Posted in: Disney, Movies | Tagged: disney, walt disney animation, wish

Wish Aims To Channel The Look Where "Every Frame Is A Painting"

The team behind Wish is really leaning into the idea of a "moving illustration" to capture that "every frame is a painting" look.

Published Tue, 26 Sep 2023 11:47:06 -0500

by Kaitlyn Booth

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2023 has been the year of absolutely beautiful animated movies, and if there is a genre that is thriving, it's animation. Between big blockbusters like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem to streaming films like Nimona finally making it to completion after years in development hell, if you like animation, it's been a fantastic year. It's not over yet, though, with Disney looking to bring another beautiful animated film to the big screen this year with Wish. In terms of animation, Wish looks like Disney Animation has stepped it up yet again. Entertainment Weekly got the chance to speak to directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn about the film and how when they say "every frame is a painting," they mean it.

"The goal is that this is a moving illustration. Every frame is a painting," Veerasunthorn says. "When you pause on it, we don't put a lot of motion blurs in this film or in the background. We employ the watercolor technique of when things are in the distance; you reduce the detail. This is a new technology that our team has developed to be able to control the lines and the details that go into whichever area on the screen. So, when you want to narrow the focus to someone or some situation, we have all those tools to emanate the real-life watercolor."

For animation fans, it isn't just that Wish will look beautiful but also that the film will have a look that we haven't seen from Disney in a very long time. As you can see from the images above, the aspect ratio for this film is pretty wide, which isn't something we see very often in cinema anymore. In fact, this is the same aspect ratio as Sleep Beauty, and Disney hasn't used this specific ratio since that film.

"It's a wider screen. So, it just has that epic feel to it — and the story does, too," Buck says. Sleeping Beauty became a big influence on Wish more generally. "The way things are framed, it's purposeful," Veerasunthorn adds, "and we embarked on that journey with the same thinking."

The thing that Wish has going against it is that the concept is not exactly something easily explained. However, the marketing hasn't really kicked off yet, so maybe between the first announcement and now, they have figured out how to explain this without it being overly complicated. Disney has seen with Lightyear what happens when people don't know what the movie is actually about. If nothing else, the film looks beautiful, and even if nothing on screen makes any sense, at least what we'll be seeing on screen is very pretty.

Wish: Summary, Cast List, Release Date

Walt Disney Animation Studios' "Wish" is an all-new musical-comedy welcoming audiences to the magical kingdom of Rosas, where Asha, a sharp-witted idealist, makes a wish so powerful that it is answered by a cosmic force—a little ball of boundless energy called Star. Together, Asha and Star confront a most formidable foe—the ruler of Rosas, King Magnifico—to save her community and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen.

Featuring the voices of Academy Award®-winning actor Ariana DeBose as Asha, Chris Pine as Magnifico, and Alan Tudyk as Asha's favorite goat, Valentino, the film is helmed by Oscar®-winning director Chris Buck ("Frozen," "Frozen 2") and Fawn Veerasunthorn ("Raya and the Last Dragon"), and produced by Peter Del Vecho ("Frozen," "Frozen 2") and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones ("Encanto"). Jennifer Lee ("Frozen," "Frozen 2") executive produces—Lee and Allison Moore ("Night Sky," "Manhunt") are writers on the project. With original songs by Grammy®-nominated singer/songwriter Julia Michaels and Grammy-winning producer/songwriter/musician Benjamin Rice, plus score by composer Dave Metzger, "Wish" opens only in theaters on November 22, 2023.

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