August 28, 2012
After lunch, it was time for a look at some of the new things coming out of Disney Animation Studios and once again, we weren’t allowed to take any pictures.
Inside Walt Disney Animation Studios Today
The session started with “Tangled Ever After”, the short that takes us into the excitement of Rapunzel and Flynn’s wedding day. We had seen this in the theater when it was in front of Beauty and the Beast 3D, but it was good to see it again.
Darrin Butters and Chris Buck came out to give us a sneak peek into Frozen, coming in 2013. Frozen, based on “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Andersen, is the story of two sisters, Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and Anna’s journey to save their kingdom from eternal winter. We were also introduced to Olaf, a snowman, who provides some comic relief. The early images we saw from the film as well as the live performance of one of the movie’s songs definitely got me excited to see this movie – it looks like it’s going to be gorgeous!
Next we heard from Kristina Reed and Patrick Osborne about the upcoming short, Paperman. If you haven’t heard about Paperman, it is about a lonely young New Yorker who, on his morning commute, has a chance encounter with a woman who may be the girl of his dreams. The big news here though is that for the first time ever, CG and 2-D handdrawn animation come together to produce one truly beautiful piece of filmmaking. Kristina and Patrick walked us through a little bit of the process for how the film was made and then treated us to a screening of the entire short. It will be showing in front of Wreck-It Ralph, so make sure to go check it out – it’s really impressive!
The session wrapped up with Clark Spencer, the producer of Wreck-It Ralph giving us a deeper peek into the worlds of Wreck-It Ralph. We were treated to 10 minutes or so of the finished animation (part of which is in the trailer) and then we saw concept art from the 4 different video game worlds seen in the movie – the 8-bit world of Fix-It Felix, Grand Central station-inspired “Game Central” Station, the sharp, hyper-realistic world of Hero’s Duty and the sweet cartoony world of Sugar Rush. Rich Moore provided us with a pretty funny glimpse into the extensive “research” the team had to do to ensure they got the candy-coated world of Sugar Rush EXACTLY right.
Best Animation You’ve Never Seen
Don Hahn and Dave Bossert joined us to show us some rare and “never-seen” animation clips. For the majority of us in the room, none of these clips were all that new, but it was great to revisit the “Cranium Command” pre-show, the “Back to Neverland” opening for the Animation show at MGM Studios and some of the great Peter Pan peanut butter commercials from the 50s.
The one clip I had never seen was truly bizarre – an early concept for Fantasia 2000′s “Pomp and Circumstance” section where all the Disney princesses and princes were visited by storks delivering babies.
And possibly the only big screen peek Disney will ever let us see – the entire clip of James Baskett singing “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” from the Song of the South.
Animating the Disney Parks
After a quick break, we were treated to a talk with Tony Baxter, Tom Morris, and Eddie Sotto, who shared their memories of some of the original Imagineers, including Claude Coats, Mark Davis, Herb Ryman and John Hench. This was a very interesting session where each of the guys talked about how Walt picked some of his top people at the Studio to apply their film-making skills to the design and creation of Disneyland. I could have listened to these guys all evening, but unfortunately they had to end the session to get ready for the night’s entertainment.
Dick Van Dyke and the Vantastix
There’s not much to say about the concert other than FANTASTIC! Dick Van Dyke still has the moves and knows how to entertain a crowd. He and his 3 Vantastix cohorts ran through a number of Disney and non-Disney songs and even had Dick’s new wife, Arlene, join them for a few songs, including “Moving on Up (to the East side)” a tribute to Sherman Hemsley, who played George Jefferson on The Jeffersons. It was a truly great way to spend the evening.
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Day 1: Animating the Disney Parks
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Claude Coats and Mary Blair discussing scenes from Cinderella
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Claude Coats and the dog model for “Tramp”
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After the concert, they were screening the documentary “Walt and El Grupo”, but Colorado Dad and I were tired of sitting, so decided to head into the parks for a little while. The movie is fascinating for Disney history fans, but is a little slow in places, so best to watch in a comfy chair in front of your TV!
) and then we headed over to the Disneyland Hotel to meet up with some friends we’ve met at previous D23 events. Since we were Diamond ticket holders, we had a special entrance, but I did notice that the regular attendee line had been moved inside, which was much appreciated, I’m sure, because it was REALLY hot all weekend long. The lobby was set up with pop-up banners from some favorite animated movies. Isn’t the Rapunzel one gorgeous?
