Behind the scenes
Creative Chinese duo bring fascinating tale to life in Disney animation
Turning 98 in October, Walt Disney Animation Studios has recently welcomed its first Southeast Asian heroine, Raya.
Also the first original animated tale created by Disney in five years, Raya and the Last Dragon has opened across Chinese theaters on March 5, in both the original English language and the Mandarin voice-over version for which A-list actress Zhao Liying has lent her vocal cords to the protagonist.
Interestingly, there is perhaps one lessknown fact that also connects the film with the audience. Two Chinese animators have been part of the yearslong project to bring to life the fantasy.
Benjamin Huang and Joyce Tong are part of the creative team that have put together such a compelling story.
Born in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province, Huang studied in a Tianjin university before he moved to the United States to receive a further art education at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Working as the “environment-look supervisor” of the film, Huang recalls that he joined the project around three years ago when there were just a few people engaged in the research and development work.
Huang says the film is entirely inspired from Southeast Asian culture, with one of the top highlights being the creative design of the fantasy world Kumandra, for which Huang’s team is responsible for animating its surfaces and textures.
Featuring a geographical shape wearing the resemblance of a dragon, Kumandra is fictionalized to be a utopian kingdom where human beings and dragons live together in harmony. But an evil force — depicted as amorphous spirits born out of human conflict — brings an unprecedented threat, turning people into stones with a single touch.
Dragons sacrifice themselves to rescue the world, with the last dragon falling into a centuries-long sleep deep in a river. Around 500 years later, Raya — a tribe princess of one of the five lands in the divided Kumandra — embarks on an adventure to seek the last dragon, named Sisu, to reunite the lands and revive her father who is also a victim turned into a stone by the evil force.
Huang reveals that the last dragon’s look was revised many times, with the creature’s archetype inspired from the mythical Asian figure Naga, semi-divine beings that can manifest as serpent or human.
“So, the dragon is quite different from such creatures depicted in Chinese mythology, but you will find it is very cute and has a great sense of humor,” explains Huang.
Huang’s cultural background, with his knowledge of traditional values and the nuance involved in expressing family affection and dinner etiquette, has helped him to obtain a deep understanding of the story.
Disney relishes creating stories inspired from exotic cultures and the studio had arranged two groups of filmmakers to go on research trips throughout Asia — including Laos, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia — in order to experience local cultures.
“Coincidently, I traveled to Thailand a few months before starting to work for the movie. I was very impressed by the ‘tuk-tuk’ (an auto rickshaw), which has also inspired an important figure in the film,” says Huang.
In the movie, Tuk Tuk is a fictional hybrid creature. Raised as a little, adorable pet by Raya, it has grown up to a giant “horse” to transport the princess like a high-speed vehicle which rolls rapidly on bumpy roads.
As a sizable project, the film animates more than 72,000 individual elements, including nearly 19,000 human characters and over 35,700 nonhuman figures, among which are 23,836 fish, according to Disney.
Joyce Tong, the other Chinese animator and the film’s effects lead, shares her insight.
“I spent most of my work time just sitting in front of the computer,’’ she says.
“I need to use many Lego bricks (referring to program instructions) to build objects that match the depictions from the directors,” says Tong, who comes originally from Hunan province.
Revealing she’s responsible for creating effects based on concept art drafts and setting up simulations of natural elements such as water and fire, Tong recalls one of the most challenging parts of the work was to animate the “raindrops”, a magical thing created by dragons. When the dragons zoom to fly across the sky, the raindrops emerge under their claws sort of like antigravity pedals to help them move and ascend.
“More than 100 dragons appear in the last epic sequence. I believe most audience will be stunned to see this spectacle,” she says.
Tong says the film has made her feel more culturally relatable than her US colleagues.
She says her knowledge of Chinese culture has helped her better understand the designs, citing the example that in most ancient mythologies, celestial beings could summon clouds to stand above them and travel to the heaven palace.
A group interview was held recently online for the Chinese media to hear more behind-the-scene views from the film’s major creators.
Vietnamese-American scriptwriter Qui Nguyen says during the interview that they created Raya and her story “kind of the same way that the West built King Arthur’s legend and Camelot” through a dramatic re-creation of Irish and English legends.
“But it has been special to build a fantasy that is uniquely our own. So I think all the elements that we’re pulling from Southeast Asian cultures were to better enhance that story,” he says.
“The characters and the fantasy world came from something that was real. If children love it — even if they are not from Southeast Asia — they could experience the beautiful cultures in Southeast Asia, from the food to the martial arts and the clothing,” adds Nguyen.
Because of unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak, nearly all production for the film took place from the homes of more than 450 artists and crew members. In total, more than 900 Disney employees worked remotely contributing to this film.
Speaking about the pandemic impact, director Don Hall says: “We have been making films for nearly 100 years. The technology has obviously changed quite a lot since the 1920s. But the way we make our films is essentially the same. It all starts with a group of creative people in a building together, working very closely.”
“We love this story. We have put everything we had into it. Despite it being a massive culture shift for us, we were able to make that transition,” says Hall.