Once Upon a Studio

Once Upon a Studio was created spontaneously in preparation for The Walt Disney Company's centennial in October 2023;[1] directors Trent Correy and Dan Abraham discussed ideas during their free time for approximately eight months.[17] The duo called the film a "love letter" to Walt Disney Animation Studios as well as "a thank you to anyone in the audience that's ever connected with a film over the last hundred years".[1][4]

The short film includes more than 500 characters[18] from the studio's feature and short films, up unto the upcoming film, Wish (2023), and vocals from more than 40 voice actors.[1] This includes the Genie's dialogue which was sourced from previously unused audio recorded by Robin Williams according to Josh Gad, the voice of Olaf, under acceptance from the Williams' estate.[11] Other archive recordings taken from their original films by stripping the soundtrack around them were Bobby Driscoll as Peter Pan and Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket, as the filmmakers did not want to recast those characters.[13] Once Upon a Studio combines traditional animation, computer animation, and live-action.[1]

The group photo that concludes the film, featuring the over 500 Disney characters represented.

Eric Goldberg served as the head of hand-drawn animation, while Andrew Feliciano worked as head of computer animation.[7] Among the hand-drawn animators recruited for the short were current Disney animators Mark Henn, Randy Haycock, Alex Kupershmidt, and Bert Klein also provided animation for the short, as did former Disney animators James Baxter, Ruben Aquino, Tony Bancroft, Nik Ranieri, and Will Finn; the animators worked both on characters they have previously animated in addition to other classic characters; Baxter requested the directors to work on characters from Bambi (1942), having been a fan of the film while growing up.[7] Goldberg recruited CG animators in the studio who also had experience in hand-drawn animation.[7] Hand-drawn apprentices were also hired to provide animation for the short.[7] The characters were animated in a way that replicated their original films' art style.[19]

Almost 80% of the short's animation is hand-drawn.[7] By the directors' insistence, the hand-drawn animation was done with ink and paper, which Goldberg approved of.[7] Goldberg made the scenes entirely hand-drawn, after which Feliciano would create CG animation that would match the hand-drawn characters' movement.[7] He also personally animated the scene where Mickey approaches a photo of Walt Disney, as he was interested in the scene due to its emotional tone, as well as the Genie, which he originally animated in Aladdin (1992), and characters originally drawn by Ward Kimball.[7]

CG animators had to rebuild the character models for CGI characters from films created prior to Tangled (2010) due to updates made to animation technology over the years, with rigging and rendering being reworked so that they could be used with modern technology.[7] The CG animators worked closely with the hand-drawn team, with Goldberg and Feliciano, the latter a fan of Aladdin since childhood, inspecting the short to determine whether a scene would be led by a hand-drawn or CG character, after which they would evaluate whether a hand-drawn or CG character should be animated first in the scene.[7] Animators with experience in hand-drawn and CG animation, such as Tyler Pacana and Anthony DeRosa, worked on scenes combining both formats; Pacana used a technique named "2D puppetry" to help rig the final photo shot.[7]

Many of the props that the animated characters interact with are CG, including the vending machine that Stromboli shakes and Goofy's camera and ladder.[20]

An early idea the filmmakers received from studio employees multiple times was to include a scene of a room full of all the characters voiced by Alan Tudyk, given Tudyk's relationship with the studio voicing characters in all of their films since Wreck-It Ralph (2012). This did not happen, but Tudyk was included in the short as the voice of the Mad Hatter.[13]

Dave Metzger composed the score for the short,[7] which was composed so that it would feel reminiscent of each character's debut appearance.[13] In the scene where Mickey approaches a photo of Walt Disney, the song "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins (1964) is heard, which was chosen due to being Disney's favorite.[7] As they discussed the idea with executive music producer Matt Walker, he suggested bringing in song co-writer Richard M. Sherman to perform a new rendition of the song.[7] Sherman recorded the song on August 22, 2022 at Disney's original office and using the same piano the Sherman Brothers used to perform the song for Disney.[7] The song "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Pinocchio (1940), was sung by the cast in the finale.

The short premiered on ABC as a "sustainer" to an encore of the 2021 Oscar-winning film Encanto from 8:00pm to 8:11pm, in which it received exactly 2.57 million total viewers in 1.736 million households, with a 1.39/4 HH rating. It also received a 0.45/4 adults 18–49 rating/share, which was equivalent to 0.587 million viewers watching in that demographic.[32]