Joaquim Dos Santos

**Joaquim Dos Santos** is an executive producer, director, and storyboard artist for *Voltron: Legendary Defender*. He has done previous work as a storyboard artist and a director for animated series such as *Justice League Unlimited*, *Avatar: The Last Airbender*, and *The Legend of Korra*.

## Official Bio

*Nicknamed "Dr. Fight" because of his skill at choreographing fight sequences. Dos Santos served as an executive producer on Legend of Korra, as well as a director for Avatar: The Last Airbender.*

## Series Role

* Executive Staff

Joaquim Dos Santos heads the show direction and writing along with Lauren Montgomery. When DreamWorks purchased rights to the *Voltron* franchise in the classic media library and started looking for people to work on a new *Voltron* show, Dos Santos and Montgomery were finishing work on *The Legend of Korra*, but immediately desired to join the new project and be interviewed by DreamWorks, pushing how they were the right people for the job on a qualified skill and fan history level.

Both Dos Santos and Montgomery are fans of the original *Voltron* show and wanted to make the new series similar to how fans nostalgically remember *Defender of the Universe*, rather than a strictly faithful update or a complete reinvention. *Legendary Defender* is a means to reel in both a new generation and old fans. To get a more coherent grasp on the older series, staff watched both *Defender of the Universe* and *Beast King GoLion*, paying homage and honor to both. They avoided going the darker route of a story, preferring to keep campy humor and fun amongst a serious storyline.

Dos Santos describes using his gut instinct when writing the show - that if something feels out of place or too "toy-driven", he steers away from it, and tries to make the story feel as natural as possible. He heavily appreciates Netflix's medium of a serialized story instead of episodic, since it takes away the fear of low views per week, the need to advertise, and instead he can focus on freely creating the show. While he loves animation, Dos Santos has spoken fondly of doing a feature film like *The Winter Soldier*, which he considers to be a perfect film. The task Dos Santos finds most difficult about producing the show is managing his own personal expectations, trying to surpass the bar set for himself every season and keeping the show standard set at a high level without alienating viewers, whose feedback cannot be written into a story produced months to years ahead of airing.

## Gallery

Keith for WonderCon 2017.Shiro for Vol. 1 #5.Art and letter gifted to Josh Keaton.
## Trivia

* Shiro's robotic arm was on Dos Santos' list of "must haves" for the series.

* Dos Santos' favorite character is Lance.

* Dos Santos claims he can draw Keith all day and not get bored.

* His favorite thing about Season Three is the reaction to Allura's appearance in pink Paladin armor.

## External Links

* deviantART

* Instagram

* Twitter

* Tumblr

* Joaquim Dos Santos on IMDb

* Joaquim Dos Santos on Wikipedia

## References

1. ↑ Voltron: Legendary Defender Official Website
Rotoscopers: "Interview with Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery of ‘Voltron: Legendary Defender’", August 2017
3. ↑ Den of Geek: "Voltron Legendary Defender Producers Talk Creative Process", May 2016
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Nerdist:"Voltron Legendary Defender Cast, Release Date, and More Revealed", March 2016 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; name "NerdistMarch2016" defined multiple times with different content
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 When Nerds Attack: "Interviews with the Cast and Crew of Netflix’s Voltron: Legendary Defender!", January 2017
6. ↑ New York Comic Con 2016
7. ↑ Hypable with Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery, August 2017
8. ↑ Let's Voltron 100th Podcast