Enchanted
The real world and the animated world collide.
Country
Budget
$85 000 000
Revenue
$340 487 652
Director
Actors
Scenario
Bill Kelly, Rita Hsiao
Producer
Barry Sonnenfeld, Barry Josephson, Ezra Swerdlow, Christopher Chase, Sunil Perkash
Operator
Composer
Artist
Stuart Wurtzel, Andreas Deja, Trevor Tamboline
Audition
John Papsidera, Marcia Ross
Editing
Stephen A. Rotter, Gregory Perler
All team (131)
All team (131)
Short description
The beautiful princess Giselle is banished by an evil queen from her magical, musical animated land and finds herself in the gritty reality of the streets of modern-day Manhattan. Shocked by this strange new environment that doesn't operate on a "happily ever after" basis, Giselle is now adrift in a chaotic world badly in need of enchantment. But when Giselle begins to fall in love with a charmingly flawed divorce lawyer who has come to her aid - even though she is already promised to a perfect fairy tale prince back home - she has to wonder: Can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world?
What's left behind the scenes
- Uma Thurman auditioned for the lead female role.
- The film was originally scheduled for release in 2002, with Rob Marshall directing, but he left the project due to "creative differences" with the producers.
- Work on the project lasted almost two years. About a year was spent creating the animated portion, while filming with actors, which began in the summer of 2006 and took place in various parts of New York, was completed in 72 days.
- New York was chosen as the location for the film, and filming took place there. Despite careful preparation, the shooting process was constantly complicated by the changing environment of the city; the film crew had to work in conditions of "ongoing construction, renovations, and the appearance of new stores".
- The first scene in New York, in which Giselle emerges from a manhole, was filmed in the center of Times Square. There was constantly a huge number of people on the square, which was very difficult to control, so it was decided to film ordinary passersby together with the actors and extras placed in the foreground in this episode.
- The original screenplay, written by Bill Kelly, was purchased by the cinematic division of Disney's Touchstone Pictures and the Sonnenfeld/Josephson Productions production company for $450,000 in September 1997. However, it was deemed inconsistent with the studio's image, as it was intended for a mature audience. To Kelly's dismay, the script was rewritten several times.
- Kevin Lima began designing the world of Andalasia before the actors were cast in the lead roles. After the casting and approval of the actors, Lima was involved in the final design of the project so that the drawn characters would correspond as closely as possible to their real-life counterparts.
- In the late 1990s, due to the development and widespread adoption of computer graphics, many animators were laid off from the Studio, so the creation of the animated part of the film was carried out by the independent company James Baxter Animation, located in Pasadena, under the direction of chief artist James Baxter.
- To demonstrate the connection between the animated and real worlds, Lima early in production invited costume designer Mona May to the project, whose task was to create a unified style for the costumes of both worlds. He also shot footage of Amy Adams as Giselle, which was used by the animators as a reference, allowing them to achieve both visual similarity and correspondence of the animated character’s movements to the actress’s movements. So that the actors had an idea of what their drawn counterparts would look like and how they would move, the animators showed them finished test scenes.
- Many episodes were filmed at Steiner Studios, which had three large stages necessary for filming. Filming also took place on the Brooklyn Bridge and at The Paterno—a residential complex with a curved, richly decorated ivory-colored facade where the film’s protagonists, Robert and Morgan, live.
- For "Enchanted," Tippett Studio created the majority of the shots with visual effects. These 320 shots contained various virtual sets, weather effects, and computer-generated characters interacting with real actors, in episodes such as Robert’s apartment being cleaned by wild animals or Pip battling Narissa as she transforms into a dragon. CIS Hollywood was responsible for 36 visual effects shots, concealing safety wires and compositing. Additionally, Reel FX Creative Studios and Weta Digital created 6 shots with a camera move in the form of a pop-up book page turn.
- Among the animals present in the apartment cleaning episode during the song “Happy Working Song,” trained rats and pigeons were real. Filmed on camera, they helped Tippett Studio create computer models, which were then used to depict the active behavior of pigeons holding brooms in their beaks and rats cleaning with toothbrushes. All insects involved in the episode are entirely computer-generated.
- In 2001, John Turteltaub took the director's chair but soon left it in favor of a joint Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer project, "National Treasure". Adam Shankman became the film's director in 2003, and at the same time, Disney Studios hired Robert Shul and Mark McCorkle for another script rewrite. At this stage of the project's development, actresses Kate Hudson and Reese Witherspoon were considered for the role of Giselle. However, the film never went into production.
- In 2005, Kevin Lima was appointed director of the film, and Bill Kelly returned to the project to create a new version of the script. Lima and Kelly worked together on the script, with a central idea being to combine the plot of "Enchanted" with Disney's rich heritage through numerous references to the studio's past works. Lima created a visual storyboard, recreating the film's plot from beginning to end, which occupied an entire floor of the production building. After the director demonstrated it to the head of Disney Studios, Dick Cook, the project received the green light.
- "Enchanted" is the first full-length film from Disney Studios to combine live-action and animated characters since "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" in 1988.
