Tagline: This time the sky really is falling.
The movie picks up where the classic fable ends, namely after our pint-sized hero has caused big-time havoc when he mistakes a falling acorn for a piece of the sky. In the wake of the “unfortunate acorn incident” Chicken Little’s name is mud in his hometown of Oakey Oaks.
Down but not out, he struggles mightily to restore his reputation and make his Dad, Buck Cluck, proud. Chicken Little joins the local baseball team and, despite the fact that he is barely bigger than a baseball himself, he manages to smack a championship-winning homerun. With one crack of the bat, the town laughingstock becomes the toast of Oakey Oaks.
But no sooner has Chicken Little redeemed himself then he is conked on the head one more time. And this time the sky really is falling! Fearful of once again being labeled crazy, Chicken Little tells no one but his best friends, Runt of the Litter, Abby Mallard A.K.A Ugly Duckling and Fish Out of Water, about the threat that hangs over Oakey Oaks.
Together this misfit crew tries to save the day. Chicken Little eventually discovers that he needs to risk his newfound popularity and alert his father and the town. When Buck realizes Chicken Little actually has it right this time, he unites with his son and his friends as they set out to save the world.
This time the sky really is falling in Walt Disney Pictures’ new computer animated film “Chicken Little”. This epic tale presents a new twist to the classic fable of a young chicken who causes widespread panic when he mistakes a falling acorn for a piece of the sky. In this hilarious adventure, Chicken Little is determined to restore his reputation.
But just as things are starting to go his way, a real piece of the sky lands on his head! Suspense, chaos, and plenty of laughs ensue as Chicken Little and his band of misfit friends, Abby Mallard (aka Ugly Duckling), Runt of the Litter and Fish Out of Water, attempt to save the world without sending the town into a whole new panic. This time, when it comes to saving the world, it helps to be a little chicken.
Walt Disney Feature Animation adds a whole new dimension to its legacy for memorable characters, great storytelling, and technical innovation with “Chicken Little,” the Studio’s first fully computer-animated feature film. A pioneer in using computers in animation since the early 1980s, Disney brings its distinct filmmaking style and approach to this exciting medium, along with a host of technical innovations. The result is a film that captures the very best qualities of Disney animation with a look and feel that audiences have never seen before. Adding to the excitement, “Chicken Little” is being presented in select theatres across the country in Disney Digital 3D, a revolutionary new true three-dimensional digital experience. Disney teamed with effects powerhouse Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to render the movie in 3D, and the film will be shown using specially installed Dolby Digital Cinema systems.
The sky’s the limit in Walt Disney Pictures’ “Chicken Little,” a delightful comedy-adventure that gives a sophisticated and satirical twist to the classic fable. It is now one year after the “unfortunate acorn incident” when Chicken Little caused big-time havoc in his hometown of Oakey Oaks by proclaiming that the sky was falling after being conked on the head by what appeared to be an acorn. Down but not out, the plucky chicken joins the local baseball team in the hopes of reviving his reputation and winning the respect of his father, Buck Cluck. When he leads the town to an upset victory, he becomes the toast of the town.
But no sooner has the champion chicken redeemed himself when he is hit on the head one more time. And this time the sky really is falling! Fearful of once again being labeled crazy, he is reluctant to tell anyone what has happened. Instead, he enlists the help of his closest pals – Runt of the Litter, Abby Mallard (aka Ugly Duckling, and Fish Out of Water – in an attempt to save the day without sending the town into a whole new panic.
A stellar cast of talented actors and actresses lend voice to the animated stars of “Chicken Little.” Zach Braff, star of the hit NBC series “Scrubs” and the director of last year’s critically acclaimed feature, “Garden State,” brings offbeat humor, a sense of determination, and lots of explosive energy to the likeable little title character. Veteran director and all-around funnyman Garry Marshall (“Pretty Woman,” “The Princess Diaries”) provides the distinctive voice of Buck Cluck, frustrated father of Chicken Little and a former baseball star.
Actress Joan Cusack adds warmth and comedy to the vocal performance of Abby Mallard (aka Ugly Duckling), a beautiful friend who has no shortage of advice to share. Steve Zahn (“Sahara,” “Happy, Texas”) takes on the big role of Runt of the Litter, a skittish 900-pound porker who is the smallest in his family. Dan Molina, the film’s editor, creates the non-verbal sounds for Fish Out of Water, aided and abetted by a five-gallon bottle of water and a drinking straw. Chicken Little’s nemesis, Foxy Loxy, is voiced by Amy Sedaris, the popular star of such programs as “Sex and the City” and “Strangers with Candy.”
