Moviefone Editorial

Tag: walt-disney

  • ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ Director Rob Marshall on Embracing the Disney Classic’s Legacy

    ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ Director Rob Marshall on Embracing the Disney Classic’s Legacy

    Disney

    “Mary Poppins Returns” is a movie heavily indebted to what came before.

    Not only is it a sequel (of sorts) to 1964’s Oscar-winning “Mary Poppins,” which Walt Disney himself believed to be his greatest accomplishment in the (mostly) live-action arena, but it’s also a wondrous ode to the work of author P.L. Travers, whose books both films mine. Quite frankly, just the weight of that legacy would seem crippling to some, but not to director and choreographer Rob Marshall, who absolutely reveled in the chance to update, expand and pay homage to the wonderful world of Disney’s “Mary Poppins.”

    This reverence is notable from the very first moments of “Mary Poppins Returns,” as the titles cascade over painterly images by Peter Ellenshaw. Ellenshaw, a Disney Legend who contributed special effects to many of the studio’s most iconic live action films (and whose matte paintings of London open the original “Mary Poppins”), is credited, even though the images that open “Mary Poppins Returns” are rougher and more impressionistic. (Ellenshaw famously came out of retirement to do the matte paintings for Disney’s underrated “Dick Tracy” in 1990.)

    “I was excited to discover these concept paintings and concept art in the Disney Archives. They’re so beautiful,” Marshall explained. “So what we did was used about a third of them and then created ones in his style, so it’s a combination of real ones and ones we did, to reflect our film.” It’s an apt metaphor for the techniques and storytelling for the movie that follows; some from what came before and some brand-new.

    But the sequence that most clearly encapsulates this ideology is the Royal Doulton Music Hall sequence. In the scene Mary (a peerless Emily Blunt), her lamplighter chum Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) and the next generation of the Banks children (Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh and Joel Dawson) jump into a Royal Doulton china bowl that the children have cracked. Once inside the bowl they enter a world of lushly two-dimensional animation and, during the course of the sequence they encounter anthropomorphic animals (including penguins that look very familiar) and stage one of the movie’s most show-stopping numbers, “A Cover is Not the Book” (aka the one where they let Lin-Manuel rap).

    Marshall said that doing a sequence that combined live-action with traditional animation was part of the draw of doing “Mary Poppins Returns.” “I used myself as a barometer, because I loved the original film so much,” Marshall said. “I thought, If I were just coming to this movie, what would I want to see?” Well, it turns out, he would want to see “an animation/live-action sequence, no question.”

    And what’s more, Marshall said, “I would want it to be hand-drawn.”

    He then told a story about the sequence’s infancy that seemed to take on an almost mythical grandeur while he was telling it: “We met at the Hyperion bungalow, which was a bungalow from the original studio that they brought over. We gathered artists from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios for a workshop to work through what this could be. We had our writer, David Magee, as well as John DeLuca — who worked on the story with me and David — we had our composers there and we just started to work together on this animation sequence and develop it. They pulled out pen and ink and they were drawing the whole thing.”

    Among those animators in those early meetings was Glen Keane, a famed Disney animator whose career blossomed during the so-called Disney Renaissance, as he animated Ariel in “The Little Mermaid,” the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast,” and the title characters in “Aladdin,” “Pocahontas,” and “Tarzan.” (He recently won an Oscar for his Kobe Bryant short film “Dear Basketball.”)

    “He started with us,” Marshall said, noting that Jim Capobianco, an animation veteran of both Disney and Pixar, “really ran it.” “We had an amazing group of artists,” Marshall said. “It was extraordinary — and we built it together.”

    Disney

    Interesting, it wasn’t Disney or Pixar that actually produced the animation; it was a small outfit out of Pasadena, California, called Duncan Studio. Started by Disney vet Ken Duncan, who worked alongside Keane on “Tarzan,” the studio has contributed to several big projects and provided all of the animation in both the pre-show and ride for Universal Studios’ Minion Mayhem simulator attraction.

    “Some of the artists were in their 70’s and had been so influenced and inspired by the classic hand-drawn animation that they couldn’t pass up this kind of opportunity,” said Capobianco in the official press notes, “but then we also had these young kids who were relatively new to the industry, so it was this wonderful pool of animators working together to create this throwback to old-school animation.”

    The process of working with the animation studio was “complicated,” according to Marshall, “Because they were fitting into a live-action film.” He recounts a meeting with one of the animators, in which the animator suggested Lin-Manuel “just jump over there.”

    “Well, Lin-Manuel is a person,” Marshall reminded the animator. “So it’s going to take him a little longer to get there.” The complexity was amplified by the fact that it’s a fully choreographed (by Marshall and De Luca) dance number. “Like the flamingos, for instance, in that sequence, was something that we choreographed with female dancers,” Marshall said. “And then they took it and drew it. But we controlled all of it.”

    Also adding to the chaos: that human actors had to be interacting with the animated animals (you’ve undoubtedly seen that charming moment in the trailer when Blunt honks the beak of one of the penguins). “It took a lot, especially with the kids, but we had to do crazy things like put a giraffe’s head on a pole so they could point and have the same eye-line,” Marshall said. “We did a lot of makeshift things.” Even, it turns out, when Poppins was dancing with the penguins, “there were real actors.” “They were the smallest dancers we could find and they were incredible!” Marshall said. “But that was the only way we could frame it and choreograph the sequence.”

    Marshall admitted that his team “had much more sophisticated equipment” than the team that put the original “Mary Poppins” sequence together (which included staggering work from, amongst other people, some of Walt’s Nine Old Men — Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, and John Lounsbery). But they did share a key similarity. “It was the first thing they shot and it was the first thing we shot,” Marshall explained. “We had to. We had to get it to the animators. It extended our post-production schedule for a long amount of time because it’s all hand drawn.”

    According to Marshall, they were in post-production for over a year, with over 70 animators working on the sequence for 16 months solid. “The animators used every single second of it,” Marshall said.

    Still, it shows. The movie is a breathtaking pop culture confection, charming and delightful at every turn, and the true centerpiece of the movie, visually and thematically, is the animated stuff. It allowed the children to really embrace their imagination (hard to do during the 1930’s “slump” setting of the film) and for Poppins to show them what, exactly, she’s made of. It’s the rare sequence that’s a technical showstopper and an emotional one too. And you can tell that Marshall is proud of what they accomplished. “Everything that I wanted to do is on that screen,” Marshall said.

    To borrow another Poppins phrase from a different musical number: Can you imagine that?

    “Mary Poppins Returns” opens everywhere December 21.

  • Disney Debuts Bewitching New ‘Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ Trailer and Poster

    Disney Debuts Bewitching New ‘Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ Trailer and Poster

    The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
    Disney

    “The Nutcracker and The Four Realms” trailer is worth watching on repeat for the haunting “Just a Girl” cover alone. (The cover is by the artist Brix, and it just came out.)

    The magical fantasy arrives in theaters in November, and Disney just dropped a new trailer and a new poster.

