Us Again was released earlier this year and played in theaters with Raya and the Last Dragon. Now, it's finally streaming on Disney+, and for many Disney fans across the globe, this will be the first time they've been able to check out a short film that is a rain-drenched, visually stunning delight.
Earlier this week, we caught up with writer/director Zach Parrish and reference choreographers Keone & Mari Madrid to discuss the story of an elderly man and his young-at-heart wife rekindling their youthful passion for life and each other over the course of one magical night. The years fade away as the joy of dancing propels them across the exciting cityscape of their youth and revives fond memories and ambitions.
Zach has previously worked on movies like Big Hero 6, Frozen II, and Moana for Disney, while Keone and Mari are award-winners who have collaborated with artists like Justin Bieber, BTS, Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran, and Kendrick Lamar (they're also developing Karate Kid for Broadway).
In this exclusive video interview, they all talk about the work that went into combining music and movement to tell perhaps the most heart-warming story of 2021, the challenges of using rain as a storytelling tool, the inspiration for what we see play out on screen, and a whole lot more besides.
Watch the interview below or scroll down for a transcription of our chat with Zach, Keone, and Mari.
I wanted to start by asking Keone and Mari, what was it like for you, and I know you’ve had fantastic careers already, but what was it like to get that call to be offered a Disney film as unique as Us Again?
Mari: Surreal [Laughs]. I think we didn’t really believe it. It was just an email like, ‘Disney wants to meet with you!’ It was when we walked into the first meeting room and saw everything, all the pictures laid out...
Keone: Not to interrupt you, but when it’s an email saying ‘Disney wants to meet with you,’ that’s so broad. Is it Disneyland? Is it a movie? What is it? When it gets narrowed down to Disney Animation, you’re like, ‘Okay, this is maybe something else.’
Mari: When we finally went into that first meeting and Brad and Zach were basically just pitching this idea, and we’re listening like, ‘No way, we get to be part of this?’ It was also when they said they wanted dance to be the language of the whole film, it was just kind of one thing after the other. I think I cried a little bit [Laughs]. That first meeting definitely made me cry a little more in the parking lot, but it’s still surreal.
Keone: I think also just to take in the opportunity for dance to be in this was also a big deal and it meant a lot even us trying to take ourselves out of it and looking at it from the outside, ‘Wow, what an incredible thing.’ Whoever would be part of this, I’d just be so happy for dance. It’s another layer that we get to be the ones who play in it.
Zach, the visuals in this film are just out of this world, but particularly the rain scenes with the reflections and the way it’s used here. For you, as a director, were you not a little concerned about the logistical nightmare that could cause for animation or was it a challenge you were ready to embrace?
Zach: Both. I was absolutely terrified and ready to embrace it. There were so many things that I'm sure set our producer Brad's Spidey Sense off all over the place. We had a big city, lots of crowds, we had so many sets that we had to build, and then covering it all in rain was kind of the icing on the cake. So, we worked really early on with our head of effects, Ben Frost, to come up with clever ways of doing it and doing a lot of testing early on to figure out how we can create these rigs in order to populate a lot of shots and then where we can get specific about giving notes and where that field of influence is really gonna start falling off so that you can really put your attention where it needs to go.
Where did the idea come from to use rain as a storytelling tool to explain how the characters are de-aged in the film? Was that something you'd been thinking about for a while or did it just occur to you as you were developing the story?
Zach: No, it was pretty early on. Originally, I was like, it'd be really cool to have a fountain of youth story, and really fun to have this one magical night. Then I was thinking about what different kinds of mechanisms we could use and I knew I wanted it to be water and a fountain of youth but didn't really want a fountain or a lake or something like that. I feel like I've seen those in other short films, but I didn't feel like I had seen the rain specifically. It also brought this romanticism to it, that I just felt undeniable. The way the light was going to be able to play off of the puddles and all of those things brought a kind of heightened reality to everything as well as the ticking time bomb because that rain is going to end at some point. There's internal conflict from the very beginning.
Keone and Mari, being new to the animation world, what has it been like for you to follow the journey of the film from those first meetings to seeing the finished product in theaters earlier this year?
Keone: I think that part of it, being included from the very beginning, because usually we’re brought in as choreographers and it’s a decorative thing to add on later. To be included into the story decisions from the beginning meant a lot and the marriage of animation and our specific style of dance was really cohesive because we’re all detail freaks. Our movements are very small and intricate and then it can be very big. To have people are just as wild, if not more wild than us, felt very much like we trusted them to make it come to life and they did it insanely.
