Crafting an Opera-Singing Chimp – And All Natural History – For Royal Ontario Museum
The sun begins to set over a vast arid landscape. High up on a peak, a lone chimp comes into view. A deep breath, and…
He begins to sing opera (‘Una furtiva lagrima’ from Gaetano Donizetti’s ‘L'elisir d'amore’, to be exact). The big bang flares in his mind’s eye, and soon, he bears witness to the entirety of natural history unfurling. A comet comes hurtling to Earth, a storm rages, waves crash. A cell replicates, an insect is immortalised in amber, the planet freezes over. Life grows more and more complex as his song intensifies.
‘Listen to nature’s symphony, for it will orchestrate our future’ is the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) tagline. It’s moving, poetic, and positively stunning – a blockbuster concept from creative agency Broken Heart Love Affair with stellar execution by Revolver Films.
To discuss the painstaking and eclectic craft that went into this campaign of epic proportions, Revolver Films director Rune Milton dove behind the scenes with LBB.
LBB> What was the initial brief from Broken Heart Love Affair?
Rune> The initial brief was ******* awesome! It had the chimp singing about nature’s history. The way the creatives work is very open. I didn't know that before my first call though, but the brief gave me a feeling of an agency really inviting me for a collaboration.
The night before the call I had this intense dream – basically dreaming the film almost down to the frame of how it is now. I woke up and HAMMERED the script down. There were so many layers: the chimp’s story, how it became an entity, how it remembers life, all the emotions, while going through history in a non-linear way, always experiencing it from its perspective. The difference was the original setting of an opera house – I liked to remove humanity entirely and use a spectacular place on earth as ‘nature’s theatre’. My EP loved it, but obviously said, “Sounds amazing, but maybe hear them out first”, which is super smart advice…
When it came to the call, there was instantly a connection! We were reading the same books – ‘Project Hail Mary’ and ‘Rendezvous with Rama’ – and the vibe was there. As I was about to hear them out, I hesitated and asked, “Guys, I can hear you out, then write etc., or go total bananas and tell you about this insane dream I had about this project last night.” They went for the latter, and I jumped around my house, singing, hitting my chest, talking about exploding universes, death, life, affection, everything that ever happened,
every atom, the chimp, the recomposition of the music... It was quite a show, and at the end, it just all felt right, haha. Very few agencies are this collaborative, smart and trusting, and it was just such an incredible pleasure all the way through the project!
LBB> How did you collaborate with CGI teams to ensure the museum’s vision was fully realised?
Rune> First of all, with a LOT of trust. But what we specifically did was quickly compose the final music track and create choreography with the amazing Rose XXX, who played the chimp. This allowed us to show a very specific vision of how the chimp would perform and behave in the narrative. We also collaborated with Filmsupply, and edited a base timeline showing the evolution of nature so everyone could follow the story… Except there would be no chimp and it wasn’t intercut and final yet.
For the chimp, I mean… It was scary! For everyone, I think. Step by step, we saw the design of it evolving though. The most insane 16K closeups of its face, eyes, skin, which gave people confidence. Having shot everything for real, with the actor, on location, really really helped Chemistry with the animation for the chimp, because the performance is SO close to what we shot with Rose. She really WAS the chimp.
This was the long answer. The short is, great leadership from the agency, and trust from the client.
LBB> The special effects are a major technical accomplishment. Can you elaborate on the challenges you faced and how you overcame them during production?
Rune> Shooting on location in Utah, really filming it organically – like we would do with a real chimp – and having the REAL performance was the best we could do for post production.
From there on, the credit to Chemistry cannot be understated. What the team did with the budget, we are all extremely grateful for. We didn’t really have challenges because we made a perfect plan and we all collaborated, but achieving it was a challenge in itself. The VFX is IMMENSE! Chemistry’s patience was tested some times. And sometimes we (the agency and I) had to shut up for a few days. But then Chemistry would be on it again and just marching forward, improving and improving!
LBB> Were there any innovative technologies or new techniques used in creating this work?
Rune> Not really! It’s done really classically – no AI, no special tricks. GREAT ACTING! Great cinematography. Great editing. Great music composing. Great producing. And then next level creative VFX work, from animation, to CG, to comp, to finishing and grading. It’s that simple.
LBB> The operatic music adds dramatic depth to the unfolding scenes. How did you approach the music selection process, and how crucial was it to achieving the intended emotional impact?
Rune> I love the opera! And of course I knew it. I loved that it wasn’t one of the most known ones. But I didn’t want it to just be the opera. It needed to be more ethereal, more epic, like... this is everything from the big bang to advanced life! So, I used my usual composer, Jonas Larsen, to completely recompose the music and create something dreamlike, epic, and much more ‘felt’. The singing is not rhythmically correct... The chimpanzee is not a trained singer. It’s choosing the language of music because it wants to communicate with us, but it's not an opera singer. Jonas did a great job moving between his recomposition, into the original orchestral version, and then a completely depart from it in the last part, using a free float approach to the cadenza part of the opera. From day one we found an amazing recording with Pene Pati, who has a huge and soft voice, which fitted the chimpanzee, knowing we could probably never use it in the final film.So you can only imagine the joy when it turned out that he and Warner Music were keen to be part of the project.
LBB> How did the natural world inspire the visual and technical aspects of the project?
Rune> Early on we decided on Utah because of its unearthly qualities and because our friend, Andrew Petersen, has Wyser Media there, and we knew he was the only service producer who could pull this off! It really connected us to something pre-earth, or larger than life. We were a small team, going out in the wild, hiking for hours into mountains, all carrying equipment, and then shooting. It was as if we, at least I, found a connection on the journey.
The whole energy on the project from the first meeting with the agency just had this special quality to it. By the end, it really reminded me why I love filmmaking. This was TRULY a collaboration from EVERYONE involved. I’m drifting off the subject... But really, sometimes these things, locations, technical aspects, emotions, expressions are deeply connected. It all informs and enforces the rest. It was beautiful.
LBB> What are the key themes you wanted to emphasise in this project, and how did you balance art with scientific accuracy?
Rune> We visited the museum and were really guided by our hosts’ expertise. We wanted to be scientifically precise in everything, and wanted to show what the museum has. Behind the exposition there is a HUGE institution, which was really impressive and inspiring to see. That's also why it’s so analogue in the way it’s told. We always CUT, and never do anything ‘supernatural’ like time lapses or whatever. The idea is that the film language itself is made as it could have been shot, using cuts to compress time.
LBB> How does this project contribute to ROM’s goal of making history and natural sciences more accessible and engaging for a diverse audience?
Rune> Hopefully it makes it exciting and makes people curious. But most importantly, hopefully people feel something – the profoundness of nature and life, and that we need to protect it.