    Here’s the poster:

    Here’s the new trailer:

    This may not be the intended focus, but both Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadyen in the same trailer marks another “Pride and Prejudice” reunion, and that has bewitched us body and soul.

    Anyway, here’s the official movie synopsis:

    “All Clara (Mackenzie Foy) wants is a key – a one-of-a-kind key that will unlock a box that holds a priceless gift. A golden thread, presented to her at godfather Drosselmeyer’s (Morgan Freeman) annual holiday party, leads her to the coveted key—which promptly disappears into a strange and mysterious parallel world.

    It’s there that Clara encounters a soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a gang of mice and the regents who preside over three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets.

    Clara and Phillip must brave the ominous Fourth Realm, home to the tyrant Mother Ginger (Dame Helen Mirren), to retrieve Clara’s key and hopefully return harmony to the unstable world.

    Starring Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Disney’s new holiday feature film “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” is directed by Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston, and inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale.”

    “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” dances into theaters November 2nd, 2018.

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  • Bambi and Thumper Voice Actors Are Still Thumpin’ 75 Years Later

    BAMBI AND THUMPERSeventy-five years later, Bambi and Thumper — and the no-longer-little fellas who gave them voice — are still pretty captivating.

    The fifth animated feature film to come out of Walt Disney‘s animation studio in the summer of 1942, based the book “Bambi, a Life In the Woods” by on Austrian children’s author Felix Salten, “Bambi” marked multiple turning points for Disney’s now-fabled pantheon of classics.

    Creatively, the film saw the animation art form blaze new trails with its extremely realistic depiction of its woodland creatures and its colorfully impressionistic, atmospheric background art that allowed the lavishly animated lead characters to better pop onscreen in audience’s eyes.

    Behind the scenes, “Bambi” would be the last Disney full-length feature released to the public for the duration of World War II, during which Disney and his team labored on government-contracted animation and musical cartoon anthologies until the war ended and work commenced on the studio’s next masterpiece, 1950’s “Cinderella.”

    Today, as “Bambi” receives a fresh new Blu-ray and Digital HD release to celebrate its diamond jubilee, two of its most charming contributors are raising their voices once again to share their experiences making the film.

    As the voice of and visual reference for the wide-eyed fawn Bambi, actor Donnie Dunagan was the veteran of the duo, with several films to his credit (including 1939’s “Son of Frankenstein“) by the time he stepped into the recording studio for Disney. He’d go on to a long and distinguished career in the United States Marine Corps: the youngest-ever drill instructor, he was wounded multiple times in combat in Vietnam and earned three Purple Heart medals and a Bronze Star.

    Peter Hehn was the four-year-old son of ’30s-era screenwriter Henry Behn (“Hell’s Angels“) when he was cast as the giggly voice of the precocious bunny Thumper, and would leave Hollywood behind when his family relocated when his father began teaching English courses; he’d later attend Yale and enjoy a long career in real estate.

    And even as octogenarians, it’s clear that being a part of Disney’s magical legacy remains enchanting for Dunagan and Behn, who joined Moviefone for one more walk in the forest.

    Moviefone: What specific memories do you still hold from recording the voices of Bambi and Thumper? Do you have vivid things that are still stuck in your brain from those experiences?

    Donnie Dunagan: Precisely. This was my eighth film total — first animated — so I wasn’t, I hope, jaded, but I was a bit older. I remember well how courteous, and professional, and gentle with children Disney staff people were. I’m sure they got a bit tired of me pestering them: “What’s the storyline?” Nobody ever scolded me for that. “What is this all about?” I was eager to know.

    And a nice lady I don’t think we ever saw again got ahold of one of the books from 1923, translated by Whittaker Chambers in ’28, and sat us down in a room with the young lady that played Faline, and she read parts of several chapters to us, and then gave us her own oral summary what the story was about. I was thrilled! But up to that point, I’d be fibbing to you if I told you I knew what it was about. I didn’t have a clue.

    But once I had a sense of the storyline, then it mattered a great deal more when the prompting lady in the booth would say, “Say this, say that, say that:” “What’s a meadow? Mother, mother, mother,” etc.

    Peter Behn: I think the mechanics of the operation were more memorable to me than some of the other aspects. Very honestly, I don’t think I knew the storyline until I saw the movie in 1942. Because the recording operation was, like, sentence-by-sentence in the sound booth, with the proper inflections of course, directed by the director.

    So what I remember most is the mechanics of the recording: the big recording device had a 20-inch disc on it, and a big arm that came over. Actually, it carved a groove in the record, the disc, and plastic came off the end. There was like scraps of this long ribbon that came off. So the different kinds of impressions of what went on. That’s what I most remember.

    Do you have any specific recollections of your interactions with Walt Disney himself?

    Dunagan: Oh yes, yes — I would call him, in Marine Corps vernacular, a leader by example, setting the example. He was all over the place. I was there for a long, long time, first as the facial model, from the spring of 1940 forward. Two months would go by, they’d come back, come back, come back, come back, and then the voice. So I saw him often, and if I was behaving myself and quiet, they’d forget you were there.

    He was all over the place — all over the place! And leading by, I would call, by example. A bit later, toward the end of my experience — and reasonably good memory — my sense was that he was taking a long time to produce, and there was some concern and urgency about this. “We need to get this done, get this done.” I remember asking my mother a bit about that, but she didn’t have a clue either. We were both aware of things, but we didn’t have any spies anywhere. There was some concern that a blind person could see that this was taking a long, long time, and that they needed to get this out.

    Then what happened? Pearl Harbor. The hearsay was that Mr. Disney might have wanted to release it Thanksgiving/Christmas of ’41. Perfect timing, right? The pressure was on. We’re not in the war yet. Then December 7th, Pearl Harbor, changed everything, and he did not release it until about this time [of year in 1942]. Peter and I had a chance to see it up in the [San Fernando] Valley in 1942. I remember well the impression that adults had and children had on the first couple of viewings in regular theaters — they loved it!

    A lot of folks were bothered by the mother being killed. To this day, we hear about that! A grandmother will come up to my wife and I at some charity thing we’re at and say, “I remember when the mother …” I smile every time, like I’ve never heard it before, right? “I remember the mother, the mother, the mother, the mother …” One time, because the environment was happy, I said, “How about me? I got shot, too!”

    Behn: I saw him a couple of times. Once, outside there was a small zoo on the lot with animals for the animators to observe. I went out to the zoo with him at one point and saw the animals. Held the bunny — there’s a picture of me holding the little bunny, Thumper. So that was my most memorable recollection of meeting him. I didn’t spend as much time at the studio. The recording sessions were several months apart over a two-year period.

    There was a period when “Bambi” was a role that you played as a kid, and that’s what it was for a lot of years. Then “Bambi” came back into your lives as the fans became curious about you and what became of you. You were welcomed into the extended Disney family again. What’s that been like for you as adults to participate in that community of people who just love Disney and love “Bambi”?

