Customer Reviews

The Art of The Princess and the Frog

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Length:: 0:25 Mins

Looking through the art in this book, one would not have guessed that Disney actually decided to phase out traditional animation in 2004. The Princess and the Frog essentially marks a comeback, a representation of what Disney used to be. That's good news for all fans of traditional animation.

The Art of The Princess and the Frog is filled character designs, background art and storyboards. The art is unmistakeably Disney-style -- the caricature style of characters, stylized set designs and lush colours. The story is set in New Orleans and there are plenty of background paintings in different moods. The characters are lively and backgrounds beautiful.

The team of contributing artists is impressive. There are new artists as well as familiar names. It's impossible to name all but those whose name keep appearing are Rik Maki, Armand Baltazar, Bill Schwab, James Aaron Finch (production designer), Ian Gooding (art director), Sue Nichols, Mark Henn, Chris Appelhans, Kevin Gollaher and many more.

The artists and staff contribute numerous interesting quotes. They talk about the creative process, characters, the set and a bit on the story. There are stuff like what they did or where they went for research, inspiration and influence from older classic animated films. All interesting and insightful to read.

This book a refreshing and welcome look back at traditional art, after being exposed to so much digital animation. Old school still has its distinct charm.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

I borught this book for my boyfriend for christmas because he adores anything Disney. (who doesnt lol) Its a wonderful book, Good price and its vivid colors make it really fun to read. its a nice big book that will definitly keep you buys for hours. For those of you who like to collect stuff like this its a great buy.

It is a hell of a book, :) it really inspires me and it help me a lot to improve my work

I won't repeat the positive things that other people have mentioned, and only add that I particularly enjoyed the storyboards, color scripts, and color keys. There are definitely other Art of titles that I enjoy more, but if you are a collector of the Art of books then there is no question that you should pick this one up. You won't be disappointed.

This book is very inspiring for me like a character designer.
Great drawings and concept arts. Specially the character design
developments.

I love it
hugs, from Laqua (Brazil)
[...]

If you like animation and ilustration, tris book is for you. The study of New Orleans is really nice.

The princess and the frog is one of my favorite movies and considering that I want to be a movie director I got this book. This is my 3rd "art of" book that I have and while it has wonderful pictures in it, it mostly talked about New Orleans. Which is not a bad thing because I learned a lot about it but the real reason I got this book was so I could see how the movie was made. It only has a couple pages on how the movie was made but not a lot. But all in all a amazing book that I would suggest to anyone.

I'm from Spain, totally obsessed with animation and, of course, with Disney. Their last work of art was just so good I had to order this book when I knew of its existence, since it is awfully difficult to find it in my country. It was what I expected it to be. I truly recommend this book to the real fans of the movie. Better than any form of merchandise, it reflects perfectly the spirit of the film in every way and it will be the best purchase to make if you want something to match the DVD in your shelf. I believe that even if you weren't very impressed with the movie, the book will amaze you. It is full of imagination, colour and a "gumbo" of ideas you will sure enjoy. While I wasn't very satisfied with the "text" part, it was fun to read anyway and I'm glad I have it now with me. It's a beautiful golden book to admire.

This book is a entire New Orleans creation, that is because all the argument of the film is there. The art of the backgrounds, creation of characters and al the concepts for scenes is great, in my opinion, one of the best "the art of..." that I've seen. Recommended for artist and colectors.

Books made for the purpose of exploring the art of creating an animated film are supposed to give the reader an overall sense of how the film was conceived, the choices made in bringing it to life and the changes made throughout the production. The Art of Princess and the Frog tells us none of these things. I love to hear in depth stories of what went on during production, why they chose this over that... where their heads were in creation. But while reading the Art of Princess and the Frog I felt growing frustration and annoyance. The writers have taken what could have been an excellent book and turned it into a brochure.

For example, in a small opening foreward John Musker and Ron Clements tell us more than the rest of the book. Most importantly that, although Disney animators had tried for years to develop their own version of the Frog Princess, the final film was originally a Pixar project that was brought over to Disney by John Lasseter after he took over as the head of Animation at Disney studios. Really? Fantastic! Lets see the Pixar variation before Disney animators took over... How about a chapter explaining why Pixar could never get the story going, or why John Lasseter wanted an african american princess movie? Or was it John Musker? Or Ron Clements? Whose idea was it to make Tianna the frog princess? None of these questions are even brought up, let alone examined by the writers.