The film’s supporting cast includes performances from some top comic talents. Don Knotts, the intrepid deputy sheriff Barney Fife from “The Andy Griffith Show,” gets a promotion to Mayor Turkey Lurkey in “Chicken Little.” Comic actor Harry Shearer (“The Simpsons,” “This is Spinal Tap”) reports for vocal duty as the play-by-play canine commentator at the big baseball game. Patrick Stewart gives a sheepish performance as the humorless high school teacher, Mr. Woolensworth. Wallace Shawn is heard as the high-strung high school Principal Fetchitt. Fred Williard and Catherine O’Hara team up for laughs as concerned alien parents, Melvin and Tina, on a mission to find their missing kid, Kirby. Adam West turns in a commanding performance as the voice of Ace, Hollywood’s version of Chicken Little in the movie version of his life. Patrick Warburton, who delighted audiences as the dim-witted Kronk in “Emperor’s New Groove,” provides a memorable cameo here as the alien cop.
“`Chicken Little’ is a breakthrough film for Disney,” observes David Stainton, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation. “By combining Disney’s unique style of animation and story sensibilities with state-of-the-art CG tools, our animation team has created a film unlike any that has been done before. We have created proprietary tools that allow our artists to put a full range of motion into their performances without limitations, and capture the true spirit of Disney’s `squash and stretch’ animation. This is a very exciting time for Feature Animation and we have a great slate of CG movie projects in the pipeline. Each one has a look and style all its own and will allow us to put our own individual stamp on this limitless and exciting new medium. We are all so proud of what Mark and Randy and their team have accomplished with `Chicken Little.’”
“Chicken Little” is dedicated to the memory of Joe Grant, the late great Disney storyman/artist who passed away on May 6th, 2005, just one week shy of his 97th birthday. Grant, who began his association with the Disney Studios in 1933 and went on to write “Dumbo” and supervise the stories for “Fantasia,” continued to inspire new talent since returning to the Studio in 1989. He continued to draw and create new story ideas up until the day before he died.
Fullmer notes, “Joe was influential in a number of our story meetings and seemed to have the youngest mind in the place. He would tell us that Walt’s legacy was not technology, but rather telling great stories with great characters. He encouraged us to be cutting edge and find whatever medium would do the bet job in telling our story. He was excited about computer-animation and believed that Walt would have embraced this new technology to tell his stories in new and exciting ways.”
Hatching the Plot: Origins of the Project
Director Mark Dindal had been toying around with a spoof of the fairy tale/fable genre for many years. As he started to analyze his favorite childhood stories, he discovered that there was a lot humor to be had from trying to apply real world logic to the magical realms.
“I was always really interested in the folk tales and fairy tales as a jumping off point because they’re simple stories that are very familiar,” explains Dindal. “I always thought it would be fun to start asking questions like `Why would that character do that?’ It’s a crazy thing when you think about stories like `Little Red Riding Hood.’ The wolf could eat the girl when he first meets her, but instead he takes this long detour and disguises himself as her grandmother. You can have a lot of fun when you start to think about the reasons why those characters make the choices they make. Suddenly those characters become more interesting and complex.
“At the same time that I was playing around with that concept, I had an idea about these misfit farm animals that get left behind when all the pretty animals go off to the county fair to be judged,” adds Dindal. “And while they’re away, these aliens touch down to start a conquest of the planet. Suddenly these misfits are the only ones to stand in the way of them launching this attack and they’re called upon to save the world. As I was driving home from work one night, the two ideas merged together, and it solidified as `Chicken Little.’
“Chicken Little” went on to have a long incubation period over the next five years. Scenarios changed radically and even the gender of the title character went from female to male early in the creative process. In the end, Dindal and head of story, Mark Kennedy, along with screenwriters Steve Bencich & Ron J. Friedman, and Ron Anderson fashioned a fun and engaging story about a misunderstood chicken and his desire to have his father believe in him.
Kennedy notes, “Mark is a great story guy. He’s just got a great feel for what’s simple and emotional and doesn’t get distracted by other things. He is really able to focus on the essence of each sequence and what it is contributing to the film as a whole.
“The heart of the film is really the relationship between Chicken Little and his dad,” adds Kennedy. “There is a pivotal moment in the third act where Chicken Little confronts his dad and says to him that he never believed him about the acorn incident and that has always bothered him. He tells his dad that he was wrong not to support him. For the first time, Buck hears the truth and its something he probably knew all along but hadn’t realized. Chicken Little learns to believe in himself, and Buck realizes that he should support his son no matter what.”
The actual fable of “Chicken Little” is thought to have originated in rural England back in the 1700s. It was conceived as a cautionary tale to tell young schoolboys the dangers of exaggeration and drawing the wrong kind of ill-informed conclusions. Names like Foxy Loxy and Turkey Lurkey are typically British. The story was most likely written down by traveling journeymen and collectors of folk myths and fables. As the story was adapted in other parts of the world, the ending came to vary widely. In some versions, Chicken Little hears a voice and runs away before Foxy moves in for the kill. In other versions, Foxy gets the upper hand.
Coincidentally, the Disney Studios made a World War II animated propaganda short called “Chicken Little” in 1943, in which the Fox lures the unwitting chicken population to their doom.
