by the Reys’ invention. I feel we have gone far beyond its original scope with this film.”
“A lot of George’s personality was conveyed through gesture in the illustrations,” shares Rey historian Borden. “And the children reading Curious George sometimes can’t read words yet. But they can look at those illustrations and understand how George is feeling—his happiness and curiosity—through his facial expressions.”
Referring to the nonverbal George, director O’Callaghan adds, “It’s an animator’s dream to create a character in pantomime where you don’t have the aid of dialogue…but solely your pencil and expressions to carry the feel of the scene.”
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