I'm the baby, gotta love me.
Again!
[LAUGHTER]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JENNY: Today, we're off to the Great
Fefore to talk "Soul," heading back in time with "Dinosaurs"
and stepping into the unknown for "Myth: A Frozen Tale."
I'm Jenny.
I'm Andre, and this is "What's Up, Disney+," where
we talk all things Disney+.
I'm so excited for our first guest.
He has worked on some of Pixar's top movies, including "Up,"
"Finding Dory," "Ratatouille," "The Incredibles,"
"Monsters, Inc.," and so much more, not to mention "Soul."
Yes, please welcome Robert Grahamjones.
Thank you so much for being on this show today, Robert.
How are you doing today?
Oh, I'm doing wonderfully.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to be here to talk to you both.
So for our viewers who may not know,
will you tell us what the responsibilities
are of an editor, particularly on an animated film?
An editor on an animated film has a couple
of very important duties.
One of them is to cut storyboards.
A storyboard is a black-and-white picture.
It's also called an animatic.
What we do is we cut them with temporary dialogue,
music, and effects to replicate what a film will look like.
You want to know that the story is gonna
work first before you animate.
We'll be cutting storyboards for, I would say,
two years before we start going into the layout phase.
The layout phase is where you put the characters
in a virtual camera.
Once we cut the layout, we turn it over to animation,
and the animators animate to that.
The whole process can take three or four years,
and it's very complicated and very
different than live-action editing.
But I'm very excited about doing it.
Some people are like, oh, animation, it's just they draw,
and it's out. It's like, no.
No.
Clearly, there's a lot that goes on.
And then, once the animation is done,
then you cut that up as well.
- Correct. - Yeah.
Cut it up and put it back together.
I'm sure it's happened, though, where you've had to cut
something that you didn't want to cut,
and you had to for the sake of the story or timing.
That happens all the time.
As editors, what we try to do is think of the story as a whole
and not fall in love with any little part,
because there can be some little performance that's outstanding.
But if it doesn't play into the overall story,
then we can't use it.
We want to look at the film like the audience
is looking at the film.
That makes a lot of sense.
And how did you get started in your career,
and did anybody specifically inspire you?
I started out as an apprentice at this animation house.
I spent maybe 10 years as an assistant editor
in live action, went back into animation.
So my career is kind of balanced all over the place.
But I've been at Pixar now for 22 years.
So I've kind of settled into a groove here.
That's incredible. Yaaass, Pixar.
What is a scene or moment in "Soul" that you're
especially proud of?
There's a scene in "Soul," we call it the barbershop scene.
And it's the scene where 22 and Joe go to the barbershop
to clean up Joe's bad haircut.
On the surface, it looks like a pretty simple scene.
But there are a lot of characters.
It's a pivotal moment in the story where
Joe starts to realize maybe he could look at the world
in a different way.
I feel really proud of the scene,
but I also have a lot of gratitude
that I got to approach that scene.
Yeah, I love that barbershop scene.
It was so good and so authentic as well.
Like, I've been to barbershops just like that.
That brings me up to another question
because you have movies like "Soul" and "Coco."
You have shorts like "Bao" and "Out."
We've seen a lot of great diversity on-screen at Pixar.
Why do you think it's important to have diversity
and representation behind the camera
to enrich the storytelling?
When thinking about the barbershop,
the barbershop has its own rhythms, its own way
that people are interacting.
We really wanted that scene to feel authentic.
As a person of color, a person who's been to barbershops
many times, I felt like I could bring something to that scene
that other people may not have been able to.
You want the storytellers to have
empathy and understanding of the situation
that the story is trying to tell.
So I'm very proud of the barbershop scene.
So I have to ask.
You've been with Pixar for over 20 years.
Is there any project that stands out for you, and why?
"Soul" has been such an amazing project for me
on so many levels.
Part of it is that "Soul" has a Black protagonist.
It's a really exciting story to tell.
There are various pieces of the story
that really affect me also.
So, for example, I play trombone.
They used some of my trombone playing
in the temporary part of the movie.
ANDRE: Wow.
It's just such a crazy thing.
So many of my different interests
kind of came into play in this movie, not to mention
the kind of existential questions
that are so profound and open-ended.
Everybody seems to have a little different take on it.
ANDRE: Yeah. JENNY: Wow.
I think that's a great thing when people have
a different take on a movie because it's just hitting
people in different ways.
"Soul" has been just an amazing film to be associated with.
And I feel really lucky and blessed
that I was able to be on it.
Yeah, this is why it's great to have people like you
behind the scenes working on projects like this because,
like you said, that authenticity shows through.
JENNY: Yep.
Thank you for talking with us today.
Like, this has been so great.
Oh, thank you.
It's been wonderful.
ANDRE: Be sure to check out Robert's work in "Soul,"
now streaming on Disney+.
One of my favorite animated series on Disney+
is "The Proud Family."
Love that show.
So I am proud to tell you that we have a special announcement
from "The Proud Family" producers,
Bruce W. Smith and Ralph Farquhar.
Hey, what's up, everybody?
I'm Bruce Smith.
And I'm Ralph Farquhar,
and we're the executive producers of "The Proud
Family: Louder and Prouder."
And we're excited to bring "The Proud Family" back
for original fans and also introduce this family to
a whole new generation of fans.
So if you're not familiar with our gang, don't worry about it.
We're gonna give you a quick 60-second rundown on who's who.
So let's dive right in.
Penny Proud, center of all of our stories,
14 years old and loving it.
RALPH: Bebe and Cece, Penny's younger twin siblings--
they can talk, y'all, but it's all gibberish.
BRUCE: Trudy, Penny's mom, also the owner of her own business,
Trudy's Pet Ambulance.
RALPH: Oscar Proud, Penny Proud's overbearing dad,
and he's more overbearing than ever.
BRUCE: Uncle Bobby, Penny's uncle, Oscar's brother,
and Suga Mama's favorite son.
Oh.
RALPH: Suga Mama, Penny's grandma, Oscar's mother,
the truthteller of the family.
BRUCE: Puff, Suga Mama's dog.
RALPH: Papi, Suga Mama's unwitting boyfriend
and the father of Felix.
BRUCE: Felix, LaCienega Boulevardez's
dad, and also runs his own construction company.
RALPH: Sunset, Felix's wife--
she and Felix are Oscar and Trudy's
best friends despite the fact that their daughters
are frenemies.
BRUCE: LaCienega, forever the frenemy to Penny Proud.
RALPH: Zoey, Penny's good friend, part of the crew.
BRUCE: And Dijonay, her loyalest friend.
RALPH: Maya, the new kid on the block, and she's woke, y'all.
We're still in the middle of production,
but we just wanted to give you guys a sneak peek
at all of these characters.
BRUCE: We can't wait for you to see what they've been up
to on "The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder,"
coming to Disney+.
THEME SONG: Proud, proud family.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JENNY: Mark your calendars because we
have brand new Disney+ original series announcements.
ANDRE: It's time to welcome a new generation
of game changers.
Start streaming "The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers"
on March 26.
JENNY: This is a shot he can't afford to miss.
"Big Shot," an original series starring John Stamos,
starts streaming April 16.
ANDRE: On May the Fourth, we have "Star Wars, The Bad Batch,"
which follows the elite and experimental clones
as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy
in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War.
JENNY: We think you kind of know where we're going with this.
That's right, season two of "High
School Musical: The Musical: The Series"
starts streaming May 14.
ANDRE: On June 11, you can start streaming
"Loki," an original series from Marvel Studios.
JENNY: Zen mode on.
Season two of "Zenimation" also starts streaming June 11.
ANDRE: One mission will hold the answer
to the world's greatest riddle.
"The Mysterious Benedict Society," an original series,
starts streaming June 25.
JENNY: And in July, it'll take some monster-sized laughs to
generate Monstropolis's power.
"Monsters at Work" starts streaming July 2.
ANDRE: Partner up with "Turner & Hooch,"
an original series, when it starts streaming July 16.
And don't miss the first episode of "Chip 'N' Dale: Park Life"
on July 23.
Hey, Andre, have you ever wondered
what it would be like to grow up in, I don't know,
60,000,003 BC?
Believe it or not, I have.
Being a mighty Megalosaurus would have been meg-nificent.
Tree-pushing at its finest, HYAH!
JENNY: We're, of course, talking about "Dinosaurs."
The series follows the Sinclairs, a family
of dinosaurs living in prehistoric
Pangaea, navigating the ups and downs
of domestic dinosaur life.
I am so glad that "Dinosaurs" is on Disney+,
because I grew up with this show. Love it so much.
Jenny, were you a fan of "Dinosaurs" as well?
Oh, my gosh.
I grew up watching the show.
I actually had a Baby Sinclair doll.
Aw.
It's a great show.
It plays on different layers.
There's stuff for kids enjoy with all
the animatronics, which are amazing even to this day.
Well, speaking of, did you know that not one,
but three performers brought Earl Sinclair to life?
And we are lucky to have Bill Barretta
and Stuart Pankin with us here today on "What's Up, Disney+."
Welcome to the show, guys.
Bill Barretta's here?
Stuart's on this?
Unbelievable.
How long has it been, truthfully, since you guys
have seen each other in person?
Oh, my God, it's been 30 years.
- Yeah, 30 years. - Yeah.
What?
Wow.
"Dinosaurs" was so innovative.
Can you tell us about the series and what makes it so special?
It was special for a lot of reasons. The costumes.
The animatronics-- unbelievably complicated and sophisticated,
in my opinion.
And a new technology at the time.
STUART: As far as the writing is concerned,
it was a show that kids could enjoy because of the puppets,
and adults could enjoy it because
of some of the political and social commentary.
All that stuff came together to make it a fun-filled romp
for the whole family.
You know, it was my first big thing coming to Hollywood.
And so I was just fortunate to be working.
A Henson and a Disney collaboration,
and then to be able to collaborate
with the other people that were providing
the kind of topping third--
myself in the suit, Mack Wilson or Dave Goelz,
who operated the facial manipulation,
and then, of course, Stuart, who brought
in the Stuart of it all.
It was amazing.
Yeah, and that was so great that all three of you
came together to create such a character
like Earl Sinclair, which is one of my favorite TV dads.
Oh, wow.
What was it like to work on "Dinosaurs"?
Can you walk us through the mechanics
that brought Earl to life?
The workshop worked very hard.
And they would bring these gigantic suits up to the stage,
and every day they would have people
who took care of us, who helped us get
in and out of these huge suits.
I think Earl's body was probably 80 to 90 pounds.
Just behind cameras were a row of puppeteers where they had
something like a joystick that had all kinds of little levers
and buttons, and each one of those
were assigned different things they could
program for facial features.
Once we captured a scene or a take, Stuart would come in.
And then he can certainly speak to what
that was like because that couldn't have been easy.
Well, it wasn't like wearing, you know, a 90-pound suit.
[LAUGHTER]
The scene came to us, and we had to match the voices.
If the line was "Come on, Robbie,
don't eat that sandwich," you'd hear beeps in your earphone.
You go beep, beep, beep, and you'd see, "Come on,
Robbie, don't eat that sandwich," on the screen.
And you would have to beep, beep, beep, "Come on, Robbie,
don't eat that sandwich."
And we basically went through the show
and replaced the puppeteer's voice and movement.
That is just amazing.
I mean, it's one thing to have one performer have
to get it right, but to have multiple performers come
together at different times--
Yeah.
--to get it all to look like one
solid character, which you did.
That's a good point.
I mean, they weren't together.
It was separate times.
So how does it feel to have "Dinosaurs" finally on Disney+?
What do you hope the audience takes away from rewatching
or discovering the show?
I've been rewatching.
I haven't watched these in I can't even
tell you how long it's been.
I've been laughing out loud.
The editing was great.
The writing was great.
And I've just been really reliving moments, going,
did I actually do that?
I don't even remember being there.
[LAUGHTER]
But honestly, I'm so happy it's back.
I think families are gonna love it
just like they did back then.
It's a great show.
I have to say it.
It is.
People could relate to a lot of those characters--
the brother, the sister, the mother, even the tough boss.
That's one of the reasons that the show got to people so much.
And just speaking of something I
never noticed before, I was just watching the other night.
It's the one where they bury Ethyl,
and everybody's faces are leaning in.
And Earl comes in, and he goes, no, no, no, no, no.
Don't wake her up.
And Ethyl brings up a shovel and whacks him right in the face,
and he falls backwards.
And when he falls, I accidentally
kick Charlene in the face.
I never noticed that before, but the people in the ADR
room and the people who did the recording, they noticed it.
And you can hear Sally Struthers, doing Charlene,
who says, ow, you kicked me.
[GROANS]
Dad? Ow.
What? Huh?
You kicked me.
They add these little things that you never noticed before.
There's always something really fun.
So Bill, you have an awesome YouTube channel.
Can you tell us about that?
I share it with my brother Gene Barretta,
who's an author-illustrator.
He and I started this show about all things
Muppet and Henson and Disney.
And we did a 30th anniversary episode celebrating "Dinosaurs"
coming to its 30th year.
And we had the writers, the producers, the creators,
the workshop people.
If you go to thebarrettabrothers.com,
you can see all of our past episodes.
And then, we're going to actually have Stuart on.
He's gonna be joining us in a couple weeks.
So please, come join us.
This has been such a blast. Such talent in the suits,
outside of the suits.
Yeah.
I can't thank you both enough.
Thanks.
Thank you guys. Thank you so much.
It was a pleasure for me.
Be sure to check out "Dinosaurs,"
now streaming on Disney+.
"Myth: A Frozen Tale" is coming to Disney+.
