“The Art of Bolt” takes a look at how things have changed at Walt Disney Animation Studios

Jim Hill

16 years ago

Let’s start with the obvious: 2008 was an absolute dog of a year. One that most of us will be happy to leave behind.

But that said, there were a few things that were worth remembering about 2008. And one of them was a cute little cartoon dog called Bolt.

Okay. So “Bolt” wasn’t exactly a world beater at the box office (A topic we’ll be discussing in great depth here at JHM next week). But there’s enough right about this Chris Williams & Byron Howard film to signal — just as “The Great Mouse Detective” did back in July of 1986 — that Walt Disney Animation Studios is finally, truly on the mend. And that great things may lie just beyond the horizon.

Which is why it’s fascinating to read Mark Cotta Vaz’s “The Art of Bolt” (Chronicle Books, October 2008). Which reveals that — a year ago — “more than 90 percent of the movie still needed to be animated.”

Of course, the reason for that is — back in January of 2006 — John Lasseter & Ed Catmull pulled the plug on “American Dog,” the original version of this WDAS production. They then replaced Chris Sanders with Chris Williams & Byron Howard, who did a floor-to-ceiling makeover of the project.

Oh sure. “Bolt” retained Sanders’ basic premise for this animated feature (i.e. a TV show dog gets lost in the real world) as well as the painterly look that art director Paul Felix had created for this animated feature. But beyond that, this was a whole new movie that still had to meet “American Dog” ‘s Thanksgiving 2008 release date.

Me personally, I wish that “The Art of Bolt” had done a better job of discussing what actually happened with “American Dog.” Why exactly Lasseter & Catmull felt it was necessary to remove Sanders. But Vaz quickly blows by this obviously awkward moment in this production’s history. Using a single sentence to say that ” … story problems led (John & Ed) to call a halt to the production,” and then never touches on this issue again.

But barring that one unfortunate oversight, “The Art of Bolt” is a really terrific book. Loaded with wonderful pieces of concept art that shows how Williams & Howard quickly changed their title character from this Chris Sanders-esque sort of dog …

… exploring all sorts of looks & styles …

… before finally settling on their own distinctive Hollywood hound.

Chris & Byron had similar problems trying to get a handle on Penny, “Bolt” ‘s heroine …

… before they finally came up with a little girl who could win the heart of the film’s title character as well as the audience.

Vaz does a pretty thorough job with “The Art of Bolt.” Touching on virtually every aspect of this WDAS production. Everything from the film’s color keys …

… to an overview of Sovereign Studios. Which Disney artists used as they blocked out this animated feature’s fire-filled finale.

What’s really neat about a book like this is — if you read it really closely — you then discover all sorts of intriguing things about the movie in question.

Take — for example — the studio layout drawing above. If you look carefully at both the water tower as well as one of the soundstages in the above image, you’ll see that Williams & Howard originally toyed with calling Bolt’s TV show, “Omega Dog.”

As you read “The Art of Bolt,” you’ll also learn about entire sequences that were cut out of “Bolt.” Like a dramatic dog fight in Las Vegas that was originally supposed to be the moment in this movie where Bolt realized that he had no super powers.

There are all sorts of fun facts to be found in “The Art of Bolt.” Like Joe Moshier (i.e. the film’s lead character designer)’s inspiration for Penny’s agent.

“I studied sharks when I was developing Penny’s agent. Human eyes sit forward on the face so I slightly rotated his eyes back to give him a more shark-like quality. I wanted to communicate visually that you shouldn’t trust this guy.”

But at the same time, Vaz talks about how the new heads of WDAS pushed “Bolt” ‘s production team to keep their movie grounded in reality. As Clark Spencer, “Bolt” ‘s producer explained:

“A fundamental idea of this film was (that) this girl and dog have been put in a Hollywood world that probably isn’t right for them. But how do you realize that innocence is being lost without having Penny surrounded by ‘evil’ people? John Lasseter pushed us toward believability and it wasn’t believable to say everyone in Hollywood is evil.”

It’s these sorts of insights into this WDAS production that make “The Art of Bolt” the type of book that every Disneyana / animation fan should pick up. Just so they can get some sense of how much things have changed at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Your thoughts?