Vivo is a beautiful story filled with music, heart, and some great life lessons. In this interview, the creators talk about how Vivo came to be.
Vivo is a magical, musical, adventure that is full of heart, wonder, and life lessons. It is visually stunning to watch, and I dare you not to start tapping your toes right from the opening sequence. This movie has is something that the incredibly talented Lin-Manuel Miranda has been working on since 2009, and now it is a Sony Pictures Animation project and coming to Netflix on August 6th.
In a press day for Vivo, the creative team behind the film discusses where their inspiration came from, working with Lin-Manuel Miranda, and so much more.
Cuban Roots
The movie itself tells a heartwarming adventure-filled story with a lot of Cuban influence. Vivo has roots in Havana and Miami and both executive music producer and composer Alex Lacamoire and Juan de Marcos, the voice of Andrés, were happy to be a part of helping portray that.
“I am fortunate in that I got to grow up in Miami where music is just synonymous with the city. Being a Cuban-American and knowing that you are always going to see your family for get-togethers such as Thanksgiving, and Christmas, birthday parties, weddings – music was always at the parties. I feel like even though I didn’t study Latin music in a scholarly way, I was just surrounded by it all the time. I grew up playing classical music, playing jazz, listening to rock, listening to pop, all that stuff. And then along comes Lin-Manuel Miranda, along comes Quiara Alegría Hudes. All the sudden I get to use this part of my musical upbringing that I hadn’t really used as much.” – Alex Lacamoire
Alex mentions that it is not every project he is able to bring in part of his upbringing, so Vivo is special to him. He knows it is a unique opportunity and is very thankful for it. Lin-Manuel Miranda said he would not do the movie without him, and Alex didn’t even have to think about it. “I’m just grateful that I get to work on this, that I get to work with people as talented as Juan de Marcos, people like Gloria Estefan, who are at this bar that is so high, and these really, huge giants in the world of Cuban music.” Alex says.
Juan de Marcos was happy to be a part of Vivo as well. he grew up in Havana and was also surrounded by music. His dad was even a lead singer for some of the great Cuban bands. He feels that Cuban music is a strong influence for many types of music, even hard rock and bands like Led Zeppelin and Grateful Dead.
“It’s been a pleasure to work in Vivo. It was the first time that I was working as a voice actor. I have never been a voice actor in my life. But I did it. I’m very happy with the results. And the music is absolutely outstanding. It’s really well-composed, very well-arranged, and the performances are absolutely outstanding. It is a privilege to be in this film, and I hope that this film is going to send a message of love for everyone. Because the most important thing in life is love and understanding. It doesn’t matter the wealth. What’s important is the health and the love. And this is a love story. A personal love story and a friendship story.” – Juan de Marcos
Creating Gabi
For most of the story Vivo is accompanied by a young girl who marches to the beat of her own drum named Gabi. There is so much to love about her for many reasons. She takes Vivo completely out of his element, and is the opposite of Andres, who he grew up with. Their relationship was actually modeled after Planes, Trains, and Automobiles – taking a journey with someone who’s really different from you and really irks you.
In Vivo, Gabi sings a song called My Own Drum, that talks about how she is proud of who she is, and no one, or no thing, will hold her back. Something that is a great lesson for all the children watching the movie.
“She’s loud, wild, and comfortable in her own skin as she bounces to the beat of her own drum but is still in need of some companionship. So My Own Drum is really about her trying to draw Vivo into her world, as Vivo tries to escape it. My Own Drum is really the contemporary counterpart to Mambo Cabana’s classical. And we were inspired by video games and music videos, and motion graphics. Things that we thought that Gabi might be into. So, this page explores some of the early ideas of what Gabi’s world could look like, given those inspirations.” – Art Director Wendell Delit
The writer of Vivo, Quiara Alegria Hudes, explains that the character of Gabi is very much based on her little sister, who is 13 years younger than her. She talks about when they would watch classic Disney movies together like Beauty and the Beast and while they love the songs, the aspirational female characters kind of showed her that her pudginess was maybe… not so aspirational.
“Gabi was just wild, and the world was gonna get on board with her or not. And what she was dealing with was some of the ramifications of isolation when you’re a character who-when you’re a person who really does march to the beat of your own drum. Of course, her friendship with Vivo becomes a counter to that isolation. when she wants to dance, she’s doing big moves. When she wants to be devious and mischievous, she’s making lots of mischief, as embodied in her facial expressions, and even her outfit.” – Quiara Alegria Hudes
The Music Of Vivo
Vivo is truly a musical journey. Director Kirk DeMicco talks about how the story and the songs were written together. Sometimes a song was added to heighten the moment, and sometimes the story surrounding the song was written to help it work better. Lin-Manuel Miranda not only wrote all of the music and songs for this film, he also stars in the movie as the voice of Vivo.
