It is an exciting vista that greets me as I crest the hill looking down into the San Fernando Valley on Oscar weekend. Nearly two weeks of steady rain have cleared away to bring everything into brightly lit sharp focus. There is a feeling of something fresh and new and exciting after all the dark clouds and gray skies. You can almost feel the energy rising off the roofs of the Hollywood dream factories that make their home between these hills. On this same late February morning I’m meeting up with JOHN SANFORD and WILL FINN, who together on April 2 will see the wide release of the film they co-wrote and directed - HOME ON THE RANGE. This staggeringly talented duo are a perfect reflection of the rolling Burbank hills and the essentially crazy industry buzzing at its core this morning - fresh, alert and humming with bright ideas. Their working dynamic is palpable, and the balance they bring to each other seems just right. Little wonder that from this well of imagination was drawn a film both bucolic and frenetic that just may be the shot in the arm Disney animation needs to clear the clouds and bring the sun back to the studio that carried animation to its glory at one time.

The $110 million project tells the story of three dairy cows who turn bounty hunters in order to save the farm. It looks to be, for now at least, the last predominantly traditionally animated feature in the long lineup of 2-D Disney fare that started nearly 70 years ago with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Over six years - almost ten percent of that Disney feature animated film making timeline - has been spent on this film. 

Will Finn ambles in looking relaxed and comfortable. Peeking out from underneath a impossibly think mop of bright auburn hair, he barely looks older than when he first started at Disney back when the late Eric Larson was recruiting and training the next generation. With his glasses tucked between the buttons on his long sleeve Polo shirt, Finn fits neatly into central casting’s version of a Hollywood screenwriter who has just emerged from his bungalow for a bit of lunch. His face is relaxed and bright, his lips settled into a warm and gentle smile. John Sanford is standing beside him with bright eyes sparking under a constantly shifting brow that is crowned by a clean shaven head, calling to mind an electric plasma ball - you know, those glass spheres filled with plasma and charged with electricity that make lightening patterns when you touch the surface? I suspect he was the kid that convinced everyone else to get in to trouble while managing to charm himself out of the consequences.

Once seated, Sanford takes note of the muzak playing over the house stereo system in the restaurant.

JOHN SANFORD
Is this Kenny G?

WILL FINN
I don’t think so.

RHETT WICKHAM (sheepishly)
I kind of like Kenny G.

SANFORD
(looking at me with wide eyes and a furrowed brow)

Kenny G is Satan. How dare he sell more than Charlie Parker, John Coultrane and Sonny Rollins combined!

RW
Well, there’s no accounting. I grew up near Orlando, so…hey. You lived in Florida for a while, you know first hand…so that should explain part of it at least.

SANFORD
I only lived there for ten months. I worked on MULAN for two and half years, but only spent ten months of that in Florida. I liked it down there, actually. The boiled peanut stands and the machine gun range near my apartment - a much better apartment than where I was living in Newhall California. I was like "This is great!" I took pictures of it.