There was a time when Disney princesses were neatly packaged and always pristine and pretty. Ariel was the first to break from that box. I remember my mentors Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston said after the opening of The Little Mermaid that they would never have animated Ariel that way. I asked, ‘Why?’
“They said, ‘Because you drew her face with ugly expressions at times when we were very careful to only draw our princesses with prettiest of expressions.’ And I realized that this was a new generation of acting. Anytime we had a choice to choose pretty or real we would always chose real. The authentic emotion is our goal.
“They said, ‘Because you drew her face with ugly expressions at times when we were very careful to only draw our princesses with prettiest of expressions.’ And I realized that this was a new generation of acting. Anytime we had a choice to choose pretty or real we would always chose real. The authentic emotion is our goal.
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| — | Glen Keane (via everythinglittlemermaid) |
