The Disney Industrial Complex and Atlantis: The Lost Empire A feature story by Max Messier Copyright 2001 filmcritic.com
Say what you will, but the Disney juggernaut is a sight to behold. Recently, filmcritic.com sat down with a few of the biggest names in Disney, to discuss its big 2001 summer release (Atlantis) and the future of animation as we know it.
We talked with Thomas Schumacher, the head of Disney Animation, who discussed the main elements for creating a financially successful animated feature, as well as with Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, directors of Atlantis, to discuss the process of creating an animated feature through CGI and traditional cell animation.
Thomas Schumacher -- Head of Disney Animation
filmcritic.com: Does Atlantis mark a departure from the Broadway musical-style of Disney's past?
Schumacher: Disney actually produces an entire canon of musicals as first envisioned by Walt Disney -- the Broadway musical style, the film musical style, the pop musical style such as Tarzan -- and with Atlantis, the film represents the first time we didn't use music or songs for character illuminating or storytelling. Looking forward though, Lilo and Stitch [Disney's big 2002 release] uses six Elvis songs -- original tracks used for storytelling purposes -- which is called in the business "needle drop music" -- songs which people are familiar with. That film represents the first time Disney is using that type of known music in one of its animation features. Phil Collins is working on another animated feature for Disney as well. Even John Resnick from the Goo Goo Dolls is contributing a song to the upcoming animation feature Treasure Plant -- a retelling of Treasure Island set in outer space, equipped with Long John Silver and his cyborg, shape-changing parrot. All of these projects represent Disney's continued support of various music styles incorporated in its feature animation pieces.
Was there a concern about the PG rating of Atlantis?
No because the last summer's Dinosaur was PG, and if Atlantis could do the sort of business that movie did [$140 million domestic and the number one U.S. animated movie in Japan of all time], I would be very happy. The market varies all the time and I also believe that if Lion King came out today, it would have a PG rating as well. I am not nervous at all.
That said, there has always been a history of controversy in Disney animation features. There was a particular sequence in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that had to be cut due the reactions of the audience. The dramatic elements of the characters always have been a trademark of films produced by Walt Disney all the way up to the current animation features of today.
How will Atlantis -- which is mainly being viewed as another big Disney summer movie -- be positioned to stand out among the big summer releases of 2001?
Atlantis does fit into "The Disney Brand." It does represent the type of film Walt would have made. Atlantis is being positioned as an "action film" and its trailers will be seen with such films as Pearl Harbor. These trailers will give the audience the clear impression that you are not watching another Beauty and the Beast. It's a kids' film as well as a film that will fill the seats with adults during the nighttime screenings. Given that, many different pockets of animation lovers will be drawn to the film.
Generally, are Disney's animation features more financially successful than its live-action movies?
2/3 of an animation feature's business is done internationally. During the heyday of home video, for every $10 million of domestic box office revenue for a Disney animated feature, you would expect to sell a million videos. That trend started to dip when every household had 50 to 70 videos in their libraries. But with the advent of DVD, that trend is starting to pick up again. The DVD of Atlantis has already been laid out with all kinds of different supplement materials. Animation films also make a sizable amount of money from merchandising.
Has the Happy Meal deal already been set up?
Yep, the McDonald's promotion is always very successful because it elevates their brand with the association with all different Disney characters -- including the characters of Atlantis.
What other projects are generated from a single Disney animation feature?
Generally, live action features do not the have the life spans that animation features are able to produce. For example, Lion King had the original movie, the Timon and Pumbaa cartoon show, Lion King II: Simba's Pride, Lion King III (in production), and ultimately a re-release. Also, the Broadway version of Lion King was the most successful production of the decade.
A new IMAX version of Beauty and Beast -- with added footage -- is scheduled for release next year. The direct-to-video sequel Lady and The Tramp II will possibly generate the largest video sales of the year for Disney. Also, a weekly cartoon show derived from Atlantis is in the works as well.
Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise -- Directors of Atlantis
How do you two share the directorial duties of an animation feature?
