‘Once Upon A Studio’ Celebrates 100 Years of Disney In The Best Way Possible
The new animated short is the perfect way to honor 100 years of history.
Once Upon A Studio celebrates 100 years of Disney in the best way possible. The short pays tribute to 100 years of Disney Animation and stories. The short follows all the Disney characters assembling to take a group photo in honor of the 100th anniversary. The short is hilarious and also tugs on the heartstrings.
Once Upon A Studio features 543 characters from more than 85 feature-length and short films. Characters appear in hand-drawn and CG animation, but they seamlessly blend together. The short honors the iconic characters but also the technological advancements from Walt Disney Animation Studios.
The making of Once Upon A Studio is a story in itself. Back in 2019, Dan Abraham and Trent Correy worked together on Once Upon A Snowman, an Olaf animated short. After work was done on the project, Abraham went off to work on Baymax and Correy went to work on Zootopia+. The two wanted to work together again so they started brainstorming. The two realized Disney’s 100th anniversary was coming up and the ideas started to come. Abraham and Correy would meet in their spare time and work on the concept. This was a true passion project as it wasn’t assigned by the studio.
After months of working on it, Abraham and Correy got to pitch the concept to Walt Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer Jennifer Lee. “She had no idea what it was,” said Abraham about the pitch meeting. “Because the pandemic was still going on, I tapped through all of our storyboards on Zoom and presented this idea to her. After I was done, she stood up and left the camera. Trent and I looked at each other like, ‘Oh, no… What is happening?’ When she came back, her glasses were on top of her head, and she wiped away a little tear. She said, ‘I don’t know how, but we have to figure out how to make this.’ Trent and I were just beside ourselves! We couldn’t believe it. It felt like such a long shot to work on something for that long — and on something that no one was asking for. It felt so amazing.”
Jennifer Lee said yes to Abraham and Correy’s pitch on the spot and they got working shortly after that. This was a good thing due to the fact, that Once Upon A Studio would require hundreds of characters with hand-drawn elements, CG elements, and having those elements blend on a live-action set.
After the project was announced internally at Walt Disney Animation Studios, fellow animators flocked to the opportunity to work on the short. “I didn’t anticipate that we would have so many people coming up to us, emailing us, texting us, or Slacking us to say, ‘I just need to be a part of this thing,” said Correy. Abraham also noted, “We found out very quickly just how much these characters mean to the people in the building; characters like Ariel, Mulan, and Pinocchio feel like part of their families. Everyone came out of the woodwork, and it was joyous to see all that enthusiasm.”
The animators weren’t the only people excited to contribute to Once Upon A Studio. The short brought back 40 of the original voices for different Disney characters. The pitch was simple and everyone they reached out to said yes.
The hand-drawn element of Once Upon A Studio also required adding Eric Goldberg, head of hand-drawn animation, into the mix. Goldberg assembled a team of hand-drawn experts which included Mark Henn and Randy Haycock. Goldberg also got CG animators who had hand-drawn experience along with five apprentices who were working on hand-drawn animation. Both directors wanted the hand-drawn animation to be done with paper and pencil as much as possible. 80 percent of the characters featured in the short are hand-drawn. 100 CG characters appear in the short from films like Frozen, Moana, Wreck-It Ralph, and Disney’s upcoming Wish as well as shorts like Feast and Us Again. Animators from both teams were in constant communication, all in service of the story. For example, the hand-drawn and CG teams were extremely focused on the eyelines and making sure everything felt believable. The CG team also had to rebuild character models from Chicken Little to Tangled so they would work in the current animation pipeline.
“This is absolutely the film that had to be made to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney and Disney Animation,” Goldberg said to Disney in a statement. “I think it absolutely fits the bill. I was so excited to work on it and to work with so many of my friends and colleagues. We really tried to honor the past and bring it up to date in the modern day. It’s just been marvelous.”
