Frozen 2 may have been out for a while, but fans are getting the chance to rewatch it as it arrives on Disney Plus. On a second viewing, fans can get the chance to pick up on some extra details they may have missed the first time. Express.co.uk spoke exclusively to animator Malerie Walters, who opened up on one detail fans may not have known about previously.
Walters worked on various parts of Frozen 2, including Anna’s reaction to Kristoff’s proposal, and some of the reindeer during Kristoff’s song.
But she also worked on Elsa running up a cliff after singing Into the Unknown, and had to use some interesting references to get it just right.
Speaking of this moment, Walters explained how she recorded herself running for reference to start with, after which she made some important changes based on another Disney heroine.
Walters said: “It’s funny you say that, for that particular moment I had originally copied my reference pretty much exactly, then the directors were feeling like Elsa was too clumpy, because I’m a clumpy human.
“So that was a funny moment. Elsa is way more graceful than I could ever be.”
“Then I went back to my animation basics and… trying to get back to the principles of making it look clearer and cleaner.”
In order to do this, Walters focused on Pocahontas, who runs a great deal in her film, and is also barefoot for most of the time.
She continued: “I did look back at some of the animation in Pocahontas because Pocahontas runs a lot.
“She’s also a very graceful runner but very determined when she runs.
“Also, she is barefoot and Elsa is wearing slippers, so it’s a good piece of reference and we can use previous animation as reference so I did go back and look and find inspiration in Pocahontas.
“I also borrowed some of the poses those animators have put on her and it made it look a lot more sophisticated and elegant a run.”
For Walters, this is always the way she goes about building characters: looking at previous work as well as creating references from real life.
She added: “Movement is so complex and in order to make it believable it has to be grounded in reality and for me I can’t just make that up, I have to see what’s happening…
“It’s one of those things that when it looks right, it looks right, and when it doesn’t, there’s something really off about it…
“So when I’m taking my reference I really try to feel what Elsa is feeling and sometimes my face or my body might do a gesture which is surprising or something that I may not have thought of, so it helps stop you from making cliché acting choices.
“When you get in the character’s body you try and feel what they’re feeling, and you start thinking about it a bit more naturally than just thinking what the character would do, as your mind tends to make more cliché choices that way.”
There’s certainly nothing cliché about Elsa’s movements in that moment, so Walters’ work certainly encapsulated the determination of Elsa.
Frozen 2 is out on Disney Plus on July 3
