Jump Cut
By George T. Marshall, RIIFF Executive
Director/CEO
(August
2006) I have always been fascinated by the
work of animators and confess I fell in love with the
genre at a young age. One of my first memories was as
a four-year old child seeing Disney’s “Snow
White” for the first time. My dad was stationed
in Yokosuka, Japan and we lived on the Naval Base. Movies
were a major escape. We didn’t have television—yes,
I’m a tad older than I look—but we did have
major adventures on the silver screen. I can still remember
being enthralled with “The Vikings” starring
Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. I also remember seeing
a small film shot in our city. It was called “Escapade
in Japan,” and starred Jon Provost. It wasn’t
until we returned to the states that I learned he was
in TV’s “Lassie,” with June Lockhart.
Seeing our city on the big screen and the locations
I had come to know as a child only drew me further in
to the world of cinema.
It was the witch in “Snow White,” that stayed
with me, though. And, I remember being panic-stricken
after seeing “Bambi” and trying to comprehend
the death of the mother.
The power of these images remains burned in my memory.
 Over
the last few years, I’ve had the distinct pleasure
of working with the Walt Disney’s Feature Animation
Division. We were fortunate to host the United States
Premiere in 2003 of “Destino” a film that
Walt had originally envisioned as a part of a sequel
to “Fantasia” in the late 1940s. He commissioned
Salvatore Dali to create the story and storyboards.
But after a year’s worth of work, the project
stopped. It was infamously known over the years as the
“Disney that never was,” and would have
remained that had it not been for Walt’s nephew,
Roy Disney. In 2001, Roy commissioned one of the lead
animators in Disney’s former Paris studios to
complete Walt’s dream—and Dali’s vision.
It took over two years and, the results were amazing.
“Destino” was definitely Disneyesque and
without question it was Dali. Both styles were synthesized
into a new creation that clearly illustrated the power
of collaborative art.
This year, we received another Disney short: “The
Little Matchgirl.”
The storytelling genius of Hans Christian Andersen is
vividly combined with the artistry and imagination of
classic animation in this luminous and entertaining
new animation. Directed by Roger Allers (“The
Lion King”), the Walt Disney Pictures’ short
utilizes a unique watercolor look, a stylized color
palette, and rich hand-drawn animation to tell the story
of a poor young girl who finds visions of happiness
in the fiery flames of the matches that she lights to
keep warm.
Now here’s where the Disney magic works. The story
is without question a downer. It’s actually depressing
and you have to wonder how happy Mr. Andersen really
was with his life. Yet, in the hands of Roger Allers,
the story is given new life and greater depth. It is
uplifting, not depressing. The choice of music: Alexander
Borodin’s “String Quartet No. 2 in D Major:
Third Movement: Nottorno (Andante),” is so impassioned
that it lifts the story to a poignant height that cannot
help but touch any who see it.
According to Roger Allers, “’The Little
Matchgirl’ had been a favorite story of mine.
I wasn’t familiar with it when I was a child,
but when my children were little, I used to read it
to them as a bedtime story. I remember reading it to
my daughter, and the two of us would be bawling by the
end. I could never get through that story without the
two of us crying our eyes out. So I thought, ‘Wow,
this is a really compelling story!’ I’m
really happy to feel like I’ve done justice to
Andersen’s story because I’ve felt a great
debt to him. I wanted to pay honor to him because his
stories have meant so much to me growing up and beyond.
It was very rewarding to have done a true version of
his story.”
“The Little Matchgirl” was produced by Don
Hahn, a 30-year veteran filmmaker at Walt Disney Feature
Animation whose credits include such contemporary favorites
as “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion
King,” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,”
among others. Roy E. Disney (who executive produced
“Fantasia/2000,” and the short films, “Destino”
and “Lorenzo”) served as executive producer.
Lending his passion, expertise, and creative stamp to
the film was co-producer Baker Bloodworth. Bloodworth
has played a major role in guiding the production of
Disney’s recent efforts in the production of animated
shorts, including “Destino,” “Lorenzo,”
and “One By One.”
THE BACKSTORY
Renowned Danish author Hans Christian Andersen first
published his story “The Little Girl with Matchsticks”
in 1848 in his fifth volume of “Fairy Tales.”
