‘Trolls,’ the new animated film, got its start in Sonoma County

In “Trolls,” the new animated film from DreamWorks, the ravenous, villainous Bergens search in vain for the hidden Troll Village, where the tasty little title characters live.

Evidently, the Bergens never thought of looking for them in Sebastopol, but that’s where much of the trolls’ story was created.

“The movie was written over dinner at the Zazu Kitchen cafe and over coffee at Taylor Maid,” said co-writer Glenn Berger, 47, a Sebastopol resident for the past nine years.

But make no mistake. This is no home-grown independent film. Produced by the internationally known studio that created “Shrek” and budgeted at $120 million, “Trolls” has been opening around the world since early October and opens nationwide Nov. 4 in the U.S.

The film has an all-star voice cast, including John Cleese of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The soundtrack, featuring classic hits and some new songs by co-star Justin Timberlake, was recorded with an 80-piece orchestra at the Abbey Road studio in London, famous as the Beatles’ favored recording venue.

The film also has several Sonoma County connections. The film’s director Mike Mitchell, 46, lived in Sebastopol for nearly six years before moving back to Southern California earlier this month.

“We’d just go to Mike’s house and lock ourselves in there for a few days, early in the project when were trying to conceive the story,” said co-director Walt Dohrn, 45. (In another local tie-in, Dohrn is married to Suvi Booth, a former Dreamworks co-worker whose parents live in Santa Rosa.

“We almost named Troll Village ‘Sebastotroll,’” Mitchell said. “We were this close, but we decided it was too much of an inside joke.”

One of the film’s hidden influences is the Summerfield Waldorf School in Sebastopol, which Mitchell’s three children attended and where Bergen’s three kids still go. You can see it even in the clothes the troll villagers wear.

“There’s an aesthetic from that school that kind of plays into this movie,” Mitchell said. “There’s a lot of handmade things, and the children knit at that school. There’s a lot of felt and natural fibers.”

Hippie commune?

Overall, there’s a temptation to compare the troll village to a ’70s hippie commune, at least in visual terms.

“If our production designer were here, she would say the trolls are hippies,” Dohrn said at a recent San Francisco press event for the film.

While the members of the creative team (including co-writer Jonathan Aibel and producer Gina Shay) may not be famous, despite collective experience with some of the “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda” films, the voice actors for “Trolls” are stars. In addition to Cleese and Timberlake, who plays the lone unhappy troll, the cast also includes film actor and Broadway singer Anna Kendrick as the heroine, Princess Poppy, and Jeffrey Tambor of the “Transparent” TV series as her father.

The concept for the three-year film project began with troll dolls, the squatty figures with bushy, brightly-colored hair. Created by Danish woodcutter Thomas Dam in 1959, the dolls became a popular recurring fad in the U.S. from the ’60s through ’90s.

The troll dolls are instantly recognizable, but unlike fairy tale characters, they lacked any detailed history of their own, offering the writers and directors complete freedom to create a story.

“That’s what got us excited,” Mitchell said. “There was just this doll with the hair, and we got to create this whole world.”

At the center of the story is the idea that the frightening, gigantic Bergens (named for a Scandinavian town) can only be happy if they eat a troll, although the directors concede the lovable little creatures may be of questionable nutritional value. The trolls spend most of the movie trying to avoid winding up on a plate.

“We thought they’d taste like a cupcake wrapped in bacon,” Mitchell joked.

Cleese ‘nailed it’

Working with the voice actors was a high point for the directors, particularly Cleese as the dour king of the Bergens.

“John Cleese just came and nailed it,” Dohrn said. “Then he started talking about his philosophy of life. He’s kind of a negative fellow actually, but he’s funny. I love that guy.”

The film has a ’70s and ’80s feel, with almost psychedelic colors and some disco dance moves. Cyndi Lauper’s 1986 hit “True Colors,” part of the film’s most dramatic moment, sounds like it might have been composed as the theme song for the colorful trolls.

“‘True Colors’ was there from the get-go” as the creators began to choose songs for the film, Berger said. “It’s so perfect. There were other times when we couldn’t find the right song. That’s when we’d turn to Justin Timberlake and say, ‘Could you write us a song that conveys this emotion, helps carry the character arc from this point to this point, and moves the story along in this precise way? And could you also make it a hit?”

The 93-minute film comes across as a happy musical comedy romp, with a few slightly scary moments, but Dohrn doesn’t want it dismissed as mere feel-good fluff.

“This film is about something,” he said. “The world is full of social unrest and violence. So into that world we wanted to inject happiness - not only something that made you feel happy, with the colors and music, but something that helps families talk about where happiness really comes from.”

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 707-521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dannarts.