Prince Hans is named after
Hans Christian Andersen, a famed and influential Danish fairy tale poet and author of "The Red Shoes", "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Little Match Girl", "The Little Mermaid", and "The Snow Queen"; the last of which the movie is based on. Disney Animation also adapted various Andersen's fairy tales into animated short or feature-length films:
The Little Mermaid (1989),
The Little Matchgirl (2006), "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" segment in
Fantasia/2000 (1999), the "Ugly Duckling" plot element in
Lilo & Stitch (2002), and the title of
The Emperor's New Groove (2000) is derived from that of "The Emperor's New Clothes".
When the gates open during For The First Time in Forever, there's a cameo of Rapunzel from Tangled with her short brown hair.
As pointed out in a message board written by an IMDb user regarding the film, Anna, Hans, and Kristof are all named after
Hans Christian Andersen: Prince Hans as in Hans, (Krist)of as in (Christ)ian, and (An)na as in (An)dersen.
Kristen Bell stated that with
Frozen (2013), she has fulfilled a lifelong dream of voicing an animated character ever since she saw
The Little Mermaid (1989) and
Aladdin (1992) as a kid. When she was around that same age, she recorded a voice box where she sang a couple of songs from
The Little Mermaid (1989), including "Part of Your World". Her Little Mermaid vocal tracks were part of the reason why she got the part of Anna, as director
Jennifer Lee said to her that if she hadn't recorded her own vocal tracks from Mermaid, it would've been very difficult to the find the right one to play Anna.
The original Danish fairy tale by
Hans Christian Andersen, on which this film is based, is a personal favorite work of Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark
Margrethe II.
During preproduction on the film, the film's production, art, lighting, and design leads teams went to Wyoming, Quebec, Canada, and Norway in order to study and gain an appreciation for the environment for the film, such as walking through snow (Wyoming), make observations of how light reflects and refracts on snow and ice (Quebec, Canada), and to gain an inspirational natural look on ice, mountains, water, and other elements needed for the story (Norway). "We had a very short time schedule for this film, so our main focus was really to get the story right but we knew that
John Lasseter is keen on truth in the material and creating a believable world, and again that doesn't mean it's a realistic world - but a believable one. It was important to see the scope and scale of Norway, and important for our animators to know what it's like,"
Peter Del Vecho, the film's producer, said. "There is a real feeling of
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) scope and scale to this," he finished.
Walt Disney Animation Studios attempted several times before to develop Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale "The Snow Queen" into a film in the 2000s but it never worked. They first tried it in 2002, and master animator
Glen Keane infamously quit the project, then it was scrapped. "The Snow Queen" was resurfaced again in 2009 and
John Lasseter recruited directors
Kirk Wise and
Gary Trousdale (
Beauty and the Beast (1991),
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996),
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)) to helm the project. Producer
Don Hahn and writer
Linda Woolverton also signed on to the project, alongside
Alan Menken and
Glenn Slater who were commissioned to write the songs. In 2010, the film was put on hold, rather than be put back in development hell again, as Disney worked out a way on how to make the story work.
Elsa is the second Disney royal role for
Idina Menzel. At the end of
Enchanted (2007), her character Nancy Tremaine went to Andalasia and married Prince Edward.
Co-director
Jennifer Lee, who has no prior animation experience, was given the task to develop the characters and story with more complexity on screen.
Idina Menzel auditioned for the part of Rapunzel in Disney's previous fairytale,
Tangled (2010). Even though Menzel didn't get the part, a Disney casting director recorded her audition and two years later, it got her the part of Elsa.
Directorial
debut of
Jennifer Lee.
Santino Fontana, the voice of Hans, originally auditioned for Kristoff. After the movie was changed, he auditioned for Hans.
Like her Frozen co-star
Idina Menzel,
Kristen Bell also auditioned for the part of Rapunzel for
Tangled (2010).
Frozen (2013) is the first Disney animated fairy tale to be filmed in the ultra widescreen film format since
Sleeping Beauty (1959).
Idina Menzel said
Frozen (2013) is "a bit of a feminist movie for Disney." "I'm really proud of that," Menzel tells Zap2it. "It has everything, but it's essentially about sisterhood. I think that these two women are competitive with one another, but always trying to protect each other - sisters are just so complicated. It's such a great relationship to have in movies, especially for young kids."
