WonderCon 2009: Disney Visual Effects Panel On Princess And The Frog
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By George 'El Guapo' Roush on
February 27, 2009
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Day 1 of WonderCon and I'm at the Disney visual effects panel for Princess & The Frog. This presentation is to show the breakdown of visual effects for hand drawn animation. Visual effects animator Marlon West is talking about how he got into animation. How he wanted to get into animation since he was a kid.
"Effects are anything that moves on screen, except for the characters themselves. It's basically adding production value." They're showing clips from Fantasia 2000, Alice in Wonderland, Dinosaur, Chicken Little and Lion King showing examples of how visual effects are used in the cartoons.
They use Maya, Houdini and other programs to get the shots they need for each scene. Sometimes only one animator will take on a scene, other times a bunch of animators will tackle a scene at the same time.
 Another wonderfully clear iPhone picture.
They're now showing some early sketch work from Princess and the Frog. They show a black and white story sketch of the villain, a voodoo looking gentlemen named Dr. Facilier wearing a top hat that has a skull on the front of it. They're showing a sketch of the Dr. doing a bunch of card tricks.
We next see the prince sitting in a chair, and the arms of his chair turn into snakes and wrap around him. The prince is kind of cloaked in smoke, so we don't really get to see what is happening to the prince. From what they showed in his black and white appearance, it seems as if he's a white guy to the princess being African-American, so the cartoon looks to be a progressive one which is cool. Guess this sista likes the white boys! Of course, that's assuming these two actually have a relationship in the film that's a romantic one.
The next story sketch is of the Dr. growing in size. There's no sound in any of these clips, but he's moving his arms around while smoke effects happen around him.
They didn't show very much, but what they did show looked pretty cool!
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Tags: WonderCon 2009, News |
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please!!
Commented By: d on 2009-02-27 19:13:08
i wonder why they made the prince white. this is going to suck.
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Huh?
Commented By: Honor Hunter on 2009-02-28 11:17:51
Why is it gonna suck cause he's white? I think it's cool that the color of his skin doesn't matter. That shouln't make it suck... a bad story will make it suck.
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Prince
Commented By: Tom I. on 2009-02-28 13:59:50
I don't believe that Prince Naveen is white. He's from a fictional country of Maldonia and he's voiced by a latino actor, Bruno Campos. His doll certainly isn't lilly white. But this does go to show how fraught with controversy this film could be. Many people commented on how racist the firefly was, though I believe he was supposed to be white (or as white as a firefly can be).
And Honor Hunter, your blog is the best.
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