Disney’s Tarzan Research Essay
By
Mathew Richens
In the 1912 October issue of ‘The All-Story Magazine’ Edgar Rice Burroughs created a legend in Tarzan.
After many attempts at creating a suitable Tarzan in the film industry, the conclusion was drawn that no actor could physically do the things that Burroughs’ Tarzan did. The films directors Kevin Lima and Chris Buck understood that animating Tarzan was the only way to do Tarzan the way Edgar Rice Burroughs imagined it. At the time of making it, they both felt that although they could achieve a great deal with CGI they didn’t believe it would be the most effective way to tell the story they wanted to tell. Eventually the decision to combine CGI with traditional animation was made.
In the original books not many people realised that the animals could speak, and Tarzan speaks to the animals. This was something that the directors and writers wanted to explore. Bonnie Arnold, the films producer says
“We’ve never really seen a realistic portrayal of what Tarzans relationship is with his ape family and the animals around him.”
-Bonnie Arnold (Producer)
The reason they made that decision is most probably to make the themes feel somewhat contemporary and also be true to the history of Tarzan.
At the heart of it, it is a great story with something really important to say.
“It’s a powerful rendition of a great classic American story, brought forth in imagery like only Disney could do was just phenomenal.”
-Danton Burroughs
(Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.)
I agree that Disney, being the corporate giant that it is, would take their time in creating a well designed and thought out production.
One of the most interesting things they did while researching the film was actually go to Africa.
“We needed to go to Africa for our research trip to really understand where Tarzan grew up, we immersed ourselves in Tarzans world, and just had to see for ourselves what it really was Burroughs was writing about.”
-Dan St. Pierre (Art Director)
When animating a character it’s good to be constantly on the search for things that inspire you, not always knowing where it will come from. These guys all went to Africa and went looking for gorillas and studied them there, going to Africa was probably the most important part of the research as they got to interact with real silverback gorillas. They expected to find these mean, monstrous gorillas; instead, there was a family of thirteen gorillas all sitting around in a very relaxed family-like picture. This inspired the ‘family groups’ for the film. I think they came out of it with an appreciation for who Tarzan is, the way he thinks and the way he acts. Those are the kind of elements that go into making the character convincing. Also I think it really directed the layout of the movie and the background painting of the movie. They would have been knee deep in vegetation, and thankfully must have thought ‘wouldn’t it be cool if the characters were in the same situation’.
“I took 150 rolls of film, gathering all the information and whatever details we could from the jungle, the moss, the vines, the bark on the trees, and whatever we could use for reference.”
-Doug Ball
(Artistic Supervisor, Backgrounds)
The directors felt they should make the audience believe they were actually there in Tarzans jungle. Africa is a very beautiful place, and the style of the painting and general visual approach of the film has captured it brilliantly.
Before the primary animation had begun, it was decided that the film would have an original soundtrack to fit the movies theme. What Disney film would be complete without songs, right?
“As soon as they actually decided what they were going to do at the beginning of the movie they said they needed a song, this is what the song should be about ‘two worlds, one family’. The thing that motivated me at first was the rhythmic possibilities.”
-Phil Collins
Mark Mancina, the films composer, felt it was a real challenge to take a Phil Collins approach to a song and then take it further. The results, I would say are very successful, as the films score and title tracks compliment each other fully.
Story is probably the most time consuming part of a films development. The screenwriters, the directors and the rest of the story crew had to build the movie from the ground up. Storyboards basically just start with an idea and you go from there, you start drawing and doing some quick sketches. Little by little you expand that into a comic book style so you can show how each shot is planned out as a sequence. Once the sequence is drawn, it has to be pitched to the directors, they’re taken through it one step at a time, characters are acted out, this helps them picture it in real time animation. Then it would be moved on to editorial and they’d start putting it together on film, adding music and dialogues. Finally it moves forward into animation. The films editor is usually one of the first members of the crew and stays on until the very end. This process is to make sure there is a solid story.
In this animated Tarzan they had the ability to completely reinvent the way Tarzan looks. When animating him, they found inspiration from skateboarders and snowboarders. They started thinking of Tarzan as a tree-surfer, that he should use branches like obstacles, he slides his feet down the moss, he doesn’t just swing on the vines with his hands, he grabs them with his feet, this Tarzan could probably never appear in any other medium other than animation, 2-D or 3-D. One of the first assignments for the animators was to study an animal movement, and then try to translate that through Tarzans movements.
Working in animation mean that anything is possible, and one thing that’s never been explored on screen before is the relationship between Tarzan and his adoptive Mother, Kala. The film shows close-ups of character faces, allowing the audience to see signs of emotion between the characters.
The film has two main villains, Clayton, the human villain, and Sabor, the animal villain. The directors wanted to show some parallels between the two, this was achieved by their colour palettes, both were coloured similarly to help make the connection.
Their goal was to create an animated jungle that could seem real to the animated Tarzan. The problem was allowing the camera to follow Tarzan through the trees and catch him interacting with his environment. The process used was ‘Deep-Canvas’. The deep-canvas software basically allowed the background artist to digitally paint a background over a mesh base, meaning that not only what you can see is coloured, but also everything else. This way when the camera moves around trees for example, they appear fully 3-D. After a whole scene is made up, the 2-D character animation is added over the top (at 24 fps) this creates the full scene.
The overall animation process used is the same as with most animated features, it involves taking the story reel, or storyboards, and presenting them in real time, allowing the directors and animators to get a general perspective on the shot and an understanding of how long the scene will play for. These are usually shown with the soundtrack, voices and background noises being played, this also helps the animators know when a character is speaking in a scene and for how long. Once the story reel is approved, the scene goes through a process of rough animation, normally a stop motion hand drawn animation displaying the movement of the characters and elements, this needs to be given the thumbs up by the directors and supervising animators before it can move on in production. The next stage is clean-up animation, basically consisting of finer lining, as well as characters final lip syncs, from there it is given colour and often edited to create a final scene.
The animation for Disney’s Tarzan was actually created on two different continents; it’s hard to believe the Tarzan was being animated in France, while Jane was being animated in California. Directors Kevin Lima and Chris Buck talked to the Paris studio just about every day to try and hold production together. This seems like a difficult process, but one that was clearly successful in the end. I think the thinking behind it was that if the animators were spread out and not crammed into one single studio they would be able to produce some more fresh and original work.
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