29. Peggy Holmes - Director of Skydance Animation's first feature LUCK for AppleTV+

Skydance Animation’s first feature film Luck just dropped on AppleTV+, and we were able to chat with director Peggy Holmes this week about her career and the making of the film. Peggy was a delight to chat with and I thoroughly recommend this episode for anyone interested in taking steps toward directing - from wherever they are now!

Being Skydance's first animated feature, they obviously wanted to come out of the gate with something ambitious. There were some leadership changes at the studio and at the helm of this film which left them with a short time frame to produce this feature, during the pandemic, over zoom as Peggy talks about.

But it is a big, ambitious, world building project, the type of project that has a simple premise, but a lot of moving parts. I really like some of the choices in regards to storytelling that veer away from the easy and obvious, which we talk about toward the end of the conversation. 

We don't get too spoilery - we do talk about a few things in the last quarter or so which you'd probably want to see the movie before hearing, at least if you're as spoiler averse as me.

We also discuss Peggy's super interesting career path! I mean, how many feature animation directors started as dancers? I'm going to say you could probably count them on one hand, if not one finger. Interestingly, I missed this in our conversation, but Peggy really got the crowd in Annecy when she showed herself dancing in an 80s Lionel Ritchie Pepsi commercial and then filming herself as dance reference for the animators of Luck.

Luck is also the first in a bigger deal between Apple TV+ and Skydance animation, so it's going to be interesting to see what comes next.

If you have any comments or suggestions please get in touch. 

Host & Producer: Michael Wakelam

Executive Producer: Eric M. Miller

Music by: Rich Dickerson

Audio Engineering: Mike Rocha

Edited by: Zoe Wakelam

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