One of the first panels we attended at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event 2024 in Anaheim was “So How Do You Direct Animation, Anyway?” Friday morning on the Walt Disney Archives Stage. Below you can find my recap of this insightful presentation.
First off I wanted to share images of the Anaheim Convention Center hallway leading up to the Archives Stage and how it was decorated with the image and quote from Walt Disney at this year’s event.
This panel was introduced by Kevin Kern, the manager of research for the Walt Disney Archives, and moderated by Disney historian Don Peri.
The panelists were as follows: Pete Docter (Chief Creative Officer of Pixar Animation Studios and director of Up!, Inside Out, and Soul), Domee Shi (Turning Red, Bao, Elio), Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur, Elemental, Partly Cloudy), Jennifer Lee (Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios and director of Frozen, Frozen Fever, and Frozen II), Jared Bush (Zootopia, Encanto, Zootopia 2), and Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Moana). The discussion began with Jennifer Lee and Pete Docter talking about what directing actually means in the medium of animation. Peter Sohn said his brother thought computer animation meant “just pushing a button” and it was tough to explain to him otherwise.
“When you start a movie, everybody has a different idea in their head about what the final product will be,” said Ron Clements, “but by the end hopefully everyone is seeing the same vision.” Domee Shi talks about having to be a “hype man” for the movie, especially as it goes through a lot of changes. Docter said he got to visit Spirited Away director Hayao Miyazaki recently during the Inside Out 2 press tour, and the renowned Japanese filmmaker told him “he never thinks about the audience,” but Pete noted that is definitely not true for Pixar.
“The art of animation is tapping into yourself in a way that the audience connects to as well,” remarked Peter Sohn. Domee Shi and Sohn then talked about following their visions while also receiving notes from studio executives like Docter. “It sounds like you guys at Pixar have a lot of trouble with your CCO,” joked Jared Bush about the differences between Docter and Jennifer Lee, “We don’t have any issue with ours.”
Docter talked about directing voice talent: “The most dangerous thing is to walk in with a line reading in your head.” Lee said they found the character of Olaf via a three-hour improv session with comedic actor Josh Gad. Clements compared the beginning of voice acting sessions to the early episodes of Seinfeld before the actors “found the characters.” Sohn talked about learning how to better direct voice actors by doing voice acting of his own, such as for the character of Emile in Ratatouille, and Shi discussed the process of guiding actress Sandra Oh to help round out her character of Ming in Turning Red. Bush also talked about casting his son as a polar bear in Zootopia, but then having to “fire” him from the movie as the story evolved.
The panelists also discussed the differences between the feature animation process in Walt Disney’s day vs. more recent times, and Don Peri and Pete Docter plugged their new book Directing at Disney, which made its debut at this year’s D23. Other topics included how Disney Animation and Pixar talk to each other and help each other, animators as introverts vs. extroverts, and “What question would you ask Walt Disney if you had the chance?” Clements responded to that question by remarking, “Are you aware of the dangers of smoking?” But Jennifer Lee would ask Walt, “How do you think we gals are doing?”, which got a big round of applause from the audience and a “Great!” from Peter Sogn. Shi would ask Disney his thoughts on A.I., since he was such a proponent of technological innovation. Lastly, Clements also mentioned that he is writing a new book that’s a memoir and also a chronicling of the story of Disney Animation in the period after Walt Disney’s passing.
For much more coverage from D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event 2024, be sure to check right back here at Laughing Place.
