Walt Disney Animation Studios directors Dan Abraham and Trent Correy enjoyed a bit of a victory lap today at Annecy Festival in a panel titled “From Artist to Director at Walt Disney Animation Studios.” With everyone buzzing about their short film Once Upon a Studio, produced to commemorate the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company, they packed in a crowd of animation industry hopefuls curious to learn more about their paths to becoming a director. As is a recurring theme at panels of this kind, no two journeys are the same. And while they weren’t able to talk about Once Upon a Studio, other than to mention that it will play again at Annecy during a presentation for the studio’s next animated feature, Wish, it was nonetheless an engaging look at the unpredictable nature of animation.
Dan Abraham’s journey to directing came from being a story artist, while Trent Corey was an animator. Both participated in paid internship programs at Walt Disney Animation Studios, but it also took years of learning and growing in their fields to arrive at this moment. Dan spent time at Disney Toon Studios as a story artist on the first five Disney Fairies films and Planes. That’s where he got his first directing experience on the 2014 short Planes: Vitaminamulch Air Spectacular. Trent’s Disney career began with crowd animation in Frozen, and the first character he got to animate was Olaf. That’s why it was so fitting that he not only became the supervising animator of Olaf in Frozen 2, but also got to co-direct a short starring the loveable snowman.
Once Upon a Snowman began as notebook sketches Trent made while working on Frozen. He was convinced that audiences would be upset when Elsa created life in the middle of “Let It Go,” but after the film’s release and a few internet searches, he realized nobody cared but him. At any rate, he continued to sketch amusing concepts about Olaf’s life in the short time between being created by Elsa and stumbling into Anna. And so, when Frozen writer Jennifer Lee became the studio’s CCO and was tasked with creating some content for Disney+, Trent realized he was sitting on an idea that would be perfect for Disney’s streaming platform.
During the panel, Dan and Trent reminisced about how their collaboration took Trent’s initial concept to a new level. For example, Trent’s original idea had Olaf stumbling into Wandering Okaen’s shop, going unnoticed by the proprietor due to his height. After trying on many noses, Olaf settled on a lutefisk, which caused him to get chased by wolves. Dan saw a missed opportunity in not having Oaken interact with Olaf, devising a moment where he introduces the new snowman to the summer. And since fish are more known for being the prey of cats, Dan suggested changing the nose Olaf stumbles away with to a summer sausage, which is a carrot-orange color and would also be more plausible to attract a pack of wolves.
Swag given to attendees of this panel at Annecy.
The Once Upon a Snowman and Once Upon a Studio directors also took time to showcase some of their unseen work. Because Trent has a hand-drawn background, he shared that he often saves time when assigned a scene by spending a few hours on thumbnail passes, which would take a week in Maya (a popular animation software). He played a progression reel of a scene he animated from Raya and the Last Dragon where Baby Noi and the Ongis distract the guards by fighting over a banana. From his 2D thumbnails, Trent then blocked the scene out in CG with literal blocks to get director approval before switching to the character rigs.
Dan directed the Baymax! short “Mbita” (currently highlighted as part of Disney+’s Pride Collection) and presented a side-by-side storyboard comparison with the final short of the meet-cute between Mbita and Yukio. And it was Frozen 2 that first introduced Dan and Trent to each other, as Trent also served as supervising animator of Gale, an invisible character. They shared a storyboarded sequence from an earlier draft of the film in which Gale paid Elsa and Anna a surprise visit in Arendelle. Story changes necessitated the scene’s omission, but the labor of love from each artist was evident in every moment.
Annecy Festival offers opportunities for students to not only hear from industry professionals, but also ask questions. Such was the case in this panel’s Q&A, which featured a magical moment. One of the attendees was recently hired by Walt Disney Animation Studios and is heading to the new studio in Vancouver, which was set up to help with all of the Disney+ content in production at Disney Animation. The currently announced project being animated there is the Moana series, but the young woman asked Trent and Dan if they collaborate with the Vancouver studio. “We’ll see you on Zoom,” they said. But for Disney fans, you can see Dan and Trent’s work streaming on Disney+ and don’t miss Once Upon a Studio this November, playing exclusively in theaters with Wish.
Click here for more coverage from Annecy Festival.