The book talked about basically how they came to create the world and characters of Tangled and how Disney does things; revealing the general animation process at Disney Animation studios.
Walking into this project, they knew they wanted to keep with the Classic Disney and appeal to a modern audience at the same time. Tangled was to belong on the shelf with the other Disney princesses. The idea was first thrown around in the 80s or 90s I believe and was almost put into production at one point as a satire on Fairy Tales but a key member refused to do that so it was shelved. It was going to be called Rapunzel, but they knew it needed a twist.
When I first saw the film I felt it was far too modern with the fast pace, language (not bad just well modern), physical humor, the bar characters, and the idea that Flynn is a thief. I saw Disney in the art, quality, and a few scenes but not nearly as much as I would have liked. After reading this book I see it much more and cannot wait to watch the film again. I wanted to see .....Physical comedy in in animation is actually used a lot in the earlier Disney cartoons and I think was a very interesting style to use in this film.
Mother Gothel is a very unique villain. She dynamically mothers
and raises Rapunzel as her daughter while remaining the selfish and solid
villain. She cannot fail on either of these duties. She is the only villain in
this story, so there is none other to carry the main cause of conflict. She
also is the mother that raised Rapunzel, so she had to be a "good"
mother to a degree, otherwise Rapunzel would not have turned out the way she
did. The animators had trouble finding this. Since Gothel was clearly the villain,
she was thought to remain so in all her appearances, someone that was
obviously "pure evil". This would have caused Rapunzel to either grow
up just like her, or be much more unhappy and incapable. Finally "Mother
Knows Best" gave direction. It tied together the two conflicting character
traits in Mother Gothel and created a perfect dialectic. She APPEARED to care
for Rapunzel and her safety, and perhaps she did, but her ultimate motive
was to keep her own youth. Her love was selfish. Now, the animators
had to reveal this in her appearance. All kinds of designs were done and
eventually came together to create what we see. The earlier concepts were
majorly toned down. The final product reflects Byron's work the most. One thing
Shyoon Kim did in sketching her ideas was try to make Gothel a little cuter,
not necessarily look like a bad person. The song gave her the
Broadway appearance and presentation, sort of like Norma Desmond from
"Sunset Boulevard". Lighting and color was used to highlight the
difference between Gothel and Rapunzel to where Rapunzel always brings life
wherever she is at and Gothel gives you a bad feeling.
Helping Gothel age in a realistic way while still maintaining
her character and without over-doing the evil was also a challenge. With
John Lassater being a stickler for research, photos of people aging from
childhood to elderly were studied. When they applied this to Mother Gothel she
came out too scary so they eliminated a lot of wrinkles and such. Animation
tends to highlight certain details no matter how hard you try to hide them or
tone them down. In the end they were satisfied with their character and she
worked perfectly in the story.
Rapunzel has often been a character who
longs to leave her tower "just because" or because she knows she is
everything of what happened and that she does not belong in the tower. In this
story it is well, quite a different story. Rapunzel does not know the truth.
She believes what she had been taught and she has enjoyed her time in the
tower. We are actually not experiencing this story with Rapunzel as
in the first person, but we are the 3rd person, watching all of this from
afar. This presents a problem if we want her to leave the tower and she is in
fact content there and afraid of the outside world. *insert
Rapunzel discussion from above*.
This was majorly revealed in her character since
we could not necessarily see it in the beginning of the story through her
actions. As a young girl in her homes she was young and innocent, and
didn't understand what was going on. And when she grew older she had a
perspective of her life of feeling safe and content in her tower but the
feeling something might be missing. Her attitude toward life had to be
shown not only in her speech but also in her animation, her design
and the movement of that. Her eyes are big, amazed with life as she
experiences it and full of hope for the future. Her eyebrows raise high
with her eyes as her face stretches in surprise. She has a sort of
attitude and moves in swooping motions in sync with her hair
when she is making a point. She is also a young, free, lover of life
and has a sort of rubbery twisty body that is very "natural" in its
movement, strongly led by her current emotion or determination. You always have
to do this to a degree in animation because they are animated characters and
cannot show all their emotion in just the face and it is very difficult to get
all the subtle movements and body communications "right" as humans
do. To make her quirkiness more attractive, she herself was made
"attractive". She has full lips, a simple sweet shape, and of
course 75 feet of golden hair. Although the focus is on Rapunzel, her hair
is a part of her story, like her supporting character. It is there to follow
her and aid her. Animating hair is always a challenge, especially in CG, but
the end result is incredible. It takes the teamwork of animators and
technicians to achieve what we see. Being that Rapunzel's hair is practically
its own character, even more detail went into its design. A markable
swoop curl at the center of her forehead begins the left side of her locks. Not
only is her hair long, but thick too. It shows volume and mass when lying on
the floor and glides like a serpent when following her. Adding to Rapunzel’s
character, her hair forms a path to her footsteps. It ends gracefully,
beginning to form its own individual paths. When gathered, her strands come
together in a twist and they fall and fold like silk fabric. They have a
natural liquid flow. Because her hair is comprised of thousands of individual
unique hairs, this variety is detected in the main flow and noticed in the
subtle breakout strands.
