The semi-biographical story of a pop singer is given an unusual treatment in Director Michael Gracey’s musical drama, Better Man.

Gracey’s film takes a different route to tell the life story of British pop superstar Robbie Williams, with Williams portrayed as a CGI-animated chimpanzee because, as he puts it, he always felt “less evolved than other people.”

On January 4, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Gracey discussed the making of Better Man during a Q&A moderated by Director Jason Reitman (Saturday Night).

During the Los Angeles conversation, Gracey shared how he developed his pre-production process on his previous musical feature, The Greatest Showman.

“I shot a video version of the film, when I could grab actors in my office, with my iPhone. One of the great advantages of musicals is you sort of lock people in for a rehearsal process because everyone’s really terrified of musical numbers so you get this time before the film to really rehearse it out. And so, in that, I would basically do a really bad version of the film that looks like half the shots. But you’re trying to block out the whole film so that you can watch it and go, ‘This doesn’t work. This needs more work.’ But that rough version ends up becoming full of storyboards, video vis, pre-vis, 3D pre-vis and it’s concept art for the wide shots. So, it’s a real mashup of everything you can get your hands on to sort of try and convey what the intention is when you end up on set.”

Gracey’s other directorial credits include the feature film The Greatest Showman; and music videos for Sugababes, Sean Sennett, Alesha Dixon, Gabriella Cilmi and P!nk. He has been a DGA member since 2007.