The story has been the subject of a 1928 live-action
short by Jean Renoir, a 1937 animated short produced
by Charles Mintz, a 1985 TV movie directed by Michael
Lindsay-Hogg, and a 1987 musical feature starring Roger
Daltrey and Twiggy, among others. Other versions of
the classic story have been adapted for opera, Japanese
manga comic books, and even an off-Broadway musical.
The story has been around.
The Disney animated production of “The Little
Matchgirl” follows on the heels of two of the
Studio’s recent Academy Award®-nominated efforts
– “Destino” (2003) and “Lorenzo”
(2004).
The filmmakers felt that a watercolor look would best
complement the mood and emotion of the film, and even
found an innovative new way to paint the characters
with a watercolor texture that would unify it into that
stylized world. The use of color became an important
element in telling the story, with a painterly gray
and white monochromatic palette used for the harsh reality
of the girl’s everyday world, and warm rich colors
reserved for her visions of an idealized life.
According to Don Hahn, “’The Little Matchgirl
was one of those stories that was just right for a shorter
format. Some stories can’t sustain a 75-minute,
three-act, multiplex kind of release, and yet they’re
still valid to tell. Sometimes these kinds of films
are as completely powerful as something that does last
longer. The length is not to be confused with the impact.
“One of the things I love about short films is
that they can be so powerful from both a visual and
storytelling perspective, and leave you with something
to think about for a long time after you’ve seen
it. They can be more experimental, and provide a great
creative release for directors. This film doesn’t
have a word of spoken dialogue, so Roger was able to
be very creative in telling the story in pantomime.”
ORIGINS OF THE PROJECT
In 2001, shortly after the completion of “Fantasia/2000,”
Roy Disney suggested a new animated film that would
spotlight music from around the world.
Don Hahn recalls, “It literally started on New
Year’s Day in 2001. I called Roy to congratulate
him on ‘Fantasia/2000,’ and he said, ‘Well,
maybe it’s time to start on a new one.’
So we put together dozens of ideas for short pieces.
And out of that came ‘One By One,’ ‘Lorenzo,’
and ‘The Little Matchgirl.’ Those were the
beginnings of a world music movie.”
Hahn showed Allers several of the ideas that had been
suggested.
“Roger immediately gravitated towards ‘The
Little Matchgirl’ and saw the potential of it,”
he recalls. “From the beginning, he had this great
artistic vision to make the film monochromatic, with
the dreams shown in vivid saturated colors.”
THE FILMMAKERS:
Roger Allers (Director/Story Adaptation) earned a place
in animation and film history with the 1994 release
of the Academy Award-winning blockbuster, “The
Lion King.” The film, which marked his directorial
debut, became a worldwide box office sensation. Following
the unprecedented success of that film, Allers adapted
the screenplay of the film for the Tony Award-winning
Broadway musical. He received a Tony Award nomination
for best book of a musical.
His association with The Walt Disney Company dates back
to 1986 and he is considered to be one of the major
architects that provided the creative foundation and
resurgence of animation at the studio. In addition to
directing duties on “The Lion King,” Allers
worked on a number of Disney projects in various capacities.
He served as story supervisor on the Best Picture Academy
Award nominated film “Beauty and the Beast;”
and worked as a story artist on the films “The
Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” “The
Rescuers Down Under,” “Oliver & Company,”
“The Prince and the Pauper,” and “Lilo
& Stitch.”
He is currently directing his first all CG animated
feature “Open Season” for Sony Pictures
which will be released in September 2006.
Don Hahn (Producer) is a 30-year veteran of Disney’s
feature animation department and his credits as producer
include “The Lion King,” the Academy Award®-winning
“Beauty and the Beast,” “Atlantis:
The Lost Empire,” “The Hunchback of Notre
Dame,” and the Roger Rabbit short, “Tummy
Trouble.” He also served as executive producer
of the Disney shorts, “Lorenzo” (a 2005
Oscar® nominee), and producer of “One By One”
(featured on the “Lion King 2” DVD). In
the area of live-action films, Hahn produced the 2003
Eddie Murphy comedy, “The Haunted Mansion.”
He also served as associate producer for the critically
acclaimed Touchstone Pictures’ release, “Who
Framed Roger Rabbit,” and executive produced the
hit Disney animated comedy, “The Emperor’s
New Groove.”
