The Disney+ docuseries goes Into the Unknown of the making of the biggest animated film of all time.
Into the Unknownisn’t just a docuseries about the making ofFrozen 2.
It’s a peek at the man behind the curtain.
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In this case, the animators of Walt Disney Animation.
Over six episodes, the Megan Harding-directed series, currently available to stream on Disney+, fulfills many objections.
It also illustrates why it takes years to make an animated film of this size.
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Here are the biggest takeaways from the docuseries.
And then Chris would read it and be inspired and he would do drawings."
It was the first snow of the season… it fell, it called to me.
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I think I hid it well.
Nature’s snow is more beautiful than mine could ever be."
Buck comes with an animation background and Lee a writing background.
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What happens in the aftermath is called a “Story Trust.”
Disney Animation’s Story Trust is a feedback meeting where these creatives from other Disney projects can offer critique.
Sometimes the feedback can be brutal, Lee says.
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Movement training
The magic of animation is that it’s inspired by reality.
This was used to inform the movements of Olaf.
An early attempt was a song called “Get This Right.”
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The sequence is all about Kristoff anxiously trying to propose to Anna but everything seems to be too awkward.
“I wanna thrill you in the way you deserve.
I wanna blow your mind, darlin'.
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That became “Lost in the Woods.”
By episode 3, one story in particularthe origin of the character Ryderreveals howFrozen 2helped Buck cope with grief.
Towards the end of production on the first movie, Buck’s son Ryder died in a car crash.
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“The wrap party was the weirdest thing for me,” the co-director remembers.
And I got that all night.”
He’s actually really fun; really, like I said, kind of hopeful."
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They didn’t know what it wasnot even that it was a Disney releaseuntil they settled into the theater.
Afterward, they filled out a survey to let the directors know what worked and what didn’t.
After that screening, everything changed.
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Well, not quite everything.
The biggest takeaways were, again, around clarity.
Many viewers wrote in, unprompted, that the salamander was their favorite character.
Another good thing that came out of this, though, was Olaf’s dramatic recap of the firstFrozenmovie.
“We had all this exposition of grown-ups going, ‘Why are you here?’
So now we gave the expositional stuff to Olaf,” Lee says.
Everyone agreed it was an entity, but they had long debates about what or who it was.
Then comes the animation hurdles.
It’s not until four years after work first began onFrozen 2that the film was finally locked.
Gad shows just how much improv in the recording booth plays into the development of Olaf’s character.
“Improv has been such an essential part of my journey in creating Olaf,” he says.
The line was meant to say, “You’ve never seen a talking snowman before.”
“But what’s the not obvious version?”
Gad asks Lee and Buck.
“I’m guessing you’ve never seen a naked snowman,” Lee replied.
So then Gad riffed, “Oh yeah, sorry.
I just find clothes restricting.”
Those scenes involved Elsa bringing Olaf back to life at the end of the movie.
When you’re cutting a shot, you’re cutting a dozen people’s shot."
