Re: Jab's Builds! (Ariel! Ursula! Triton! Beauty and the Beast! Belle!)
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2018 8:35 pm
Interesting things in the commentary:
* The movie basically had the "Dream Team" of Disney people working on it from both ends- both the writers and animators would all go on to helm their own products. Most movies end up being made around the same time, and so the teams would get split- this one benefitted from having EVERYBODY.
* The film was completed in a mere two years, almost twice as fast as the usual Disney film.
* Most of the actors were brought from Broadway.
* Most of Beast's incarnations were of a man with an animal's head. Men with Baboon heads were common. The final designer then just started messing around (giving Insectoid & Fish Beasts a lot) until hitting on what is pretty close to what we ended up getting.
* Be Our Guest was originally sung to Maurice- they moved it because they needed to get the Beauty & Beast meeting sooner.
* Animators were told to "hit LeFou" as many times as possible.
* James Baxter studied ballet dancers to portray Belle's movements- they wanted her to look graceful with toes always pointed a certain way. You can actually see the Face Characters in the parks do this- if you watch carefully, you'll see Belles ALWAYS pose with their feet pointing off to the side, especially in the peasant dress.
* The Bearskin Rug in the tavern shifts from being away from Gaston's chair to directly under it at one point, as they gleefully point out. Then it DISAPPEARS.
* The argument about Belle not coming to dinner was storyboarded with The Honeymooners in mind. Beast's "Jackie Gleason Moment" is when he points with that hilarious "You SEE?" look.
* Various difficulties- what does a MAGIC MIRROR sound like, exactly? And animating fire is a bitch (I've heard this on every cartoon commentary ever), but a character who's a WALKING CANDLE? Yikes.
* Perverted minds think alike: "This is also the first time we see her with her hair down..." "... yes." "She's not bad looking..." "... that Belle." and then they all crack up. Hee.
* Tony Jay's audition as the asylum director Monsieur Dark was so good, they just used it for the movie and cut him a check.
* "Promises you don't intend to KEEP" was an ad-lib by David Ogden Stiers that caused the whole crew to hit the floor laughing.
* Nice bits about Howard Ashman listening in on the studio recordings during his final days, via phone. AIDS had robbed him of most of his voice, but he could still say "do it like STREISAND" to Paige O'Hara on the "a bit ALARMING" part of Something There.
* Angela Lansbury originally didn't want to sing Beauty and the Beast because she got the wrong "example" demo (the poppy version Celine Dion got). Once she found out it was a more "spoken" version, she agreed to do it. She nailed it in one take.
* There was gonna be a chime-talking Music Box character who was supposed to be the "Cute Kid Character", but they dumped it when the kid voicing Chip proved to be so good and got his part expanded. The animators conveniently skipped the part where Chip would have to be shovelling coal and igniting the fire in the Wood-Chopping Machine (which was actually created BEFORE they realized they needed a way to get Belle & Maurice out of the basement).
* Glen Keane shows up a lot in the Disney filmography, I've noticed. The man is an EXCELLENT animator- check out this biography of characters he's worked on: Bernard & Penny (Rescuers), Professor Ratigan, Ariel, Marahute the Eagle, The Beast, Aladdin & Rapunzel. This is in addition to being the animator of the Ballroom Dance Sequence in Beauty and the Beast.
-The Servants were excellent characters as well, especially considering how bad and annoying they COULD have been. I mean, this type of Comic Relief can be totally awful and distracting (just check out when Disney screws it up), but it turns out that all you have to do is get brilliant voice actors with actual motivation and real characterization. None are particularly tough, but they're rather expensive because of the nature of Animated Constructs.
* The movie basically had the "Dream Team" of Disney people working on it from both ends- both the writers and animators would all go on to helm their own products. Most movies end up being made around the same time, and so the teams would get split- this one benefitted from having EVERYBODY.
* The film was completed in a mere two years, almost twice as fast as the usual Disney film.
* Most of the actors were brought from Broadway.
* Most of Beast's incarnations were of a man with an animal's head. Men with Baboon heads were common. The final designer then just started messing around (giving Insectoid & Fish Beasts a lot) until hitting on what is pretty close to what we ended up getting.
* Be Our Guest was originally sung to Maurice- they moved it because they needed to get the Beauty & Beast meeting sooner.
* Animators were told to "hit LeFou" as many times as possible.
* James Baxter studied ballet dancers to portray Belle's movements- they wanted her to look graceful with toes always pointed a certain way. You can actually see the Face Characters in the parks do this- if you watch carefully, you'll see Belles ALWAYS pose with their feet pointing off to the side, especially in the peasant dress.
* The Bearskin Rug in the tavern shifts from being away from Gaston's chair to directly under it at one point, as they gleefully point out. Then it DISAPPEARS.
* The argument about Belle not coming to dinner was storyboarded with The Honeymooners in mind. Beast's "Jackie Gleason Moment" is when he points with that hilarious "You SEE?" look.
* Various difficulties- what does a MAGIC MIRROR sound like, exactly? And animating fire is a bitch (I've heard this on every cartoon commentary ever), but a character who's a WALKING CANDLE? Yikes.
* Perverted minds think alike: "This is also the first time we see her with her hair down..." "... yes." "She's not bad looking..." "... that Belle." and then they all crack up. Hee.
* Tony Jay's audition as the asylum director Monsieur Dark was so good, they just used it for the movie and cut him a check.
* "Promises you don't intend to KEEP" was an ad-lib by David Ogden Stiers that caused the whole crew to hit the floor laughing.
* Nice bits about Howard Ashman listening in on the studio recordings during his final days, via phone. AIDS had robbed him of most of his voice, but he could still say "do it like STREISAND" to Paige O'Hara on the "a bit ALARMING" part of Something There.
* Angela Lansbury originally didn't want to sing Beauty and the Beast because she got the wrong "example" demo (the poppy version Celine Dion got). Once she found out it was a more "spoken" version, she agreed to do it. She nailed it in one take.
* There was gonna be a chime-talking Music Box character who was supposed to be the "Cute Kid Character", but they dumped it when the kid voicing Chip proved to be so good and got his part expanded. The animators conveniently skipped the part where Chip would have to be shovelling coal and igniting the fire in the Wood-Chopping Machine (which was actually created BEFORE they realized they needed a way to get Belle & Maurice out of the basement).
* Glen Keane shows up a lot in the Disney filmography, I've noticed. The man is an EXCELLENT animator- check out this biography of characters he's worked on: Bernard & Penny (Rescuers), Professor Ratigan, Ariel, Marahute the Eagle, The Beast, Aladdin & Rapunzel. This is in addition to being the animator of the Ballroom Dance Sequence in Beauty and the Beast.
-The Servants were excellent characters as well, especially considering how bad and annoying they COULD have been. I mean, this type of Comic Relief can be totally awful and distracting (just check out when Disney screws it up), but it turns out that all you have to do is get brilliant voice actors with actual motivation and real characterization. None are particularly tough, but they're rather expensive because of the nature of Animated Constructs.