Roy Edward Disney (Executive Producer) has been a major
influence on the art of animation for many years, carrying
on the legacy built by his uncle, Walt Disney, and his
father, Roy O. Disney. From 1984 through 2003, he served
as chairman of Walt Disney Feature Animation, and helped
to guide the division through one of its greatest artistic
renaissances with such animated favorites as “The
Little Mermaid” (1989), “Beauty and the
Beast” (1991), “The Lion King” (1994),
“Tarzan” (1999), “Fantasia/2000,”
and “Lilo & Stitch” (2002), among others.
Disney took a hands-on role in creating “Fantasia/2000”
and served as executive producer on that daring and
experimental film. He served in a similar capacity on
the 2004 Oscar® nominated short, “Destino,”
bringing to fruition a long-dormant project initiated
by Walt Disney and Salvador Dali. A graduate of Pomona
College, Disney began his association with The Walt
Disney Company in the early 1950s. Disney served as
vice chairman of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 through
2003. His current title is director emeritus of the
board and consultant to the Company.
A PERFECT MATCH: DISNEY AND ANDERSEN
From “The Little Mermaid” to “The
Little Matchgirl,” Hans Christian Andersen’s
classic fairy tales have been enchanting readers for
over 170 years. He published his first volume of fairy
tales in 1835, and went on to complete several additional
books during the course of his lifetime. Among his better
known tales are “The Snow Queen,” “The
Princess and the Pea,” “The Emperor’s
New Clothes,” “The Ugly Duckling,”
“The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” “Thumbelina,”
and “The Red Shoes.” Walt Disney himself
was one of Andersen’s biggest fans, and even paid
tribute to the Danish author’s storytelling genius
on his “Disneyland” TV series (The episode,
“From Aesop to Hans Christian Andersen”
aired in 1955 during the show’s debut season).
Over the years, Walt Disney and the Studio he created
turned to Andersen’s stories for inspiration.
Two animated short films were made from “The Ugly
Duckling,” including the Academy Award®-winning
“Silly Symphony” version in 1939. Fifty
years later, in 1989, the Disney animators (along with
songwriters Howard Ashman and Alan Menken) started a
whole new musical renaissance with their unique take
on “The Little Mermaid.” Roy E. Disney turned
to Andersen for “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”
segment in “Fantasia/2000.”
One of the biggest challenges facing director Allers
and his collaborators on “The Little Matchgirl”
was how to faithfully and sensitively deal with the
story’s tragic ending. Throughout the course of
production, a variety of different endings were explored
and at least four were animated in one form or another.
Hahn recalls, “Even though it was somewhat controversial
and it took a bit of convincing to wind up where we
did, I’m proud of the fact that we stuck with
Andersen’s original ending. Roger really defended
this approach, and had a strong vision that this was
a big part of the story he wanted to tell. At its heart,
this is a story about a girl who has nothing and is
trying to make her way in a very adult world that pays
no attention to her. In the end, she finds great hope
in her dreams, and there’s nothing more Disney
than that message.
“Finding hope in your dreams is such a Disney
story. Even though our film is set in a mythical Russia,
the sad irony is that this little girl could be alive
today somewhere in the world. It’s happening in
the Sudan; it’s happening here in America; it’s
happening somewhere right now. That’s the very
powerful and controversial thing about this short. And
it’s one of the things that I find so moving about
‘The Little Matchgirl.’”
THE LOOK OF “THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL”
Adding to the unique look, emotional impact, and aesthetic
appeal of “The Little Matchgirl” is its
design, art direction, and animation. Allers had a specific
look in mind when he joined the project, and he enlisted
the talents of art director Mike Humphries and a team
of visual development artists to help him achieve the
desired effect. Early contributions by veteran artist
Hans Bacher (who had been the production designer on
Disney’s “Mulan” and provided some
character designs for “The Lion King,” among
others), and animator/character designer Randy Haycock,
laid the groundwork for the film’s art direction.
“Roger was adamant that we pursue a watercolor
look for the film,” explains Humphries. “We
spent several months experimenting with paints, pigments,
and just trying to find the right paper. We didn’t
want the texture to be terribly obvious, but we also
didn’t want it to be so subtle that you didn’t
notice it was art.”