    Behn: In my youth and growing up in college and all those areas, we really never mentioned it to our friends, and it just wasn’t in the forefront of consciousness. I became more comfortable with occasionally telling somebody, usually by asking if they’ve seen “Bambi.” It’s literally almost impossible to find somebody who’s not seen the movie. Then I say, “You remember Thumper?” Yes they do, and I would tell them that I was the voice of Thumper — primarily, to bring a little joy. People really get a kick out of realizing that they met the person who was the voice.

    Tell me about the experience you had this year, 75 years later, to see the film on the big screen with audience full of fans, artists who have been inspired by the film and your work in the film, family members of people who worked on the film. That was a really singular kind of moment for you, I imagine.

    Behn: It was as if I saw it for the first time, because of the talk that [film historian] Leonard Maltin and [contemporary Disney animator] Andreas Deja gave regarding [“Bambi” production artist] Tyrus Wong’s art, and the impact it had. And Walt, when he saw it, he said was what he wanted. It allowed me to view the movie more from the background than the foreground. I thought that was very revealing. I got an appreciation of it as a moving piece of art, more than just the film.

    And to go back to the emotional aspects of the film, Donnie’s right, it’s very emotional when the mother gets shot. But to me, the intensity of the fire scene, and the father and Bambi working their way through and out into safety, was a lot scarier, and more prolonged, and very emotional, and just so incredibly well-conceived and done from an artistic point of view. It’s the part of the movie that I find very memorable.

    Dunagan: There’s the same quality of shared emotion people have with that film. The story, from birth all the way to maturity — not many movies do that, not many novels do that, and people can relate. Any age can relate to things that happen in “Bambi,” something that a friend, a family member or that we experienced. They have matching sensitivity experiences to “Bambi.”

    I’m not a behavioral scientist, but I pay attention to human beings, and they have matched experiences. We hear about it all the time. I had a very unique one to “Bambi.” When Bambi was shot, after the mother is down, animals that are large, four-legged, on-the ground animals, heavy respiratories, they get down, they don’t get up. That respiratory can kick in and they die.

    That’s why farmers and animal-sensitive people like Peter try to get them up in real life. “Bambi’s down” — the culture of 1941-42, a lot of farmers, a lot of ranchers, they understand what that means. [The filmmakers] wrote this brilliantly in from the book: Here comes Bambi’s father. Big rack standing there, very majestically, right? “Bambi, get up! Get up! You must get up!”

    Many years later, in August of 1967, I’m shot for the second time in Vietnam. I’m down, and I’ve got to get up. I’m the only officer left in a big patrol unit. The only one that is equipped up here to call in fire support and things. I’m half-conscious. A wonderful young sergeant, who survived the war, came up over me. “Skipper! Skipper! Get up! Get up! You must get up! We need you, get up!” I was able to get up enough against a bamboo thing to be able to call in fire support. Then they evacuated several of us.

    Think of the irony of that for a matching life experience!

  • Exclusive: Watch Walt Disney Explain the Creative Process Behind ‘Bambi’


    Of the “big five” Disney films (the first five animated features that Walt Disney oversaw and largely considered, by fans and historians, to be the pinnacle of the studio’s output), “Bambi” is the one that is, for some reason, often overlooked. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the story (it clocks in at a barely-feature-length 70 minutes), the fact that it didn’t have the same cultural impact as the other films due to its release during World War II (when much of the foreign market was cut off and the Disney studio itself had become a de facto army base), or because all anyone can talk about is how traumatizing the death of Bambi’s mother was (therapy helps), but for whatever reason, it often doesn’t get the attention and respect it deserves. Hopefully, the new Signature Edition of “Bambi,” timed to its 75th anniversary (out on Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere on May 23rd, and Blu-ray June 6th), will help restore its luster because really this movie was quietly groundbreaking and inspired countless Disney productions in the years to follow.

    The idea for “Bambi” came to Walt while he was still plotting his first animated feature. Rights to Austrian author Felix Salten’s “Bambi: A Life in the Woods” had first been attempted as an ambitious live-action feature, before it even got on Disney’s radar. (M. Lincoln Schuster of the Simon & Schuster publishing house first brought the book to him.) But Walt, ever the visionary, knew that the technology and artistry at his disposal couldn’t properly bring the story to life. But by the time production on the film began in 1939 (on the same day Germany invaded Poland), Walt felt confidant that his animators and artisans could knock it out of the park. After all, the studio had just completed work on “Fantasia” and “Dumbo,” two of the most jaw-dropping animated features ever. They were at the top of their game.

    It was so groundbreaking because the characters weren’t cute and cuddly cartoons. They had to register as actual animals. And their environments had to be suitably realistic as well. Walt took this very seriously and had animators study animals in the wild and also brought in animals to the studio, where they could be observed close-up. It would go on to inspire virtually every future film that featured naturalistic animal characters (most notably “The Lion King”) and the interactions with animals led Walt to create the nature documentary with his True-Life Adventures (something that carries on with the Disneynature films like “Born in China“). “Bambi” served as a benchmark in the medium; animated movies had felt alive but never like this. It was also a breakthrough for tone and structure. “Bambi” was a series of elliptical, philosophical endeavors loosely built around the changing of the seasons. As emotional as it was it was also deeply spiritual.Walt Disney ArchivesThis exclusive bonus clip (above), which features the animators and is narrated by Walt Disney himself (taken from a series of interviews conducted in 1956), underlines the technological and artistic accomplishments of the film. The footage, of animators hard at work on what become an immortal classic, is staggering by itself, but when paired with Walt’s narration, well, it’s really something. Walt can be heard saying that he had laid out a plan for what he wanted to accomplish with the medium (you’d be tempted to say “animation,” but it’s more accurate to say “film”). “We were self taught,” Walt said. “And the teachers were the students.” (This makes me think of a more recent example, Pixar, who was founded by computer wonks, animators, and technological wizards and would become a storytelling powerhouse for decades to come.)

    Then Walt talked about how realistic and natural the film looked, which came about through canny management. “I picked certain artists who were not good at character animation and I put them into effects,” Walt said. “How we can make a raindrop look better. How we can make storm clouds effective and move. The effects men would experiment with anything.” Walt summed it up proudly: “I gave them things in my school that they never got in art school.” And it shows.

    The “Bambi” Signature Edition will make you appreciate just what it took to bring this masterpiece to life. And could you please stop crying about Bambi’s mother? It’s been 75 years.

  • Dwayne Johnson’s Lengthy, Odd ‘Jungle Cruise’ Instagram Post, Explained

    Over the weekend, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, uploaded a photo of himself at a Disney campus and claimed, in no short order, that he would help revitalize The Jungle Cruise, one of the signature attractions of the Disney Parks (and one of the opening day draws at Disneyland, from way back in 1955). Sure, Johnson is working on a movie adaptation of the attraction but the post still seemed pretty “out of left field.” But was this post another example of his patented brand of self-aggrandizing braggadocio or is there something to his claims?

