5 Interesting facts behind the making of Pixar’s Luca

Set in a beautiful seaside town on the Italian Riviera, Disney and Pixar’s original feature film Luca is a coming-of-age story about one young boy experiencing an unforgettable summer filled with gelato, pasta, and endless scooter rides. Luca shares these adventures with his newfound best friend, but all the fun is threatened by a deeply-held secret: they are sea monsters from another world just below the water’s surface.

While Luca is now streaming on Disney+, we have compiled some lesser known facts about it.

Vocal casting and recording during a pandemic

The vocal casting for Luca is fantastic and it is evident that Pixar didn’t settle for anything less than perfection in the casting process for Luca, Alberto, and Guilia. Pixar had reportedly auditioned 1,200 children for these roles.

The vocal cast includes — Jacob Tremblay as Luca Paguro, Jack Dylan Grazer as Alberto Scorfano, Emma Berman as Giulia Marcovaldo, Saverio Raimondo as town bully Ercole Visconti, Maya Rudolph as Luca’s mom Daniela, Marco Barricelli as Giulia’s dad Massimo, Jim Gaffigan as Luca’s dad Lorenzo, and Sandy Martin as Luca’s grandma.

The pandemic was a hindrance to the recording process as well. Producer Andrea Warren said, “It was an amazing, sometimes bizarre experience. We recorded everyone from their homes—and mostly from the closets in their homes. They were all so delightfully scrappy and willing to make it work during tricky circumstances.”

Transformation scenes

The transformation of the main characters from mermaids to humans is at the core of Luca. One main challenge faced by the team was to think about how Luca and Alberto would transform seamlessly from sea creatures to humans when water touched various parts of their bodies? The solution they came up with was by creating two independent rigs for the characters and then creating a tool that would allow the animator to shift between the two rigs based on a point that was almost like a slider (which made the animation more seamless).

2D cartoon inspired movements

Do you know that when a 2D animated character runs, you can see a flurry of limbs at the same time? (Imagine the legs of the Road Runner from Looney Tunes running at full speed or when Tom is chasing Jerry) The character team used the same trick for some shots in Luca.

Director and his background

Luca is directed by debutant Italian-born Enrico Casarosa. The movie is said to be hugely influenced by his own childhood years in Genoa. Casrosa has pointed out two key influences for the project. Elements of both Federico Fellini and Hayao Miyazaki can be found throughout. Casarosa has previously directed the short La Luna, which features similarly designed characters.

The setting

Over the years Pixar got viewers to experience the streets of Mexico in Coco during Día de los Muertos and the kitchens of highly acclaimed restaurants in Paris, France for Ratatouille. With Luca, Pixar wanted to head back to Europe, but to a different country. Luca is set in Italy. The production of the movie had to look back not only at Italy but also at Italian cinema for inspiration. What's more, Pixar actually sent their writers and artists to the Italian Riviera in order to understand its local culture.