Disney’s Latest Technological Milestone
Ever since Walt Disney introduced Mickey Mouse in the world’s first “fully synchronized” sound cartoon, “Steamboat Willie,” back on November 18, 1928, the Studio has earned a reputation for being the leading pioneer in combining great art with state-of-the-art technology. The impressive list of milestones includes:
1932: First use of three-strip Technicolor in cartoons with “Flowers and Trees.”
1937: Disney invents the multiplane camera and uses it for the first time on the animated short, “The Old Mill.” A special technical Oscar was presented to the Studio for this invention.
1937: First full-length animated feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
1940: First use of stereophonic sound in motion pictures, developed as “Fantasound” for “Fantasia.”
1953: First cartoon filmed in CinemaScope with “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom.”
1961: “101 Dalmatians” becomes first animated feature to use Xerox lines.
1982: First film recorded in digital sound with the re-recording of “Fantasia.”
1982: Disney animators Glen Keane and John Lasseter (who went on to revolutionize the medium at Pixar and direct several landmark computer-animated films) experiment with combining 2D and 3D animation with a 90-second test on Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.”
1985: Disney’s “The Black Cauldron” uses computer-animation for several inanimate objects including the cauldron itself.
1986: Computer animation takes a big step forward with Disney’s “The Great Mouse Detective” where 54 moving gears, winches, ratchets, beams, and pulleys inside the clock tower of Big Ben were animated using the computer.
1992: Disney wins a special technical Academy Award for the design and development of the CAPS system, a revolutionary computer-assisted animation post-production software system created in conjunction with Pixar.
1995: Disney releases “Toy Story,” the landmark computer-animated feature developed and produced in collaboration with Pixar Animation Studios.
2000: Disney’s “Dinosaur” combines CG characters with live-action background plates.
With the release of “Chicken Little,” Walt Disney Feature Animation adds its first fully computer-animated feature to this long list of technical achievements.Supplementing the existing software packages available to the animation industry, the technical wizards at Disney came up with new approaches, new proprietary software, and inventive solutions to problems.
Steve Goldberg, the film’s visual effects supervisor, observes,“The whole reason I came to Disney back in 1990 was because I always believed that if there was a chance of being able to take the artistic talent that existed here at the Studio and blend it with this new medium of CG, we’d be able to blow the doors off. No one had really done that level of combination before. I just remember thinking, `these are the greatest painters in the world, the greatest animators in the world, the best effects artist in the industry…
“To me, the exciting thing about `Chicken Little’ is that for the first time we were able to put these amazing tools into the hands of the top artistic talents in the industry,” adds Goldberg. “The technology has reached a point where we really could allow those artists to work in a way that seemed relatively intuitive to them. There are some wonderful shots in the film that came about because the traditional animators basically broke the rules and pushed the software beyond where it was meant to go. They were doing what they needed to do to get the poses they wanted, and it was our job to support their performance and figure out how to render it. We didn’t want to throw limits at them. We worked really hard to make sure that whatever the character animators needed to do, they were able to achieve it.”
The end result is a CG film that incorporates many of the classic principles of Disney animation such as “squash and stretch,” an animation technique that lets animators create extremely wild and fluid actions that can only exist in the cartoon world.
Dindal explains, “What squash and stretch really does is put life and energy into the characters. You just feel it. And I think that’s what Disney animation has always been known for – bringing this art work to life. You completely believe what you see is real. We’ve also tried to bring some of the other qualities of Disney drawn animation into this CG film. There’s a roundness to the character design in the Disney films of the 40s and 50s that I really love and respond to. The timing is unique, and the characters have a vibrant energy.”
A great example of adapting “squash and stretch” for CG animation is the big baseball game in “Chicken Little.” “For the baseball game in our film, we studied the 1942 Goofy cartoon, `How to Play Baseball,’ which had really appealing rounded animation with movements that are basically caricatures of movement,” says Dindal. “I love that sort of thing. We really encouraged our team to go to the extreme. Our stork pitcher has some classic Disney animated moves. There’s a texture to the motion, to the jaw, to the beak, the teeth, and the cheeks. And when the groundhog gets thrown by the second baseman, our animator Doug Bennett added in those G-force wind effects where his cheeks are flapping around. These are things that we haven’t really seen in computer animation before.”
Giving the animators more intuitive controls of the characters’ motions was a high priority for Goldberg and his collaborator, technical supervisor Eric Powers. Powers and his team wrote new software or added proprietary platforms to existing programs to allow the range of movement and expression that the filmmakers wanted.
Among Disney’s breakthrough proprietary improvements is a new suite of tools called “Chicken Wire.” CG Supervisors Kevin Geiger and Kyle Odermatt and their team came up with these tools to bring more elasticity to the facial performance, and help animators approximate the range they would normally have with traditional animation. “Chicken Wire” is a collection of wire deformers that add extra functionality. These tools specifically address the common complaint that computer animation is too puppet-like or mannequin-ish.