    First, let’s get into his claims that he and his production partner Dany Garcia were invited to a secret corner of the Walt Disney campus. He wasn’t, as he claims, in The Vault (although more on that in a minute). It’s clear from the photo that he was at Walt Disney Imagineering, the branch of the company responsible for designing all of the theme parks, attractions, restaurants, and cruise ships. The photo Johnson posted was in one of the main hallways of the Glendale, California campus.

    Grateful SOB to have Walt and Mickey watching over my shoulder as @danygarciaco and I embark on this amazing project. For our big #JungleCruise creative meeting at DISNEY’s highly secure R&D facilities, me and @danygarciaco were escorted into THE VAULT. A legitimate vault where all of Disney’s biggest secrets and plans are kept. Curtains were pulled back for us to reveal the actual drawn up plans that Walt Disney had his brother, Roy Disney take to New York to present to the bankers in 1950 for the potential loan to build what’s now known as Disney Land. Cant imagine what that meeting with bankers was like. Roy: Alright gentlemen, so me and my brother Walt, want to build the greatest multiple theme park attraction in the world. Banker: Oh that seems fun, Mr. Disney. Roy: *smiles in a playful mischievous manner, Oh yes my good man, it will have a few things that are in fact, fun. Well, clearly I don’t know how the hell men were actually talking in the 50’s, but what I do know is being able to star in and produce #JungleCruise is a dream come true. BUT what takes this to the next level, is that we’ll partner with Disney’s brilliant Imagineers to help re-engineer and re-design the #JungleCruise ride in all the Disney theme parks around the world. A very special opportunity for us and our @sevenbucksprod to create an unforgettable and fun EXPERIENCE for families around the world. And as Walt Disney himself would say… it’s magical. Next step is finding our visionary director. Exciting times. #JungleCruise #TheExperience #DisneyStudios #Imagineers #SevenBucksProds #WaltAndRockWouldveBeenBesties #AndWorkoutBuddies #WaltWouldveLovedMyJackedUpPickUpTruck ????????????

    A post shared by therock (@therock) on

    We’ve been to the Disney Vault and this certainly isn’t it. (Although the facilities are close.) There’s a nearby library dedicated to all things Walt Disney Imagineering that contains a lot of things, including that map of Disneyland, which inspired Johnson to post a bizarre, imaginary conversation between Walt Disney, his brother, Roy Disney, and some undisclosed banker. (If only he knew the kind of financial loop-da-loops that Walt and Roy went through to get that park open on time.)

    Secondly, the concept that Johnson and Garcia could help remake the Jungle Cruise (an attraction that is a staple of Disneyland, Magic Kingdom in Florida, Tokyo Disneyland, and Hong Kong Disneyland) isn’t an outlandish one. Sure, it’s a classic attraction. But it’s also a creaky one. There is undoubtedly a pile of concepts on the Imagineers’ desks about how they could enhance this attraction, and every time it goes down for a rehab it’s either something minor or purposefully goofy (like the annual Jingle Cruise holiday makeover).

    The kind of circuitous movie-based-on-a-theme-park-attraction-then-inspiring-the-attraction phenomenon isn’t new; Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films was installed in Pirates of the Caribbean, an attraction that is arguably more passionately adored than Jungle Cruise. (Back when they thought “The Lone Ranger” was going to be a hit, there were plans to install those characters into Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. And had “Tomorrowland” succeeded, it would have precipitated a major sea change in that section of the park, beginning with a nifty augmented reality game.) The reason those proposed enhancements never come to pass is because it’s hard to justify the costs when there are other, more pressing (and more popular) attractions to focus on. Plus, there’s the time it takes to overhaul one of these attractions. Considering the massive changes going on at Disneyland, where the “Star Wars”-themed land is currently being constructed, it’d be a bummer if you saved up all year to come to the park and couldn’t even see the backside of water.

    (One potentially thorny issue: Disney doesn’t technically own the Japanese theme parks; the Oriental Land Company, a leisure and entertainment company founded five years after Disneyland opened in Anaheim, does. That means that if the other parks fell in line with this project, Tokyo Disneyland potentially couldn’t — and wouldn’t — follow suit.)

    If Johnson and his production partner are willing to help fund the makeover, which they can also chalk up to promotion for the new movie, then all the better. It’s notoriously difficult to get anything green lit at Walt Disney Imagineering, since the costs are so high and the time to create the attractions so lengthy, but if there’s outside money helping it along, then that certainly greases the wheels. Anytime you see anything connected to a new-ish movie, from an elaborately themed meet-and-greet to a preview of an upcoming movie playing in a disused 3D theater, that stuff isn’t paid for by Disney Parks; it’s paid for by Walt Disney Studios. That’s why it’s there. If this update is coming from Johnson/Garcia and the team behind the new movie, it’s all but assured that it’ll actually get completed. There’s no groveling when the project is a huge corporate priority.

    And here’s the other thing — if there’s a theme park attraction already in the parks worldwide, then there’s a much better chance Johnson’s “Jungle Cruise” will actually get made. Movies based on the theme park attractions are a priority, but they’re just as cumbersome to get produced as the attractions themselves and the last 10 years have been littered with well-intentioned would-be blockbusters (Guillermo del Toro‘s “The Haunted Mansion,” Jon Favreau’s “Magic Kingdom,” Max Landis’s “Space Mountain,” the list goes on …) With these moves, Johnson is all but assuring his latest genre franchise will make it to the big screen and with a truly mighty amount of promotional power behind it.

    Lastly, and this is a big one, why would Disney allow Johnson to post something like this? Walt Disney Imagineering is a tight-lipped group that some have referred to as Walt’s “Black Ops Unit” back when he was still alive. (Walt privately controlled the group to keep it away from financial second-guessing.) Well, that mostly has to do with Johnson’s 85 million Instagram followers. In the lead-up to “Moana,” Walt Disney Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios often deferred to Johnson, who debuted a number of trailers and clips on his personal social media accounts. The studio is clearly just as itchy to get “The Jungle Cruise” (and its corresponding revamp) out there in the wild, and who better a spokesperson to have than The Rock?

  • How Walt Disney Inspired ‘Born in China’

    Disneynature’s “Born in China,” out this week, is the latest in a line of springy nature documentaries that Disney has been putting out every Earth Day, more or less, for the past few years. The latest film follows three families of animals in modern-day China (yes, there are pandas) and, as narrated by John Krasinski, personalizes the animals’ struggles without ever turning them into cartoonish caricatures. It’s more about emphasizing the depths of their lives than flattening them into two-dimensional facades. But what’s amazing about these Disneynature films is that you can trace their fundamental, well, nature, to innovations that Walt Disney himself made back in the 1940’s. It was Walt who created the nature documentary and whose fundamental respect for animals, his emphasis on conservation, his insistence that the material be entertaining, and his ability to turn creatures into compassionate screen icons, can be felt in these films today.

