The Simpsons short that was attached to Onward is coming to Disney+ on April 10th.
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https://www.facebook.com/DisneyPlus/pho ... 456076017/
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https://twitter.com/CromulentShot/statu ... 4907149312
The project began in August of 2018 and the team worked on it for several months before showing it to Disney. “You never know whether something’s working because you’re so close to it,” says Silverman. “But fortunately [Disney exec chair] Bob Iger really liked it, so we added some more jokes and fine-tuned it. Then in the second week of January of this year, we added a few more shots and adjusted the music and that was it.”
The short also has some fun with the Disney acquisition, as it delivers a clever visual joke with Homer sporting two Mickey Mouse ears, which turn out to be two donuts, and you can also spot a silhouette of the famous mouse in the final title card for Gracie Films. “Those two were two of the things we added towards the end of the journey,” says Silverman. “We had a lot of ideas for the opening of the short, but many of them were too complicated. This seems like a quick and elegant way to do a fun fake-out. Al Jean has several ideas, but the whole thing harkens back to the early days of The Simpsons, when Matt was very insistent that the characters’ silhouettes had to be easily recognized, which was also a hallmark of the characters from the silent era, as well as the famous Disney characters.”
The director says he was also very pleased that the film was released theatrically with the Pixar short Onward. “Jim lobbied for the short to play in front of Onward, and I was delighted because there was a certain symmetry since I used to work at Pixar (co-director of Monster, Inc.). I can’t speak to how it all worked out, but I loved Onward and thought they worked very well together, and seemed emotionally connected.”
Source:
https://www.animationmagazine.net/short ... h-destiny/
Q: When did you start working on it? Roughly how long did it take to complete?
David Silverman: Most of it took the better part of a year. We started it in August of 2018, and we got it to a good point where we showed it off to Disney, and they liked it very much. And we were very happy. Because you never know; you’re so close to it. ‘Is it working? We don’t know.’ Bob Iger really liked it, so after that we were gonna finish it up and fix it. We were going back and forth on some things– ‘Maybe this joke is funnier this way,’ and so forth. Around September of 2019, we had it more or less done. And then in January we added a few last-minute things: a little edit here, add a shot there, an adjustment on some of the music, and that was about it.
Q: Can you talk about the ‘Homer with donut Mickey ears’ fake-out at the beginning, the Disney-style title cards, and Mickey Mouse being added to the Gracie Films logo at the end? What made you guys lean into that iconography?
David Silverman: That was one of the things we added in at the end of January. We actually had this whole brainstorming [session]; we had a myriad of ideas of how to do the opening. Some were too complicated to do in a short period of time and some were not quite so quick and elegant. This seemed like the best approach– to have the fake-out. ‘Oh, it’s Mickey Mouse’s silhouette. Oh no, it’s Homer! What about that?’ [laughs] And then at the end, Mickey Mouse’s silhouette is pretty easy to recognize, so that was an easy thing to do. I remember getting the logo and I think Al Jean said, ‘Where do you think he should be placed?’ I had a couple of ideas, and Al made the final decision on that. That’s how that all happened.
Q: In theaters, “Playdate with Destiny” was attached to Pixar’s Onward. How did you feel about that pairing and how was that decision made?
David Silverman: I don’t know how exactly that went. I think Jim [Brooks] was the one that really lobbied to be in front of Onward. I was just delighted to see that. I felt some interesting symmetry or connection, because as you know I worked at Pixar and co-directed on Monsters, Inc. At that point I felt, ‘Oh, I’m working for Disney.’ And now, what do you know, I’m back working for Disney. And then it comes connected with a Disney/Pixar release. I can’t speak to how it came about, because I don’t really know specifically, but I’m sure glad it did. It’s a great film to be part of. I really love Onward. We didn’t see anything about it [during production] but it just seemed, emotionally, to be very connected somehow.
Source:
https://www.laughingplace.com/w/article ... nd-disney/