As Rapunzel’s supporting character,
Rapunzel also interacts with her hair. She grabs and tugs on it when she is
upset or lets it hide her when she is low. She holds it and plays with it when
she is thinking and expresses herself with it freely. She cares for it with
ribbons and is comforted by its safe haven.
Flynn, as most Disney characters are, is a unique leading male. He is not the rich prince or the poor towns-boy, he is a thief. And a thief of Rapunzel's own family, whom she is trying to find with his help. Quite an oxymoron. However, this is not an unfamiliar character type. The trick with these to change your perspective of them, or have them change, to something acceptable. I think this was an excellent character choice for Rapunzel's rescuer. She needed someone to show her the world, take risks, be free-and who better than a thief. The contrast between the two worlds had to be obvious. And both very different characters brought each other into a balance.
Many different drawings were done for Flynn. He was a lot bigger and softer at first, kind of like the bar thugs only in a much friendlier more acceptable way. John Lasseter wanted him to be very good-looking and of course-charming. Eventually the team decided to have a meeting. They brought in pictures of very attractive celebrities and had the girls explain what they liked about each one. Strong straight horizontal and vertical lines became the main components to the attractive masculinity of Flynn. Being 3D , these strong angles had to be softened to keep it real. It is difficult to work in computer 3D because you build a structure of a character and then you have to make them move in a realistic way that still reflects their character and keeps their character structure without looking overly controlled or mechanical.
Flynn is a very strong character for being a Disney leading man. He is very well rounded, basically a supporting actor. If you look back over the leading men of Disney feature films especially in the princess category, they are very simple-handsom and kind. There aren't many character qualities to them. With each film though, they seem to have slowly progressed from one dimensional to something more complex and intriguing, as have the leading ladies. The focus is less on the art of the animation and much more on character development. Disney still delivers pristine quality in their art but it is balanced out with character design, as in live action films. Much of this was likely inspired by the 3D technology that makes animation much more realistic, much closer to live action. Now their characters look more relatable, they should act more relatable too. The animation is 3 dimensional, and so are the characters.
In their earlier films, Disney would spend a LOT of time on the animation, because that is what they were making, animated films. The story had to be primarily told through the art, and they had to get it right; the movement and sound of the characters rather than the dialogue, the lighting and coloring of the scene rather than the events. It was all a very "simple" story in a rich land. The land was always so lovely and sweet that the antagonists had to be dramatically ugly and mean, and were often more complex than any of the characters. I personally love the old way Disney made their animated films and while I appreciate how they do things now, I wish they hadn't changed. We have enough live-action movies with good stories, characters, and production design. I miss the old simple animated arts. Thankfully, good still always triumphs over evil.
In the earlier Disney classics, the main characters were very one dimensional and the surrounding characters were two and three dimensional. Snow White is an easily frightened care-giver, the prince is a prince that wants Snow White, and each of the seven dwarfs have a quirk....
The Stabbington Brothers are also a couple interesting characters to mention. They were originally just Flynn's guys, and also part of the pub thugs. Then, an opportunity came to heighten the antagonist threat just when you thought you were rid of her. It reprised the theme of betrayal and sactioned Flynn's change to being a "good guy" on Rapunzel's side. Their shining moment comes at just the right point in the story. All seems well on the lake, Rapunzel found her lanterns and Flynn has seen the light, they have connected. Time for another challenge, to test their new strength.
Maximus is a fun character. He brings out the realness in Flynn and Rapunzel. He is strong willed, but goofy at the same time, like the rest of the characters. If you notice, his face is similar to Flynn's- with big round eyes and a strong jaw line, even his hair falls the same way. The expressions are similar too, especially in the eye brows. The white contrasts Flynn's dark hair as his attitude also contradicts Flynn's. And his blonde main complements Rapunzel as they get along with each other.
