Three of the creative talents behind Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire recently visited Denver to share a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the $100 million film. A rapid-fire adventure yarn that took nearly five years to complete, the film is about to take on a crowded summertime playing field that includes competition from Steven Spielberg (A.I.), Tim Burton (Planet of the Apes), and the big-screen adventures of Shrek and Lara Croft.
The
Disney trio, Don Hahn (producer of such hits as Beauty
and the Beast, The Lion King, and Who Framed
Roger Rabbit), Kirk Wise (director of Beauty and the
Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame), and John
Pomeroy (supervising animator, whose efforts can be seen in
The Rescuers, An American Tale, and Pocahontas)
are the laid-back, clean-cut, family-oriented types you would
expect to find at Disney. They’re aware of the Disney legacy
and the place many of those classic films hold in almost everybody’s
childhood and they take the craft seriously; even though Atlantis
is an animated film, they still refer to concepts such as
“emotional thumbprint” and “vocal signature.”
If they were suffering from any sort of pre-release stress, their genial manner and enthusiasm for their creation were more than enough to cover it up.