Wise: Animation is mainly a strong collaborative medium. Gary and I were fortunate to work with many talented artists during the making of Atlantis. Our relationship on the movie is mainly based on collaboration -- the story, design and look, the editing of the movie. The only time we split up was during the full production mode of the movie. I mainly worked with the animators and the clean-up artists and Gary would work with layout and special effects. It's a very informal division.
Trousdale: During the screenings of the dailies, if Kirk sees some special effects he doesn't like or I see some animation I don't like, we're pretty vocal: "What the hell were you thinking?"
Wise: It's understood, though, that not one area of the film is one person's own turf. Some days Gary would work with the animators and I would work with the special effects guys. It's a very big give and take.
Trousdale: It's kind of an experimental division. When we worked on Beauty and the Beast, it just kind of worked, so we've used it ever since.
What part of animation is the most challenging when making a feature length movie?
Wise: The longest process is mainly the story development and pre-production. Pre-visualing the entire story on storyboards.
Trousdale: It's an ongoing process when we are working on the story. We don't work with a script like a live-action movie but with a basic script outline. We give those to our animators. The script pages may say something like, "The submarine is attacked by a huge sea creature." We've got six minutes to do this and you mainly rely on your story artists to visually create that scene.
Wise: The story artists have tons of freedom to create action, dialogue, and every facet of the script's outline. The storyboard artist's effects are what shape the story and its characters. Sometimes, the storyboard artist's suggestion can change the makeup of a certain character. In the case of Moliere [a character of Atlantis], as scripted, he was a very stuffy, professorial guy -- a French mineralogist who was a connoisseur of dirt. One of story artists took this original concept and juiced up the character into this horrible little burrowing creature with a wacky coat and strange headgear with extending eyeballs. We were so enthralled with the new look that we changed to script to fit the new character.
What other characters in Atlantis didn't make the final cut?
Wise: In the early drafts of the story, Preston Whitmore had a nephew -- sort of like a Miles Crane character -- who was always getting into trouble on the expedition. We decided to cut him because the story was more about Milo and his 'odd-man out' scenario and the nephew character ended up being too distracting from that key element of the story.
Milo, at one point, had a pet rat that lived in his pocket. But as the story progressed, we felt it was too familiar, like we've been down that road before -- the animal sidekick that would mimic Milo's actions. The main reason for discarding that character was because you would have expected it from a Disney story. We want the story to be about Milo -- his story and his relationship with the characters -- instead of some cute sidekicks.
How did the Atlantian language that was used throughout the film develop?
Wise: It was inspired mainly by other works of fantasy we like. We are big fans of the Star Wars series and Star Trek series -- and even Lord of the Rings. Any scenario where an alien culture is so well thought-out with history and customs and language -- Atlantis present the unique opportunity to create a similar vein as seen in previous fantasy pieces.
Trousdale: The issue of the language came up when we talked to linguist Mark Okerran -- we wanted something like a Tower of Babel kind of language -- a language which birthed many other languages.
Mark used a combination of dead languages from extinct California-based tribes, Hebrew, Chinese, and a pinch of Latin for the final product of the Atlantian language.
Wise: Mark was like the real-life version of Milo Thatch.
Was the production time lessened by using CGI (computer generated images) components in the film versus the traditional cell animation techniques?
Trousdale: It's not any easier. It's not any shorter. It's not any cheaper.
Wise: Certain sequences like the leviathan sequence would have taken ten years to draw in traditional cell-based animation. As you get more and more tools for placing images on the screen, your appetite grows and you start imaging things like, "Hey, we could build a mile-long giant lobster with these things."
Trousdale: The fact is, Kirk and I come from an era before the inclusion of CGI animation in a feature. We always tell the guys that build the CGI stuff, "Don't get too cocky because we could always do this traditionally." We always have a plan B up our sleeves.
--- http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=filmcriticcom&path=subst/video/sellers/amazon-top-100-dvd.html Movie Fiends: Check out Amazon.com's Top 100 Hot DVDs!
Visit filmcritic.com on the Web at http://www.filmcritic.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews