With Big Hero 6 out now, let’s take a look at 15 things you probably didn’t know about
Disney’s animated hit!
The design of Baymax’s face – two dots joined by a line – was inspired by the look
of Japanese suzu bells, which director Don Hall saw on a visit to Japan.
The huggable design of healthcare robot Baymax was inspired by director Don Hall’s visit
to Carnegie Mellon University where he spent time with researchers working on soft robotics
such as an inflatable vinyl arm that could perform simple tasks like brushing someone’s
teeth.
According to lead character designer Shiyoon Kim, the design of Baymax was also influenced
by Japanese infomercials which often highlight a product’s cute design rather than its
technology.
When it came to making Baymax move, the animators looked at real robots, movie robots, babies,
and even koala bears for inspiration!
But in the end, they found that the way baby penguins moved was the best fit for Baymax.
The reason for this was that baby penguins have similar body proportions to the Big Hero
6 robot, in other words, they’ve got long torsos and short legs.
When it came to bringing Baymax to life, the key word for the Big Hero 6 artists was restraint.
Because Baymax is a robot and has limited movements, it was important to keep the animation
minimal and separate out movements, so, for example, Baymax walks forward and then waves.
In fact, rather than animating Baymax, the artists referred to their work as ‘un-imating’
him.
And as Baymax doesn’t have a mouth or human facial expressions, the artists had to find
ways to capture quick and easily-readable poses – for example, how much he moved his
head or blinked his eyes.
Big Hero 6 averages more main characters on screen at one time than in any previous movie
by Walt Disney Animation Studios!
When the artists behind Big Hero 6 were looking for inspiration for chewing-gum-popping daredevil
GoGo Tomago, whose catchphrase is “woman up”, they looked at actors such as John
Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Gary Cooper to study their cool, emotionally reserved traits.
They also looked at bike messengers and speed skaters to inform GoGo’s body type and movements.
Director Don Hall got the idea for the superhero suit worn by laid-back comic book fan Fred
when he saw online videos of people dressed in Kaiju costumes having wrestling matches!
Fred’s fire-breathing super-suit includes claws, integrated communications, and a super
bounce!
Hundreds of background characters populate the world of San Fransokyo.
To make the city feel believable, those characters are more detailed and varied than ever before,
coming in all different shapes, sizes, cultures and fashions.
The Big Hero 6 artists used a software called Denizen, which was created by Walt Disney
Animation Studios, to create and animate the crowds.
With this tech the artists created 670 unique characters, compared to 270 unique characters
in Frozen, 185 in Wreck-It Ralph, and 80 in Tangled.
Each of those 670 unique characters in Big Hero 6 has up to 32 different clothing look
combinations, plus 32 different hair and skin tones.
All of which means the Big Hero 6 filmmakers could have 686,080 unique characters in San
Fransokyo!
Walt Disney Animation Studios encouraged their employees to include themselves as background
characters in Big Hero 6.
Which means that the movie’s crowd scenes feature cameos from 200 Walt Disney Animation
Studios employees!
The city of San Fransokyo, where Big Hero 6 takes place, may be a fictional mash-up
of San Francisco and Tokyo, but the creation of that fictional world began with real-world
geography.
Not only did the filmmakers take research trips to both San Francisco and Tokyo, but
the movie’s artists also used actual maps of San Francisco, including the layout of
the streets and the size of the lots, as a blueprint to give their city an authentic
look.
In addition to that real data, the artists incorporated the visual style of Tokyo’s
architecture, neon lights and signage, and stylised everything to make it unique to San
Fransokyo.
San Fransokyo features over 80,000 buildings, 100,000 vehicles, over 200,000 streetlights
and over 250,000 trees.
The labs at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology were inspired by research trips
the Big Hero 6 team made to several US universities including Harvard and MIT, and also to Pasadena’s
Jet Propulsion Lab.
To help make the movie’s big finale relate to real-world research, the filmmakers consulted
theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, who does research at Caltech on cosmology, field theory,
gravity, and quantum mechanics!
Director Don Hall’s kids have been pitching him sequel ideas for Big Hero 6 and they’d
particularly love to see ninja Baymax come out of the portal to fight good Baymax.
Well there you have it, 15 things you probably didn't know about Big Hero 6!
Now what would you love to see in a Big Hero 6 sequel?
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Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!