Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Her Japanese American family has formed part of the sunny metropoliss fabric for four generations.
It looks like it came from a certain era or was repurposed.
I didnt want to take a stance on anything that I dont fully understand.
There were some stories I would have loved to explore, but some stories are more difficult than others.
Its a complex subject matter.
It was really hard to figure out how to tell that story from a kids perspective.
I really value the nuance in peoples actual voices and in talking to them and hearing people.
Those are the things that I enjoy.
I enjoy a lot of documentaries because they show an unsheltered version of people.
Theres certain comedy and just storytelling things, like learned authenticity, in that.
Once you start to script that for people, that kind of originality starts to disappear.
I worked with a documentary producer named Joanne Shen who helped get me started on how documentaries work.
How did you cast the childrens voices, which sound impressively unaffected?
We said, Were not allowed to use any SAG actors because were doing this unscripted.
So thats the priority.
Is there a way to find children who are actors but not SAG?
She is also from L.A., so shes really attuned to that too.
How were the photo-realistic backgrounds achieved?
I used that animation style in my short previously.
The amount of realism in the background really helped with the story approach.
ForCity of Ghosts, we took that to the next level by getting Kwasi and Chromosphere Studio involved.
I was really worried Kwasi would say no to doing it.
You notice them as you are trying to figure out whether this is a real place or not.
In the show, the concept of ghosts is nondenominational, and theres no talk about death.
Ghosts are friendly entities, sometimes represented differently from what we often see them as in western pop culture.
Thats how, initially, the Janet design started.
I had this idea that it would be cool if they looked soft, cottony, and touchable.
Part of that comes from thinking about what the purpose of a ghost is.
The character of Jasper, played by Honor Calderon, was Akos idea.
That was absolutely true.
They picked the animal that they felt embodied them the way that we depicted them.
A lot of the choices in that episode were approached in a similar way.
Wed asked them, Does this feel right to you?
We were open to them saying no and to adjust to make it authentic for them.
Was the language element difficult?
Im sure most people arent aware that its still spoken.It was difficult to find people who knew about it.
Thats in regard to their entire culture.
That was a turning point for me.
It was really important for me to hear somebody explain it that way.
The fact that we dont know a lot about them was intentional.
It seems to briefly come up via his pronouns.Youre correct.
We made Thomas, who is played by Blue Chapman, refer to themselves asthey.
Im so glad people picked up on it.
I hope I get to write more about it in the future.
A lot of the credit has to go to Netflix.
They didnt stop it.
I put it in there, and nobody flagged it or was like, Can we talk about this?
Do we have to do this?
I just made the choice.
I was like, Heck yeah, lets rerecord that.
For me, as a creator, the choice was very easy.
In my head, I knew I really wanted to do an episode about Koreatown.
Then we found that one thing that was really interesting to me that I didnt know about before.
I was like, Oh, this is really fascinating.
Maybe it can be specifically about this thing.
His whole family is very involved in that particular academia.
He had one in his office and showed me these great pictures of them.
But he also had these books full of art like ancient art that came from Oaxaca.
I thought those sculptures were rad.
The faces are cool.
Its silly, but then non-authentic stuff came in.
I really like those inflatable air puppets that people have in front of businesses sometimes.
Then I also really liked the No-Face ghost fromSpirited Away.
The faces on some of the sculptures that Luis showed me reminded me of No-Faces mask.
I wanted him to look like a combination of all of those things.
Even as we were making it, there was this sense of,We really need this show.
We forget for a bit and then it comes back.
I hope that it helps.
