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The little Mermaid was released on November 17 1989 and is largely accredited with being the film that heralded the beginning of the Disney Renaissance. With the average production time of an animated Disney film being 6 years this film was developed in the height of the 80’s.
The assignment of designing the heroine Ariel was left to animator Glen Keane who would go on to animate other Disney characters such as the Beast, Aladdin and Tarzan. He wanted the heroine to be reminiscent of the traditional Disney Princesses while at the same time being relatable to the ‘modern girl'. A common misconception is that Ariel was only modeled after a young Alyssa Milano.
While the live action model for Ariel was an obscure actress named Sherri Stoner, Alyssa did exemplify the 80’s teenager, which was reflected in Ariel. So the assumption is only partly true because Glen Keane did in fact referr to such young girls as Alyssa Milano to see what hair styles were in and what was considered beautiful in teens at the time.
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Beauty and the Beast; often considered the magnum opus of the Walt Disney company was released on November 13, 1991. As most people know, it is the only animated film to date to have garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. This may have been due to the approach to this film. It was so unusual for an animated film; having a screen writer, acting director, flawless score, elements that were typically reserved for high-budget live-action films. So much care and detail was put into this film that entire books could be written about it. However, like my previous two articles I shall focus solely on the creation of the film’s heroine, Belle.
The story of Beauty and the Beast had been abandoned by the original Disney creative team in the 1950's. One of their many problems was they felt that in the classical story written by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumonte, Belle (who had two selfish sisters) was too boring and too reminiscent of Cinderella. When the second generation of Disney writers picked it up again, efforts were made to set Belle apart from her...
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Sleeping Beauty was released on January 29, 1959 and was made due to the overwhelming success of Cinderella. Therefor the Disney Studios got right to work revisiting the fairy tale formula and developing a new version of the classic story. It was decided early on that this film would have to surpass its predecessing fairy tale films.
Background artist Evynd Earle was hired to develop a new look which combined both medieval and modern art forms. His designs were unique in that they were dominated by definate vertical/ horizontal lines and geometric shapes. This would have a lasting effect on the future design for Disney's third princess as she would have to be designed to not clash with the angular style.
When coming up with a name for the princess, Disney had two options. In early translations of the Brothers Grimm story Little Briar Rose, the princess's name was Briar Rose and her mother was named Aurora (sunlight bringing forth flowers and all that poetic symbolism stuff). Then in Tchiakovsky’s ballet Sleeping Beauty the princess was...
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