Walking into any room at Disney Animation Studios is a humbling experience, to say the least, but walking into a room with the likes of Directors Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Producer Clark Spencer is a special experience indeed.
Director Byron Howard is also a film producer, screenwriter, animator, story artist and occasional voice actor at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He became a co-director on the film Bolt and Director on Tangled and Tangled Ever After.
Rich Moore is best known for directing numerous episodes of The Simpsons and the animated Disney film Wreck-It Ralph and for co-directing Zootopia.
Producer Clark Spencer‘s first film was Lilo & Stitch back in 1999, then Meet the Robinsons in 2002. He went on to produce the blockbuster hi Wreck-It Ralph for which he won the Producers Guild of America Award for best-animated film.
Zootopia is no exception, they spoke about how the movie came about. With many of the movies being made through Disney Animation, Pixar and the like, they often go on an adventure to help them really capture the essence of the film and the characters, in this case, they went to Kenya. John Lasseter believes that the best stories come from research so away they went to Africa, Nairobi to be exact. They put them all in little tiny bush planes and flew them all over the place. One guy said, ” “Look out the window.” And when they looked they saw a little spire of rock that turned out to be “Pride Rock, ” the one from The Lion King because the Lion King research team had actually gone on the same tour.
Zootpia has hit home with many critics and people everyone have received the message. They are very happy that the “message landed with so many people.” That watering hole idea that they saw in Kenya about how the animals peacefully coexist just like humans do in big cities even though we may not like someone, just grew organically. They insist that they didn’t start out making a “message movie,” but they wanted it to be about something that resonated with the audience.
We wondered what each of their favorite scenes are in the movie.
RICH MOORE: Let’s see. Well, God, that’s, which child do you like better? I would say I love the scene with Nick and Judy in the gondola, not just for the scene itself, but it takes me back and I remember they day we recorded it with Jason Bateman. We know Jason’s a comedian, you know, first and foremost, and he is very good with comedy. Then here was this scene where Nick is kind of dropping his guard and sharing this very painful moment from his past with Judy when he was a, a junior ranger scout. Just the full committal that Jason gave to the scene because it’s Nick’s most serious scene. I’ll never forget the act of creating the scene and then putting those pieces together and just how much Jenny gave, too, you know, as the supportive friend that’s not trying to push too much. It’s just one of those scenes that visually in the performance, it all just came together beautifully.
BYRON HOWARD: There’s so many comic things that I love in a movie that are beautifully executed, and I really admire are story artists and animators in the voice talent for knowing what will make us laugh. There’s the scene were Judy actually goes to Nick and apologizes under the bridge, I think, is so incredible for so many reasons. Number one is that Phil and Jared, who are the writers, did such a great job of crafting that scene.
Also working with Jen Lee, who was in the room with us, and that was something that we all kind of looked at together to make sure that we’re saying just the right thing, because talking about such a tricky subject, but then Jennifer came in and delivered this incredibly genuine performance where when you ask an actor or an actress to cry, you never what you’re gonna get, because some people are very skilled at that and very natural. Jennifer found something in herself like Rich was saying with Jason, where she was really in touch with the emotion that was going on. And she was kind of balling with that. When we got that take we loved it.
CLARK SPENCER: (Loved Flash DMV scene) I was on this tour over in Europe and we went to eight cities. It was amazing to watch and feel that sense of people just falling in love with the character Flash and totally relating to this scene in such an incredible way. To me, you know, Rich always says it, there, there’s this weird science in that scene, and what was fun to watch is it’s sort of the beginning of when, when Judy says “they’re all sloths”, and then you see the slow action and the audience is laughing. And then the second moment is starts to, Flash starts to talk and you realize they’re gonna be talking over each other.
The third moment is the joke comes in and there’s the big laugh, and you can start to feel the audience wondering like how far will we go? So they’re laughing at the laugh, and then you think, okay, that’s got to be the end of the scene, and then you don’t realize that Priscilla is next door, then there’s a slow rip of the paper, and then it’s the cut outside where she realizes it’s night, and you just watch that in all those countries and all those languages, just laughing beat for beat. It was an amazing experience to get to actually have way before the movie comes out.
We posed the question, what are you working on right now? What’s next? to all of the gentlemen.
BYRON HOWARD: I took a break. I took the most time off I’ve taken in 25 years just to rest. Rich did not get to rest at all.
RICH MOORE: Yeah, I’m working on something new that I can’t talk about right now, but maybe in two weeks or so. We’re gonna have Moana coming out in the Fall, Thanksgiving time. That’s a beautiful, a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful movie. The Rock is incredible. It’s very funny, great songs by Lynn Manuel.
Contrary to what many people may believe, the movies and who works on them are not assigned to certain people. John Lasseter believes in that if you’re gonna spend four or five years making a story of creating characters, it’s gotta come from you, or you will eventually become either bored or disinterested in it. You have to go into it with interest and eventually put your whole heart into the project.
BYRON HOWARD: Now we’re gonna draw.
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