Similar to
Tangled,
Frozen employed a unique artistic style by blending features of both
computer-generated imagery (CGI) and traditional hand-drawn animation together.
[39] The film's animators visited an
Ice Hotel in
Quebec City to study how light
reflects and
refracts on snow and ice. For the film's setting, the animators used the landscape of
Norway and the feel of the winter season of
Wyoming for inspiration.
[40] "We had a very short time schedule for this film, so our main focus was really to get the story right but we knew that
John Lasseter
is keen on truth in the material and creating a believable world, and
again that doesn't mean it's a realistic world - but a believable one.
It was important to see the scope and scale of Norway, and important for
our animators to know what it's like," Del Vecho remarked. "There is a
real feeling of
Lawrence of Arabia
scope and scale to this," he finished. Back at the studio, Del Vecho
explained the film's production: "On this movie we do have character
leads, supervising animators on specific characters. The animators
themselves may work on multiple characters but it’s always under one
lead. I think it was different on
Tangled, for example, but we
chose to do it this way as we wanted one person to fully understand and
develop their own character and then be able to impart that to the crew.
Hyrum Osmond, the animator on Olaf, is quiet but he has a funny, wacky
personality so we knew he'd bring a lot of comedy to it; Anna's
animator, Becky Bresee, it's her first time leading a character and we
wanted her to lead Anna."
[27][34][41]
In order to get the general feeling of each scene, some animators did
their own acting. "I actually film myself acting the scene out, which I
find very helpful," said animation supervisor Rebecca Wilson Bresee.
This helped her discover elements that made the scene feel real and
believable.
[42]
Regarding the look and nature of the film's
cinematography, the film's art director Michael Giaimo was greatly influenced by
Jack Cardiff's work in
Black Narcissus.
According to him, it lent a hyper-reality to the film: "Because this is
a movie with such scale and we have the Norwegian fjords to draw from, I
really wanted to explore the depth. From a design perspective, since I
was stressing the horizontal and vertical aspects, and what the
fjords provide, it was perfect. We encased the sibling story in scale." Ted D. McCord's work in
The Sound of Music
was another major influence for Giaimo; "The juxtaposition of character
and environment and the counterpart of how they played in terms of
cinematography was brilliant in that film." It was also Giaimo's idea
that
Frozen should be filmed in
CinemaScope, which was approved by Lasseter.
[43] Giaimo also wanted to ensure that Norway's
fjords, architecture and
rosemaling
folk art, were critical factors in designing the environment of
Arendelle. Giaimo, whose background is animation, noted that the art
design environment represents a unity of character and environment and
that he originally wanted to incorporate saturated colors, which is
typically ill-advised in computer animation.
[41] A live
reindeer was brought into the studio for animators to study its movements and mannerisms for the character, Sven.
During production, the film's English title was changed from
The Snow Queen to
Frozen, a decision that drew comparisons to
Tangled. Peter Del Vecho explained that "the title
Frozen came up independently of the title
Tangled. It's because, to us, it represents the movie.
Frozen
plays on the level of ice and snow but also the frozen relationship,
the frozen heart that has to be thawed. We don't think of comparisons
between
Tangled and
Frozen, though." He also mentioned that the film will still retain its original title,
The Snow Queen, in some foreign countries: "because that just resonated stronger in some countries than
Frozen. Maybe there's a richness to
The Snow Queen in the country's heritage and they just wanted to emphasize that."
[27]
Test scenes demonstrating snow effects employed in the film.
The studio also developed several new tools to generate realistic and
believable shots, particularly the heavy and deep snow and its
interactions with the characters. Disney wanted an 'all-encompassing'
and organic tool to provide snow effects but not require switching
between different methods.
[44] Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, a professor from the
California Institute of Technology,
was invited to give lectures to the effects group on how snow and ice
form, and why snowflakes are unique. Using this knowledge, together with
maths, physics and the help of computers, the effects group created a
snow simulator and snowflake generator called
Matterhorn that allowed them to randomly create 2,000 unique snowflake shapes for the film, according to effects supervisor Dale Mayeda.
[42]
The software was also capable of depicting realistic snow in a virtual
environment and it held responsibility for several key sequences of the
film.
[34][44][45]
This method, in addition, gave audiences an illusion that the snow
packs together as one thing and then breaks into pieces, while they are
actually pieces already, the snow particles are just moving around, as
explained by principal software engineer Andrew Selle.
