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Unlike some animated films, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem's crew consisting of Jeff Rowe and Seth Rogen didn't overwork their animation team. And the two went to extreme lengths to ensure that.
Speaking to Insider, Rowe, the Mutant Mayhem's director, said, “That was the thing that was really important to us on this film, and I learned it from Seth and Evan because in getting to know Seth, I'm like, ‘He has a really good work-life balance and everyone at Point Gray does.”
Point Gray is the production company headed by Rogen and Evan Goldberg. The duo have produced a number of high-profiled projects including Sausage Party, Blockers, and more recently, Joy Ride.
Rowe continued, “And I asked him about that [work-life balance] and he is like, ‘Well, we're like when you're doing live action, sometimes you're on a set for 40 days in a row and it is exhausting and tiring. And we want to make sure that our people have time away from that and that it doesn't become their entire lives.”
“I really took that to heart and wanted to make sure that when we made this film, we did it ethically,” he said.
This meant that some of the crew of the new TMNT film worked three-day weeks, and others worked from home in Scotland. “We'd be like, ‘Great, let's figure that out, and let's accommodate that because that's your process and that's what leads you to make your best art,'” he said. “And we would often do that with most of the team and just try to make sure everyone always felt supported.”
He then emphasized that he didn't want the animation crew on Mutant Mayhem to be suffering more than him. “And I also hopefully am suffering more than the team because I'm the captain and I'm paid to absorb that, and they're not. It's important to preserve that. People just do better work when they're rested and have home lives.”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is the seventh feature film in the franchise. It stars four teenage actors — Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon — as the titular turtles. Ayo Edebiri, Maya Rudolph, John Cena, Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Hannibal Buress, and more lend their voices to the film.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is in theaters now.