In Masters of the Universe, director Travis Knight brings the legendary franchise back to the big screen in this epic live-action adventure. After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power leads Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) back to Eternia where he discovers his home shattered under the fiendish rule of Skeletor (Jared Leto). To save his family and his world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela (Camila Mendes) and Duncan/Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba), and embrace his true destiny as HeMan — the most powerful man in the universe.
As Masters of the Universe prepares to unleash the power in Australian cinemas on June 4, Nick L’Barrow spoke with director Travis Knight about how his career in stop-motion animation prepared him to create epic live-action battle scenes, and what the key elements were for him in bringing the “Saturday morning cartoon” feeling to life on the big screen!
Nick: As a kid who grew up on Saturday morning cartoons in the 90s, this movie felt like that on the big screen. I loved it. And one of the things that helped that feeling was the incredible action scenes, which were so dynamic and felt meticulously crafted. I can only imagine how meticulousness is an essential part of creating stop motion animation too, so I’m curious to know what you have learnt in stop motion animation that you were able to transfer over to constructing live action set pieces like the ones in Masters of the Universe?
Travis Knight: The things you need if you’re going to work in stop motion animation is forethought, discipline, organisation. You need an extensive plan, or you need to know exactly what it is that you want to get, because you can’t mess around. You can’t shoot coverage. Every frame takes 10, 20 minutes. Even an hour! Every little bit of effort is precious. So, that means when you’re building a stop motion film, you’re storyboarding the thing to death. And I brought that same degree of focus and discipline and intentionality to Masters, and Bumblebee as well, actually. All of these big action sequences, all of these big visual effects things are very complicated to pull off. We storyboarded all of it like you would an animated film. There’s versions of the movie you can watch that are essentially storyboards. And then once we have that laid out, then we figure out how we’re going to bring that to life. Can we do it practically? Can we use special effects? Do we need visual effects? And what’s the blend of those things? That’s when things get really interesting. And then we bring our stunt coordinator, our second unit director, Liang Yang – who is amazing – into the mix and start kicking around ideas. So, it starts at the foundational level, as if it’s an animated film, and then we just build on top of that.
Nick: Like I mentioned at the start, this genuinely feels like a Saturday morning cartoon come to life. What were the key elements for you in bringing that feeling to the big screen?
Travis Knight: Well, I mean, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was always a really vibrant, rich, colourful, kaleidoscopic, polychromatic world. So, that starts with these crazy, unhinged designs. This really rich colour palette that just burns your retinas. I wanted to make sure that this was a colourful world. A rich, beautiful, vibrant world. And it’s very easy as you’re kind of making these things to start off with something bold, and then over the course of time, it just gets watered down until it becomes a sludge of gray. We see that often in these big fantasy movies. I wanted this movie to be rich and beautiful and vibrant and colourful. And once people got on board with that, and embraced it, I think we were off to the races. I’m really delighted by how beautiful the film looks. It’s an incredible combination of design, artistry and craftsmanship. I think it looks fantastic.
Nick: I absolutely agree! I love the idea that the sword is a vessel to find the power that’s already inside of Adam. I love the journey the story takes him in that discovery. In a filmmaking sense, what was “the sword” or the thing that was integral to unlocking your own creative powers?
Travis Knight: I don’t know that I’ve thought about it in that way. Storytelling, art, drawing, and animation have been a part of my life essentially since I was a child. I used to carry a sketchbook, which doesn’t necessarily endear your baseball coaches! You’re kind of sketching when you’re supposed to be paying attention to the game. But I brought my sketchbook everywhere. I was always drawing. I was always making little comics. I was making cartoons. I taught myself to animate. It’s just always been a thing that has been a part of what I did as a kid. I never imagined it was something I could do for a living, because I didn’t know anyone who did this for a living! So, to be here, so many years later, and being a kid who loved He-Man, to be making a He-Man movie, it’s very surreal. It’s also incredibly rewarding. It was really one of the most joyful experiences of my whole life, which sounds stupid to say – that making the He-Man movie was moving for me – but I’m more proud of this thing that I probably should be because of what it meant to me.
Thank you so much to Travis for his time, and to Sony Pictures for organising the interview. Masters of the Universe is in Australian cinemas June 4.