According to Geiger, “`Chicken Wire’ allows the animator to take predefined facial shapes and then, using these deformers, pull out variations on those shapes. It essentially adds extra shapes to the base set, and gives the animator the ability to enhance what is provided by the modeling and rigging departments. Even those of us who actually created the models were surprised by what the animators could do. They were able to make the characters their own and personalize them the way a traditional animator could do. It gave the characters a very Disney feel.”
Animators also had the added benefit of a new intuitive tool called “shelf control,” which is essentially a diagram of the character that can be viewed on the screen and provides a direct link to the controls for specific anatomy. In previous films, animators would have to scroll through long lists of complex code to access a particular area of the body.
And finally, for those animators who come from a drawing background, new electronic tablet screens allow them to rough out their characters’ movements using digital sketches. Similar to drawn thumbnails, the computer keeps track of each successive electronic drawing and allows the animator to block out their performance in 2D in minutes.
Goldberg concludes, “’Chicken Little’ has laid a foundation for making CG features that all future Disney films will benefit from. We have the ability to create anything the story guys can come up with. We can create it and art direct it in a way that I don’t think any other studio can realize. The Studio brings over 80 years of animation experience to the medium, and our goal is to carry that wonderful legacy forward in the new digital frontier. We are not driven by technology, but control the technology to make it do what we want it to do.”
Animating Disney’s First CG Feature
In order to gear up for its first fully computer-animated feature film, Walt Disney Feature Animation undertook an ambitious training program to bring its artists up to the challenging task that lay ahead. Eamonn Butler, a traditionally-trained animator who has worked with computers for the past twleve years, took on the role of animation supervisor.
“At the start of `Chicken Little,’ only about 50% of our animation team had worked in the CG medium,” recalls Butler. “And it was very important to Mark and Randy that we pull talent from the traditional ranks, especially artists that they had worked with before on `Emperor’s New Groove.’ So we set out to train 50% of our crew. It took 18 months to do that. I ran eight full courses that I lovingly called `boot camp.’ The program was structured with a twelve-week introduction to the computer and to Maya (the state-of-the-art standard application that is widely used for 3D modeling, animation, and effects). Walt Sturrock in our Artist Development handled this portion. We had classes and labs in Burbank and Glendale that ran almost 24 hours a day. People could come in and use the machines whenever they wanted, and we literally offered classes every day for 18 months. It was a massive undertaking; more training than we’ve ever done at this Studio. The amazing thing was that we had almost a 100% success rate. This has turned out to be the best team I’ve ever worked with.
“I remember how terrified I was when I made the switch from 2D, and was able to leverage off my own experiences in helping the others to adapt,” adds Butler. “We structured a program that really helped these guys maintain their craft, so even though they were working with a mouse and a keyboard instead of a pencil, they were still able to draw upon their existing knowledge of animation, and performance. We also worked hard to develop tools that allowed traditional animators to capitalize on their skills and talents.”
Jason Ryan, a veteran CG animator and the supervising animator for the character of Chicken Little, notes,“This has been the most fun film I’ve ever worked on because we got to do a lot of 2D tricks of the trade; things like squash and stretch, smear frames (a fake blur that would occur between two frames in a scene with fast action), really snappy timing and a lot of great character acting. There’s also some nice subtle performances too. I think this is a real breakthrough film for Disney and for the industry because our characters aren’t just puppets anymore. They have a real sense of believability. We’re starting to get the quality of hand drawing into CG, and the potential is limitless.
“Animating Chicken Little was a blast,” he adds. “I love doing the kind of cartoony zippy action. He so small that you can imagine that he could actually move that fast. One minute he’s here and the next minute he’s over there. Zach Braff’s voice was a great inspiration to us. He talks very fast and very clear. It’s very unusual to get that kind of comic timing. He does nuances in his voice with little stutters and stumbles. It just lends so much to the animation. You could listen to the actual track and just imagine the scene.
Braff observes, “My character is the ultimate underdog. He’s just tiny, and really driven, and nothing ever goes right for him. Everyone can relate to being the underdog, and feeling like everyone’s against you. He’s just trying to prove himself. I think a lot of kids especially will know that feeling of being an outcast.
“One of the things that’s really fun about the movie is that it’s about this little guy saving the world,” adds the actor. “He’s this little outcast who no one really believed could do anything, and who everyone thinks is crazy. There’s also a sweet message about being able to talk openly with your parents. Chicken Little and his father are having this awkward communication where they’re not really speaking honestly with each other. When he finally tells his dad how he’s really feeling, that’s a big turning point in the movie.
“I’ve always been a big Garry Marshall fan and it was great to work with him on this film,” says Braff. “We both went to Northwestern University and we both had films that we’d directed coming out around the same time that we were recording together. He’s a wonderful person, hilariously funny, and he improvises all over the place. We actually had a few sessions together and the chemistry was really good.”
