Disney's latest animated movie takes us to the mammal-centric city of Zootopia, where
a con-artist fox and a rabbit rookie cop team up to crack a mysterious case of missing mammals.
I'm Jan and this is 25 fun facts you probably didn't know about Zootopia.
To get inspiration for the character of rookie rabbit police officer Judy Hopps, the filmmakers
not only visited a wildlife rescue centre, they even had live rabbits in the studio!
And observing those real-life rabbits really did help the animators, for example, they
noticed how rabbits' ears often turn towards a sound before they do and how and when their
noses twitch.
For the outfits Judy wears, the animators took cues from survivalist gear, the kind
of clothes worn by Navy SEALs, as well as leg protection worn by racehorses.
As for the violet colour of Judy's eyes, that was actually chosen after the animators decided
Judy's grey fur was too dull and needed a little purple adding to make it pop so it
reflected Judy's sparky personality.
When they were creating the character of scam-artist fox Nick Wilde, the filmmakers were inspired
by actor Cary Grant, and for Judy Hopps they channelled characters such as Superman and
Leslie Knope from TV comedy Parks and Recreation.
Although voice actors for animated movies typically record their parts separately, for
their lead roles as Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, Once Upon A Time star Ginnifer Goodwin and
Horrible Bosses star Jason Bateman recorded as much of their dialogue as possible together
which helped them get great chemistry between their characters.
As a reference to help them animate the scene where Nick Wilde tries to eat a teeny tiny
piece of cake, the artists filmed Disney and Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter
using a tiny fork to eat a very small slice of cake off a little coin!
After meeting pop star Shakira who plays Zootopia's own pop star Gazelle, the animators made revisions
to the design of her character.
For example, Shakira suggested that Gazelle should be curvier, so the artists made her
hips bigger.
They also made Gazelle's eyes darker, her lashes longer, her hair wavier, and gave her
an outfit similar to one Shakira wore for one of her performances.
Officer Benjamin Clawhauser was initially going to be called Hugo and some original
concept art shows him wearing an Hawaiian shirt very similar to the one Nick Wilde wears
in the final movie.
The filmmakers wanted to make sure that each of the movie's animals was based on their
real-world behaviour.
So, they spent 18 months researching a variety of animals, finding out how they interact,
socialise, and build communities in the wild.
They spoke to experts from all over the world and visited Disney's Animal Kingdom, San Diego
Zoo Safari Park, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
And they even spent two weeks in Kenya learning all about animal personality and behaviour.
The filmmakers' research also helped them decide which roles to give to each animal
in the world of Zootopia.
For example, they found out that cape buffaloes are tough and relentless, so they opted to
make Zootopia's chief of police a buffalo.
During their trip to Africa, the filmmakers noticed that whenever they drove by a herd
of buffaloes, the buffaloes would stop what they were doing and fix them with their gaze.
That gave the animators the idea to give Chief Bogo that same stare when he looks at Nick
Wilde.
The filmmakers named the head of the Zootopia Police Department Chief Bogo after the Swahili
word m'bogo which means cape buffalo.
According to Art director Cory Loftis, when they were designing Bogo, the filmmakers researched
police officers who are also bodybuilders and discovered that they could not fasten
the top button on their shirts, so they took that idea for Chief Bogo.
Because Assistant Mayor Bellwether is a sheep, the animators decided that all of her six
outfits should be made of wool!
And on her orange skirt, you'll even spot a scissor pattern, which represents shears!
For the scene where Nick Wilde touches the big tuft of wool on Bellwether's head to see
how soft it is, the artists had to create new technology as touching fur is normally
something they tend to avoid as it's especially complex in computer-generated animation.
Speaking of fur, each mouse you see in Zootopia has around 400,000 strands of hair, which
is the same number of strands that made up Elsa's hair in Frozen!
And, in case you're wondering what that means for the larger animals, well, a giraffe has
9.2 million hairs!
For the design of Mayor Leodore Lionheart, the animators took inspiration from Mufasa
in Disney's The Lion King.
And they used technology they'd developed when making Frozen to animate his huge mane
of hair.
The clothes worn by the Ottertons are another example of the level of detail the animators
went to when they were designing the animals' outfits in the movie.
The Ottertons wear thick fisherman-knit sweaters with little fish on them.
Early on in the animation process, Disney story artist Raymond Persi recorded a temporary
voice track for the character of Flash, who works at the DMV, aka the Department of Mammal
Vehicles.
But the filmmakers and Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter loved Persi's performance so
much that they decided to keep it for the final film.
According to the filmmakers, to design Zootopia, they had to 'think like animals'!
In other words, because the city of Zootopia was built by the animals who live there, the
animators began by asking themselves, given the same technology and knowledge as humans,
what would a mammal metropolis look like if it were made by animals?!
The design of cities from around the world also inspired the animators.
As well as looking to New York and London, artists were equally inspired by Russian architecture,
which you can see in the onion-shaped domes of Tundratown.
And Madrid's Atocha railway station was the inspiration behind the interior tropical garden
at Zootopia's train station.
The idea for Sahara Square, which contains sand dunes as well as buildings shaped like
sand dunes, was influenced by Monte Carlo and Dubai.
Because many desert animals are nocturnal, the animators designed lots of night-time
activities such as casinos as well as a huge palm-tree hotel with an oasis around it.
Savanna Central, which is Zootopia's central hub and home to the city's police department,
train station and city hall, was partly based on Disneyland's hub-and-spoke design.
Advances in technology allowed the filmmakers to create incredibly detailed environments
including over 500,000 trees in the city's Rain Forest District, each of which has around
30,000 leaves on it!
Now, who's your favourite character in Zootopia and why?
And what are your favourite Disney movies?
Tell me in the comments below!
So, guys, if you liked this video, do also check out my Zootopia movie review here and
I'll have an Easter Eggs video here shortly.
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Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!