Behind The Scenes of Pixar Short: Day and Night
“Day & Night” is the short that will show in front of “Toy Story 3” when it opens on June 18th. Here’s a video that looks behind the scenes at the making of “Day & Night” at Pixar.
Animation
See “Waking Sleeping Beauty” this week in Orlando
The Florida Film Festival will have two showings of the documentary – “Waking Sleeping Beauty” this week in Orlando. A great chance to see this award winning look at the second golden era of animation at Walt Disney Studios. It’s directed by Don Hahn who… Read More »See “Waking Sleeping Beauty” this week in Orlando
Disney Design A Fairy House Winner revealed
The winner is brought on stage as part of the ceremony where she endured jokes about her height with dignity.
Saturday was another beautiful day at the International EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival, almost like any other. But Tinker Bell and her Pixie friends brought a little bit of extra magic to the park to help reveal the winning house in a Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow “Design A Fairy House Art Contest.”
The winner and her family was flown out from Frazier Park, CA about 100 miles from Disneyland. The fairy house, inspired by 15-year-old winning designer, Zoe P., was revealed during a special ceremony attended by EPCOT VP Dan Cockerell, and director Brad Raymond and producer Helen Kalafatic of “Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue”, the third film in the recent Tinker Bell DVD series.
With a dash of pixie dust from Tinker Bell, Zoe revealed her winning fairy house.
“Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue” features Tink’s first encounter with humans. Tink is caught inside a Fairy House built by a little girl to provide shelter for the fairies as they work to bring summer to England. The girl and Tink develop a great friendship, while the other fairies attempt a rescue.
“We were thrilled to honor Zoe and her winning design at this very special celebration,” said Jason Everett, Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow product director. “This contest offered the Pixie Hollow community an exciting opportunity to utilize their love for Disney Fairies as inspiration to create their very own fairy house art design. To see that design come to life and be featured in the Epcot® International Flower and Garden Festival is truly a delight for everyone.”
Zoe and her family (click for larger)
Zoe was the perfect choice for this award. She and her family are huge Disney fans and visit Disneyland at least once a month. After seeing the contest on Pixie Hollow, she new she had to make a drawing. They raced to the post office to drop off their application right at the last minute and never expected to win.
Not only did Zoe’s drawing inspire the winning house, she was able to help build it by assisting Disney’s talented team of fairy house architects. The main focus of the house is the copper and brass fixtures on the front, which Zoe figured would confer and exclusive status to the house. In the concept a rubber band would be hooked to the front door and, through a series of clock gears, would generate music on the attached music box, alas that part didn’t make it into the final build.
The winning drawing, now autographed by the movie’s director and producer. She also wrote a backstory for the house.
Of course there are two hidden mickeys in the design. The vinyl record base makes mickey and there is a bottle cap on the roof with the iconic ears. But even more special is the ‘Ellie Badge’ Grape Soda bottle cap, which you can barely see under the flower on the roof. Zoe’s whole family are huge fans of Pixar and particularly the movie “UP”, when I saw Zoe’s mom wearing an Ellie Badge of her own, I knew right away she was one of us, a Disney fan.
It’s clear Zoe has a talent for telling a story through art. That’s one of the main requirements to be an animator, which, as it turns out, is Zoe’s career choice. I hope someone at Disney Studios is able to make her happy again and arrange a tour through their offices and Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Zoe with the plaque that bears her name.
Zoe’s house will spend the rest of the festival as part of the Pixie Hollow playground in a place of honor next to a plaque bearing her name.
More photos from the event, including a close up of the fairy house, below the cut. Video
Ponyo: Animation Artistry at its peak
Ponyo is a Studio Ghibli Film from Oscar®-winning director Hayao Miyazaki with dubbing and distribution in the US by Walt Disney Studios. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is one true master when it comes to the art of animation. That person is Hayao Miyazaki. It was Miyazaki’s biggest box office hit with over $200 million world wide and over $15 million here in the US, his best showing in the states so far. His films deserve every bit of attention they get and more. A big thanks to the team at Disney for helping to bring it stateside.
The movie is very loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and it’s interesting to watch just to see where Miyazaki takes the movie. There is obviously a lot of Japanese mythos that I missed while watching the film, but upon subsequent viewings the richness and depth of the story really grew on me, even if I didn’t know exactly what the reference was.
Of all Miyazaki’s films, Ponyo is the most accessible for kids. My six year old was totally entranced for the whole film, a rarity for him. But there was plenty for adults to absorb as well. The movie works on multiple levels, to say the least.
One of Ponyo’s themes is a very contemporary concern for nature. You’ll be blown away by some of the animation and moved deep in your soul by others. In particular one seen with waves taking the form of fish is literally the most beautiful animation I have seen in my life.