Once Upon A Studio also featured Richard Sherman’s musical magic. Sherman re-recorded “Feed the Birds” at age 94 in 2022. He re-recorded the song in Walt Disney’s office for the short. Richard returned to the same place where he and his brother, the late Disney Legend Robert Sherman, would regularly perform the song for Walt on Friday afternoons.
“Those sentimental moments can be really tough onscreen, and usually they need to get worked a lot. Dan pitched me the idea, and then he went off to board it. We both knew ‘Feed the Birds’ would be an important part of this.” Correy said, “We watched it play for the first time and it brought tears to our eyes. A couple of days later, we bumped into our head of music, Matt Walker, and he asked us, ‘Why don’t you just get Richard Sherman to play it for your short?’ We said, ‘Is that possible?’ Matt said, ‘Oh, yeah!’ Matt followed that up by suggesting, ‘Why don’t we do it in Walt’s office where he originally played it for Walt?’ We said, ‘OK… but don’t lie to us, Matt! This is a very big deal for us.’”
They would end up showing an early draft of the short for Richard Sherman. After viewing the short, Sherman asked, “When are you guys done? I want to see it.” Correy then replied, “‘We’ll be done in a year. We’ll show it to you for your birthday next year!’”
Richard Sherman was touched by the short, and he would end up recording “Feed the Birds” in Walt’s office. It was a magical day for the directors and the cast and crew of the short. “I think Walt had a very deep-rooted feeling about this song; he could understand what we were saying. It doesn’t take much to give love, to give kindness, to give thought to people,” Sherman says. “Giving a little something of yourself… it doesn’t take much to do that.”
Once Upon A Studio recruited Disney Legends Richard Sherman and Eric Goldberg but there was another important legend that played a pivotal role in the short. Burny Mattinson, who had a 70-year career at Disney Animation, makes a cameo in the beginning of the short.
Mattinson filmed his opening sequence in August 2022, six months before he passed away at age 87. Fortunately, he had the opportunity to attend a screening of Once Upon A Studio before his passing, where he expressed his gratitude for being included in such a special short.
“Oh, he loved it,” said Abraham, “When I storyboarded this, in the very first frame, I drew, ‘Burny Mattinson walks out of the door with a young intern.’ And that was all about handing the baton on to the next generation. He was in the storyboards for months and months before Burny even knew he was in them. When Once Upon a Studio was greenlit, we went to Burny and asked him, ‘How would you feel about being part of this?’ And he was really, really into it! I don’t think he had done any on-camera work up until that point. But Burny is an animator and a story artist, so he’s an actor with a pencil; he has been his entire life. When he delivers his line — ”If these walls could talk…” — there is a sparkle in his eye. It is just undeniable the things that Burny has seen in his 70 years at the company: Walt Disney, the death of Walt Disney, the emergence of computer animation, all the different people who were in charge throughout the decades. And he just rolled with it all.”
Mattinson's career at Disney began in 1953 and he contributed to new animation projects up until Once Upon A Studio. His last released feature film was Strange World.
Mattinson worked on classic films like Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and The Jungle Book (1967). He became a full-fledged animator with Robin Hood (1973) and went on to further acclaim as a story artist, director, and producer. He directed the holiday film Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983) and served as a producer on The Great Mouse Detective (1986). Mattinson also was head of story on Winnie the Pooh (2011), and a the time of his passing he was working on a new project with Big Hero 6 director Don Hall.
That’s why Once Upon A Studio was the best way to celebrate Disney’s storied 100-year history. The short somehow encapsulates the technological advancement over the years as well as acting as a wholesome bridge between different eras of Disney Animation. Once Upon A Studio is truly terrific, and it’s incredible to watch a passion project of this scale be made and enjoyed by millions.
Once Upon A Studio premiered on ABC last night. The short is now available on Disney+.
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Zach Perilstein is the Editor-in-Chief of the Boardwalk Times
