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Published 18:39 IST, December 10th 2019

Klaus movie: Know how Santa's origin story came to be an animated Netflix film

Klaus movie: Director Sergio Pablos opens up about how he went on a journey to know the original story of Santa Claus. Read here to know about his interview

Reported by: Brandon Fernandes
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Director Sergio Pablos found himself on a journey that took him to Northern kingdoms and new animation territory en route to making the streamer's first in-house animated film. Recently in an interview, the director said that he was interested when he saw Batman Begins. He thought that it had a great storytelling exercise, to take a character that is already well established and bring it to today's audience. He considered characters from Napoleon to Dracula before landing on St. Nick. He has many origin stories, but in the end, he thought that there was not one canon-accepted origin story.

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In 2016, Netflix was not looking for animated films, but they were on a hunt for Christmas content. So they made an exception. Pablos' film Klaus debuted in November 2015 as the streaming platform's first original feature produced through its new animation unit, which now has more than a dozen feature and short projects in various stages of development and production. The idea for Jesper who is the main character came from Pablos' search for the antithesis of Santa, who is a symbol of altruism. His main character is someone who has to learn the lesson. That is when the idea of a pampered, self-centred postman came to be. He then realized that he has the potential to tell the story with a lot of humour and irony.

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While exploring the city, Pablos did visit Norway for his research, where he learned about the country's indigenous Sami people and their culture. The important thing he learned during his trip was the way Sami felt, it was more likely that they have been misrepresented in media and wanted to be sure they were treated with respect in his film. Produced by the filmmaker's Madrid-based SPA Studios, Klaus has a unique visual style, the result of an approach that the director describes as 2D animation but using new computer tools to give the artists more precise control over lighting. His end goal was to make the film feel like it is a storybook, and it is moving artwork. He felt like Klaus could benefit from hand-drawn animation, but the director was not looking for something looked nostalgic. He, along with his team wanted to update it and see what new technologies could do for the film.

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16:00 IST, December 10th 2019