For the third consecutive day, Walt Disney Animation Studios has shared a video featuring Trent Correy and Dan Abraham sharing behind-the-scenes info about their celebratory short, Once Upon A Studio. In today’s installment, we get to learn about the blending of traditionally animated characters with modern CG characters.
What’s Happening:
- In what appears to be the third installment in a video series from the directors of Disney’s 100th anniversary animated short, Once Upon A Studio, Trent Correy and Dan Abraham, they take a look at how classic 2D traditionally animated characters blend in with the more modern CG characters of the latter day.
- The pair also shared that they couldn’t do anything too crazy as the characters have to appear exactly as you remember them, from their design and color palette right down to their clean-up lines.
- What does that mean? They briefly mention that early on there were crisp lines of color from the inking and painting process, but then later films (like Robin Hood) have “scritchy scratchy” lines on the characters (they don’t mention this but this is from the Xerox animation process), where sometimes one can spot construction lines flashing by.
- The directors share that the characters represent the way they originally appeared, including the “scritchy scratchy” lines, adding that lighting effects all helped bring the 2D characters and CG characters to life in the same world, thanks to the help of a bunch of geniuses at the studio as their colleagues.
- An all-star ensemble of beloved characters from Walt Disney Animation Studios come together in Once Upon a Studio for a joyful, entertaining and emotional reunion as they assemble for a spectacular group photo to mark Disney’s 100th anniversary.
- Featuring 543 characters from more than 85 Disney feature-length and short films, Once Upon a Studio welcomes heroes and villains, princes and princesses, sidekicks and sorcerers—in all-new hand-drawn and CG animation—to celebrate 10 decades of storytelling, artistry and technological achievements.
- Once Upon a Studio is directed by Dan Abraham and Trent Correy and produced by Yvett Merino and Bradford Simonsen. Our own Alex Reif took a few moments to talk with Dan and Trent, and you can read that here.
- The short originally debuted as part of the Annecy Festival in June, where it was also announced that the short will be attached with the upcoming film from the studio, Wish. You can read more about that original screening plus a review of the short, here.
- You can spot all the characters and the work of the animators mentioned in the video above by watching Once Upon A Studio now, which is available on Hulu, Disney+, and the Walt Disney Animation Studios YouTube account, conveniently embedded below.
Sign up for Disney+ or the Disney Streaming Bundle (Disney+, ESPN+, and ad-supported Hulu) now