Toon Talk: Atlantis: The Lost Empire Collector's Edition DVD
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ANIMATION PRODUCTION:

The Voices of Atlantis:
In addition to the usual interviews with the voice cast, the supervising animators of each character are on hand to give their insights into how the actors' performances help them in the process of animation.

(c) Disney

Creating the Characters:
From character designers to the animators to the clean-up artists, how the characters are created via "acting through drawing".

Each of the supervising animators comment on their individual characters:

• John Pomeroy was inspired by the heroes of Frank Capra films in designing Milo.
• Mike Surrey had to resist the urge of "grand villainy" while animating Rourke ... that is, until the final battle, when he could finally cut loose.
• Kida's Randy Haycock didn't want her to look like "the girl next door".
• Dr. Sweet, the first African American character, was supervised by Ron Husband, one of the first African American animators.
• Russ Edmond's originally envisioned Vinny as an opera-lover who carried around a gramophone to play while he exploded things.
• From the Disney Feature Animation Paris studio, Yoshimisch Tamura created Helga as an homage to the 1940s femme fatales.
• Audrey was conceived by her supervising animator Anne Marie Bardwell to be a female character closer in age to Milo.
• Dave Pruiksma notes that the character of the chain-smoking Mrs. Packard was producer Don Hahn's idea.
• Moliere was originally a stuffy geologist, but his animator Anthony DeRosa transformed him into the buck-toothed dirt eater who bares a slight resemblance to Charles DeGaulle.
• Shawn Keller did double duty, supervising both Cookie (inspired by Walter Brennan-type Western sidekicks) and Wentworth.
• Michael Cedeno was accused of using rotoscoping in his animation of King Nedakh, who's tattoos were a particular challenge to the clean-up crew.

(c) Disney

Setting the Scene:
How the layout artists, background painters, scene planners and effects artists create the world that the characters live in. The use of CinemaScope added particular challenges to this production, meriting larger backgrounds and more animation to fill the frames. Background supervisor Lisa Keene took it upon herself to establish a complete eco-system for Atlantis, explaining how such a civilization could survive underground.

Color Script Gallery:
Shows the color schemes used throughout the film to help tell the story.

Layouts and Backgrounds Gallery:
Showcases initial pencil and ink drawings and the final background paintings.