[44] Other tools designed to help artists complete complicated effects included
Spaces, which allowed Olaf's deconstructible parts to be moved around and rebuilt,
Flourish, which aided extra movement such as leaves and twigs to be art-directed;
Snow Batcher,
which helped preview the final look of the snow, especially when
characters were interacting with an area of snow by walking through a
volume, and
Tonic, which enabled artists to sculpt their characters' hair as procedural volumes.
[44] Tonic
essentially aided in animating elements such as Elsa's hair, which
contains 420,000 CG threads, while the average number for human is only
100,000. The number of
character rigs in
Frozen
is 312 and the number of simulated costumes also reached 245 cloth
rigs, which were far beyond all other Disney films to date, according to
Frank Hanner, character CG supervisor.
[13][42]
Besides 3D effects, the filmmakers also used 2D artworks and drawings
for specific elements and sequences in the film, including Elsa's magic
and snow sculptures, as well as freezing fountains and floor.
[44][45]
The effects group created a "capture stage" where the entire world of
"Frozen" gets displayed on monitors, which can be "filmed" on special
cameras to operate a three-dimensional scene. "We can take this virtual
set that's mimicking all of my actions and put it into any one of our
scenes in the film," said technology manager Evan Goldberg.
[42]
Norwegian and Sámi inspiration
The film contains elements specifically drawn from
Norwegian culture and northern and central Norway's indigenous
Sámi culture. Several landmarks in
Norway appear in the film, including the
Akershus Fortress in
Oslo, the
Nidaros Cathedral in
Trondheim and
Bryggen in
Bergen. Numerous other typical cultural Norwegian elements are also included in the film, such as a
Stave church,
trolls,
Viking ships,
Fjord horses, clothes and food such as
lutefisk. A
maypole
is also present in the film, a tradition more common in Sweden and
Denmark than Norway. The movie also contains several elements
specifically drawn from Norway's Sámi culture, such as the usage of
reindeer
for transportation and the equipment used to control these, clothing
styles (the outfits of the ice cutters), and parts of the musical score.
[46][47] Decorations, such as those on the castle pillars and Kristoff's sled are also in styles inspired by Sámi
duodji decorations. During their field work in Norway, Disney's team visited Rørosrein, a Sámi family-owned company in the village
Plassje which produces reindeer meat and arranges tourist events, for inspiration.
[48] Arendelle was inspired by
Naeroyfjord, a branch of Norway's longest fjord
Sognefjorden, which has been listed as a
UNESCO World Heritage Site.
[49]
The filmmakers' trip to Norway provided essential knowledge for the
animators to come up with the design aesthetic for the film in terms of
color, light, and atmosphere. According to Giaimo, there were three
important factors that they had acquired from this research trip: the
fjords, which are the massive vertical rock formations, and serve as the
setting for the secluded Arendelle kingdom; the medieval stave
churches, whose rustic triangular rooflines and shingles inspired the
castle compound; and the rosemaling folk art, whose distinctive paneling
and grid patterns informed the architecture, decor, and costumes.
[41]
Music
The songs for
Frozen were written and composed by the husband-and-wife songwriting team of
Robert Lopez and
Kristen Anderson-Lopez, both of whom had previously worked with Walt Disney Animation Studios on
Winnie the Pooh.
[14][50] Lopez and Anderson-Lopez's "
Let It Go" and "In Summer" were previewed at the 2013
D23 Expo, with the former being performed by
Idina Menzel.
[51] In February 2013,
Christophe Beck was hired to score the film, following his highly acclaimed work on
Paperman, a Disney animated short film released the year prior to
Frozen.
[52] Kristen Bell also confirmed that there would be a duet between her and Menzel.
[18] It was also revealed on September 14, 2013 that
Sámi musician
Frode Fjellheim's
Eatnemen Vuelie would be the film's opening song, as it contains elements of the traditional Sámi singing style
joik.
[53][54]
The songs by Lopez and Anderson-Lopez were arranged and orchestrated by
Dave Metzger, who also orchestrated a significant portion of Beck's
score.
[55]
For the orchestral film score, composer
Christophe Beck gave homage to the
Norway- and
Sápmi-inspired setting, employing regional instruments such as the
bukkehorn and traditional vocal techniques, such as
kulning.
[56] The music producers recruited a Norwegian linguist to assist with the lyrics for an
Old Norse song written for Elsa's coronation, and also traveled to
Norway to record the all-female choir
Cantus, for a piece inspired by traditional Sámi music.
[56] The score was recorded by an 80-piece orchestra, featuring 32 vocalists, including native Norwegian Christine Hals.
[56]
Beck worked with Lopez and Anderson-Lopez on incorporating their songs
into arrangements in the score. The trio's goal "was to create a
cohesive musical journey from beginning to end."
[56]
