Monday, March 18, 2024

Justin Timberlake Quilts A Musical Experience For DreamWorks’ ‘Trolls’

TROLLS-movie*From the creators of “Shrek” comes the colorful and charming animated comedy “Trolls,” inspired by the plastic doll with furry up-combed hair, and belly jewels. They were originally created in 1959, and became one of the United States’ biggest toy fads in the early 1960s. They became trendy again in brief periods from the 1970s-1990s. Several video games and a video show have been created based on troll dolls, and this holiday season they’re coming to a big screen near you.

In 2010, it was announced that DreamWorks Animation was making a feature film based on the dolls, set for release this fall. The project features original music from Justin Timberlake, and soon-to-be classic mash-ups of songs from other popular artists. The film stars the voice talents of Anna Kendrick, Timberlake, Russell Brand, James Corden, Kunal Nayyar, Ron Funches, Icona Pop, Gwen Stefani, and many more.

EUR/Electronic Urban Report was on hand for the exclusive filmmaker hosted preview of the film, where Anna and Justin joined director Mike Mitchell and co-Director Walt Dohrn for a discussion about the story, which follows “the overly optimistic Trolls, with a constant song on their lips, and the comically pessimistic Bergens, who are only happy when they have trolls in their stomach.”

Timberlake also serves as the Executive Musical Producer of the film, and he has created a cohesive musical experience with his varied song selections that quilt together many eras to help enhance the narrative experience.

“Fans won’t see the typical music where the music starts and time stops, and then when the music stops everybody goes back to the way things were before they started singing,” said Justin. “We wanted to modernize our movie and make everything service the movie and move it along.”

Justin’s song selection will introduce to the younger generation classic tracks such as “Sound of Silence” (Simon and Garfunkel) and Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors.” Songs he believes capture the essence of DreamWorks’ animated musicals.

“I’ve never been the music producer on a film, so for a musical like this, which I think — to stay with the theme of DreamWorks, which has made them so reverent, to take these classic toys and mythological creatures from so long ago and really modernize them — that was our M.O. with the music as well,” Justin explained. “I think it fits with the humor, and some kid is going to walk away knowing the ‘Sound of Silence,’ which is very cool, and a song like ‘True Colors.’ ”

Justin+Timberlake
Recording artist Justin Timberlake speaks onstage during the 2016 ESPYS at Microsoft Theater on July 13, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. ((Source: Kevin Winter/Getty Images/ZIMBIO)

Timberlake explained how arduous and “mind-numbing” the music clearance process is, and his job was to take some popular hits and put his own spin it on them, aided by the vocal talents of his co-star Anna Kendrick.

“It’s been fun to work with Anna because she’s such a good singer,” he said. “Of all the work that we actually did together, it was me constantly sitting at the board and us talking about her vocal performance. It’s her singing but she’s also acting. There’s a lot that goes into it.”

Anna praised Timberlake’s musical direction, as it helped to tighten her overall performance of Poppy.

“I would bet 99% of what’s in the movie is from my session with Justin,” she added. “Because as someone who is a singer who gives such specific notes that are helpful, it just tightened it. We got so much more mischief and sass from (Poppy).

Despite their jovial and inspiring sessions, Justin noted the “challenges with the music because it’s not easy to come up with a full arrangement for a song, especially one that’s so classic and popular.”

“We’ve gone through different iterations of some of the musical performances, so that can become a little time-consuming, but it’s still fun work,” he said.

The Grammy-winning singer confessed that he was “very nervous” to re-imagine the resonating music that helps drive “Trolls.”

“I came on a little bit after some of the songs were sought after and cleared. ‘True Colors’ was already cleared and the ‘Sound of Silence.’ So my job was to put our own spin on it and make it sound unique. Make it sound like it belonged in the scene, much like musical theater.”

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Director Mike Mitchell, Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake and producer Gina Shay at the “Trolls” Exclusive Filmmaker Hosted Preview at DreamWorks Animation. *filter used on image*

Timberlake fans will also hear four original songs that he penned and performed specifically for “Trolls.” And he noted how 70’s funk inspired the film’s musical score.

“I’ve never done anything like that. So to write it specifically for the movie and to have some of the music sound very 70’s funk, that was definitely the inspiration behind ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling,'” he said.

In 2013, DreamWorks Animation announced that they had purchased the Troll doll brand outright from the Dam company. Collectors will be thrilled to see the varied tribes of dolls used in the movie, including the fabulous glittery troll, Guy Diamond. The filmmakers joked about how the “computer couldn’t understand the glitter” during the process of generating the animated doll, so a glitter task force was enlisted to create glitter code.

That was actually one of the trolls that was invented in the 90’s and that’s the one tribe that doesn’t wear clothes. They’re great because they have a lot of body confidence. That was one of the biggest challenges of the film because the computer couldn’t understand the glitter.

“I remember in second or third grade every girl in school had them, and they had the treasure trolls — the ones with the jewels in their belly. They were every bit as big as any other doll that come out geared toward young females,” Justin recalled about the popularity of the dolls back in the day.

DreamWorks’ “Trolls” arrives in theaters in November.

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