More details about the DVD and its special features below the jump:
The Problem with the Princess and the Frog
Editor: Please welcome back guest author Mark Storer to The Disney Blog. When Disney’s The Princess and The Frog first came out, there were all kinds of pontifications. Many pundits thought it Disney’s best work, sublime, thoughtful and artfully crafted. Risky, said others. Other still… Read More »The Problem with the Princess and the Frog
Disney to end Zemeckis style Motion Capture Animation?
The LA Times reports that Disney has decided to shut down the ImageMovers Digital studio, which Robert Zemeckis uses for most of his Motion Capture style of film making. That’s sad news for the 450 employees of IMD, but I have to believe it’s good… Read More »Disney to end Zemeckis style Motion Capture Animation?
John Lasseter on The Princess and The Frog
John Lasseter is the busiest guy at Disney. He’s the co-founder of Pixar, the history-making computer animation studio, chief creative officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios; and the principal creative advisor to Walt Disney Imagineering, and in demand at film festivals and charity events. Always at the forefront of what can be accomplished within animation, Lasseter is excited for Walt Disney Animation Studio’s upcoming release, The Princess and The Frog, which marks the return of the musical fairytale with a Princess at the center. In this interview we cover everything from the movie to his love of Hawaiian print shirts (a man after my own heart).
Q: John, how did The Princess and The Frog come about?
Ed Catmull and I, the day I returned to the Walt Disney Animation Studios, said that we wanted to bring back John Musker and Ron Clements. So, once we brought them back, I empowered them to come up with their own project. I mentioned to them one idea that I had, just a nugget of an idea at Pixar. I love the story of “The Frog Prince,” and I love New Orleans. And I thought that it would be a great place to set a story like that…and that’s all I mentioned to them. We always ask for the directors to come back to us with not just one idea, but three ideas…and they came back with nine ideas. These guys were so prolific, they’re fantastic. And one of them was The Princess and The Frog—they had this wonderful twist on the story, where the main character, Tiana, kisses the frog, but she’s not a real princess, she gets turned into a frog as well. That was their clever twist on it. They wanted it to be a musical, set in New Orleans, and they wanted Randy Newman to write the music which, of course, I loved, because I’ve worked with Randy Newman on all of the movies that I’ve directed. Randy grew up in both New Orleans and Los Angeles. He would go every summer to New Orleans, so he knows the city and its music. It’s like he was born with it. It’s in his DNA, and so I think he was a phenomenal choice for it.
Q: Why the return to fairy tale animation now?
I’ve always loved animation it’s the reason why I do what I do for a living – the films of Walt Disney. This art form is so spectacular and beautiful. And I never quite understood the feeling amongst animation studios that audiences today only wanted to see computer animation. It’s never about the medium that a film is made in, it’s about the story. It’s about how good the movie is. And so one of the first things that I did when I came back to the Walt Disney Animation Studios was to ask John Musker and Ron Clements to come back to the studio and just empowered them to say, “Come up with a movie that you really want to tell.” And The Princess and The Frog was born. In glorious Disney fairy tale animation. It’s just spectacular.
Q: How is The Princess and The Frog a continuation of this incredibly rich legacy that is Disney Animation?
You know, what’s exciting about The Princess and The Frog, is that it’s the return to the sincere fairy tale. It’s a return to the musical, which hasn’t been done in quite a while. You know, it’s so classically Disney in every way, yet it’s brand new, it’s something you’ve never seen before. And that’s what’s so exciting about this. When you sit and watch The Princess and The Frog, I mean, I helped make the movie, but I sit there and I watch it and I think, “I forgot how much I love this!” It’s all those things combined, the animation, the sincere fairy tale, the musical, the great characters, the talking animals, the princess, the prince, all these things combined, it’s so classically Disney yet it’s so completely original.
Q: Tell me a little bit more about the story of The Princess and The Frog
The story of The Princess and The Frog is about a fantastic character named Tiana. She is such a strong character. She’s a waitress, but she wants to own her own restaurant. It was her father’s dream that she’s carried on, and she works double, triple shifts to raise money to buy this old sugar mill that she thought would make a great great restaurant right in New Orleans. And on the verge of getting her restaurant, someone buys it out from under her and her entire dream is just pulled out from under her.
So at this moment, she does what she said she would never do, she wishes on the evening star, which is what her best friend Charlotte always does, because Charlotte only wants to marry a prince—Tiana is more practical—but she finally does wish upon an evening star. And then, she looks down and sees a frog and thinks, “Oh great, a practical joker,” you know. And she’s at a masquerade ball and she’s dressed as a princess. She looks down and she says, “I take it you want a kiss now,” and the frog answers, [IN A FRENCH ACCENT] “Kissing would be nice, yes?”
