The studio’s year-long 100th anniversary celebration adds the ‘ultimate love letter to animation,’ with 543 characters from more than 85 Disney features and short films highlighting a century of remarkable projects and the incredibly talented people who made them; watch it October 15 on ABC.
The 100th anniversary of Walt Disney Animation Studios comes Monday, October 16, a date that marks a century of remarkable animated features and shorts filled with fantastic stories and unforgettable characters. The company’s theme parks, films and TV shows, and iconic characters have entertained and influenced generations of people around the world.
Throughout 2023, AWN has focused attention on Disney’s extraordinary accomplishments, highlighting its legacy, and reporting on such things as Disney Parks’ special events, remastered releases of the studio’s most iconic animated features, such as Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the “Disney100: The Exhibition” coming November 18 to Chicago, having kicked off earlier this year and slated to continue until at least 2028.
So, what’s a studio to do when tasked with honoring a legacy so large, and most importantly, the enormous amount of creative talent so central to its creation? Enter Disney legacy directors Dan Abraham and Trent Correy, who in 2021 embarked on their “dream project,” Once Upon a Studio, which airs October 15 on ABC. Their tribute to over 10 decades of artists and artistry from Disney Animation brings together an all-star cast of animated superstars in an all-new animated short packed with Disney’s signature joy, laughter and emotion as well as 543 characters from more than 85 Disney feature-length and short films.
Enjoy the trailer:
“Back in 2021, during COVID, when we were working from home and meeting over Zoom, Trent and I would meet in separate cars at the local Taco Bell parking lot and talk through our car windows about projects we wanted to do together,” shared Abraham. “One of the ideas that bubbled up really quickly was the realization that we were going to be at the Studio for the 100th anniversary, and wouldn’t it be cool to do something for that. We organically thought about a project that would mark that milestone.”
“I had an initial idea about Disneyland rides coming to life, but, to Dan’s credit, he said why don’t we do that at the Studio,” added Correy. “We both felt that this would be a great opportunity to celebrate not only all the features in our library but also the artists, the musicians, the voice actors, and the incredible legacy. Nobody had asked us to do anything, but we knew that, in our wildest dreams, this was what we wanted to do.”
Over the next eight months, the duo met secretly, coming up with gags, ideas, and characters they knew would resonate with Disney fans. Then, it was time to present their “labors of love” to Walt Disney Animation Studios' chief creative officer, Jennifer Lee.
“When Dan and Trent pitched me the idea for Once Upon a Studio, I couldn’t talk, I was just crying,” shared Lee. “I have never had more confidence in something. It celebrates the most important thing, which is these characters and what they mean to all of us. And it did that by staying true to the artistry of these characters, their original designs regardless of whether they were hand-drawn or CG, and even our studio building, which is symbolic of the home where things are created. Dan and Trent came up with something incredibly special, and we knew we wanted to make it from the very start.”
“Bob Iger and I have discussed how important it is for our centennial to celebrate with gratitude and acknowledgment of the artistry and cast members, and also the fans in the audience that have made these 100 years possible,” Lee continued. “Everyone here at the Studio loves these characters so much, they were committed to doing them justice. And to me, that speaks to the legacy more than anything in the world. All of the artists working on the film, including some of our very best who came back just to work on their signature characters, did such an amazing job. We are all connected through these 100 years in ways that are very personal. These films and those characters belong to everyone, and it’s the most beautiful, positive, and collective ownership I can think of.”
During production, dozens of voice performers (many reprising their famous roles) recorded new dialogue for the film, and a chorus of 54 voices contributed to the song finale. Adding to the “Disney Magic” is a newly recorded track of “Feed the Birds” by the Academy Award-winning composer/ songwriter and Disney Legend Richard Sherman, who, in 2022, at age 94, returned to Walt Disney’s office to play piano exclusively for this short.
The setting for Once Upon a Studio is the end of the workday at Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California, as artists, technicians, and storytellers head home. Disney legend Burny Mattinson (who worked at the Studio for 70 years and passed away in early 2023) is the last one out the door. When the coast is clear, Mickey and Minnie step out of a picture on the wall and put out a call for everyone to assemble for an official 100th Anniversary Studio portrait.
From Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to Asha (the star of the upcoming 2023 Disney animated musical comedy feature Wish), the cast includes heroes, villains, princes, princesses, sidekicks, and sorcerers. Hand-drawn characters cavort with CG favorites in the scramble to assemble for the big photo finish.
Yvett Merino (Oscar-winning producer of Encanto and the upcoming Moana series) and Bradford Simonsen (producer, Us Again, Baymax; associate producer, Encanto, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Zootopia, Big Hero 6) produced the tribute. Disney animation veteran Eric Goldberg served as head of hand-drawn animation, with Andrew Feliciano as head of CG animation.