Dave Bossert, the film’s artistic coordinator,
adds, “One of our big challenges was figuring
out how to integrate the characters into the watercolor
backgrounds. We were able to do this in our CAPS system
(Disney’s Academy Award®-winning post production
system) by processing the line drawing to give it the
appearance that the pigment seemed to pool towards the
edges of the paint shapes. This is an indicative attribute
of watercolor painting. We were also able to create
a mottled grain within the painted character. If you
were to look at the pixels close up, you would see almost
an impressionistic painting. The pixels have variations
of color. By bleeding the line into the paint surfaces,
we were able to get the same kind of pigment pooling
effect that you get with watercolor.”
The art direction for the film also called for an innovative
use of colors. The portions of the film that take place
in the girl’s harsh, cold workaday world are portrayed
in monochromatic, almost black-and-white, imagery. With
the exception of some flesh tones, color is used minimally
throughout the entire film, except for the dream sequences.
“The storyboards dictated that the dreams or visions
would be more in vivid colors in her imagination,”
explains Hahn. “We were trying to build a contrast
between the world she existed in and the world that
she wanted to be in. This is probably just the opposite
of what happens in our own lives where dreams are in
black-and-white. Having her dreams in saturated colors
seemed to be more appropriate for our story.”
Under Bossert’s direction, the film used a variety
of traditional and computer-generated effects. Four
different types of snow, including actual effects from
the Disney animated classic “Bambi,” bring
a sense of chilling cold to the film.
Bossert explains, “The film called for a lot of
different types of snow effects, and we used a combination
of real snow that was photographed many years ago for
‘Bambi’ along with computer-animated particle
system snow. We actually built a selection of snow effects
ranging from flakes shaped like doilies to cornflake-style
shapes. It was Roger’s intent that the snow be
fantasy-like and spectacular. We blended Disney’s
heritage of snow to give him the desired effect.”
The film also called for several crowd scenes, and Bossert
and the effects team found stylish ways to accomplish
this. Up to seven different styles of humans, a mixture
of men, women and children, were animated on a walking
cycle. Costume changes, and different color models,
brought the variations up to more than 30 distinct characters.
By re-sizing and re-positioning the characters within
the CAPS system, the filmmakers were able to create
crowds of dozens of unique individuals populating the
scenes.
THE MUSIC
During the initial phases of developing “The Little
Matchgirl,” the filmmakers experimented with setting
their story to French composer Claude Debussy’s
dreamy piano piece, “Claire de Lune.”
Allers had never been very fond of that piece of music
and the producers started looking for other possible
musical choices. Borodin’s “String Quartet
in D Major” was suggested. Given that the story
is set in Russia, in a mythical St. Petersburg, the
music seemed much better suited.
“We originally set our storyboards to a symphonic
version of the Borodin piece with a 100-piece orchestra,”
says Hahn. “But then we discovered that the original
music was composed for a string quartet. We located
an earlier recording of the piece by the Emerson String
Quartet from about fifteen years ago, and it seemed
much more appropriate to the story.”
Once the story was set, and the film had been boarded,
Hahn and Allers approached the Grammy Award-wining quartet
about making a new recording of the music for the film.
SOME LAST WORDS
The film was completed in early 2006 and is just now
making the rounds at the film festival circuit. It is
a unique and special piece of work that touches the
viewer deeply and with emotion. Watching “The
Little Matchgirl,” I was reminded of the power
of art and the medium that would eventually become such
a singularly part of my life. The images that touched
me as a child are still a part of me and continue to
swirl and spark the imagination.
“The Little Matchgirl” has its East Coast
Premiere at the 10th Annual Rhode Island International
Film Festival. The film will be screened on Tuesday
night, August 8th as part of the Festival’s Opening
Night Gala. The program will kick off at 7:30 p.m.
The Rhode Island International Film Festival runs Aug.
8 to 13th; most tickets, other than special events,
are $10. The Festival Web site is www.rifilmfest.org
and the phone is (401) 861-4445.
The Festival is
based at the historic Columbus Theatre Arts Center,
270 Broadway, Providence, RI
About the Author:
George T. Marshall is the Producing Director of
the Rhode Island-based Flickers Arts Collaborative,
the creators of the annual Rhode Island International
Film Festival for which he also serves as Executive
Director. He teaches film and communications at Rhode
Island College and speech communications and documentary
film at Roger Williams University. He is a director,
writer, producer of commercials and industrials for
numerous business clients in the region and will be
presenting his current research paper “Teaching
and the Blogosphere” at the Annual Conference
of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication (AEJMC) in August. He can be reached at
flicksart@aol.com
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