Arturo Hilario
El Observador
On October 15, the world got to experience the joy of reuniting with some favorite childhood animated characters, all interacting with one another on the grounds of Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Once Upon A Studio, the new short film featuring 543 of Disney’s most treasured animated characters was released to audiences on primetime ABC and later on Disney+ as part of the celebrations for the hundred-year anniversary of the studio. The short was created to capture the heart and soul of what makes the studio started by Walt Disney unique, that ‘Disney magic’ if you will.
The short came from the minds of the writer-director duo, Dan Abraham and Trent Correy as a secret project that was almost immediately okayed by the heads of Walt Disney Animation Studios after their pitch, but took a lot of work to come to life.
Abraham and Correy first worked together on 2020’s short Once Upon a Snowman, a story featuring Olaf from the Frozen movies. From this collaboration they came back with the idea to give thanks to the animators and the fans that have made the studio as popular as it is for the centennial celebration.
Blending all-new hand-drawn and CG animation, the short looks at what happens when Mickey and Minnie decide to get the gang together to take a 100th anniversary photo with their friends at the animation studio, including many beloved characters sharing the screen for the first time ever.
Recently we had the opportunity to speak with the Abraham and Correy, who gave us some insight into how they came up with the idea for the short, the work it took to get it made and what they hope audiences take away from seeing their favorite characters once again.
Once Upon A Studio is now streaming on Disney+.
Where did the original inspiration come from? Where did that spark of idea come to create this secret project?
Trent Correy
Yeah, it really just started [from] working on a short together, Once Upon a Snowman, and we said, “let’s work together again.” It started there from a very sincere place of how do we work together again? And then we looked ahead and we’re like, “hey, the hundred years coming up, we’re the only studio that can say they’re turning 100. What can we do? What if we pitch something together?”
“We wanted to pay homage to all the creators and the artists and all the people that had worked at the studio prior to us, but also as a thank you to all the fans, too, for embracing these characters the way that we have.”
-Dan Abraham
So it started as that, and we just started sharing inspiration, why we wanted to get into animation ourselves, why we wanted to work for Disney. And it quickly snowballed into this idea of all the characters jumping out of the artwork within the studio.
Was the process for creating this short similar, more difficult than your previous work, knowing it had to do with giant roster of characters and being filmed in the studio?
Dan Abraham
Well, when we were making this at night and on weekends and nobody knew about it and all that type of stuff, we were being sort of realistic with ourselves and saying, this might not go anywhere because we have CG and hand drawn animation altogether and these live action plates, and there’s a lot to say ‘no’ to. There’s over 500 characters we’re asking for here.
But from the get-go, even though there were super technical challenges, we had all the right people in place. We had the full support of the studio to try to figure out all the swirling question marks, and there were daily swirling question marks about how to actually accomplish what we were going for. And everyone just stepped up and said, “I got to be part of this. I have to help you figure this out so I can be part of this.” It was amazing.
What was the core emotion or story that you wanted to tell with this?
Trent Correy
I think Dan early on described it as it should feel like a family reunion that you actually want to go to and see your family and friends. And for the audience members, they’re seeing characters that sometimes they haven’t seen in years on film together. So I think it was that, trying to be true to the characters and trying to remind us as fans and the audiences how special it is to see them together.
Dan Abraham
I sort of look at it as a thank you to all the people that have been at the studio before us and all the work that they did that sort of became a part of me. I know how much joy these characters have brought to the world. I’m right there with everybody else and Trent. So we wanted to pay homage to all the creators and the artists and all the people that had worked at the studio prior to us, but also as a thank you to all the fans, too, for embracing these characters the way that we have.
What do you hope that people take away from the short?
Trent Correy
I hope it brings eight minutes of joy to people. I hope people can watch this in their living room together as a family and just bring joy, a smile and a laugh. That’s why we do what we do.
Dan Abraham
It’s such a sincere love letter to the medium of animation and to the studio and to the fans that I hope people realize the importance of just sincerity in whatever you’re doing in life and wherever you are, and just that sincerity is necessary. Sometimes things get very cynical in that world.
Trent Correy
Because in the making of this, we shared our stories of how we wanted to work at Disney because we saw things like this, and if one person watches this and wants to be an animator one day or a story artist or come work at Disney, I’d be thrilled. That’d be the cherry on top.