    So let’s take it back …

    As early as 1943, Walt was talking about using his skills to produce things strictly for educational means. He had been courted for educational films for a while (a year later, in 1944, Encyclopedia Britannica wanted to lock the visionary into a multi-picture deal), but wanted to do something that was as entertaining as it was educational. “We can’t be boring,” Walt said.

    By late 1944 Walt, an animal lover since growing up on a farm in Missouri, first laid out a plan for a series of short films, but by the end of 1944 made a trip to the New York Zoological Society with something grander, more ambitious in mind. He had first talked a husband-and-white photography team with taking footage of Alaska (“Everything that moved” was what Walt said). The process took a long time. Like, a long time. After Walt insisted that the documentarians focus on seals (and after he himself took a trip to Alaska in 1947), they finally had a movie in 1948. This was “Sea Island,” the first of a Disney series called “True-Life Adventures.”

    At 28 minutes, the movie was too long for a short and too short for a feature. RKO, who was distributing Walt’s movies at the time, refused to release it, so Disney personally exhibited it in a theater in Pasadena. Audiences loved it and it won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. Disney biographer Neal Gabler said that the film “in its own way proves just as revolutionary as his first sound animation or Snow White.” Once again, Walt was introducing something to the movie-going public, something that they had never experienced before, never even thought about, but now that it was here, they couldn’t get enough of it.

    The movies were troublesome and costly to produce (something that made Walt’s brother, Roy O. Disney, who handled the finances for the studio, nervous), with a fraction of the footage shot making it into the final film, but they were transcendent, beautiful, and unlike anything else out there. Walt had followed through on his promise: With their bouncy soundtracks, anthropomorphized subjects, and gorgeous photography, these were not boring.

    Of the 14 films produced in the “True-Life Adventures” series, eight of them won Academy Awards. The films would inspire a line of books, a comic strip printed in newspapers nationwide each week, and a spin-off series called “True-Life Fantasies,” which featured animal casts wedged into more traditional narrative frameworks (this was things like “Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar“). An early version of Disneyland had a different name for Adventureland — True-Life Adventureland, which shows you how all-in the studio was about this material. In this version of the land, the Jungle Cruise would have you float by real-life animals instead of cartoon-y Audio-Animatronic versions and actually give you the ability to take home an exotic animal as a pet (ah, the ’50s). The idea of animals in a Disney Park would come to fruition decades later, when Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened as part of Walt Disney World in 1998. (You can also see echoes of the “True-Life Adventures” in elements of Frontierland and can see posters for the films hanging in the Smokejumpers Grill restaurant in Disney California Adventure.)

    Virtually every nature documentary that came after Walt’s “True-Life Adventures” were inspired by the series and owes him a considerable debt. Everything from “March of the Penguins” to “Planet Earth” sprouted from these early films, in structure, narrative, and philosophy. Walt introduced audiences to a world that they could connect with, one without heavy-handed moralizing or sterile detachment. These stories were warm, relatable, and mind-blowing. Walt would later say of the films, “We did not succumb to the alluring temptations to make villains or saints of the creatures portrayed in our films. We have maintained a sensitive regard for the wisdom of nature’s design and have attempted to hold a mirror to the out-of-doors rather than to interpret its functioning by man’s standards.”

    It’s Walt’s original vision that you can see course through “Born in China” — and all of the Disneynature films. So many of his breakthroughs — humanistic narration, painstaking photography, an easy-to-follow narrative — are present, and it’s hard to imagine “Born in China” (or any other modern nature documentary) without them. Walt was great at understanding what audiences wanted but also that they wouldn’t just accept the same old thing. If he was going to make a documentary about animals, it had to be the best documentary about animals … ever. The Disneynature team understands this and, with each film, pushes the medium a little bit forward. Walt would be proud.

  • From ‘Rogue One’ to ‘Powerless,’ Alan Tudyk Has Mastered His Comedic Voice

    NBCUniversal Press Tour - 2017What do a dryly witty, reprogrammed Imperial droid, “Moana‘s” oddball chicken Hei-Hei, the weaselly Duke of Wesselton, and, now, a clueless Wayne family scion have in common? They all either look, sound, or move a lot like Alan Tudyk.

    The past year marked a significant career high for the actor, who’s best known for his roles in fare ranging from “Firefly” and “Dollhouse” to “Suburgatory” and “Powerless.”

    Tudyk joined Moviefone for a look at his recent phenomenal run, including the perks of being a Disney voice and his notion to put K-2SO back on the big screen.

    Moviefone: Here you’ve steadily built a career as an actor, you’re working all the time, and then all of a sudden you have a year like the last year that you’ve had. Tell me a little bit about what it’s been like to have this very special moment in your career, walking into “Powerless” along with all the great things that have just happened.

    Alan Tudyk: It’s great, now that we’ve started 2017, that a lot of things — “Star Wars” came out, and I finished “Con Man,” and it is now about to be all fully released and the season will be out. Obviously, “Moana” is out — I can focus solely on “Powerless.”

    It was all very thrilling and dizzying, and now it’s great to be here just focusing on “Powerless.” I don’t know that, I guess, because it was so busy and so many things were happening at once, I really understood what was involved — I also got married, so that was a fun thing to put in the middle of it all. It was actually the best thing last year.

    Yeah, you’re right. It was a very full year. And now, I can’t wait for people to see “Powerless.” I love that it’s part of the sci-fi world, and sort of in keeping with so many things that I’ve done now. It’s nice to have some continuity.

    The genre field has been good to you, and you have been good to it. So tell me what was creatively exciting about being able to probe for the comedy in the world of superheroes with “Powerless” — and especially playing a character that we’ve learned is related to Bruce Wayne himself.

    I think it’s a blast! DC tends to be a little bit more serious, I think, than Marvel, absolutely. To be able to do a comedy and have the supers from that world as objects of humor is very exciting to me. When there’s anything that’s really serious, it’s fun to turn it on its head and poke fun, and compare it to a regular world. The stakes are really high when you have such a fantastic world happening alongside office work. That’s exciting to me, and it’s been really fun to play.

    Who is this guy, Van Wayne, to you? How are you perceiving him as you get to know him a little better?

    He’s a broken character. He’s a broken man. He’s a product of being spoiled and growing up with the promise of being a Wayne and that everything’s going to be handed to him, and he doesn’t really have everything handed to him that he wants. He has a lot, but he doesn’t appreciate it.

    He’s not, definitely, the most clever person in the office, but he thinks he is, and those are really fun characters to play. He has girlfriends, he’s his own worst enemy, he’s a child. He’s a baby-man. He’s a baby-man with parents that are cold, and that’s what broke him.

    You know how devoted the fans of genre entertainment are, more than anybody else out there. What are you excited about them coming to this show and getting to see what you guys are doing there? You know that you’ve got fans that follow you from project to project and are always interested in what you’re doing.

