Interview with Zootopia Directors

Directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore present some of the research they did at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park in collaboration with Dr. Mark Penning – Vice President, Animals, Science and Environment, Disney Parks. Photo by Alex Kang. ©2016 Disney. All Rights Reserved.
 
 

Whether it was The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan or Aladdin, I’d watch the happily ever after scene that ended each Disney movie and my dad would promptly hit rewind on the VHS player by my request. As an adult, my excitement for Disney movies has changed. Creative storytelling, spectacular visuals, one of a kind characters and humor anyone can get keep me on the edge of my seat for the next Disney movie. Each one is a unique piece of art to be admired and Zootopia is its own species entirely. Zootopia directors Rich Moore and Byron Howard both have animated successes behind them, Howard with Tangled and Moore Wreck-It Ralph, but Zootopia breaks the mold with compelling mystery, endless laughs, and so much detail you’ll have to see it multiple times to really hunt it all down.

Directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore present some of the research they did at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park in collaboration with Dr. Mark Penning – Vice President, Animals, Science and Environment, Disney Parks. Photo by Alex Kang. ©2016 Disney. All Rights Reserved.

I was most intrigued by the detail of the world of Zootopia and parallels of the world we live in which prompted the question I kicked off our interview with…

The Backstory of Zootopia

Nicole: It was loaded with details from the architecture, I loved all the influence, and then we saw some movies that had some fun names and then the founders of Zootopia were even mentioned. I was wondering how much backstory, that we don’t even see or know about, do you do to put that on the screen?

Byron: “We thought about that a lot. Backstory is a tricky thing. It all eventually got boiled down to that first play that Judy puts on. We had whole histories written out about how the predators and prey were competing and how they formed villages and were attacking each other and there was a war and there was a plague and we took it all out because it was just too much information.

We do have to know that stuff even if the audience isn’t presented with it. Even in the natural history museum at the very end of the film you’ll see things like primitive jackalopes fending off a sabertooth leopard.”

Rich Moore shared that there was a scene that was cut where a character went into detail about how the town square is the watering hole where they united in peace. He enjoyed the moment because it was someone talking about the history of the place but it got to a point where it wasn’t serving the story and was “gilding the lily.”

Directors Rich Moore and Byron Howard speak to press at the ZOOTOPIA Press Junket at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge in Orlando, Fl. Photo by Alex Kang. ©2016. Disney. All Rights Reserved.
 
 

The Messages in Zootopia

Zootopia is also a standout movie for its amazing positive messages. There are so many impactful messages that are just perfect for our world, and country especially, today that are seamlessly shared in the story. When it came to balancing the seriousness of these topics Rich Moore shared you don’t want to kill the moment with trying to make a joke every time but you don’t want it to feel like someone is preaching either. Moore told us “I’ve always liked people who could kind of make a serious point but then, you know, support it with a joke..” and noted his dad was good at it. It’s the kind of style they tried to emulate in Zootopia.

More Zootopia Director Interview Fun

When the film team was researching animals at Animal Kingdom they discovered that tigers are a very scent oriented animal and the trainers put lots of different scents around their enclosures, particularly cheap perfumes from the eighties, as a way to keep their minds active.

Aside from Animal Kingdom, they did research in a pretty historical place. When they got back to Los Angeles and told John Lasseter about their Animal Kingdom discoveries, he told them they also needed to go on a safari in Kenya that he went on with his family. The guide that took him on safari was William Carr Hartley, a charming guy who grew up in Kenya whose family facilitated The Lion King filmmaker tour about twenty years ago. About fourteen of them went to Nairobi and as they were flying they saw the rock that inspired Pride Rock. It looks exactly the same in the movie.

Check back for an interview with Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman, who voice characters in Zootopia, this Wednesday and my review of the movie this Friday!

Giveaway! – CLOSED 

Congrats, Pedro!

Leave a comment below for a chance to win a carrot recorder pen like Judy’s from Zootopia!

[Giveaway Rules: Must be 18 or older to enter. Prize will ship to the U.S. Winner will be chosen at random from comments on Monday March 7th, 2016. Winner must respond to the email that notifies them that they won with shipping information within 24 hours or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is not sponsored or endorsed by The Walt Disney Studios. This prize was purchased by Nicole at Sparkly Ever After because it’s really cute and she wanted to give one to one of her blog readers as a thank you for being around.]