Kristen Bell said on a similar matter: "I'm really excited to show it to people. I became a part of the kind of movie I wanted to see as a kid," she said. "I always loved Disney animation, but there was something about the females that was unattainable to me. Their posture was too good and they were too well-spoken, and I feel like I really made this girl [Princess Anna] much more relatable and weirder and scrappier and more excitable and awkward. I'm really proud of that."
On December 22, 2011, Disney announced that "The Snow Queen" had been put back into development, now entitled
Frozen (2013), with a different crew, and was scheduled for the 2013 holiday season release. It was, however, uncertain whether or not the project was still going to be in hand drawn animation or switch to computer animation. Twenty days later, on January 11, 2012, it was announced that the film was now going to be computer animated.
In a August 10, 2013 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, directors
Chris Buck and
Jennifer Lee that giving
Frozen (2013) a timeless feel was important to them. In the article, it reads: ""What makes something a classic film is there is that quality that it speaks to you whether it is 1930 or 2013," said Lee, admitting that
Cinderella (1950) and
The Little Mermaid (1989) are still her favorite Disney animated features. For
Frozen (2013), she related that the directors aimed to make the film both "timeless and timely. ... We just kept pushing to make sure there are themes in this movie that make it relatable." Lee (also a writer on the film) noted that at its heart, the feature is a story about sisters, and
John Lasseter helped to elevate that point. "When we were still just discovering the story we'd show John [the work] he'd say 'you have to go deeper.' That is the key to John-You have to have worked each scene to the point where you know exactly what it means and why, and you got the most out of it." Buck-whose favorite Disney animated film is still
Pinocchio (1940)-added that Lasseter would "also keep us on track ... with so make people and voices in the room, you can start to stray." Incidentally, the two went to CalArts together and "have that same love of Disney. ... I love that classic feel; it is engrained in me.""
Producer
Peter Del Vecho explained the English title change from "The Snow Queen" to "Frozen": "The title
Frozen (2013) came up independently of the title
Tangled (2010). It's because, to us, it represents the movie. Frozen plays on the level of ice and snow but also the frozen relationship, the frozen heart that has to be thawed. We don't think of comparisons between Tangled and Frozen, though. The decision to call the film Frozen was the filmmaker's decision. The studio's decision to then call it the Snow Queen overseas was because that just resonated stronger in some countries than Frozen. Maybe there's a richness to the Snow Queen in the country's heritage and they just wanted to emphasize that." As he continued to make his statement, "We're telling a story about family and relationships and that in itself can be very complicated. A lot of times what you perceive something to be isn't what it turns out to be - Elsa has to hide for her whole life who she is, even from her sister. That clearly affected her and made her into the character she is. Hopefully, if you look at the story through Elsa's eyes, you'll be able to understand what she does, or if you look at it through Anna's eyes, you'll be able to understand why she does what she does, but they're all complicated relationships. We don't think of it as a Princess movie. They happen to be Princesses, but we don't think about it that way, so I always get a bit thrown when people talk about this. But I can say we want to make them really believable and not set them up on a pedestal. Our version of these characters should feel really real and be relatable to things you might go through in your life."
Peter Del Vecho explains the decision of having two directors: "In story planning we're always together. That's myself, the head of story, the songwriters and Jen[nifer Lee] and Chris [Buck]; you can't do anything until you get that story working. But after that, we have the ability to keep Jen working on story while Chris is working on animation, and then they come together again in editorial. The idea of two directors is that they can come together to bounce ideas off each another when they need to but also split their duties a little bit so that, essentially, they can get more work done in a straight day."
Visiting Norway was obviously essential in coming up with the design aesthetic for
Frozen (2013) in terms of color, light, and atmosphere. According to Giaimo, there were three important takeaways from the research trip in making
Frozen (2013) unique to the Disney canon: the fjords, which are the massive vertical rock formations, and serve as the setting for the secluded Arendelle kingdom; the medieval stave churches, whose rustic triangular rooflines and shingles inspired the castle compound; and the rosemaling folk art, whose distinctive paneling and grid patterns informed the architecture, decor, and costumes (the most elaborate in Disney history, designed by
Brittney Lee).
