[Music]
we jumped into beauty and the beast a
perfect storm of fresh new directors
ashman and menken and a story that was
waiting to bust open and be reinvented
was how it all started
hi i'm don hahn i'm the producer of walt
disney animation studios beauty and the
beast and i'm mark ken i was a
supervising animator for belle and
beauty and the beast it's hard to
believe but today's the 30th anniversary
of beauty and the beast and it's a
milestone movie in disney animation
history and to celebrate we'd love to
tell you more about our experience
making the film and what went into
creating the character especially the
character of belle i can't believe it's
been 30 years since we premiered this
amazing movie i've had the honor of
animating many of disney animation's
leading ladies and now i'm excited to
tell you more about how bell developed
into the remarkable character you see in
our film it was after the success of
little mermaid which was absolutely huge
at the box office we were terrified we
thought how we're gonna top this we had
a big false start it was a challenge you
know walt disney really struggled with
beauty and the beast beauty and the
beast as a title appeared on lists back
when he was making animated films he
abandoned it as something that was just
too hard and he wasn't going to do it we
put together 20 minutes of the movie and
it didn't work we went to chateau's and
we took pictures and video and we
sketched and we just immersed ourselves
in why we love this story in the first
place so we started over
part of the reason it wasn't working was
that belle wasn't firing off as a
character she was very passive the
original story of course in the fairy
tale she's extremely passive and we
didn't want that we went through this
big story change and you know we really
were aware that we had to reinvent the
disney heroine a lot of that came from a
story crew and some women in particular
like our writer linda wolverton or paige
o'hara herself who did bella's voice
brenda chapman who was one of the keys
on our story team they were all very
vocal and rightly so about trying to
celebrate a new kind of disney heroine
and i think that's where belle grew out
of linda she was really the first woman
to write an animated feature at disney
one thing that linda wolverton gave us
was a real clear picture of what belle
could be
the development of belle like most of
our characters starts with our visual
development artists and there's a lot of
work that goes into developing not only
the look of our characters but who these
characters are one of the really
exciting things about our version and
development of bell was actually seeing
that process of her and the beast
falling in love and of course the
underlying theme of ours is you know
don't judge a book by its cover the
biggest thing we want to do is have the
audience resonate with the character of
belle and i think that comes from a lot
of things a lot of people are writer
linda wolverton marcan but belle was
certainly unique at the time her main
escape was her reading here's a disney
heroine a disney princess who actually
wants adventure in her life and she's
getting it from the books she's getting
it from a sense of a bigger world
outside of her small provincial town
there were a couple of very specific
design elements to bell that were
incorporated and i recently had a
conversation with brian mcentee he was
the art director and he was telling us
how in his designing of the overall art
direction on the film like the whole
opening sequence everybody else in town
is is in a warm color palette and he
deliberately chose a cooler blue dress
for her
just to set up a contrast just to
visually support the idea that she
stands out from the crowd bell was the
beginning of a series of female
characters that were more than just
disney princesses they were characters
who in and of themselves had a
motivation and had a driver that was
over and above just getting their prints
and settling down now there's nothing
wrong with princes and there's nothing
wrong with settling down but i think as
a young character in a disney film these
characters became starting with belle
something more than that she's strong
but she's also very compassionate a very
caring person as we see those are really
some interesting qualities to bell belt
we want to include in our story had a
real
hunger for adventure that's the big
change that we kind of went through with
that character is really making bill a
driver in the story somebody who really
pushes the story ahead and pushes the
buttons of the beast and pushes guests
on so that that lead character has some
energy and some passion to her
one of the most important
aspects to finding and developing a
character for us is the voice when paige
walked in there was a quality about her
that was vulnerable and kind of precious
and beautiful and strong and paige
brought so much sensitivity to it and
that's what you want you want the voice
actor to inspire the animators and then
i hear the voice recordings and the
lines and so that informs me of how to
create my performance as an animator
there couldn't have been anybody else
bell had to be paige and of course the
other great advantage we had was
kardashian and alan mankind we would
storyboard something and then allen
would play on the piano and then howard
would say no no no that's not it and
then he'd come in the next day with
donuts and a new set of lyrics and when
you're lucky enough to have ashman and
menken as your songwriters those songs
become tentpoles in your story the
opening song of belle you introduce all
the characters and then be our guest the
beauty of these ballads those are really
strong
milestones in your plot that then you
can connect with connective tissue and
turn into your story so in adapting the
fairy tale they really leaned on all of
those elements on ashman and menken on
reinventing the story on throwing out
things that were dated an active bell
and an active beast that are co-equals
that are pushing this story together
that along with the enchanted objects
and really making it our own and that's
something that disney's always done i
think we were inspired by walt disney
because he did that so all those factors
contributed to beauty and the beast
being unbelievably the first animated
film ever to be nominated for a best
picture and that was in 1992
and it wasn't until years later i like
in 2001 that the category for best
animated feature was created so it was
really incredible for an animated film
to even get close to being considered
for a best picture back then and i think
people were finally saying animation is
not just this sideshow it's actually a
legitimate art form we were shocked i
was shocked to this day
when i meet people and talk more often
than not people will tell me that beauty
and the beast is still their favorite
film you may not remember the jokes and
you may remember all the plot points but
you'll remember the emotion and the love
story between these two characters the
ability to continue the tradition of
amazing movies that i grew up watching
with the first generation of disney
artists and animators and now my
generation we kind of took the baton
from them that they handed off to us and
that we've been able to carry it on and
to be a part of that knowing that i was
a part of that it's just you can't it's
hard to put words to it it's just very
very special so a big thank you for
celebrating beauty and the beast's 30th
anniversary with us you can watch beauty
and the beast now on disney plus
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