Behind the Scenes

Chilly was made by friends getting together and pooling their skills in a loose collective called Kohlab. Principal photography was done in two days at the end of 2011. Animation, done by Duncan Studio, required several weeks.

The barter system.

Since this film was self-financed, there was no way to pay an animation company their usual rate. And if the animators did it as a favor, the guilt would have been too much. Ken Duncan and Dylan Kohler have been friends since the late 80s, when both were at Disney. They worked out a deal. Ken's studio would animate the Chilly character. In return, Dylan would create an interactive storybook iPad app with them.

One of the great things about animation is it's a very technical craft -- everyone in the field is a geek, somewhere on the spectrum between completely technical and completely creative. It's an extra gift when friends have complementary talents.

Six degrees of SpongeBob.

As Dylan Kohler, Ken Duncan, Chris Sauve, and Vincent Gorman were at lunch, discussing the project, the topic turned to Chilly's voice. When they learned the part wasn't yet cast, Chris and Ken said, "I wonder if Tom would be interested." "Tom" of course was Tom Kenny, best known as the voice of SpongeBob Squarepants. Friends from way back, Chris sent the script to Tom, Tom liked it, and lo and behold, suddenly the best voice actor in the world to play Chilly was on board.

Dylan then asked Tom if his wife Jill Talley would want to play the voice of the wife in the script. Yes again! Another great talent on the project.

Voice session.

Working with Tom Kenny and Jill Talley meant seeing world class voice talent in action. It took just a few takes for each of them to work out the sort of voices Dylan Kohler was after. As Tom was finding the right register for Chilly, he briefly meandered into the SpongeBob voice: "Oops, I'd better not do this one."

Time was reserved to create improvised variations on the lines. Playing around with her lines, Jill painted a very clear picture of a woman trying to mollify her abusive husband. Tom ended his session with libraries of utterances necessary for editing: Chilly tripping and falling, Chilly panting, Chilly reacting to the hidden cache of pills. Not all of the sounds were used of course, and that's a shame, but what the film misses out on, Dylan gained in ringtones for his phone.

It turns out ice is cold.

It didn't really dawn on Dylan Kohler how much of a stunt the final shot in the bathtub would be until he tested the waters himself as research. Since prop ice was prohibitively expensive -- the sort that floats especially -- the stunt was to be performed with real ice. Beyond the ice temperature issue, Dylan discovered firsthand in his trial run that lying face up underwater is quite unpleasant on the sinuses. Because of this Dylan had to replace the amateur actress originally intended for the part.  Enter Jill Brown, a professional stuntwoman to the rescue.   Jill had been consulting on the stunt but now found herself actually performing it.

A 17-year stunt veteran, performing on films from "Starship Troopers" to "Titanic", Jill reported this was the toughest stunt she's ever done. Jill and Dylan are still friends, which is kind of amazing.