A live reindeer was brought into the animating studio for animators to study its movements and mannerisms for the reindeer character, Sven. Co-director
Jennifer Lee said it was the best moment during production for her.
Santino Fontana told The Hollywood Reporter that the biggest challenge of working in animation "is that you have no idea what it's gonna look like. Any acting in front of a camera or on stage, you have to be aware of the whole arc, the whole through line, whereas in animation the script is constantly changing, so you are really only responsible for that scene. That's a huge difference and a huge weight off your shoulders. You don't have to get something right, because it's going to change and they are going to edit it, so that's great."
Frozen (2013) joins with other Disney animated feature films that have been filmed in the ultra widescreen film format:
Lady and the Tramp (1955),
Sleeping Beauty (1959),
The Black Cauldron (1985),
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001),
Brother Bear (2003), and
Wreck-It Ralph (2012).
Michael Giaimo's production design and art direction for
Frozen (2013) is greatly inspired by the works of 'Mary Blair' (v) in
Cinderella (1950) and
Peter Pan (1953) and that of
Eyvind Earle in
Sleeping Beauty (1959).
Michael Giaimo, the film's art director, is well known for his exuberant art direction for
Pocahontas (1995), which was the last time he served as art director at Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Frozen (2013) marked his return to the studio after being fired when
Home on the Range (2004) disastrously and embarrassingly bombed with critics and audiences, that costed massive layoffs and short-lived demise of traditional animation.
Regarding the look and nature of the film's cinematography, 'Michael Giaimo', who also helped with the cinematography, was greatly influenced by the legendary
Jack Cardiff's work in
Black Narcissus (1947), which lends a hyper-reality to
Frozen (2013). It was also his idea that the film should be filmed in CinemaScope, which was warmly approved by
John Lasseter. This was mainly to capture the scope, scale, and depth of the film's ambitious story and direction. It marked the first instance that a full-length motion picture and animated film was filmed in CinemaScope since
Titan A.E. (2000), the first Disney animated production since
In the Bag (1956), and the first Disney film since
Lady and the Tramp (1955). "Because this is a movie with such scale and we have the Norwegian fjords to draw from, I really wanted to explore the depth. From a design perspective, since I was stressing the horizontal and vertical aspects, and what the fjords provide, it was perfect. We encased the sibling story in scale." In fact,
Ted D. McCord's work on
The Sound of Music (1965) was another major influence: "The juxtaposition of character and environment and the counterpart of how they played in terms of cinematography was brilliant in that film," Giaimo added.
Michael Eisner, then-CEO and Chairman of The Walt Disney Company, was very interested in "The Snow Queen" project when it was in early development in 2002. Even though he neglected from production from all Disney movies in the 2000s than he had in the 1980s and 90s, he had such a passion for the story and characters, especially that of The Snow Queen. Eisner offered his support to the project and even suggested doing the film with
John Lasseter at Pixar Animation Studios, when the two studios would get their contracts renewed.
Santino Fontana auditioned for the role of Flynn Rider for
Tangled (2010). After the audition, Santino was called back for Kristoff (when it was known as the Snow Queen in 2010).
Initially assigned only to be a screenwriter to begin with after her acclaimed work on
Wreck-It Ralph (2012), on November 30, 2012, Disney announced that
Jennifer Lee joined veteran animator/director
Chris Buck (
Tarzan (1999),
Surf's Up (2007)) as co-director. When she came on board of the project, she so quickly understood the story the filmmakers were conveying and worked well with everyone associated with the film and had such a passion for the film, as much as director
Chris Buck. In the time frame that they had, in addition, the producers needed two directors and chose Lee. Following the announcement, Lee became the first woman to direct an animated feature made and produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios.
The Duke of Weselton is the second consecutive Disney character to be voiced by
Alan Tudyk following King Candy in
Wreck-It Ralph (2012).
In addition to being the first female to direct a full-length Disney animated feature film,
Jennifer Lee also became the first woman to solely write an entire screenplay for a Disney animated film since
Linda Woolverton for
Beauty and the Beast (1991).
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