Braff concludes, “My only complaint about the film is that they made me sing badly. I can actually sing a little bit, and now everyone’s going to think I can’t sing at all. Seriously, I loved the film. It’s such an exciting adventure, and once it starts it just keeps driving and driving until the end. You know the movie’s good when you’re an adult and you’re on the edge of your seat rooting for a little chicken to make it around the bases of a baseball field.”
Animator Doug Bennett had the choice assignment of supervising two of the film’s scene-stealing characters – Runt of the Litter, and Fish Out of Water.
“Runt appealed to me right from the beginning,” recalls Bennett. “He’s such a big character physically, but he has these small hands and feet. One of Mark’s directions for me was `if the character heard a loud noise behind him, he wouldn’t just twist his body around and look at it, he would react, and then take small steps and slowly turn around. This is a limitation that actually adds to his character. I saw him as an Oliver Hardy kind of character; a big guy with delicate movements. He’s very solid and yet light on his feet. My favorite scene with him is the dodge ball game where he keeps getting hit by the balls. It contrasts nicely with Fish, who is able to avoid getting hit completely.
“Fish Out of Water is an exchange student from the bottom of the ocean and he’s just amazed at everything he sees up above on land,” he adds. “There’s a sense of wonderment about him, almost like a toddler. He moves a bit like Charlie Chaplin. He doesn’t really have any legs or digits, which means he has to wrap his fins around something in order to pick it up. Most of his emotion comes from eye expressions and body language. Everybody likes him because he’s so positive and completely oblivious to danger. His role in the story is twofold – he provides comic relief and he complicates the plot.”
“Steve Zahn is a master of improvisation,” says Dindal. “He’ll start with a line, and then he goes everywhere and gives you every possibility. He totally commits to it and is so much fun to watch. I had confidence that he would take the line of dialogue we gave him and bring it up to the next level.”
Nik Ranieri has been one of Disney’s top animators since his star turn animating Lumiere for “Beauty and the Beast” in 1989. He went on to supervise such popular characters as Meeko (“Pocahontas”), Hades (“Hercules”) and Emperor Kuzco (“Emperor’s New Groove”). For “Chicken Little,” Ranieri made the switch to CG animation and supervised the character of Buck Cluck.
“At first, animating with a computer was like working with robotic arms,” says Ranieri. “You’re using certain controls to move something that you know you could do just as easily with your own hand, but now you have to use a go-between. It’s almost like driving a car. Eventually the car becomes part of you, and reacts the way you want it to react. But in the beginning, you feel like you’re inside a big machine. I finally came to feel pretty comfortable with it when I figured out the path I needed to take to get the performance I wanted.
“Coming from a traditional hand-drawn background has a lot of advantages for CG animation,” he adds. “Knowing how to pose the character and understanding how it looks in the camera are important things in creating an entertaining and believable performance. There are basically three stages to learning computer animation. You usually start out where the characters look robotic. And then you get a little better, and they look like a really good marionette. The third stage is where you want to be – making them come to life as flesh-and-blood characters. The great thing about CG animation is that it frees you up to concentrate on the performance.
“Animating Buck Cluck had its challenges because the character is big and heavy and you have to make sure you convey that sense of weight in his movements,” explains Ranieri. “It’s also challenging trying to get emotion out of a character with a beak. We take a lot of liberties and luckily most people don’t have beaks so they’re more accepting. Garry Marshall brought a nice warm attitude to the character. This role was made for him. The dialogue where he’s trying to apologize to Chicken Little is so strong that you can basically visualize it in your head. He had great comic timing, delivery, and interesting inflections too.”
Fullmer observes, “Garry embodied all of the warm and fun qualities that we wanted Buck to have. He’s a caring guy but he really misses picking up on subtleties. He’s missing those ingredients because he’s not paying attention. And nobody is better at displaying angst than Garry. At his core, he has a heart of gold and is very caring.”
Among the other talented supervising animators on the film, Tony Smeed was in charge of Abby Mallard, Dick Zondag handled Mayor Turkey Lurkey and the Aliens, and Mark Austin oversaw the performances of Foxy Loxy and Goosey Loosey.
Dindal notes, “Joan Cusack is one of the warmest and most sensitive people in real life and that true nature comes through in her character. She gives Abby the voice of reason and calm, and she was a joy to work with. She brings a grounded sort of nature and a believability to every character she portrays, and you always feel like you know her.”
“We were very lucky to have the great Don Knotts on board for the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey,” adds Fullmer. “He’s played so many characters over his career that seem befuddled, a little nervous, and emotionally distraught. He was a natural for this part.”
Inside Oakey Oaks
Imagine a town where chickens play baseball and ride around in egg-shaped cars, bulls run the local china shop, bats are optometrists, penguins operate the tuxedo shop, the sheep are barbers, a worm sells books, the cheese store is owned by mice, and the Mayor is a real turkey. Welcome to Oakey Oaks, a town known for its great acorns, and for being the home of an infamous chicken who caused chaos when he proclaimed that the sky was falling.