Like "Cycles," from Disney Animation's Short Circuit,
this virtual reality short now has
a new streaming version that you can watch on your TV at home.
JENNY: The short starts off as a traditional bedtime
story in Arendelle.
But suddenly, we are transported to an enchanted and mystical
forest where the elemental spirits from "Frozen 2"
come to life.
Hi, I'm Jeff Gipson, director of "Myth: A Frozen Tale."
And I'm Brittney Lee, the production designer.
And we're gonna break down a scene for you.
So the scene we're going to be watching
is the Water Nokk scene.
And this is the water horse from "Frozen 2."
Basically, the film is about the balance of the elements.
So when you first start this scene,
you'll see that there's flames and fire.
So this is the fire spirit, the salamander.
The rain starts coming down, this waterfall
appears, and then out of the waterfall
emerges the Water Nokk.
It basically balanced out the previous spirit.
For our Nokk, we really wanted to push
the stylization because the nokk in "Frozen 2" is so fantastic.
But we were representing sort of a storybook,
fairy-tale version of it.
So we wanted to make that clear and do
something that was a little bit different and more stylized.
We thought it would be great to combine some CG and 2D effects
to really have this sort of tactile, tangible quality
to the film.
And you could see it here in the water effects.
[THUNDERCLAP]
[HORSE WHINNIES]
This horse is scared, it dives into the water,
and then we see the power of the water,
the power of this flood that then comes
down moving towards the viewer.
And then we have the earth that begins to balance out
this spirit and form this dam.
It turns into the day, the rain dissipates,
and we really just tried to play off
that each one of the spirits is neither good nor bad.
They just kind of are.
And together they create this harmony
where the world can dance.
Yeah, kind of a duality between all
of the elements in nature.
And the sweet spot is in the balance.
Jeff and Brittney, thank you for being
here and for all that insight into "Myth: A Frozen Tale."
Tell us what inspired the story behind the short.
So the inspiration behind this story
was my love of bedtime stories.
I just loved how they kind of made my imagination
wander into these places.
And so I started thinking of what was a bedtime story
that you might have been told if you grew up
in or around Arendelle? And kind of led myself
to this world of "Myth: A Frozen Tale"
where the elemental spirits are the main players.
So this projectile features both
hand-drawn and CG animation.
What made you want to combine those two elements,
and how did that influence the storytelling process?
Yeah, I mean, I love the heritage
of Disney Animation, all those 2D films,
but in particular "Fantasia."
That was just such a big inspiration.
They tell stories through music and the hand-drawn,
and so I wanted to bring that similar vibe into VR, but also
just how do we make a real-time short
that's flat and on a screen?
Having Brittney on board and her kind of stylistic sensibilities
was amazing because I feel like we
really achieved something cool.
Yeah, I'm a huge fan of traditional animation.
And we do a lot of work in CG.
But because "Myth" was going to be an even further stylized
version of the "Frozen" world, it
seemed like a perfect opportunity
to sort of introduce those little elements that we could
play with in hand-drawn animation
and play into that "Fantasia" aspect
that Jeff was talking about.
The film was originally created in virtual reality,
so can you tell us what it was like to use
VR in the creation process?
Brittney and I were able to be in the VR headsets
as we created these worlds.
And we were able to see the world being created,
basically in real time.
It was a really unique process for us at Disney Animation.
Yeah, I'm sure that we looked pretty ridiculous to those
outside watching us do this.
But for me, I had no experience with VR prior to this project.
It was actually such a great learning experience.
And being in the middle of the film that you're working on
is like nothing else.
How does it feel to have "Myth: A Frozen Tale"
on Disney+, and what do you hope viewers take
away from watching this short?
It's amazing to have it on a platform like Disney+,
where my family, all my friends at home,
they can now watch that film.
And I hope that it invokes that sense of heritage of Disney
Animation, where there's this richness
of traditional animation mixed with CG and music.
It's just so exciting.
I feel so fortunate to have it on Disney+.
Yeah, I agree.
We've been living with this for so long,
and we've been working on it and been so excited about it
that it's just so nice to now be able to share it with everyone.
And hopefully, people will enjoy it as much
as we enjoyed working on it.
You can experience "Myth: A Frozen Tale" for yourself
now streaming on Disney+.
From the Great Before to Pangaea,
all the way to Arendelle, we certainly covered a lot
of territory today, Andre.
Not an easy trip to pack for, but definitely
worth the journey.
Be sure to head over to Disney+ to stream
all of your favorites.
Not the mama!
We're gonna need another Timmy.
[LAUGHTER]
Again!
[MUSIC PLAYING]