As promised, here's my first story of the new series #MyDisneyStories. After all the success of Frozen, I went to Disney to meet the animation team, and played with Olaf's character in the sound and graphic studios. But I still had questions, so I met with Frozen director Chris Buck and Frozen producer Peter del Vechio to see if they could tell me a little bit more. And mission accomplished! in this post you can find some secrets related to the biggest Disney movie ever! I am double happy, as they have published my article in the April issue of Just Cinema in Italy. Read the article in English, meet the Frozen creators and see the images of the published Italian article below!
READ MY ARTICLE BELOW:
We've got ourselves a musical!" exclaimed Ed Catmull, president of Walt Disney Animation Studios, with a bang on the table after Chris Buck pitched Frozen to him and Executive Producer, John Lasseter. Mr Buck, co-director of the film altogether with Jennifer Lee, got inspired by the Snow Queen book and gave the story a new twist. Buck liked the idea of using snow and ice within the plot's environment as well as having two female princesses as lead characters - elements that had never been done in a Disney feature.
5 years after Buck's meeting with Catmull and Lasseter, Frozen has passed 1 billion dollars in global ticket sales, and has won two Oscars in the 86th Academy Awards ceremony: an award for the Best Animated Feature Film and the Best Song award for "Let It Go" (sang by Idina Menzel, who performed during the Oscars).
Mr. Buck finds this overwhelming and unexpected; he says he "gets goose bumps for how people are responding" and feels emotional for being able to "touch people through a cartoon". Frozen's producer, Peter Del Vecho, attributes the movie's success to the fact that "the story is bigger than most people imagine when they go to see it, the music adds an emotional chord to the story, the scope, the scale, all those things add up to make you feel that you've seen a very big movie, it makes you think about it after you've left and makes you want to see it again." Buck adds that Frozen "is a story about love versus fear, there is a positive message".
When asked about the legacy that Frozen will leave for Disney, Del Vecho said that they "wanted to make sure that the characters felt relevant for today so that people could relate to them". Buck likes to see Frozen as his own bit on making the world a better place, to inspire people, and help them go through rough times.
But they couldn't do a movie like Frozen without Disney's amazing production, animation, and sound teams that we got to experience at the Disney Animation Building. We tried the computer animation program and at the recording studio, they played a scene where I had the opportunity to record the voiceovers for Olaf, the snowman. Recordings are made one at a time; the actor is alone in the studio with the directors, Buck and Lee. There's a lot of improvisation, the actors know the context but they play around and try new things for their scenes to see what feels more natural.
Disney movies are known for their curiosities and anecdotes, and this one has its own. Frozen has references to Mary Poppins (Olaf's dance choreography comes from the penguins in the film) and to Rapuntzel. Peter Del Vecho said: "a lot of people have worked on Rapuntzel, and we thought it would be a nice way to nod to some of those other films. There is a reference to some early visual developments that were done in Rapuntzel's castle, when Anna (Kirsten Bell) is jumping up in the library she does pass by that, there is Rapuntzel and Flynn who walk in, there's a few things like that."
Fun fact, they brought a real reindeer to the Animation Studios for the artists to study, take photos and draw Sven's character. Problem was that those animals change antlers yearly, so this one arrived with one antler only and the other one fell during the day, so "she looked a bit pathetic" jokes Buck.
When asked about how success has changed his life, Mr. Buck says: "my life hasn't changed at all, I still take out the trash and feed the dogs.
MY ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE APRIL ISSUE OF "JUST CINEMA"
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