From its earliest inception, director Mark Dindal had some very specific ideas as to what Chicken Little’s hometown should look like. He looked at children’s books and drawings made by children and was attracted to the notion of keeping things simple and emotional. To help him bring his concepts to fruition, he enlisted the talents of production designer David Womersley, design artist Mac George, and art directors Ian Gooding and Dan Cooper. Together, this group laid the foundation for one of the most original and whimsical designs ever seen in the medium.
Womersley recalls, “We began designing the town at the same time that the character design was going on, and Mark really wanted to squash and stretch his characters and bring a nice cartoony feel to them even though it was 3D. He wanted Oakey Oaks to have that same `chunky’ cartoony look so we came up with some very simple rules – very few straight lines, no parallel lines, no right angles or concentric circles. If there was a straight line, it had to be broken. Basically, we tried to take out all the geometry that we’d ever learned in school. We also played around with the perspective to give it the look we wanted.
“There is a tendency with CG movies to try and get things to look as real as possible,” he adds.“Some filmmakers spend a lot of time trying to get the hair and the clothes exactly right. It was fun for us because we got to make a world that you couldn’t otherwise go to. We were able to design all the props and sets in a very quirky way.
“Oakey Oaks itself has a very small-town feel,” concludes Womersley. “When those aliens come from outer space, we wanted it to feel like those films from the 50s. The invasion seems bigger because of the smallness of the town. It allowed us to explore something that was much more intimate. Our focus is on the characters and the way they live in the town.”
Adding to the unique look of the town are many props and sets that are specifically designed for the residents. Buck Cluck and Chicken Little live in a suburban house that has many characteristics of a chicken coop. They drive an egg-shaped car, and many of the items seen in the home have an egg theme (from the bedroom rug to the shell lamp shades).
Ian Gooding and Dan Cooper, the film’s art directors, were responsible for taking Womersley and George’s designs and selecting the right colors and textures to help set the proper mood.
“Mark wanted this film to feel like the Disney movies of the 50s in terms of staging and color,” explains Gooding. “A legendary Disney artist and color stylist named Mary Blair was one of his favorites and we looked at her children’s books and films like `Alice in Wonderland’ and `Peter Pan’ that she had influenced. We studied the way she staged things and used theatrical pools of light to help draw your eye to the desired character or action. Mark was looking for characters that would read emphatically either dark over light or light over dark. He wanted them simple, easy to look at and quick to read.”
Another key collaborator in giving “Chicken Little” its distinctive look was layout supervisor Terry Moews. With his background in live-action cinematography, Moews was able to bring some exciting camera movements to the action scenes, heighten the depth of each scene, and give the town a sense of being uneven and off balance.
“One of the things that I wanted to be able to offer Mark was the ability to capture handheld motion,” explains Moews. “Audiences are used to seeing that in live-action films and it adds to the believability in this film. We were able to float the camera and create a handheld sensation, and also capture points of view with this sort of off-kilter motion. The camera becomes a storytelling component when it is active and vibrant. It fit in well with the squash and stretch concept that Mark was going for.”
Dindal and Joe Moshier were responsible for designing the characters. The emphasis was on making them fun for the animators to animate, and appealing to the audience.
“I usually start the design process by reading the script or looking at the storyboards,” observes Moshier. “No matter what the medium, 2D or 3D, my goal is create characters that might get an emotional response from the audience. People respond to shapes and proportions. I want the characters to look appealing and fun, and be something that they’d want to visit in that fantasy world. I think about classic Disney characters like Baloo or Mr. Smee that I always wanted to visit and play with at Disneyland.
“When I was designing Turkey Lurkey, I kept thinking about Don Knotts as Mr. Furley on `Three’s Company’ and how he’d get excited and his eyes bulged out and he puckered his lips. I did some model sheets with those type of expressions and it seemed to work very well. In the case of Buck Cluck, I thought about two of Garry Marshall’s attributes and tried to incorporate them – his eyebrows and his teeth. When he talks, I hear his teeth and they come through in the sounds.”
The Music of “Chicken Little”
One of the most surprising and delightful elements of “Chicken Little” is the music. Academy Award nominee John Debney (“The Passion of the Christ”) worked closely with the filmmakers to compose a dynamic score combining shades of Americana, 1950s sci-fi films, and mostly 1970s vintage hits. Newly recorded versions of hit tunes from the latter decade as well as some performances by the original recording artists add to the fun and excitement.
Producer Fullmer explains, “Rather than have a real overriding intellectual theory about how the music would hang together, Mark and I collaborated with Chris Montan (Disney’s president of music), and Tom MacDougall (vice president, music) to pick the best song that we could come up with to fit each moment. We both love melody and good lyrics, and it just sort of happens that a lot of really great songs came from around the 70s. Our film includes such well known tunes from that era as `We are the Champions,’ `I Will Survive,’ `Stayin’ Alive,’ `Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ by Diana Ross, and `Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,’ to name a few. Several songs from other decades like `Stir it Up,’ `It’s the End of the World as We Know It,’ `Lollipop,’ and `Wannabe’ also made it into the film because they just seemed to express the right musical flavor.”
