Rapunzel (film)

Rapunzel is an American animation film scheduled for release in 2009 and produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and Walt Disney Pictures and to be distributed by Buena Vista Pictures in the United States. The story is based on the fairy tale Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm.

Though the film will be made entirely in CGI, Rapunzel will resemble traditional oil paintings on canvas. One of the main ambitions of the makers of Rapunzel is to create movements that are just as soft and fluid as of that in the old Disney Classics.

Very few details have been released about this film, except that in October of 2005, production was halted in order to "retool" it. Early versions of Rapunzel (then titled Rapunzel Unbraided) had been criticized by top Disney artists and executives for having too many similarities to the 2001 DreamWorks hit animated film Shrek, which parodied numerous fairy tales and Disney animated films. The retooling is expected to take two years, with Rapunzel's release date being pushed back from 2007 to 2009. Many classic Disney films often go through this retooling phase. In July 2006, Disney's new creative head John Lasseter admitted that he is very pleased with Rapunzel thus far, after seeing a nearly-completed first act.

If the film is released on schedule, it will be the first Disney animated feature based on a traditional european fairy tale in eighteen years (the previous one being 1991's Beauty and the Beast), and the first one done in CGI.

Story
Originally, the film's plot revolved around two 'romantically challenged', real-world teenagers who are transformed into Rapunzel and her Prince by a disgruntled witch who can no longer stand happy fairy-tale endings. However, since production was halted in 2004 for major retooling, Glen Keane promises that the film will revert back to the fairy tale's "literary origins." Thus, it is likely that the previously-mentioned plot of two 'romantically challenged, real-world teenagers' will be discarded.

Visual style and animation
The movie's visual style will based on the painting "The Swing", by the French Rococo artist Jean-Honore Fragonard. Because director Glen Keane wanted this to be an animated movie that looked and felt like a traditional hand-drawn Disney Classic in 3D, he first had a seminar called "The Best of Both Worlds", where he, with 50 Disney animators (CGI artists and traditional artists), focused on the pluses and minuses of each style. The movie will be made by animators from both traditional and CGI backgrounds.

To create the impression of a drawing, Non-photorealistic rendering is going to be used, making the surface look like it is painted but still containing depth and dimensions. A three-second test footage of the film was shown at the Siggraph 2005, where it was well-received.