Kyle Balda has had a great career in VFX and animation, including directing and co-directing four Illumination features — Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, Minions (for which he was BAFTA nominated), Despicable Me 3 and Minions: The Rise of Gru. Now he’s the director of the live-action / animated murder mystery family dramedy The Sheep Detectives (based on a novel), in theaters nationwide this Friday May 8th. (This Animation Scoop Q&A with Balda was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: How was that transition for you going from a full CG animated feature to a combo here with “The Sheep Detectives”?

Kyle Balda: Very interesting. Really exciting. One thing I’ve always looked for in my career is a growing edge to things — learning new aspects of ways to tell stories. The biggest growing edge I’ve faced has been going from fully animated to live-action hybrid. It was really falling back on what I had learned in animation. Animation is… I wanna say preparation heavy, but the preparation is the making of the movie itself: storyboarding, creating your animatic, editing story reels, finding the staging in boards and trying to do as much thinking as you can before the next stage. I actually created a storyboard and a full feature animatic even for scenes that didn’t have any sheep in them as a way to be a map for when we went on set. It also provided a good starting place to deviate and pivot if an idea came up on set, that we weren’t beholden to the plan. At least there was the fall back

JM: That’s very interesting. These sheep gotta solve the murder of their owner George, played by Hugh Jackman. Did you study sheep in terms of getting them to look as authentic as possible, while also having this personality that really comes through in their faces?

KB: Definitely. There’s a couple things that were working for us, story-wise: George is a special shepherd in the sense that he sort of collects animals from various backgrounds, and in some ways he’s rescuing them, like in Sebastian’s case. What that gives you is this opportunity to have very different varieties of sheep. One thing I learned really early on is that there are more varieties of sheep than there are of dogs, which is really surprising. You are able to have very clearly recognizable different characters this way. What was really important to all of us as well: having realism with the sheep. They’re not gonna be cartoon characters that walk on their hind legs and wear clothes. They are actually sheep in a human world. What we’re seeing is the way they communicate with each other, but when humans hear them they’re just making animal sounds. We’re not trying to break the rules in any kind of sense like that. The most important thing is to look at references of sheep and study that. This is what Framestore did beautifully: collecting hours and hours of footage of sheep moving. You want to get a body performance, not only with the face… finding those real-world gestures, and seeing how a stomp can communicate frustration. The way that they move or amble about, and then the humans project the emotion on them based on the context that they’re in in the story.

JM: You have this trio — Sebastian (voiced by Bryan Cranston), Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Mopple (Chris O’Dowd) — the voice performances have such heft because there’s a lot of material, themes and messages — and their interactions and emotions dealing with this incredibly unique situation. How was it working with these three and finding the depth with these characters?

KB: There’s so much depth in the material. Working with people who are so perfect for these roles. Chris O’Dowd has such a sweetness in his voice but also experience. You can feel that come across with Mopple. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has clarity and intelligence but there’s a vulnerability. Lily has so much confidence about how to solve a murder mystery, but what she’s not expecting is to have the feelings and emotions. Julia can do that so well. The presence of Bryan Cranston’s voice for Sebastian — the history, the gravel, the gravitas — so important to carry this statuesque character.

JM: They’re all fantastic in this. I love how you explore the concept of sheep becoming clouds. And it’s really interesting to see in a movie for families that is rated PG how you bring up death in honest ways — and ways that I think are gonna surprise a lot of people and maybe start some conversations. Was that a challenge for you to tackle all of that in the ways that you do?

KB: Absolutely a challenge but also kind of a reason to do it. As I read the script that was the first thing that resonated with me — how much of a tonal film this is. Right up my street with Minions [and] misfits: Sheep are trying to solve a murder mystery. How do they think they can do that? And they bumble through it and kind of figure it out. But when it got to the emotional part about grief and loss, that hit me on a personal level, losing somebody that I loved when I was younger. The impulse you have to not want to deal with those feelings that might be bigger than you are at the time that you have them. Mopple and Sebastian holding the value of remembering — what we do for the ones that we love. That’s the whole North Star of the movie. The comedy and the language in which it’s spoken with is super important, but the heart of it is this. When you said people are gonna have conversations about it, that’s what I hope for. If this becomes a way for parents to talk to their kids about these harder themes in a way that empowers them, then that’s fantastic. That’s my hope for the film.

JM: Yeah — everything with remembering and not forgetting someone… the last 10-15 minutes of the movie are really strong. You got Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart to be in another movie together, which is awesome. And Emma Thompson is one of the best in the business — in these fantastic colorful dresses, delivering lines like nobody else.

KB: Yes. And the way that she and Nick Braun play against each other — the contrast is fantastic. A big privilege to work with all of these actors. And even talking to Patrick Stewart, he’s like, “You know I’ve worked with Hugh before.” And I go, “Yes sir, I know.” Such an honor.

JM: The murder mystery genre has been so popular in recent years, from Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot movies to the “Knives Out” franchise and now this. So can you now solve murder mysteries better after making a movie like this?

KB: I hope not, actually. That’s the pleasure of it, right? To be tricked and to keep you thinking about what’s happening and constant information that comes up and the changing of clues. That’s what’s so fun about it. I definitely think that I have been exposed a little more to a way of thinking about it, but I hope never to lose that sense of wonder when you watch a mystery like this.