    I hope that they do follow, and come and check it out, and laugh. That’s what I hope people do, is laugh. While this is on on my mind, I saw the director of a movie I did called “Tucker & Dale [vs. Evil]” today, which was a genre movie. It was a horror movie, but it was a horror comedy. People who are fans of horror movies watched it, but it’s a comedy. It not only caught the horror audience, it went outside of that just to people who like comedy. So I guess the answer is, I hope that sci-fi fans come in and find it funny and that it grows from there, because it isn’t just meant for sci-fi fans.

    But also, sci-fi fans love comedy in their superhero world. Joss Whedon does that really well. “Firefly” that I did in 2003, and whenever I have seen those episodes again, I’m always taken aback by how funny they are. I think that the writers have done a great job, and I’ve been having a lot of fun, so I hope that’s what people take away from it, that it’s funny, and it’s just as much fun to watch, it sounds so trite, but it’s true: it’s just as much fun to watch as it is to make.

    I got to sing a song last week. I’ve sung two songs, a blues song on a guitar that I can barely play. I had a harmonica. They give you a lot of freedom to play. It’s what you want as an actor.

    It really does sound like an actor’s holiday, in that they’re throwing you the opportunity to do all kinds of stuff to get a laugh. I’m sure you’ve got to keep it within the confines of who this guy is, too.

    Oh yeah, absolutely. Luckily, the character is a classic comedic character, that he’s someone who’s full of himself, who’s not very bright, who will get himself into trouble. So the things he does that are extreme or really fun come from that. So his character drives that.

    Tell me what it was like for you to be the comedic voice of “Rogue One” — an otherwise very serious-minded movie — with as deadpan a touch as possible, and create this really distinctive character.

    K-2SO! It was great. We had so much fun. I don’t know — I didn’t really think of him as being this — I don’t know why — droid in the long line of droids. It’s about within this serious movie being the comic breath that you can take inside of all of the high-paced drama.

    It was a blast. I would go on set and have fun. Some characters just have a lot of room to play around, and you kind of don’t know which ones those are going to be. K-2 was one of those, and they let me really play around with him. I’d do the lines as written, and then I would do some of my own. “I want to say a thing here, in addition to what’s written,” and they were game for all of it.

    It was great, and I’m so happy they used it, because it all just came out of the fun I was talking about. It was a blast, working with Diego [Luna] and Felicity [Jones] — I mainly worked with the two of them most of the time. We were standing in the rain in London most of the time, so it kind of became that I was the smart-ass anyway on set. Although Diego’s a pretty good smart-ass.

    When you saw the reaction to that character — people didn’t know what to expect and they immediately fell in love with K-2 — what was that like for you to see how instantly he’s been embraced, and he’s now going to be an iconic part of the “Star Wars” lore?

    I’m really happy people like him. I didn’t think about doing a droid in the “Star Wars” universe, like how important it is — at least to how important the other droids are to me, that I didn’t think of myself being one of them until, I guess, I saw it in some people’s reaction.

    I don’t know — it’s humbling. It’s hard to get your head around still. I haven’t been able to go to a Con yet. I can’t wait to go to another Con. Yeah, because I feel like that’s the sounding board I need to meet fans, to meet them.

    Do you hope that you can return to that character — or a variation on that character, in some way, given that he’s a droid? We presumably could see him again in the past, or another version of him in the future?

    I would jump at the chance. He seems very dead, but if somebody wants to revise him in some way, I wouldn’t disagree, I wouldn’t ignore it. Again, I would have a blast.

    I have my own take on it. I have a way to do it: It’s doing a prequel where we follow Cassian and K-2 before they join up on this mission to get the plans of the Death Star. So you kind of see the two of them being spies. I think that would be fun. Would just get a different mission, and it’d be like “Mission: Impossible,” I don’t know — maybe not that.

    I would buy a ticket to that. I would also buy a ticket to a K-2 and BB-8 road movie.

    [Laughs] I’m there! Let’s do it! That’s great.

    Tell me what it’s been like to have this great ongoing relationship with Disney on the animation side, and to be given the kind of creative opportunities as a voice artist that they’ve given you over the last several years.

    It’s ridiculous! It’s another thing that I can’t make sense of. I’m so happy. I’m so happy they’ve embraced me. It all started after “Wreck-It Ralph,” which was one of my favorite roles I’ve ever had a chance to play. Then right into “Frozen,” and then they decided to keep it going.

    I realized I was a bit spoiled when there’s this great dinner that happens when a movie is about to come out and all of the voice actors go to Disney, and John Lasseter and everyone who worked on the movie that were the heads and the directors, and the animators, and the writers, and all of that, get together and watch the movie. It’s usually about 20 people, you watch the movie at Disney in the animation building before it comes out, then you go upstairs and there’s this amazing catered meal, and they present you with a drawing — a pencil sketch of your character done by the artist who drew your character — and it’s amazing.

    I think it was for “Zootopia,” I was like, “These things are always fun.” It was always like, “What are we going to have? What did we have last time? What was the dessert? I remember the fish was underdone.” It’s this magical gift of a night. It’s a beautiful, rare occurrence in most actors’ experience. And my wife and I were like,”Oh, right, the fish wasn’t good. Are you going to order the steak this time?” I’ve become spoiled, and they’ve given me the opportunity.

    Tell me a little bit about, in the midst of all this, having your own project in “Con Man,” trying to keep that on an even keel as you’re doing all these other great things.

    Oh, my God, man! Yeah. There’s a lot of hats! I’m wearing a lot of hats on that one. It truly, with all these other things, it is the thing that takes up most of my focus because of that.

    But it’s amazing when you push the boundaries of yourself, any artist I’m sure, but I’m an actor primarily, and I am writing on “Con Man,” and directing, also wearing a producer hat, you change, like as an actor, I’ve changed now. I see projects differently. So even though it’s work, and it is a tricky thing to balance and to juggle with the rest, it fuels the other projects in a way that I couldn’t have anticipated before doing it.

    And having something at the end of it all where you can point to it and say, “We made that” — it takes a lot of work to make a thing, and to have it to share is a really extraordinary feeling, that I always hoped to make something, and I’m really proud of it.

    “Powerless” airs Thursdays on NBC.

  • Exclusive ‘Pinocchio’ Clip Reveals How Walt Disney Shaped a Masterpiece


    Walt Disney‘s “Pinocchio,” largely thought of as one of the studio’s very best animated features, is about to get the deluxe home video treatment, first on digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere (out tomorrow) and then later this month on Blu-ray — and we’ve got an exclusive look at one of the insanely cool special features.

    In this fascinating feature, culled from story meetings between February 1938 and July 1939 (the film would eventually be released in February of 1940), Walt’s original notes are recreated verbatim. The subject at hand is the Boobyland sequence, which would eventually become the Pleasure Island sequence. Of course, that sequence wound up being one of the most memorable parts of a movie made up exclusively of memorable parts, and would go on to help inspire Disneyland’s “Pinocchio” attraction as well as the entire Pleasure Island section of Walt Disney World (now home to the Disney Springs shopping complex).

