RW
Is it the reinvention of something?

AD
Yeah, I think it’s a bit of its own thing. Compared to HERCULES which really mapped out some of the major milestones in the movie and told you what was going to happen and were plot-moving songs, our songs are a lot more …creating a time or a mood or a place and are not so much plot driven. Look at the opening of HUNCHBACK which is the back story of the movie. That’s never been his (Menken’s) role in this film, and so for him he’s had to really dig down and go “Whoa! How do I work with this creative team and tell a western story rather than a western musical?�? It is quite different for him. And even if you look into the score, his way of working in the past has been to pull from the song material for score themes. There’s a bit of that in this movie, but primarily score themes are all independent melodies where he came up with a new theme for the main characters, one by one, and that’s incorporated into our score. I don’t think he’s worked that way very often, if ever, certainly not in my experience. So this has been a very different process for me.

RW
More difficult?

AD
No, no I don’t think it’s more difficult. In a way I think that if we stuck with the traditional musical format the audience does get a bit ahead of us now. So this I think kind of re-energized us. I do think music in a Disney movie is a great thing. I happen to be a big advocate of it. I think it helps families take the movie home. I think they take it into their school concerts and their everyday lives and I think they really do help keep the movies alive. At least that’s the experience I’ve had as a school teacher in a former life and as a mom. Our soundtrack will be out before the movie, the way it used to be in the old days – you knew all the songs to My Fair Lady before you went. They’re already on the Disney channel on the music video from the Beu Sisters who I think are adorable.

RW
And they’re already on the studio’s hold button.

AD
(Laughing) They are already on the hold button, that’s true. And so the music is out there so that by the time the kids see the show these melodies are already familiar, and I think that’s a big aide to any experience in a movie. They are parts where they’ll say “Oh, I know this part!�? and they secretly smile. I think that’s great!

RW

Robert Brustein, when he was at Yale Rep, use to stand outside the theatre just before curtain and look at who was walking around the neighborhood, and then he’d go into the theatre just before the house lights went down to see what the people in the audience looked like. And he said that if the ticket buying audience was the same profile as the that of the people walking by in the neighborhood, then he knew that they were on the right track; that they were indeed a repertory for the community – their community. If not, then he thought he was missing the mark and not serving his audience. Do you ever think about that role that Disney films play, and whether or not they are relevant to contemporary families, and whether or not the families that you intend to reach are in fact the same families and faces that are filling the seats?

AD
Bob Brustein’s role as a managing director is a little different than my role as a producer. And as a producer I don’t really think about that stuff. I think about what’s funny. I want to make something funny. I want to make something that’s got great melodies. I want to make people have an experience that they want to come back and do again. But I have to say “what’s funny to us in the room.�? Because if you start second guessing whether or not if this will get an audience in of a certain complexity, you’re dead, I think. You have to make movies that you care about, that you think work. And for Will and John and I we’ve always wanted to make a cartoon. We always wanted talking animals. We really have enjoyed keeping the humor contemporary even though this is 1885. One of the movies we looked at was It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. We wanted to have everybody after the same goal kind of competing in various plot lines, and just have a zany comedy. I think that’s what we achieved. I don’t think about that other stuff. I only think about it in this way – I do think about it from a sense of responsibility. Because these films are seen so far and wide and kids do watch them over and over. I think all of us take that pretty seriously about are we putting in messages that we don’t intend to, and being very careful about that. I had a remarkable experience when we were scouting for HERCULES. We were in Turkey, and some of the best Greek ruins as you know are on the western coast of Turkey. So we were at this place. And I tell you there was nobody there. Nobody. There’s us and some goats. There’s no ticket taker. There’s no fence. Just a ruin of this old, old city and it was just this amazing experience because you could really visualize it. There were no homes around there, you’re just in the middle of this terraced landscape. So everybody is drawing, and photographing, and the light was just right. Up comes this school bus and two by two kids get out in their little blue uniforms with white collars. One of the guys happened to be wearing a Lion King t-shirt. It’s in English, but it has the familiar logo and font, and from – I mean hundreds of feet away - I hear this little kid “Aslan Kral!�? (which is Lion King in Turkish) and boom! they all come flocking around. It was like we’re suddenly rock stars, and they’re asking for drawings of Timon and Pumba and this would have been just after LION KING came out there. I just thought, “My God, we’re everywhere…�? And by being in 35 languages, kids see this as from their country, and their culture. Now this one may be a little bit harder sell, because it’s a western, but certainly movies like HERCULES or LION KING really lent themselves to a kind of international appeal, and we so we take great care with those 35 dubs. You want kids to experience it in their home language.

RW
What’s been your favorite part of this one – HOME ON THE RANGE - for you?

AD
Uhm…my favorite part. Again, you know the music is such a big part for me, working again with Alan Menken. And Glenn Slater is a new lyricist for us and that’s been a great, great collaboration. That’s an unusual thing to find that – a new team that works so well first time out. And I think that the lyrics to this movie are funny, and clever and witty without drawing any attention to themselves. They come out of him so effortlessly. And he and Alan work back and forth very well together. So that’s been a real pleasure. Plus, gosh! I got to work with k.d. lang and Bonnie Raitt and Tim McGraw and …you know, it’s been outstanding.