Just as Flynn had an animal friend, Rapunzel had one too. And so to continue the tradition of leading characters with animal friends, (although the amount seems to have shrunk) Pascal the Chameleon was created. Oddly enough they did not want to give Rapunzel a sidekick because it had been done before, but they knew she needed someone to talk so we could hear her thoughts. They thought about giving her a squirrel, but that was too conventional for the unique Rapunzel. Pascal is limited, but very determined; much like Rapunzel. Although Pascal is primarily green (because that looked best with Rapunzel's coloring), he changes colors a lot, as Rapunzel changes moods. He sort of makes her seem less strange. Each leading character's sidekicks complement them mostly and contrast them in one way. And all of them have huge round eyes.
Flynn, as most Disney characters are, is a unique leading male. He is not the rich prince or the poor towns-boy, he is a thief. And a thief of Rapunzel's own family, whom she is trying to find with his help. Quite an oxymoron. However, this is not an unfamiliar character type. The trick with these to change your perspective of them, or have them change, to something acceptable. I think this was an excellent character choice for Rapunzel's rescuer. She needed someone to show her the world, take risks, be free-and who better than a thief. The contrast between the two worlds had to be obvious. And both very different characters brought each other into a balance.
Many different drawings were done for Flynn. He was a lot bigger and softer at first, kind of like the bar thugs only in a much friendlier more acceptable way. John Lasseter wanted him to be very good-looking and of course-charming. Eventually the team decided to have a meeting. They brought in pictures of very attractive celebrities and had the girls explain what they liked about each one. Strong straight horizontal and vertical lines became the main components to the attractive masculinity of Flynn. Being 3D , these strong angles had to be softened to keep it real. It is difficult to work in computer 3D because you build a structure of a character and then you have to make them move in a realistic way that still reflects their character and keeps their character structure without looking overly controlled or mechanical.
Flynn is a very strong character for being a Disney leading man. He is very well rounded, basically a supporting actor. If you look back over the leading men of Disney feature films especially in the princess category, they are very simple-handsom and kind. There aren't many character qualities to them. With each film though, they seem to have slowly progressed from one dimensional to something more complex and intriguing, as have the leading ladies. The focus is less on the art of the animation and much more on character development. Disney still delivers pristine quality in their art but it is balanced out with character design, as in live action films. Much of this was likely inspired by the 3D technology that makes animation much more realistic, much closer to live action. Now their characters look more relatable, they should act more relatable too. The animation is 3 dimensional, and so are the characters.
In their earlier films, Disney would spend a LOT of time on the animation, because that is what they were making, animated films. The story had to be primarily told through the art, and they had to get it right; the movement and sound of the characters rather than the dialogue, the lighting and coloring of the scene rather than the events. It was all a very "simple" story in a rich land. The land was always so lovely and sweet that the antagonists had to be dramatically ugly and mean, and were often more complex than any of the characters. I personally love the old way Disney made their animated films and while I appreciate how they do things now, I wish they hadn't changed. We have enough live-action movies with good stories, characters, and production design. I miss the old simple animated arts. Thankfully, good still always triumphs over evil.
In the earlier Disney classics, the main characters were very one dimensional and the surrounding characters were two and three dimensional. Snow White is an easily frightened care-giver, the prince is a prince that wants Snow White, and each of the seven dwarfs have a quirk....
The Stabbington Brothers are also a couple interesting characters to mention. They were originally just Flynn's guys, and also part of the pub thugs. Then, an opportunity came to heighten the antagonist threat just when you thought you were rid of her. It reprised the theme of betrayal and sactioned Flynn's change to being a "good guy" on Rapunzel's side. Their shining moment comes at just the right point in the story. All seems well on the lake, Rapunzel found her lanterns and Flynn has seen the light, they have connected. Time for another challenge, to test their new strength.
Maximus is a fun character. He brings out the realness in Flynn and Rapunzel. He is strong willed, but goofy at the same time, like the rest of the characters. If you notice, his face is similar to Flynn's- with big round eyes and a strong jaw line, even his hair falls the same way. The expressions are similar too, especially in the eye brows. The white contrasts Flynn's dark hair as his attitude also contradicts Flynn's. And his blonde main complements Rapunzel as they get along with each other.
Just as Flynn had an animal friend, Rapunzel had one too. And so to continue the tradition of leading characters with animal friends, (although the amount seems to have shrunk) Pascal the Chameleon was created. Oddly enough they did not want to give Rapunzel a sidekick because it had been done before, but they knew she needed someone to talk so we could hear her thoughts. They thought about giving her a squirrel, but that was too conventional for the unique Rapunzel. Pascal is limited, but very determined; much like Rapunzel. Although Pascal is primarily green (because that looked best with Rapunzel's coloring), he changes colors a lot, as Rapunzel changes moods. He sort of makes her seem less strange. Each leading character's sidekicks complement them mostly and contrast them in one way. And all of them have huge round eyes.
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