Mari: It was amazing to be part of the process and to get to watch it. We did a lot of stuff remotely, but to hear about and see all the different iterations and how much work goes behind animated films...you always know in the back of your mind, especially when you watch the credits go by [Laughs] and you see this litany of people, the animators, and all these names. To understand it a little more bit more and see this giant collaboration and that everybody is having to collaborate in all these ways and it just keeps going and going until you have this beautiful thing that’s been refined. It was so cool to learn all about that.
When you’re putting together a story like this, you obviously only have very limited time in the film itself to explain these characters, so is it important for you to come up with a backstory even if it’s just in your head, and is that something with Keone and Mari in order to help inspire their performance here?
Zach: You know, I don’t remember if I did! I did write a little bit of a backstory. It was pretty brief because it really wasn’t necessary to get too far into the details. It really just needed to be, ‘This has been a couple that’s been around for a long time, they probably met in college, late 60s, early 70s, and they had a very vibrant life.’ There’s little pieces you pick up in the film. We didn’t necessarily need to write kids names and grandkids names and all of that because it didn’t really pertain to the story necessarily, but we did know generally when they would have met, how they might have met, their interests as far as music and travel. All these things that would have been more outward and life-experience wise to really contrast where Art is at the beginning of the film. I don’t remember if we talked about that together or not. It’s such a blur.
Keone: Same. I want to say it was in those first meetings. I think you just mentioned it, but it was really something developed over time in terms of how it would translate into themselves as old people moving and young people moving. Also, just being in a relationship and a marriage, you just know [Laughs]
Zach: Totally.
Zach, I know you've worked on a lot of different projects at Disney like Tangled and Frozen II, but when you look back at those, what would you say prepared you best to work on this film and take charge of it both as writer and director?
Zach: I would say, for me, it's an accumulation of all those experiences. It's hard to point to one specific thing because in each film, you're learning from different people and different pieces. So, Tangled, watching Glen Keane do draw overs and seeing how he pushes posing and seeing how we can extract that from the reference we got from Keone and Mari, and even picking Keone and Mari, was because of the lessons I learned through Glenn and through my animation experience. It was recognising that they're already doing 99% of what we need to do in animation already [Laughs]. Leading on Wreck-it Ralph or Big Hero 6, you start to learn how to lead these teams and how to communicate these ideas more clearly. I think with each one, you learn a little bit more. I learned a tonne on this film and I'm sure I made plenty of mistakes and learned from those too. That's the beauty of getting to work on multiple projects. You get to utilise those lessons you learn along the way.
Keone and Mari, you mentioned being a married couple, but do you feel that helped you when it came to portraying these characters in that you could find the language you have in real-life and bring that into them?
Mari: Yes, definitely.
Keone: Especially that opening scene [Laughs].
Mari: [Laughs] Just being able to, when you’re not on the same page, that feeling as a couple that you’re just missing each other and how to physically embody that feeling versus even when they’re hugging and finally reconnecting with each other. We know that feeling and we know it with each other. As a married couple, we definitely extract things from every little tiny finger movement to how your head tilts when you look at your significant other. When you’re annoyed at them versus when you’re feeling really connected to them; they’re different. Trying to capture those nuances, we’ll do that naturally because we are that. Of course, we’re inspired by our grandparents who have been married over fifty years. There’s just familiarity and no fluff [Laughs] around how they communicate with each other.
Keone: I think we choreographed that opening dance in the living room where Art is sitting in the Lazy Boy chair during a nap for our newborn daughter who was a couple of months old at that time. I literally had the Baby Bjorn on, my hair is everywhere, I’m already feeling cranky, so it was just the perfect setting. At least, I was thinking, ‘I know how Art is feeling. I get it!’ [Laughs] It helped at the time.
One final question for you Zack, I know we’re used to seeing these Disney shorts use music to tell a story or perhaps use movement to tell a story, but maybe not both at the same time. What would you say was most challenging for you about blending those together to create this cohesive, lovely, fantastic, and sweet story?
Zach: Thank you! It really was the chicken and egg problem of needing the story in order to have the music and needing the music in order to get specific on the dance, but not being able to tell the story until we had that dance. So, you never really knew if the story was going to work until we got that dance, but you needed all of the parts. All along the way, we were doing these little tests, meeting with Keone and Mari, trying out things and trying to get the music and see if it’s going to work. There was just a lot of faith that this was going to work, and that’s why when we got to see Keone and Mari doing the dance to the music with Will’s storyboard cut into the videos they were sending us, it was like, ‘It’s going to work!’ That was a great day because it took a lot of faith. I was confident but it was an experiment the entire way through because nothing was complete until it was all complete.