‘In Your Dreams’ Team on Crafting the Vibrant Dream Worlds of Netflix’s New Animated Movie

In Your Dreams is Netflix’s next major animated feature film and brings together talent from diverse backgrounds, including many who have worked on some of Disney’s most iconic hits of the last few decades. Earlier this year, the production team spoke about crafting the world of In Your Dreams, a new whimsical adventure that follows two siblings as they enter the dream world.  

Note: This report is based on a panel and comments that took place during the Annecy Film Festival in June 2025. We have an extended interview with Alex Woo coming up later this week with our own Ryan Gaur. 

The story of In Your Dreams begins when director Alexander Woo founded KuKu Studios after leaving Pixar. The idea of making a feature film about the world of dreams came early. He described being struck by Netflix’s shift into original programming, “I remember watching House of Cards, and I remember thinking that Netflix was going to change things in a very, very big way.”

Woo tapped two friends, Stanley Moore and Tim Hahn; they left their jobs, and KuKu Studios was born. The early days were humble. “We couldn’t even afford enough chairs for the three of us, so we had very humble beginnings. But with some luck and some hard work, now we can each afford our own chairs.”

Their first project would be tied to Netflix, creating six seasons and a variety of spin-offs to Go! Go! Cory Carson (or Toot! Toot! Cory Carson, depending on where you live) began its rollout in 2020. It went on to score 8 Emmy nominations and won three. The name KuKu (哭哭) comes from the Chinese word ku, meaning to cry. The studio’s mission is to create stories that bring both laughter and emotional resonance.

The emotional core of In Your Dreams comes directly from Woo’s childhood. When he was six, his mother left for a time, and he and his brother tried everything they could to keep the family together. “We [Woo and his brother] sort of hatched some harebrained schemes to try and save our family,” he remembered. That sibling bond became the heart of Stevie and Elliot’s journey. Woo added that his parents eventually reconciled and “have been married now for 50 years,” grounding the film’s themes of uncertainty, love, and resilience.

Woo acknowledged that dream films in general are hard to execute, and why, “when anything can happen, you don’t have stakes,” the director noted.

Production Designer Steve Pilcher, who recently worked on Soul, helped establish the film’s many dream environments, with Breakfast Town emerging as a standout. The world draws from warm childhood associations with morning routines and family meals. As Pilcher described it, “the whole town is based on crafts, except for the breakfast foods. They’re alive.” Buildings are made from milk cartons, the sky is cotton batting, and the surrounding greenery resembles broccoli. “Breakfast Town is all sweet foods. It is French toast breakfast,” he said, explaining the deliberately cozy and sentimental tone the team aimed for.

But that comfort isn’t permanent. The film frequently shifts dreams into nightmares, forcing the worlds to transform in real time. During the presentation, the filmmakers replayed a sequence where Breakfast Town becomes overtaken by mold and decay. VFX Supervisor Nicky Lavender explained that the team “built a system that walked all the geometry and grew mould over the entire set and the characters using hair and textures,” which let them instantly convert the same cheerful environment into a rotting, unsettling one. The contrast between the two versions of Breakfast Town visually mirrors the emotional uncertainty Stevie and Elliot experience as the story unfolds.

It should be no surprise, then, that creating that change, amongst others, was a major technical feat. VFX Supervisor Nicky Lavender explained that the team “built a system that walked all the geometry and grew mould over the entire set and the characters using hair and textures,” allowing the cheerful Breakfast Town to instantly shift into its nightmare version. Lavender also described the film’s dream sequences, including one in which a bedroom becomes a river of ball-pit balls. The team “filled up the bedroom and used it as a wipe to get us from one environment to the next, along with color and lighting to change the feel.”

Some of the film’s most complex effects involved dynamic storm environments and the Sand Castle location, which blends sand and glass. Pilcher explained the logic behind its materials: “If you melt sand, it turns into glass, so we brought glass into it to add more interest.” At the top of the castle, a kaleidoscope filters dreams, while small helpers known as Sandlings move sand through the structure. Woo described them as being “like Santas and Elves, but instead of making toys, they make dreams.”

Despite the surreal worlds, the animation stays grounded to support emotional clarity. Woo noted that they avoided overly cartoonish expression, explaining that Bed’s face is implied rather than designed. “We didn’t give her [the bed] eyes. The eyes are just stickers that Elliot put on the foot of the bed.” Performance detail was heavily refined because, as Woo said, “beauty is in the millimeters.”

One of the characters Netflix clearly expects to break out from In Your Dreams is Baloney Tony, voiced by Craig Robinson. The floppy, well-loved toy appears throughout the movie and already made a splash at Annecy, where a giant inflatable version drew crowds in Central Park. Woo explained that the team grounded Baloney Tony’s performance in real-world play rather than exaggerated cartoon motion, saying they “based his movements on how a child will move a stuffed animal during play,” using early reference footage of kids puppeteering their toys to capture his loose, lived-in feel.

Baloney Tony at the Annecy Film Festival – Picture: Kasey Moore / What’s on Netflix

At its core, the film encourages audiences to embrace life as it is, not just as we imagine it should be. Woo said that while dreams sometimes work out, “sometimes they don’t, and when they don’t, you still have to find a way through.” He hopes the film leaves families with a sense of presence: “Sometimes you have to let go of what you dream life should be, and hold on to the beautiful mess of life as it is.”

At the end of the talk, Woo publicly thanked Netflix for taking the risk on something that is not based on IP or an existing brand. “It’s an original, and that’s so rare these days.”

Cr: Netflix © 2025

In Your Dreams arrives on Netflix on November 14th, 2025.