“One of the really fun elements of creating Vivo was that I got to work with Lin-Manuel again. We had written In the Heights together. And so we had spent a lot of hours, and a lot of years, and at this point, a lot of decades in the writing room refining and playing. But in the recording booth, I saw an entirely different side of him. The things that he was doing with his voice, I’ve never heard him do. And I think the opportunity for him to embody Vivo, you know, he related to Vivo, of course, because he’s also a musician and he’s an excellent musician.” Quiara Alegria Hudes
There are many styles of music that come together in this film — reggae, salsa, mambo, etc — and when asked about the inspiration behind doing that, Alex Lacamoire says he cannot take the credit, it was all Lin-Manuel. “It’s his genius and his love of all those styles, you know. Lin is so eclectic in the styles of music that he likes, and he’s so fluid and fluent in all those styles of music in which he composes.”
Creating The Animation In Vivo
The animation of Vivo is very unique and it goes back and forth between styles — and all of it is stunning and gorgeous to watch.
“Throughout My Own Drum, you’ll also notice the use of 2-D graphics. I love how Sony’s last films, like Spider-Verse and Mitchells incorporated 2-D with 3-D. And we wanted to continue that exploration and to help create a unique and fun visual look for My Own Drum. The story boards played an integral role in developing the look of My Own Drum. This is a side by side comparison of the boards to what was the final frame of the film. And they really served as our north star in terms of the transitions, the camera moves, and design.” – Wendell Dalit
Wendell adds in something very unique and fun — they created their very own tool to use for the animation style. “We also developed a tool that distorted the background with a brush stroking technique which helped to give our sets the feeling that they are a hand painted backdrop, much like you would see in musical theater. This really gave our characters a stage to perform and showcase their animation.”
“We have a total of-of eight original new songs from Lin-Manuel in the movie. Some of the musical numbers are very, very outstanding. In these [musical numbers], we want to express what’s going on emotionally inside our characters, right? But in Mambo and My Own Drum, those emotions go beyond the range of reality. We wanted to find the right tone to support that visually. We were looking at the early-to the avant-garde animation like Oskar Fischinger. We explored those aspects of non-real animation. And we want it to be believable for these characters to be in this world. So, they look like illustrations but they’re coming to life. Everything is growing and dancing as they move around. ” – Production Designer Carlos Zaragoza
Portraying The Everglades
The Everglades are a major part of Vivo and in order to make sure that they captured it perfectly, the production crew of Sony Pictures Animation participated in a research tour of the Everglades, led by Elaine Fiore. She says that they were all the nicest people, and they had a blast.
“We wanted the Everglades to be lush and inviting at first. But as our characters travel through, they find themselves deeper in the mysterious labyrinth where they encounter Lutador. Finally, we have our version of Miami. We’re pushing the graphic quality in our shapes and architecture here. This is the final destination for our characters’ journey. It’s the Emerald City of our movie.” – Wendell Dalit
“I was able to lead them on an adventure through the Everglades which would later go on to kind of inform the feel and the look of Gabi and Vivo’s journey through the Everglades. The Everglades is located right there at the southern tip of the state of Florida. It’s an unparalleled landscape of exceptional beauty. It’s our third largest national park and it encompasses one point five million acres of subtropical wilderness. There really is no other place like it on Earth. The Everglades is also known as the river of grass. Because it’s actually a slow-moving river.” – Everglades film consultant Elaine Fiore
There are many ways that you can help protect the Everglades, starting with being careful which mulch you use – don’t use Cypress mulch – to the pesticides that you use.
About Vivo
An animated musical adventure featuring all-new songs written and performed by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, VIVO follows a one-of-kind kinkajou (aka a rainforest “honey bear,” voiced by Miranda), who spends his days playing music to the crowds in a lively Havana square with his beloved owner Andrés (Buena Vista Social Club’s Juan de Marcos González). Though they may not speak the same language, Vivo and Andrés are the perfect duo through their common love of music.
But when tragedy strikes shortly after Andrés receives a letter from the famous Marta Sandoval (three-time Grammy-winning Latin pop legend Gloria Estefan), inviting her old partner to her farewell concert in Miami with the hope of reconnecting, it’s up to Vivo to deliver a message that Andrés never could: A love letter to Marta, written long ago, in the form of a song. Yet in order to get to the distant shores of Miami, Vivo will need to accept the help of Gabi (newcomer Ynairaly Simo) – an energetic tween who bounces to the beat of her own offbeat drum.
Vivo hits Netflix on August 6th!
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. She is also a Freelance Writer. Tessa has been in the Entertainment writing business for ten years and is a member of several Critics Associations including the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.