How an animated film like Moana 2 is made at Disney – explained in 6 steps by professionals

The days when Disney’s animated films were painstakingly hand-painted frame by frame are long gone. Today, the imaginative adventure stories are mainly created on the computer and are made up of countless digital animations. That sounds abstract and complicated. But once you understand what goes into the process, it’s just as impressive as the traditional approach to an animated film.

To find out, I had to cross an entire ocean. A month before the theatrical release of Moana 2, I was a guest at Disney Animation Studios for Moviepilot. On the premises in Burbank, north of Los Angeles, studio employees and creatives gave me insight into their processes. You can hardly imagine this effort later in the cinema seat. So I want to take you by the hand and tell you how today’s animated film is born – if you’re ready 6 steps to the finished film to go with me.

1. The first idea for a new Disney film is born

Like so many things, a Disney animated film begins with a small step Sprout of an ideawhich grows into a branching film giant over months and years. It’s no wonder that animated films often have more than one directing talent at the helm. In Moana 2 there are three: David G. Derrick Jr., Dana Ledoux Miller and Jason Hand. Although they have been working in the animated film business for a long time (Hand and Derrick were previously animators themselves, for example), this is their first time taking a seat in the director’s chair. They are the gardeners who ensure that the film grows and thrives according to the script team’s instructions (Jared Bush and Dana Miller again).

In the case of Moana 2, these included Research trips on a Polynesian island and trying out old types of boats, as well Discussions about the story and characters. Fans complained after part 1 that Pua the pig wasn’t allowed on the sea voyage? No problem, part 2 includes the new ocean trip. Has some time passed since the plot of the first film? Of course this is something new Development potential for the now older heroine. The fact that the sequel was originally conceived as a Disney+ series certainly didn’t make the eight years in which it took shape as a film any less complicated.

For stories with ethnic features such as a heroine from Oceania, informed, cultural consultants important. That’s why two of the three directors, Derrick and Miller, are themselves of Polynesian descent. In addition, after Moana, the Oceanic Cultural Trust was created so that linguists, historians, anthropologists, choreographers and many more smart people can provide valuable input.

2. Character paintings are drawn before animation

Of course, Moana 2 brings back many characters that the audience has long known. Still, these characters need further development. In addition, new additions will be added in the sequel intensive planning need: What characterizes Moana’s new crew members Loto, Kele and Moni? What defines the new little sister Simea? After sketches, a fully-fledged character image is gradually created for everyone.

Amy Smeed, head animator of Moana 2, says that the pre-production team initially only exists on a small scale. So-called “Rigs”, i.e. character frameworksare created on the computer to bring the characters to life at the simplest level using ongoing skeletal tests, movements and body shapes: The “riggers” (early animators) create 6-minute, moving computer paintings in which the characters running, scratching their noses and more.

Also Storyboards play an essential role here: like a large-format comic, they tell the story in pictures. Because sophisticated computer animation is time-consuming and if a few seconds of the finished film are created after weeks of work, you don’t want to have to delete a painstakingly animated scene later. Drew, the guide on Disney’s extensive studio grounds, proudly explains that Disney was the first to create storyboards – before many other film companies adapted them for their live-action films to save time and money. (In 1933, according to Make Storyboard, the Disney short film The Three Little Pigs was the first to be made using this principle.)

3. The voices are recorded without animation

In Germany, animated films are dubbed as soon as the film (on the picture level) is finished. In the USA they are Speakers recorded before the animation. “After all, a sentence on paper can be pronounced in countless ways“, explains Smeed. The animators have to know how to interpret the words before they create the appropriate facial expressions on the computer.

While the speaking stars are partly based on storyboards, they are filmed while they speak their lines in the dubbing booth. This way, the computer artists can view their faces later as a reference for character animation. So

They sometimes adopt the characteristics of starslike Dwayne Johnson’s raised eyebrow for Maui in Moana.