- The film's runtime is 107 minutes, with the animated portion lasting approximately 13 minutes, 10 of which are at the beginning. During these 10 minutes, Lima attempted, in his words, to "reflect as many details of iconic Disney images" as possible. This part of the film was intentionally created using traditional hand-drawn animation (instead of computer-generated three-dimensional animation) as a tribute to old Disney fairy tales such as "Sleeping Beauty," "Cinderella," and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
- The most challenging scenes, according to director Kevin Lima, were the filming of the musical number "That's How You Know" in Central Park. Due to bad weather, 17 days were spent on the five-minute episode, of which only seven were sunny enough for filming. Furthermore, fans of Patrick Dempsey sometimes interfered with the process. John O’Connell, who previously worked on the musical "Moulin Rouge!", was responsible for the choreographic staging of the number, which involved 300 extras and 150 dancers.
- The design of all costumes in the film was created by Mona May. To determine the style of the characters' clothing, May and her costume department, consisting of 20 people, worked with the animators for a whole year in preparation for the project. She also contracted with five clothing stores in Los Angeles and New York. May was involved in the project at the stage of creating the faces and bodies of the characters, when it became necessary to determine the possibility of making real costumes suitable for the actors based on two-dimensional drawings. Her task was to preserve the essence of Disney design while adding something new, fashionable, and fun. May admitted that it was quite difficult, "because she had to deal with iconic Disney characters whose images had been ingrained in the memory of viewers for many years."
- To make Giselle's waist appear very narrow in her wedding dress, “incredibly voluminous” sleeves and a huge crinoline with a metal hoop were created, which supported 20 layers of skirts and ruffles. A total of 11 versions of the wedding dress were made for filming, each consisting of 183 meters of silk and other fabrics and weighing approximately 18 kg. Actress Amy Adams described her feelings while wearing such a dress as “exhausting,” as “all the weight was on the hips, and sometimes it felt like something was holding her up.”
- Only one costume was created for James Marsden. When creating it, May’s main goal was to ensure that “Marsden’s appearance wouldn’t get lost against the backdrop of the outlandish outfit, while still allowing him to look handsome.” The costume featured padding on the chest, buttocks, and groin, which gave Marsden’s figure “exaggerated proportions like a cartoon character” and “a pose – straight back, arms not drooping.”
- When creating Queen Narissa’s costume, May was pleased to learn of the director’s desire to make it more fashionable. To achieve this, she decided to give Narissa’s appearance the look of a runway model, whose dress would still look Disney-esque, but also resemble clothing from the world of high fashion. Since Narissa appears in three versions in the film – drawn, real, and computer-generated – May needed to achieve a similarity in “color, shape, and texture” of her costume in all three versions. The costume, consisting of a bodice, skirt, and cape, was made of leather to give it a “serpentine” look. Working in conjunction with animators, May ensured that the costume details resembled various parts of a dragon: the cape’s design resembles wings, the multi-layered fitted skirt resembles a tail, and the crown transforms into horns during Narissa’s transformation into a dragon.
- Disney initially planned to add Giselle to the lineup of Disney Princesses – at the 2007 Toy Fair, a doll of her was even presented, with packaging stating that Giselle held this status – however, when it became clear that the Studio would have to pay Amy Adams for the lifetime right to use her image, they abandoned this idea. And although Giselle did not become one of the Disney Princesses, and merchandise featuring her in this capacity did not go on sale, various products based on “Enchanted” were released, using Adams' animated image.
- Pip, the talking chipmunk in the animated world of Andalasia, loses this ability in the real world and therefore has to communicate with those around him through mime and gestures. The animators’ task was to create a realistic chipmunk that expresses its thoughts and feelings through sign language. For the Tippett Studio team, creating Pip began with observing real chipmunks, filming them from all possible angles. After that, using the computer editors 3D graphics “Maya” and “Furrocious,” a photorealistic three-dimensional model was created. When special effects supervisor Thomas Scalesi first showed it to director Kevin Lima, he was very surprised to learn that the model was computer-generated. To make Pip’s facial expressions more expressive, modelers added eyebrows, which real chipmunks lack. During filming of scenes featuring the computer-generated Pip, various tools were used to indicate the chipmunk’s physical presence in the frame. One such tool was a small dummy with a wire frame. In some cases, to show the actors and the cameraman where Pip was at the moment, a stick with a marker on the end or a laser pointer was used.
- The computer model of the dragon's design was inspired by traditional images of the Chinese dragon and the appearance of Susan Sarandon. During the filming of the scene where Narissa transforms into a dragon, special effects artists used a long pole instead of a laser pointer to direct the gaze of the extras to the correct spot. This scene was very complex, as it required the simultaneous operation of several components: moving sets, a computer-controlled lighting system, and repeated camera moves. To film Patrick Dempsey in the film's climactic scene, where Narissa, clutching Robert in her claws, climbs the Woolworth Building, a mechanical arm installation was built, operated by three specialists working in sync. The actor was placed in this arm, mimicking the movements of the computer dragon's paw, against a chroma key background, with all his movements captured by the camera.
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