welcome in my box

Milo from Atlantis: the lost empire for Ariane ♥

Learning how to animate like Milt Kahl (of Walt Disney Animation Studios)

Recently I found myself fascinated by the work of Milt Kahl. He worked at Walt Disney Animation Studios from 1934 to 1976 and was famous for his way of animating “head swaggles.” He is widely regarded as one of the best animators to ever live. However, I haven’t found many examples of people trying replicate his techniques. It feels very much like “Oh his work is so amazing, I could never animate like that!” 

WHY NOT? If Milt Kahl could figure it out, why can’t someone else? So here are a few rough animations I made trying to figure out the head swaggle. 

-The First Head Swaggle Test

This first attempt was made before I really dissected how Kahl actually animated the swaggle. The bulk of this was animated in about 45 minutes. Mostly I was testing the waters here. It’s not quite right, but I’m still pretty happy with it. 

-The Look and Pivot Swaggle Test

Around here, I realized that there is a trick to the swaggle: they are all guided by the nose. Many of Kahl’s best head swaggles are on characters with very pronounced noses or muzzle areas (Shere Khan from the Jungle book, Edgar from the Aristocats, Tigger, etc). Very often the nose acts as a pivot point for the swaggle. It will stay relatively still while the whole head swivels around it. Even though I had figured that out, I wasn’t fully satisfied with the swaggle in this animation. Too subtle. I had to try again.

-Full Pivot Swaggle Test

I wanted to fully commit to the pivot swaggle with no ease in or out. Having a slightly more defined head shape definitely helps with making it appear more three dimensional. The secondary action of the ears also helps sell the movement. While still a little rough, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out!

-Final Thoughts

It was a lot of fun trying to figure this out. I’ll likely continue to study Kahl’s work to further improve as an animator. I’m not going to say it wasn’t hard, because it was! Even with using animation software and animating on twos, it was hard. 

Here’s WHY I’m nervous—

If you listen to the Bancroft Brothers podcast where they feature Jodi Benson (Ariel’s original voice), she talks about how she was coached and given very specific direction on how to sing “‘Part of Your World” so that they got the most accurate emotion out of every line, so that they prioritized what Ariel was feeling during this song over how pretty she sounded.

Because it’s Jodi Benson, she’s a great singer, she was going to sound pretty no matter what. 

The important thing in this moment of the movie is that the audience feels Ariel’s longing to be part of a world she doesn’t have ownership of, that she has no way to get to, that she desperately wants to understand and live in. And she already believes it is a good and wonderful world. The song and the whole scene work together to make you understand what Ariel is feeling so that when she leaves her father and sisters and tail and everything she’s ever known behind, you understand why. You don’t think she’s a brat as much as you think she’s a dreamer. 

And maybe this version of the Live Action Remake Part of Your World is not how it is actually sung in the final product, it was just recorded this way for this trailer

But if it’s NOT

If this is how it’s sung in the new movie, then I’m nervous. 

Because Ariel sings it like:

“Out of— the sea… (gentle and quiet and fast on “sea,” like she’s bored by that word and getting it out of her mouth as fast as you might say the commonplace, boring old letters of the alphabet)

Wish I…could be! (She’s SAYING at his part, not singing it, because it’s more genuine, and you can hear her impatience and the hushed way she says “be.” Because BEING a there, existing as part of the world she’s dreamed about instead of watching it and imagining it from the outside, is what is important to her. And she says it quietly like a prayer or like something sacred. And maybe most importantly, her body language and her facial expression add to this word with a motion of her fists coming down, like a child who is trying to hold on to something they know they can’t keep. And then it cuts to Flounder’s sad face, because he and the audience are supposed to feel for her, that she CAN’T “be” there.)

Part of that…world—…” (This part is sung quietly too, because it’s like after singing “be” in a way that indicates she knows she can’t have what she wants, she goes back to singing “world”  like it is a dream only in her head, and she’s thinking about it to herself, and that’s where it has to stay. But it’s still special to her, which is why she pauses to let the audience FEEL it before she sings “world.” The word “world” is not sung triumphantly until she’s on the rock in the reprise and Eric has made the dream close and possible, to her.)

BUT IN THIS NEW TRAILER.

Halle Bailey emotes a little like she’s thinking of the world she wants to be part of fondly. Her best facial expression is on “be,” like it should be.

But I don’t like the way she draws out the word “be” with all the riffing, (if that’s the right word for it,) because it doesn’t sound like she doesn’t know how she’ll ever get there! It sounds like she’s enjoying the thought of it, sure, but they sacrificed the longing that came with Jodi Benson humanly speaking those words for the Star power of flashy vocalizations! And it sounds beautiful, sure, but it doesn’t make me feel what Ariel is feeling.

And she rushes through “part of your woooooorld,” and takes out that perfect PAUSE that is supposed to be there! The pause in a pattern makes you long for the pattern to be resolved (like Andy from the Office) and that longing helps you relate to Ariel’s longing!

And I know I should be able to detach from how I’ve heard the song sung before if I’m going to give the new thing a fair shot, but that’s just not how this works. Everyone’s heard Part of Your World. Everyone has an expectation of how the words will be inflected. You can change that up! As long as what you change doesn’t change the heart of the song.