The book is written with little prose and many pictures. Beautiful pictures they may be but with little or no commentary about what stage of the process we're viewing we have little or no idea about how the animators came to the decisions that ultimately became the film seen on screen. By the way it is written you come to the conclusion the writers really do not understand how these films are made.So instead of doing research and being informative they have inserted snippets of college student writing to replace actual, interesting information.

This mundane drivel gives us precious little insight into how the characters were developed. For instance, on the chapter on Tiana's parents James and Eudora (no last name) begins with, " Tiana's parents are deftly drawn and important."

End of paragraph.

What??! They are "deftly drawn"??? Aren't ALL the characters drawn in a "deft" manner?? And why are they important? Are they important simply because they're the heroines parents or because in creating them the animators learned something important? Why?

The paragraph about the parents directly continues with a quote from animator Ruben Aquino, " They [Tiana's parents] don't have much screen time, but I think of characters like that as very important for the emotional storyline." End quote.

Alright, WHY do you think that? The time spent on the parents is the same spent on almost all the characters..... four small paragraphs. Mostly a quote from the film. Nothing about how the parents were created, who they used as inspiration and how difficult or easy it was.

Deftly drawn, sheesh.

It gets worse with the chapter describing the " Dark Side of New Orleans". This refers to the "bad guy's joint" area of the film, where the beautiful city of New Orleans gets dark and mean looking so that the villain of the story has a place to hang out. Not a problem, the film makers did a good job as we can see by the pictures of the place. However, instead of telling us how the visual designers came about drawing the backgrounds ( how they came up with their palette, how they changed the architecture to suit the mood without changing the look of the city, why they made the entire " Friends on the Other Side" song aglow like a frickin' Toon Town ride and brag about how cool that visual really was) the writers sum up the visuals with a punchy line like this; " In designing these more ominous settings of the city, the artists developed a visual vocabulary that would reinforce both the mood of the spaces and the characters that inhabit them."

Gah. Visual vocabulary? I guess we should be glad that THEY knew what they were talking about. Care to explain it a little more? Not much. Tall vertical spaces and disquieting candles my foot. Instead of being clever they've made it boring. Why not tell us some more interesting details?

As far as moral ambiguity goes this sentence about Naveens voluntarily entering the "disquieting" area is written as so;

"The balances of a life well lived are a part of the appeal of this city to Naveen, the idea that without indulgence once cannot truly enjoy morality."

Excuse me I guess I never understood that "morality" was some kind of experience to be "truly" enjoyed. But, as long as we're on Naveen how about a little insight into why he acts like a jerk? Can the writers give us some semblance of how Naveen was created and what drives his personality?

" Disney has a long tradition of princes, but they all fall short of being characters in and of themselves." Says Randy Haycock, the supervising animator of Naveen, " They're functional. They give the princesses somebody to fall in love with. But in terms of having a real personality, or a real attitude-or any kind of flaw, in fact? Never."

Wait a minute.... does he mean that Aladdin didn't have a personality? And wasn't the ENTIRE message of the film that Aladdin learns his lying is a bad thing? Isn't lying considered a kind of flaw? No wait, Aladdin doesn't count, right? That was a movie about a prince! Even less, a guy pretending to be a prince until he actually does become a prince! Not a princess... no long standing Disney Princess came out of Aladdin that would make the poor boy count as a character with a personality. Jasmine, anyone?

Randy continues, "Prince Eric probably came the closest to having actual personality. But he was still flawless."

So Disney's way of promoting their newest characters is to completely trash their old ones. I get it.... but Eric wasn't flawless. He was so loyal to the idea of his first love he almost lost Ariel to the image of singing Ariel. I mean, come on! And if you agree that Eric and Aladdin were somehow both personality-less, no one can throw the Beast from Beauty and the Beast in that category. And no spoiled, egotistical brat like Naveen is going to put the Beast in that category. What are they thinking? Who gets away with such self serving arrogance? This animator must think he IS Naveen. Yeesh!! You should never cut down another character to promote your own... you should be positive about the character even WITH his flaws not BECAUSE of them!

I think this attitude prevails throughout the Princess and the Frog film as well as the book. The film had flaws but they were mostly overlooked or ignored because of the sheer gratitude of a generation starving for 2D films again. I am one of the throng desirous of more films of this stature but I am not so grateful that I cannot see it for its flaws and its creators for theirs.

There was a LOT to say about the making of this film. The problems they faced from a variety of sources and the creators ability to overcome and even succeed in the face of those who would find fault at anything because of the awesome idea of making the lead an African American Princess. As well as the conception of creating a princess inside of an American story!

Unfortunately this book doesn't say anything about the films concept, its creation or design. Its a large, lovely picture book and nothing more. What a disappointment.