mickeyandcompany:30 curiosities about Beauty and the BeastDisney’s animation department won a Scient
mickeyandcompany:30 curiosities about Beauty and the BeastDisney’s animation department won a Scientific and Technical Academy Award for the design and development of the Computer Animated Production System that they used to make the film.For the first time, each animator was credited on screen specifically for the character they brought to life.1,295 painted backgrounds and 120,000 drawings were used in the movie.The Beast was created by supervising animator, Glen Keane. He made his own hybrid beast by combining the mane of a lion, the beard and head structure of a buffalo, the tusks and nose bridge of a wild boar, the heavily muscled brow of a gorilla, the legs and tail of a wolf, and the big and bulky body of a bear.Computer-generated imagery was used in several parts of the film, most notably in the three-dimensional ballroom background, allowing dramatic camera movements on the animated characters as they danced.It was the first of Disney’s animated feature films to be scripted by a woman, Linda Woolverton.Art directors travelled to the Loire Valley in France to get inspiration for the film. They also studied the French painters Fragonard and Boucher, which inspired the style of illustration.Twenty-five minutes of the film is taken up with songs, and only five minutes were completely without any musical score.In the scene were the Beast is transformed into the Prince, the smoke seen is real, not animated, and was originally used in The Black Cauldron.Beauty and the Beast was the first full length animated feature film to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, although it lost out to Silence of the Lambs.It was the first of Disney’s animated fetaures to have a pop version of the main song play during the end credits.The scene at the end of the film, with Belle and the Prince dancing is reused animation from Sleeping Beauty, of Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip dancing.Belle is the only person in the town who wears blue, this was to symbolize how she was different from everyone else. She later goes on to meet the Beast, who also wears blue.The 3 Bimbettes are actually played by just 2 actresses.The deer and birds shown in one of the opening scenes is an ode to one of Disney’s previous animated films, Bambi.This is one of the only Disney films to portray the hero (Beast) as “ugly” and the villain (Gaston) as “handsome”.Animators of this film were encouraged to illustrate Gaston punching/hitting LeFou any time they could manage fit it in.It was Howard Ashman (executive producer and lyricist) who wanted Maurice (Belle’s father) to be a crazy inventor.The song “Be Our Guest" was originally sung to Maurice when he first entered the castle, however this was changed due to the fact that Maurice was a secondary character and the song should focus on the main character, Belle.An original draft for Gaston’s demise was suppose to be that the wolves would kill him after surviving his fall from the Beast’s castle with a broken leg. This plot was later use in The Lion King.‘Mrs Camomile’ was just one of the possible names suggestion for Mrs Potts. However Howard Ashaman decided simpler names would work better.Windows play a very important role in this film. Next time you watch it, see how many times a scene changed via exiting or entering a window. Not to mention the stain glass windows illustrating the story at the beginning of this film. Also noteworthy here is the fact that the Beast’s eyes are the window into his soul. They are the only part of his physical appearance that stays the same following his transformation at the end of the film.The animator in charge of Belle studied various ballerina’s to animate Belle’s movement.The Producers loved Tony Jay’s voice so much that they decided to use his audition piece in the final film. They would then later cast him as Claude Frollo, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.Paige O’Hara sobbed real tears while recording Belle’s mourning of the Beast. Her performance was so intense that the director asked her if she was OK, upon which O’Hara immediately dropped out of character and said “Acting!”.A song sung by the enchanted objects entitled “Human Again” was cut before production started. The song was later added to the Disney on Ice and theatrical productions and was recorded and animated for the 2002 IMAX re-release. It was also added to the Platinum Edition released on October 8th 2002, making the movie a bit longer.Chip originally had only one line, but the producers liked Bradley Pierce’s voice so much that extra dialogue and business was written and storyboarded for the character.When Gaston is falling at the very end, there is close-up of his eyes. For a few frames a tiny skull flashes in each of his eyes. In the theatrical release, as Gaston plunged to his implied death and his face filled the screen, two frames showed skulls in his eyes. For the VHS and laserdisc release, these frames were altered to remove the skulls from his eyes. However, no such alteration was made for the DVD release. The Disney Company claims that the skulls determined Gaston’s fate as fans were unsure whether he died or not at the end.The prologue states that the rose will bloom until the prince is 21. Later, in “Be Our Guest”, Lumiere sings “Ten years we’ve been rusting…” so, if the castle has been enchanted for ten years, and the prince is now 21, then the prince was 11 years old at the time he encountered the enchantress.Originally the Beast was supposed to be stabbed by Gaston twice: once in the leg and again in the side, followed by Gaston pushing himself off the tower and laughing maniacally while falling. The filmmakers changed it to just his side to avoid the already dramatic scene becoming too disturbing for children, but Gaston’s edited suicide is a probable explanation for his choosing such a dangerous position to kill the Beast despite knowing that he would never win Belle’s heart. -- source link
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