During my recent trip to Los Angeles I was treated to a visit to Disney’Toon Studios where the movie Planes was created!
We had the chance to chat with Thomas Leavitt and Jason McKinley about giving Disney’s Planes it’s wings. How do you draw for this type of animated movie, what kind of effects do you need, can the animated movements of a plane match the movements of a real plane? We had no idea you needed a flight supervisor for an animated movie!
The above are the questions that these guys have to answer to bring an animated movie to life with authenticity. They did not want to make a movie with “joke” plane movements, they wanted you to feel that the planes would move the way we see them when we look up in the sky and see them overhead. At one point or another we have all seen planes take off, land, and fly above us, this information is locked in our brains. It was important that in the movie the movements be similar enough so that our brains would not tell us something was amiss, a movement was very close to what we had already seen planes do, that this was the real way a plane moved.
“The mandate from Klay Hall, the Director, and John Lasseter, the Executive Producer is that when the planes are on the ground they had to be characters. But when they had to be as realistic planes and limited to realistic physics as possible. So we developed a specific flight team that did nothing but fly.” It’s Disney, so you can imagine that hundreds of pilots were interviewed for this!
So how does this all work? “The first process is we get the script, and talk to the Storyboard Artist. They will draw the series of panels to get the beads of the film. Editorial will then take those panels and do what’s called an Animatic. An Animatic tries to time out as best they can how long they think the sequence will take.” We then saw a piece of how this worked. “So you can see how that basically gives you can idea of how the sequence is gonna’ progress.” It is always fascinating to me the incredible effort all these folks put into all Disney projects, especially animation!
Each chapter of the movie takes 1 year to go from story board to final iteration! Thank goodness many chapters are being worked on at one time!
November is National Aviation History Month! During the month of November select aviation museums will feature “PLANES”-inspired learning materials designed to introduce children to the exhilarating world of flight and its most celebrated figures. For more information on participating museums, please visit the Planes Facebook page! Click on the museum in your city for more information, these events are going on all month long.
“Like” Disney’s PLANES on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DisneyPlanes
“Follow” Disney’s PLANES on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DisneyPictures and #DisneyPlanes
Visit the website: www.disney.com/Planes
Disclosure: Disney invited me on a press trip and paid all of my expenses. No other compensation was received. All opinions are always 100% my own and honest. Some pictures courtesy of the on-site Disney photographer.
Great post! I really enjoyed meeting you on this trip Mitch.
What a fun event! You are so lucky to get to see the behind the scenes look at such fun movies! We are so excited to see Planes!!
Awesome! This looks like such a fun trip. My oldest daughter loves animation and drawing. She would have loved to have been in your shoes!
How cool! My nephew is in love with this movie, so I am wanting to see it. Looks like you had such a fun trip!!!
I enjoy seeing behind the scenes stories. My boys love Planes.
I LOVE this movie. Makes me want to book airline tickets to fly all around the world
what a fun time! We loved this movie, it is great to see some beheld the scenes action.
What a fun trip! My boys are chomping at the bit to add Planes to our DVD rotation – I have Cars and Cars 2 memorized so it’s time to learn the nuances of Planes the same way!
great post for such a great experience! It is better to look at the behind the scenes and we will be more amazed at the outcome!
One thing I love about Disney is the amount of research they do to make their animation have a realistic feel. Also, I had no idea it was National Aviation History Month, guess this explains why I was able to purchase the Inverted Jenny commemorative stamp for my husband this month, Ha! Thanks for another great post, I love reading your blog Mitch 🙂
I swear Disney doesn’t stop surprising me with all the awesomeness the put out onto the big screen – loved this movie and would love to watch it again on DVD
I’m still so excited we got to visit here. The part about 1 year per chapter amazes me – so much dedication for one movie!
What a fun event and demo! Very cool to get a peek into the behind the scenes working of this film.
What a fun trip! I hope you brought your son something fun back from Disney and LA! 🙂
I can’t wait to see Planes! It looks like you had fun!
This movie was great – my boys loved it!
That is so interesting! I hope I get to visit one day. Thanks for sharing!