And it freaks her out because this frog is talking, and she finds out this is a frog that claims he’s actually a prince. So he cons her into kissing her. But instead of the frog turning into a prince, she actually turns into a frog, because she’s not a real princess, it was a costume party. So now here’s a prince, and here’s Tiana as a frog, and they have to travel the Bayou to turn this spell around, they have to find this voodoo fairy godmother named Mama Odie to reverse the spell that Dr. Facilier, the evil voodoo practitioner, has put on the prince, and now, Tiana.
Along the way they meet this fantastic alligator named Louis, who’s a jazz trumpet-playing alligator, and he’s hilarious, he’s fantastic. And they also meet a firefly, a Cajun firefly named Ray. And these two become close friends with Tiana and Prince Naveen. And it turns into this fantastic journey for them to become human again. And along the way, they might fall in love. I don’t want to give away the ending. And I’m not gonna say anymore than that.
Q: Could you talk about the filmmakers?
It was really exciting to get John Musker and Ron Clements to come back to the Studio. I went to College with John Musker, so we’ve known each other for a long, long time. I think they are Disney. When you think about the movies they made, especially THE LITTLE MERMAID and ALADDIN, I mean, those are two of the great Disney animated films. And I think that it was so exciting to get them to come back to the Disney Studios.
In the end, when they came back, we just wanted them back at the Studio, because they belong at the Disney Studios. So when they came back, I said, I want you to do a movie that you really want to do, something from your heart. And so we had talked about a bunch of ideas and there was just a nugget of an idea that I have had up at Pixar, which is to do a retelling of “The Frog Prince” set in New Orleans, and that’s all I had.
And so I just mentioned that to them and they took it and created the most original and fresh twist to the story, and they came up with The Princess and The Frog. And they wanted it set in New Orleans and they wanted it to be a Musical. So it was so exciting. I think John Musker and Ron Clements are just phenomenal in their leadership, their storytelling, their creativity, their knowledge of animation, their knowledge of filmmaking, it’s just fantastic.
The Princess And The Frog DVD Review
When we heard that Walt Disney Animation Studios had decided that hand-drawn animation should not have died with the poorly received “Home On The Range” and that they were reviving the the Princess genre as well, with the first African American Princess to boot, too say that expectation were high is an understatement. The Princess and The Frog may have failed to meet those expectations, but it’s a solid effort on the road back for the mouse.
Disney called back a lot of the animators they had let go, rebuilt a whole new slew of animators desks, this time with a special new computer program that makes hand-drawn animation more efficient, and placed John Lasseter on notice – something magical had better happen.
Well there was magic, but not at the box office. I think a combination of a bad release date (it should have been a holiday offering) and poor marketing choices by Disney, led to some of the poor results. But it still brought in over $240 million at the world wide box office before it was pulled to make way for the DVD.
We all wanted the The Princess and the Frog to be a great film. Instead we got a movie that was slow in places, and with a story that lacked focus. But the animation was great, the music quality, and the characters are memorable enough to be featured in the parks for years to come.
Upon watching the film again I think it’s a big step over the films we had been seeing from Walt Disney Animation (although “Meet the Robinsons” is an underlooked gem if you ask me). I definitely see the foundation for more great films to come from Disney. They’re not back to “Beauty and the Beast” quality yet, but they’ll get there.
Bonus Features
The single disc DVD comes with these exciting bonus features:
• Deleted Scenes
• Audio Commentary by John Musker and Ron Clements (co-writers and directors) and Peter Del Vecho (producer)
• “Never Knew I Needed”- Music video by Ne-Yo
Games and Activities
• What Do You See: Princess Portraits — A bayou-style quiz tests viewers’ knowledge of all of Disney’s beautiful princesses. Ray’s firefly family creates twinkling portraits of each princess and if
the player correctly identifies her, they can enjoy a tongue-cheek mini re-telling of that character’s story.
The Blu-ray Combo Pack edition comes with additional bonus features, including:
Backstage Disney
• Magic In The Bayou: The Making of A Princess — Co-writers and directors John Musker and Ron Clements take a freewheeling, behind-the-scenes look at the making of Disney’s newest animated film as it grows from an initial concept to a lavish animated film set in the enchanting world of New Orleans and the surrounding bayous.
• The Return To Hand Drawn Animation
• The Disney Legacy
• Disney’s Newest Princess
• The Princess and the Animator
• Conjuring The Villain
• A Return To The Animated Musical
• Bringing Life to Animation with an introduction by John Musker and Ron Clements.
• Deleted Scenes introduced by the filmmakers
• Art Galleries — A collection of storyboard art traces the visual development of The Princess and the Frog’s rich gallery of
characters and settings.
The Princess and the Frog on Blu-ray Blu-ray Combo Pack is priced at $44.99 SRP (US) and $51.99SRP (Canada), and the Single Disc DVD is priced at $29.99 SRP (US) and $35.99 SRP (Canada).
The DVD hits the shelves on March 16th, but you can pre-order it today.
A couple video previews of the special features on the DVD below the cut. Also some fun facts from the movie