The filmmakers turned to the popular group Barenaked Ladies to create a new song entitled “One Little Slip,” to musicalize the plight of Chicken Little early in the film as he tries to come to grips with his notorious past. Accompanied by a lively montage of activities, this catchy song whimsically captures some of the lead character’s efforts to improve his image and put the past behind him.
“We’ve always been big fans of Barenaked Ladies,” says Dindal. “They have the same sensibilities that we do and they’re a lot of fun. They locked right in on the theme we were looking for and brought a lot of energy to the scene with their music. I wanted the song to have a positive feel about this little guy being up against the world and not wanting to quit. It’s his anthem, but it’s also talking about what his struggle is. Barenaked Ladies got it just right and really added to the movie.”
Acclaimed recording artist John Ondrasik (lead singer-songwriter from the group Five for Fighting) lends his voice to “All I know,” a new recording of the Jimmy Webb tune made popular in 1973 by Art Garfunkel. His performance of this pop favorite accents a poignant moment as Chicken Little struggles to gain the respect and support of his father.
Fullmer notes, “There’s a purity and clarity to John’s voice, and his version of this song felt so right for the movie. He completely connected with the idea of Chicken Little’s struggle with his father and what that must be like. He got it emotionally. And when we heard his recording, we all teared up.
For the film’s newly recorded rendition of the Allee Willis song “Stir it Up,” the filmmakers paired up Grammy Award-winning veteran performer Patti LaBelle (who sang a version of the song for the 1984 blockbuster film, “Beverly Hills Cop”) with English teen singing sensation Joss Stone. The result stirs up the film and emerges as one of the musical highlights.
Also featured in the film and on the soundtrack is a new rendition of the 1963 hit song, “Shake a Tail Feather,” sung by The Cheetah Girls. The popular all-girl group starred in a cable movie of their and released an album.
With regard to the film’s score, Debney drew on many different themes and styles to enhance the film’s eclectic flavor. A 92-piece orchestra, comprised of many of Hollywood’s top session musicians, came together to help him achieve the sound that he wanted.
Debney observes, “My job is to make the film and every frame of the film come to life. Sometimes that means doing less; sometimes that means doing more. Mark has some definite ideas about comedy and timing and pacing. He wants to make sure that the music is out at a certain point or back in when needed. I’ve actually learned a lot from him. He’s a real craftsman and he really knows how music should be used to frame up an area of dialogue or a joke.
“The score for this film has a real Americana element to it,” continues Debney. “We use that theme for some of the more emotional moments. And then on the other side, we have these aliens coming to this small town, so I composed an homage to 50s Sci-fi films. I’m a huge fan of that genre. So the film may go from something very emotional, and then in the next beat you’ll hear the aliens attacking. The story always dictates the music, and as a film composer I’m there to highlight and enhance the film. I really love the relationship between Chicken Little and his dad. I think it speaks to everyone, and is the heart of the movie.”
“I’m a student of animation,” he concludes. “That’s where I come from and I’ve done a lot of it. I don’t know if there’s ever been an animated movie quite like this. There’s not any score that you can point at that would encompass all these different styles.”
“Chicken Little” in Disney Digital 3D
In addition to being Disney’s first CG animated film, “Chicken Little” also has the distinction of ushering in a revolutionary new digital 3D motion picture viewing experience. At select theaters around the country, the film will be presented in Disney Digital 3D, a phenomenal new 3D process that brings together all of the latest technological innovations plus the expertise of such industry pioneers as Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), and Dolby Laboratories. The result is a new and unique 3D experience far superior to any that has preceded it, and audiences will see a glimpse into the future of theatrical exhibition.
Academy Award-winning director James Cameron (“Titanic”), a long-time supporter of 3D, observes, “I think digital 3D offers an opportunity to do something as profound for today’s moviegoing audiences as the introduction of color and sound. This is the next big thing, and I think people are going to respond to these really high quality 3D images. `Chicken Little’ is going to go a long way towards getting people really excited about 3D again. I call it the 3D renaissance. Disney is a leader in showmanship and animation, and animation and 3D go together like peas and carrots. Animated films and fantasy films really benefit from 3D. You get a heightened sense of being personally present in the space of the movie.You’re drawn into it. It’s like the movie wraps around you and takes you into its reality. That’s a very exciting thing for a filmmaker. I’m really proud of Disney for grabbing the flag and running out in front to make this happen.”
Making “Chicken Little” into the first true three-dimensional digital experience was possible because of great timing and several key technological advances. At Disney’s request, ILM developed new software to render a 3D version of the film, using the original digital files for the CG animation and graphics.
Colum Slevin, senior director of computer graphics at ILM, notes, “This is definitely a huge leap forward in this visual medium. We had a very exciting creative partnership with Disney and were extremely mindful of protecting their movie. The beauty of this project was that with a computer animated feature, you’ve got all the data that you need to make a 3D version. Our approach was to take apart each scene – all the elements and the pieces of the scenes Disney had used to make their movie – and reassemble them. They gave us what became the left eye view, and we rendered a complimentary right eye frame for every single frame of the film. We basically created the movie all over again from a slightly different viewpoint. This project was a colossal undertaking, and it had never been done before.