    What makes this so compelling is that you can really hear Walt guiding the production. After “Pinocchio,” especially during World War II, Walt would drift away from the day-to-day production challenges of each film, so to hear him, in his prime, getting down in the trenches with the creative principles. You can hear him advise on everything from the topicality of Pleasure Island to specific dialogue that characters would utter onscreen. You also get some lovely context from animation historian J.B. Kaufman and “Inside Out” director Pete Docter.

    The biggest takeaway from the clip, though, is that Pleasure Island was, initially at least, a much cuddlier place. It was Walt who pushed the artists and story men (and, yes, they were men back then) to go darker and stranger. And you know what? He was right. Part of what makes the final sequence so unforgettable, besides its peerless animation, is that it doesn’t back down from the truly grotesque and terrifying. This is what made Walt the genius he’s recognized as today–the ability to pinpoint something that might work perfectly fine but could be really special, and have those around him rally to make it truly outstanding.

    “Pinocchio” is on Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere tomorrow and hits Blu-ray on January 31st.

  • Fans Petition for Leia to Be Made an ‘Official Disney Princess’

    Come on, Disney, don’t be a scruffy looking nerf-herder!

    To honor the late Carrie Fisher, thousands of “Star Wars” fans have signed a petition to the Walt Disney Company requesting Princess Leia be made an official Disney princess. So far, the Change.org petition has about 33,000 signatures.

    Here’s the pitch:

    “After the tragic lose of Carrie Fisher, we feel that it is only fitting for Disney to do away with the rule that an official Disney princess must be animated and make Leia a full-fledged princess. This would be a wonderful way to remember Carrie and a welcoming to one of Disney’s new properties that is beloved by millions.

    What we are asking is that the Walt Disney Corporation hold a full ceremony inducting Leia as the newest Disney princess as well as a special service in memory of Carrie Fisher.”

    The petition creator, Cody Christensen of Cedar City, Utah, told Geek Exchange he has five daughters, and there are constantly princess movies playing in the background. “We are big fans of the current princess line-up, but I think that Leia is a really strong, positive, awesome role model for my girls, and she would make a great addition.” He said he started the petition because it had been bothering him since Disney bought Lucasfilm that Disney had all of these official princesses but they did not include Leia. “Then I found out that Disney had set rules for who could and couldn’t be a princess. With Carrie’s death, I think that it’s time to change the rules.”

    Look at this father with his princess cause! It may not change the world, but his daughters must be proud.

    According to CBS News, since 2000, Disney princesses have been their own franchises, “marketed separately from the films that spawned them. Not every princess from a Disney film or TV show is an official member of the princess franchise.” It sounds like such a clique.

    Disney has yet to officially respond to the petition. But Leia totally deserves her own planet/spaceship/castle at Disney World, so they should just starting building something now.

    [via: Geek Exchange, Time]

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  • How Belle From ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Became One of Disney’s Most Iconic Princesses

    Belle in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast"After 25 years, the artist and the muse behind “Beauty and the Beast‘s” Belle are together again.

    In 1991, the now-classic animated film was a groundbreaking project and a key turning point for the Walt Disney Company, elevating its signature animated features to a new level of artistry and becoming the first animated film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.

    But long before all the accolades, two key factors came together — though they’d barely spend any time together in person — to form the essence of Belle, one of the most beloved storybook heroines within Disney’s considerable and historic pantheon: actress and singer Paige O’Hara, who provided both her vocal characterization and even her expressions and mannerisms, and the character’s lead animator Mark Henn, who processed a variety of additional influences to render a Belle for the ages.

    A quarter-century after the film’s theatrical release – an occasion being marked by a new celebratory Blu Ray release, “Beauty and the Beast: 25th Anniversary Edition” — O’Hara and Henn joined Moviefone for a joyful reunion, looking back at the creation of the most enduringly popular leading ladiy in Disney’s storied history.

    Moviefone: This film was a big game changer for Disney. Mark, you’ve been with the company for a while, and you’d seen what “The Little Mermaid” had set the table to do, and then this movie took it a step further. Tell me what was going on inside with the animation team as this project was bubbling to the surface.The Academy Presents The 25th Anniversary Screening Of "Beauty And the Beast": A Marc Davis Celebration of AnimationMark Henn: I think we had gotten over the hump. In the early ’80s, there was definitely a period of finding ourselves. Actually late ’70s, towards the end of “Fox and the Hound,” through “Black Cauldron” days, there was just a lot of turmoil just in terms of leadership and power struggle — however you want to label it. But I think we had clearly gotten over that.

    So we had a big success, which most people kind of forget, with “Oliver & Company,” which was at the time was the biggest box office for an animated film of its day. But what you started see was kind of the stepping stones — so we came out with “Great Mouse Detective,” which was kind of the beginning of that upward turn. We were definitely on an upward tick.

    We couldn’t quite see that. You can see it now as you look back, of course. A lot of those power struggles, kind of the older generation, the new generation, those things kind of started settling out. Our leadership was, again, settling out. So things were clearing the way for us to just focus on making good movies.

    So, starting with “Great Mouse Detective” and “Oliver,” then “Mermaid,” incrementally each one performed better and better, was a better movie, we got better with our craft. So things were on an uptick for us. We were certainly on the rise. We kind of had fallen in love with this whole idea of doing musicals and [lyricist] Howard [Ashman] and [composer] Alan [Menken] were setting a new bar for us to maintain a standard. Then “Beauty” came along — and, typical of our films, had its kind of a false start in its early development. After they recognized that happens a lot with our films, they regrouped.The Academy Presents The 25th Anniversary Screening Of "Beauty And the Beast": A Marc Davis Celebration of AnimationPaige O’Hara: Initially it wasn’t a musical.

    Henn: Initially it was not. Again, that was one of the first decisions they made: “Let’s turn this around,” and they went back to Howard and Alan and asked them to take a look at it. They were already starting to think about “Aladdin.” I think they were already starting to look ahead. But then “Beauty” came along, and they asked them, which they often do: it’s kind of an all-hands-on-deck to help whatever its needs are when it’s currently in production. So I’m glad they did.

    O’Hara: I found out after I was cast that Howard wanted me from the beginning, from the first time he saw me. I also found out he was a huge fan of my Showboat recording, which was interesting. But he was the one that had the vision of the entire package of the film. But he was the visionary of the entire film and, what was so extraordinary is that we all had the same, we followed that vision. He knew what he wanted it to be.

    Once we all kind of got on the same page and realized what he was going for, I think he brought out the best in all of us, the directors, the writers, the actors, the animators. He was a true genius, had a true genius temperament, and passion, and sense of humor, and energy. He was very quiet about his illness until he finally had to tell us [Editor’s note: Ashman died of AIDS-related complications at age 40, in 1991], and I greatly miss him very much. I really believe that he and Alan Menken were the Rogers and Hammerstein of this era.