“This was a very ambitious project,” shared Goldberg. “The challenges for all of us were plentiful. For example, in a scene near the end of the film, I animated Goofy climbing a CG ladder and holding a camera. I would animate rough ladders and the camera on paper, and then Andrew [Feliciano] would match the CG to the hand-drawn movements.”
“From the very first moment I saw the pitch, I knew it was going to be great fun,” added Feliciano. “I love character mashups, and the idea of combining CG and hand-drawn characters was really exciting to me, and I was up for the challenge. To achieve the interaction between the 2D and CG characters, Eric and I went through the short, shot by shot, to determine whether a scene would be led by a hand-drawn or CG character.”
Approximately 80 percent of the animated characters in the film are hand-drawn. So, Goldberg and Feliciano worked with a talented group of Disney animators to give life and personality to the diverse group of featured characters, including characters from Disney’s earliest CG features (Aladar from Dinosaur, and Chicken Little’s title character) to more recent titles as Wreck-it Ralph, Moana, Zootopia, and Encanto.
The hand-drawn animation team included an in-house group of veteran hand-drawn specialists, including Mark Henn, Randy Haycock, Alex Kuperschmidt, and Bert Klein. Five of Disney’s animator alums reunited with their famous characters for guest assignments on the film, including James Baxter (Belle and the Beast, Quasimodo, Rafiki), Ruben Aquino (Ursula), Tony Bancroft (Pumbaa and Timon), Nik Ranieri (Hades, Kuzco and Meeko) and Will Finn (Iago and Cogsworth).
“This film gave us a great opportunity to revisit a lot of the characters we helped to create,” said Henn. “It’s still a thrill and a joy to bring these characters to life through a drawing. I also had a chance to try my hand at such other iconic characters as Tinker Bell, Snow White and Grumpy, the fairies from Sleeping Beauty, and a lot of others. I was lucky enough to work on 22 of the more than 70 shots in the film.”
“This film really is a love letter to hand-drawn animation,” added Haycock. “I don’t know of another Studio in Hollywood that appreciates and celebrates its legacy as much as Disney does. This film shows what Disney stands for, not just today, but what it has always stood for and what it has meant to the culture and our country. It’s just an amazing thing. If I hadn’t seen Fantasia when I was 15, maybe I never would have chosen this career.”
In addition to the Disney Alum, five Walt Disney Animation Studios apprentices, selected from thousands of applicants, also contributed to the hand-drawn side; they include Courtney DiPaola, Ella Khan, Tyler Pacana, Austin Traylor, and Robert Cox.
Making Once Upon a Studio required shooting live-action plates and drone photography of the animation building exterior, the interior art-lined hallways, and the spiral staircase inside the building’s iconic Sorcerer’s Apprentice hat.
According to Simonsen, “We had some challenging problems to solve integrating our hand-drawn 2D animation with our CG animation into live-action background plates. In some cases, we had to scan the room and environment to collect digital data so that we could rebuild the room virtually. Because technology changes so rapidly, we also had to rebuild CG character models from Tangled backward to Chicken Little so they would work in our current pipeline. It’s like a car that’s been parked in the garage for 15 years and you expect to drive it like it was brand new. This short, provided opportunities for us to all learn and grow together and get to experience things that were new to most of us.”
Mohit Kallianpur served as visual effects supervisor, Rebecca Vallera-Thompson served as technical supervisor, and Leah Latham was production manager. Head of effects animation, Le Joyce Tong; director of cinematography, layout, John Hasbrook; director of cinematography, lighting, Daniel Rice; head of scene planning and ink & paint, Brandon Bloch; and production designers Ryan Lang and Paul Felix all contributed to the project.
The film’s original score is by Dave Metzger, whose previous credits include producing, arranging, and orchestrating songs Frozen, Frozen 2, and Moana, and the score of the upcoming feature, Wish.
Once Upon a Studio celebrates 100 years of Disney and, most notably, the people who have been instrumental in building its legacy. So, it is fitting that the last title card of the end credits reads, “For our Pal Burny and his 70 years of legendary storytelling at Disney Animation.” It is a heartfelt acknowledgment and remembrance of Disney Legend Burny Mattinson, who passed away on February 27, 2023, and is, in the film, the “last one out the door.”
Mattison, who began his Disney career in 1953, was still contributing to new animation projects until his passing. He is remembered as a mentor, a friend, and an inspiration to many generations of animators.
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Once Upon a Studio debuts October 15 on ABC.
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