“Chicken Little” really lent itself to 3D because of the way the filmmakers composed their shots and told their story,” adds Slevin. “The design is gorgeous, simple and stylized, and your eye is always drawn to a particular character or detail with the lighting. The 3D enriches that design and makes it pop, without ever slapping you in the face. You just feel like you’re looking at a really deep, rich image.
Joel Aron, ILM’s digital production supervisor, adds, “What’s amazing about the 3D in `Chicken Little’ is that you’re able to look around and see everything in the frame. You can see things behind the characters. You can look out the window of Chicken Little’s home and see the stars in the sky. This level of detail has never been done before in 3D and this is the latest evolution of the technology.
Tim Partridge, senior vice president and general manager of the professional division for Dolby Laboratories, observes, “We live in a digital world, and consumers expect most of their entertainment these days to be delivered digitally. Digital Cinema takes away the wear and tear on the film, and ensures that it will look as good on the hundredth screening as it did on opening night. There’s no more dirt or scratches; and the print is beautifully steady. What you see on the screen is the quality that the director intended. As a result, audiences are able to get much more involved in the story because there are no distractions. When audiences go to see a movie played on Dolby Digital Cinema, they will appreciate the difference and want to come back to see all their films that way in the future.”
Digital 3D pioneer, REAL D, applied several of the company’s patented technologies to make the “Chicken Little” 3D experience possible. The state-of-the-art REAL D Cinema system used for “Chicken Little” is comprised of several components, including a specially-treated movie screen; REAL D glasses; and, a special Z-Screen lens that mounts in front of the digital projector, enabling the projector to show 3D. Customized software by REAL D integrates the components to deliver a flawless 3D movie experience.
Joshua Greer, co-founder and CEO for REAL D, explains, “Unlike previous 3D formats, REAL D Cinema uses a single digital projector. In the past, two projectors were needed to project individual images for each of your eyes. That was costly, cumbersome, and difficult to set up. With our system, left and right frame images are projected sequentially on the screen at a very high frame rate (144 frames per second!). As each frame alternates between the left and right eye image, our system changes the orientation of the light to match the orientation of the glasses.
The glasses that decode the images are lightweight, polarized and extremely comfortable. You can tilt your head and move around, making for a much more enjoyable movie-going experience. The final component for showing digital 3D is having the appropriate screen that allows you to keep the polarization coherent. We’ve worked for years and done a lot of engineering to come up with a new kind of silver movie screen that works great for both digital 2D and 3D films. This complete system allows for the most comfortable high quality 3D experience ever produced. One we think audiences will come back to again and again.
“’Chicken Little’ represents the largest digital cinema roll-out in history, and the largest digital 3D release as well,” adds Greer. “We’ve dreamed for years that a studio like Disney would commit these resources and create an extraordinary 3D film for audiences everywhere. We’re binocular beings, and we use two eyes to see with depth. It makes perfect sense to get our media the same way. Digital projection has finally made it possible to have a perfect 3D picture every time. 3D has finally arrived.”
Director Mark Dindal concludes, “What I like about the process is that it’s very comfortable to watch. It feels like the screen becomes a window instead of a wall, and you’re looking behind it into this universe that really exists. It has the warmth and charm of a View-Master. As I would watch the dailies come back in 3D, I literally cheered and laughed and clapped my hands. It was a fantastic collaborative experience.”
Fun Facts & Statistics
Chicken Little has over 76,000 individual feathers and 55,000 of those are just on his head. He has about 9000 on each arm. He also has several types of feathers – some are long, traditional feathers, while others are small fluffy down-like feathers that are underneath the longer ones.
CG characters are made up of individual polygons that give them shape and allow them to move. Chicken Little is comprised of 5636 polygons; Runt of the Litter has 6627, and Abby has 12,781 (almost half of those are in her hair alone).
There are approximately 600 muscles in the human body. Chicken Little, small as he is, actually has 700 muscles that animators move and control to get the right performance. Muscles had to be placed in his tail and comb in order to get the desired movement.
In the town of Oakey Oaks, there are several types of trees that dot the landscape. Each tree has between 15,000-20,000 individual leaves that were “grown” using the same software and technology that put fur on the characters and gave Chicken Little His feathers.
These production notes provided by Walt Disney Pictures.
Chicken Little
Starring: Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Joan Cusack, Steve Zahn, Don Knotts, Joss Stone, Amy Sedaris
Directed by: Mark Dindal
Produced by: Randall Fullmer, Paul D. Lanum
Release Date: November 4, 2005
MPAA Rating: G for all audiences.
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $135,386,665 (43.1%)
Foreign: $179,046,073 (55.9%)
Total: $314,432,738 (Worldwide)