Sleeping Beauty

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Disney Films Revealed

So here are some recent things I have found out about Disneys Sleeping Beauty that I thought were pretty interesting, hope you like them!

1.Versions of Sleeping Beauty have been published by both Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Perrault called his heroine Aurora, while the Grimms’ “Little Briar Rose” referred to their princess as, well, Briar Rose. Disney split the difference and used both names.

2.Prince Phillip is said to have been named after another royal that Americans would have been familiar with during that time period: Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

3. Instead of three fairies, the original version included seven (Other versions include up to 13, making the evil fairy the unlucky addition.) The gifts the seven fairies bestowed in Perrault’s tale were beauty, wit, grace, dance, song, and music. In Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, this was truncated to beauty and song. Coincidence I think not.

4. Mary Costa, the voice of Sleeping Beauty, is a professional opera singer and has performed in more than 40 operatic roles on stage. She sang at a memorial service for John F. Kennedy at the request of Jackie Kennedy after Jackie heard her sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Academy Awards! I mean how cool is that?!

5. Costa is originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, and her southern accent almost prevented her from getting the job. Animator Marc Davis said that after some deliberation, the team decided that if an Englishwoman like Vivien Leigh could pull off a southern accent for Gone with the Wind, a southern girl could sustain an English accent for Sleeping Beauty.

6. Though Mary Costa provided the voice for Aurora, Helene Stanley was the live action reference. She also served as the reference for Cinderella and Anita from 101 Dalmatians.

7. So now you know that Helene Stanley provided the live-action model and Mary Costa provided the voice—but there was at least one other inspiration for Princess Aurora’s features and body type: Audrey Hepburn.

8. When the fairies discuss how to help the king and queen early on in the film, Merryweather makes cookies in the shape of a classic Mickey Mouse head. (Hidden Mickey here guys!)

9. Although it’s a classic now, Sleeping Beauty was not a darling at the time. Critics thought the movie moved slowly and lacked character development. How rude! Right?!

10. In fact, Sleeping Beauty was such a box office bomb (at least, compared to the cost of production) that the company decided that princess movies weren’t exactly the wave of the future. They didn’t make another princess movie until 30 years later, when The Little Mermaid was released in 1989.

11. Another reason it took six years to bring Princess Aurora and friends to life was that Walt was kinda sidetracked with another project at the time: Disneyland. The castle there was originally supposed to be named after the original Disney princess, Snow White, but in order to promote the film, Imagineers changed it to Sleeping Beauty Castle.

12. The fairytale book that opens the movie was real and was entirely handpainted by Eyvind Earle, the man responsible for the entire look and feel of the movie. It was restored in 2008 and is now part of the Disney Archives, where it is sometimes put on display at events. How cool is that?!

13. Walt worried about the constant comparisons to Snow White and Cinderella, so he worked with Earle to come up with the stylized, angular Sleeping Beauty look, which was very painstaking and time consuming. “That’s why it took us six years and $6 million to make Sleeping Beauty. But to us, it was worth it,” Walt once said. Earle also worked on Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp, among others.

Beauty and the Beast #4

Video posted on November 10, 2014November 12, 2014 by Disney Films Revealed

Did you know that the Beast was a creation of seven different animals? That’s kind of crazy right?

2 .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XvvkJcZM-w

3.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.

4. You tell me what you see

images

Sorry guys this picture isn’t the best quality but it was the only one i could find for what I wanted to show you. The picture says, “what the heck is that?? Dirty Disney.” For those who are curious.

5. As Maurice and Felipe try to find their way, two of the routes on the road sign read Anaheim and Valencia.

Built in former orange groves, the original Disneyland Resort is located in Anaheim, California.

Valencia, California is home to California Institute of the Arts, commonly known as CalArts. The school founded by Walt and Roy Disney, has trained most of the directors and animators working at Walt Disney Studios and Pixar Studios.

6. In early versions of the film, Chip was originally written as a music box!

chip

7. Paige O’Hara who was the voice of Bell sobbed real tears while recording the death of the Beast scene

8. The princes real name is Adam, but it was never mentioned in the movie

prince

9. Some of the sculptures seen in the castle are early concept version of the Beast

10. Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film to earn more than$100 million at the box office

btb

Cinderella

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Disney Films Revealed

1.Cinderella herself, Ilene Woods, revealed in this interview that Walt Disney was probably the first person to use double tracked vocals, where the singer records herself singing both the melody and the harmonies. The vocals were then mixed together, creating a seamless effect.

2. The transformation of Cinderella from her torn dress to her ball gown was said to be one of Walt Disney’s favorite piece of animation.

3.Cinderella actually loses a shoe 3 times in the film: first, when she delivers the breakfast trays (causing Lucifer to look under the wrong cup), second, when she is running from the ball, and third, walking down the steps with her new husband.

4. Ilene Woods beat exactly 309 girls for the part of Cinderella, after some demo recordings of her singing a few of the film’s songs were presented to Walt Disney. However, she had no idea she was auditioning for the part until Disney contacted her; she initially made the recordings for a few friends who sent them to Disney without telling her.

Bell

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Disney Films Revealed

1. The dance between Belle and her Prince in the finale is actually reused animation of the dance between Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty (1959). The original Sleeping Beauty (1959) pair had been drawn over to become the new Beauty and the Beast (1991) pair, and this was done because they were running out of time during the production of the movie.

2. Linda Woolverton drew her inspiration for the screenplay, not from Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (1946), but from Little Women (1933), admitting that there’s a lot of Katharine Hepburn in the characterization of Belle.

3. To emphasize Belle’s uniqueness, the animators dressed Belle in bright blue, making her stand out from the other townspeople and the autumn colors.

4. As Belle and the Beast share a moment playing in the snow, the mottled bark on the tree trunk (to the right of Belle’s hand) creates a Hidden Mickey.

5. Bell travels to the Hunchback of Notre Dame, go see if you can find her!

6. Did you know that Disney used Bell to determine how they wanted Jane from Tarzan to look like there’s a theory that Jane is Bell and Beast’s granddaughter…bet you didn’t see that coming.