(All images you see in this post are screen shots by me.)
"Sleeping Beauty" is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney and based on "La Belle au bois dormant" (French for "The Beauty sleeping in the Wood") by Charles Perrault and based also on "Little Briar Rose" by the Brothers Grimm. This would the 16th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the third Disney Princess film (Because Alice and Wendy don't count) and the last Disney animated film as fairy tale for some years due to a disappointing box office gross. With "The Little Mermaid" making that return to the genre more than twenty years later.
We all pretty much know how the story goes so let's just get down to the setting designs and art direction...
Known to be the last Disney animation to use hand-inked cels, Walt Disney wanted the film to look like a living illustration, using medieval art as his main source of inspiration for the overall art direction, making it really different from the typical Disney style (Especially when compared to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and "Cinderella"), and corresponding more to the time period the film was set in.
Though not as heavily stylized as "Secret of Kells", this would notably be one of Disney's more stylized films, especially when people by that time had already come to recognize the softer look that is used for their usual animation style prior. At the time, the backgrounds were especially detailed and would take much longer to complete (Each one would take seven to ten days to complete, while a typical animation background would take just one workday to complete).
And while the characters were colored in a much simpler manner to the backgrounds (It's always been that way though for animations, backgrounds can be designed with more detailed textures and such while for the sake of animating, characters would be more flatly colored and simplified in design when possible, which is completely understandable), they were still drawn in that somewhat angular manner to match the style they were aiming for.
Despite Disney trying to stick as closely as possible to the tapestry style, to me, the lighting used was really realistic compared to the art style itself. It's interesting to see how the artists attempt to balance stylistic designs and more realistic light physics.
Anyway, they truly did do a fantastic job for the lighting and shadows, without taking out or showing too much to prevent any of the scenes from looking too busy (Especially since the backgrounds are already so detailed, that could be a problem), the main focus of the scene was always properly established and while now and then the main focus tends to be centralized, it is good to see how the artists use the rule of thirds most of the time.
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| This film had some really nice perspectives, it almost felt ahead of its time. |
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| A lot of nice framing elements too, especially during this scene when Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip meet for the first time as young adults. |
Disney was always able to create amazing tension with their skilled usage of lighting (I will never forget that one scene when Lady Tremaine realizes that Cinderella was the mysterious beauty at the ball…
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| Even though there is no lighting in the room she was previously in, it still looks really vibrantly colored (Albeit with a darker palette) if you take the time to properly look at it, they had just done a fantastic job in creating the illusion of an unlit room that you just never notice it. |
As seen here, the use of negative spaces just makes the scene all the more intense. As compared to the scene prior, the backgrounds were not subtly darkened but instead had most of the areas near completely blackened out, perhaps to create a stronger focus point and to show the ever growing tension as Princess Aurora nears her 'end'.
It seemed to me that green was the established color scheme for evil and malevolent presences, and yet somehow it was used here where everyone was put into a magical slumber, though with some blue mixed into it (I suppose this green looks a lot more calming than the yellowish green one used in Maleficent's scenes).
I really did like the change in color scheme here, in the earlier scene, everything still seemed quite festive (Albeit with a sad undertone as they are completely unaware of what had happened to their princess). And when the good fairies set off to carry out their rescue mission, the colors used when the sleeping spell was cast really did give off a strangely soothing look (As in "All will be right when you awaken, don't you worry your pretty heads and just sleep in the meantime until we get back.").
Come to think of it, the colors used reminds me of an aurora borealis (Whoa ho hoooo did I just make a little pun there?).
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| Again with the shadows… Poor guy never saw it coming... |
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| See? Green is evil! … and purple. |
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| After all that excitement... |
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| The color scheme really begins to dull down. RIP, yellowish green. |
It is such a pity that this film hadn't initially done well in the box office, in my opinion this is still one of the most beautiful Disney classic movies (I also think Prince Phillips was the first Disney prince with any personality, until Prince Charming proves himself later on in "Cinderella III" DON'T JUDGE ME). I am glad though that during the years after, the film began to gain a huge following as it so deserved.
… I'm still grimacing over the upcoming "Maleficent" film, but I know I am still going to watch it eventually..
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