However, an animated story is rarely set in stone: even when animation has already begun, the story is still going through changes. This means that the actors speak not your entire text at once but always return to Disney for audio recordings.

In addition, the soundtrack is also created and the new songs have to be sung. The stars’ last recording studio visit takes place at the very end “ADR” (Automatic Dialogue Recording or Replacement). This is classic post-synchronization, in which new or changed passages are recorded bit by bit with precise lip movement. This is the final finishing touches when the animation is completely finished.

4. The actual animation of a Disney film takes a lot of time

Only after the general ideas and voice recordings have been approved does the actual animation work begin: 140 animators have been working on Moana 2, reveals Amy Smeed, and 850 people in total belong to the crew.

The Disney animator Tyler, who looks as young as a high school student, teaches me how to draw mini-Maui on a piece of paper – i.e. demigod Maui’s living tattooed conscience à la Pinocchio’s Jimminy Cricket. Even though the creation process has changed a lot from paper to digital in the last few decades, there is still a way to create the characters three animation steps:

In Disney films, different artists are assigned different scenes and animation elements, which in turn are coordinated by the head animators. So-called “Dailies”, i.e. raw daily resultsare shown to the directors in a screening room after initial progress. They then approve the results or give them back to the creative team with comments for revision. Credibly producing animated water and hair has always been one of the biggest challenges. However, there have been enormous technical advances in recent years in order to represent liquids and hairstyles more convincingly. Even when it comes to landscapes, the animators themselves are sometimes amazed that they can hardly distinguish between fiction and reality in the picture.

That Disney in the animation process the work of creative people instead of artificial intelligence sets, it is important to emphasize head animator Amy Smeed. This goes so far that the computer artists repeatedly film their own families in order to correctly depict movement sequences. “How does a toddler open his hands to show you a shell lying in them? Ask your daughter and she’ll show you.” This means that private moments can be smuggled into a Disney blockbuster. For example, when Smeed watches the princess scene in Ralph Enough 2, she always smiles and remembers her own daughter, who was the inspiration for it.

5. Animated film sounds add the finishing touch

Special employees who are only used towards the end of the animation are the so-called Foley artistsi.e. noise makers. In Disney’s Moana 2, Ronni Brown rules the soundscape. The sound designer belongs to the company Skywalker Sound, has already recorded the sounds of Darth Vader’s boots and is now faced with the task of inventing convincing sounds for an animated film.

That’s what it’s called for experiment and listen: In Moana 2, a special fish crawls into your ear by making smacking suction cup noises on a leather cloth soaked in hair gel. Heihei’s chicken foot scratching on board a wooden boat, however, is created using dried flowering plants.

Brown appreciates that working on an animated film gives her more freedom than she does when scoring live-action films. Everything can be a little bit over the top comedic effect to emphasize. That’s why she can accommodate a squeak that doesn’t exist in reality when the main character crashes into some leaves. Your job presents itself as “Marriage between art and science”explains the noisemaker. She mostly has the database of possible sounds in her head when she hears an unusual sound in everyday life and wants to save it. But Brown’s props warehouse is also full of strange utensils that she collects in order to elicit useful sounds from them one day.

6. The finished Disney animated film is finally coming to the cinema

Of course, all of these creative processes not only take place in an orderly manner, but also intertwine until a finished whole is created thanks to the precise coordination of the directing team. The Moana 2 trio revealed during my LA visit that they only finished their film a week ago – so barely 6 weeks before the cinema release.

The fact that the years of work on such a major project can be predicted so precisely (the theatrical release of Moana 2 was announced this February) is impressive. Just like the effort that hundreds of hands put into the creation of such an animated film.

In any case, my visit to the cinema for Moana 2 is already scheduled for the opening day November 28, 2024 in the calendar. When I sit in the cinema seat and follow the characters on their adventure, knowing the many steps that went into forging this animated miracle will definitely feel even more impressive than it already does.