yet more BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

3D BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - Coming in 2010!

Walt Disney Studios has announced that the only full-length animated feature film to ever be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture is being converted into Digital Disney 3D: The 1991 animated feature film Beauty and the Beast will be re-released in 2010.

Interested in reading more? Then just Google "3D BEAUTY AND THE BEAST" and you'll get a variety of fascinating articles about its re-invention. Disney is committed to delivery the original film in a new way. Very enthusiastic reviews after a Showest preview indicate it will be a phenomenal experience.

As the Peter Allen song says "everything old is new again!"

In keeping with this weekend's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST theme, the magnificent piece of background art above features the gated entrance to the Beast's estate.

The BEAST's Castle

Here's something we've never seen before (unless you worked on the film)- the complete vertical pan background of the Beast's castle from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

This magnificent background art was incredibly difficult to re-assemble. The artists used digital layer multiplane effects. Panning from the bottom up, the gargoyles and statuary in front moved, as did layers of the castle, and clouds in the stormy sky!

Using Photoshop, I cut, pasted, layered and matched, re-creating the stunning artwork you see here.

To be perfectly honest, it's really unfinished. Although essentially complete, there are a couple of very small areas I'll come back and finish one day. In the meantime, I think the results are so incredible I decided to share it with you as a "work in progress."

BTW, the severely angled elements near the left top are positioned exactly as created by the artist and shown in the film. Being a pan shot, this creates some additional visual tension and drama.

I hope you'll enjoy it "as is!"

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Representing the second "golden age" of animation at Disney Studios is this beautiful, classic background artwork from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Here's a digitally recreated pan B/G - the chorus girls were so mesmerized by Gaston they couldn't move!

Here's a close up of the left side of the previous B/G. Gorgeous - especially the trees!

The grand foyer of the Beast's castle:


Wonderful (very theatrical) use of perspective here:




Bell's cottage:

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Disney, 1949)

Here's a special Halloween treat - wonderful background art from Disney's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949).

There's a great variety here, with all the technical expertise you'd expect.

Great stuff!

Knock! Knock! (Universal/Lantz, 1940)

On a whim, I pulled out a collection of Woody Woodpecker cartoons recently. Having grown up on the sparse 1960s TV cartoons, I was reminded that when Walter Lantz was on top of his game, he was really, really good. This background art from 1940 is as good as Disney's short cartoons, and that's high praise indeed! A couple of wonderful pan B/Gs I would have loved to include, but there was just no way to remove the cel characters. However, I still managed eighteen pieces from one cartoon!

This digitally re-created background art is from "Knock! Knock!," an Andy Panda cartoon in which Woody Woodpecker made his debut.

Take a look, and enjoy this wonderful art from Walter Lantz and associates!










OK, I had to include this pan... the cel characters are the first frame in the sequence which pans right.