    I don’t know how directly collaborative the two of you really got to be. Mark, once you had your Belle and started looking at Paige, were you aware of what they were taking from you as it was happening?

    O’Hara: Not really. I get to look where they’re working and stuff and look at the pictures up there. Didn’t want to see Glen Keane‘s booth, with all the dead animals.

    Henn: Oh yeah. Looked more like Gaston’s Tavern, with all the trophies on the wall.

    O’Hara: It did. The dead buffalo head — Oh my God. I wanted to throw up. But you, you had a bunch of women on yours, as I recall.

    Henn: Guilty as charged. But here’s the key thing: I was in Florida for the production because I had moved after “Mermaid,” when they opened the Florida studio. But I was making fairly frequent trips back and forth here early on. So Belle was kind of, definitely collaborative, not only between us and Paige, but James Baxter and Lorna Cook were the other two lead animators here in Burbank.

    O’Hara: Mark was the one that had Liz Taylor and all these women [on the wall]. I was so intimidated. Because I went there, and there’s all these beautiful women: Liz Taylor and Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn, and there’s my funny picture on the bottom. It was Lorna who said, “Don’t worry, we’re going to use you, too.”

    Henn: Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sit in on any of your vocal recordings, which they did shoot. They would always video them. I had them available to me. So for us, our collaboration was actually we were at opposite ends of the country, just periodically crossing when I was out here in California for some meetings.

    A lot of people have asked, “How does that work? Is it hard? It’s like, “No, not really.” We just had a pretty strong shipping account with whoever, and a lot of it was the day and age of the old satellite conferencing, teleconferencing, which was a big deal. So we’d do a lot of that and conferencing with the directors, and all kinds of things. So it worked out fine.

    Did you take any inspiration in what you wanted to do with your vocal performance from the designs that you had seen? Did it put you in any kind of state of mind or direction?

    O’Hara: They didn’t want me to look at them. I didn’t really see the final drawing until after I had been in the studio for a while. They were so adamant about me being Paige, her own voice — “Let them draw it.” I did see the initial drawing, where she looked like Angelina Jolie at 20, with curly hair on her head. She was, like, too perfect. And I thought, “You know what, kids aren’t going to identify with someone that beautiful.”

    So they made the right choice. They made her pretty, and quirky, and identifiable. And all these years these kids are writing to me, thank God for a brown-eyed, brown-haired princess. She looks like me. I can’t tell you the thousands and thousands of letters I’ve had.

    How did you find that particular look? She has the qualities of the archetypal Disney heroine, and we also see Paige in there: bits and pieces of her personality come through pretty strongly. How did you assemble that and end up with “Ultimate Belle”?

    Henn: “Ultimate Belle.” Sounds like a reality show! It’s very collaborative, and we spend a lot of times in rooms not too dissimilar to this, and there’s just walls plastered with drawings and images. It’s just kind of wide open. What could Belle look like? It’s just this free-for-all, so it slowly gets whittled down from there.

    Once the voice talent, Paige, was brought on board, and we’re starting to hear her, automatically pictures start coming to mind in terms of who this character is. You start looking at the designs that we have, and you start trying to match those two and marry those two.

    We do a lot of tests. It’s a lot of, do a test, show it to the directors, and they’re like, no, I don’t like that. This works, but I don’t like that, and we go back. You just keep constantly refining the process until eventually somebody says, the picture’s due out next year, we need to settle, come up with something. But it usually comes together pretty quickly, and everybody feels good about what they’re seeing.

    Paige, most people aren‘t completely aware of their own personal mannerisms, but as an actress you may be more aware. Did you recognize the things, the physicality they borrowed from you?

    O’Hara: Of course! What was really funny: the first scene, my sisters saw it. My sisters are cracking up laughing in the very first song. “Oh my gosh, the hair, the looks, the expressions” — absolutely, yep! And then the one scene my husband laughed at was the one when the Beast’s taking her in to the library and says “Close your eyes,” and that’s totally my face. You know the little things. That’s what’s so genius about them. They videotape you and then they become actors with paint brushes.

    Henn: We get a lot from the voice talent. I think once we get enough work up and they start seeing how their influence is influencing us, and I think that kind of comes back to how they start crafting the character.

    I just remember there was such a warmth to her voice. There was a unique voice, but there was just such a warmth and charm. I’m sitting there thinking, “I’ve got to get that into Belle, somehow.”

    O’Hara: You did, with the eyes. What you did through the eyes — since they’re not doing hand drawn anymore, I don’t think they’re as realistic anymore, to me. They’re wonderful. The audience loves them. I mean, look what “Frozen” did. But if you look at it as an artist — which I’m not a great artist, but I’m good enough to be at Disney Fine Art — and I look at what Mark did, to me that’s a whole other level of artistry that I hope that eventually we’ll get back to: the hand-drawn. Someone told me that it took a week for an artist to draw 20 seconds of film, roughly.

    Henn: I think they used to always tell us the goal was to get three to five feet a week for an animator, which was about just a few seconds of time per week. But then you have 30/40 animators. It adds up.

    That’s a nice segue: I think artists either get the Disney style, or they don’t. Paige, as an artist yourself who’s now familiar with the character with “Belles by Belle” artwork you create for Disney Fine Art, you obviously get it. What’s fascinating to you about the design of Belle?

    O’Hara: I’ve had a lot of Disney artists at Fine Arts say, “You, of all of them, tried to emulate as much of what Mark did in the film as possible.” I want her eyes, her face to be exactly like he created. The highest compliment I can get from my fellow artists at Disney Fine Arts, they tell me I incorporate the emotion as often — not every painting, but often my top-selling paintings — as what he did. So I guess I owe you a royalty!

    Obviously, the impact of this film was immediately apparent. Now you’ve had 25 years to watch the legacy, and that’s one of the greatest things about being involved with Disney animated film is revisiting the history of its classics. Let’s talk about your feelings about it today.

    Henn: Paige mentioned it to me earlier, just in terms of the fan letters and how impactful for a lot of young girls this movie was, but I still to this day, a lot of people would come up and say, “That was my favorite movie. It really was. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is still my favorite movie.”

    O’Hara: It happens all the time. [I’ve been told that] Belle is more popular with men than women — maybe Elsa surpassed that now. Because I get tons of fan letters and requests for pictures from men. I do have a lot of gay friends, men that say, “We wanted to be you.”

    Henn: To be a part of that generation that kind of took the mantle from the first generation and carried it through — a lot of people called it the second golden age. And I’ll get comments and letters and things, and they’ll say, “Oh, you animated my childhood.” And I guess that says it best.

    O’Hara: Disney came to shoot this documentary on my life and my house for, like, three to four days. I know this sounds really weird: I felt like it was an obituary, because they were doing everything, going through every picture. “Oh my God, I turn 60 and now you’re doing this documentary.”

    They cracked up laughing. “Well, we’ll have your obituary when you eventually pass, but O’Hara, you’re not going away for another 25 years. You’ll be here for the next 25th anniversary, 50th anniversary.”