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Sometimes, filmmaking can really be an excuse for nerds to research stuff. Writer and director Isaiah Saxon spent years developing “The Legend of Ochi” to be a fantasy adventure that looks and feels like it could take place in one last undiscovered corner of the world, one where the mysterious primate Ochi navigate living on the fringes of human civilization. This required a lot of preparation and planning, collaboration with artists and designers and puppeteers, but also a lot of Wikipedia diving.

“ I’ve become an amateur primatologist through the course of making [the film],” Saxon told IndieWire. “In the larger picture of writing towards these zoological elements, [I’m looking] at everything that’s on the Internet. I’m reading Wikipedia articles about the one venomous primate and how does that actually work? I’m reading about Tarsiers and lemurs and the sociological structures of Bonobos.”

All of that research eventually coalesced into the Ochi,...

When director Isaiah Saxon began his search for the voice of Ochi, the titular creature in his new film, The Legend of Ochi, he didn’t look to established actors, but YouTube. “I typed in ‘throat whistling,’ and I found this guy with one video on his account where he’s in his basement in sweatpants, and he’s like, ‘Hey guys, I figured out this thing I can do in the back of my throat,’” Saxon says. “And he opens his mouth, and the sound of the Ochi comes right out.