Wondering where I was all day? I was in Embargoland! I signed a thingy! But I can show you now!
So, here it is:

Disney Home Entertainment is Granting Wishes!

If you’re eager to get your virtual hands on a digital copy of Aladdin, you’re in luck! Thanks to the nice folks at Disney Home Entertainment, MiceChat has TWO digital copies to give away! Just leave a comment below telling us what YOU would wish for (There are a few provisos, a couple of quid pro quos.) if you had a Genie. Keep it clean, or at least cleanish. Thank you John and the nice folks at Disney Home Entertainment!

You can Pre-Order Aladdin through Amazon here.

More Heart, Less Graveyard Gas

(Mild spoilers ahead; you have been warned!)

I was invited to press day at Sony Animation Studios in Culver City Monday to check out Hotel Transylvania 2. Honestly, I’m not a very big fan of Adam Sandler, but I’d go see a movie of the yellow pages if Genndy Tartakovsky (Wander Over Yonder, Clone Wars, Samurai Jack) made it, because I am such a fan.

First, we got to see the film itself. I usually find sequels to be almost as good as the first film, but I liked this one better. It had less sophomore humor while still having lots of old-fashioned stupid cartoon fun, and a lot more heart, which the first didn’t really have a shortage of. It seemed like the film was more balanced, more of an ensemble story than an Adam Sandler movie. I really enjoyed it. I especially loved Nick Offerman and Mel Brooks, and that the filmmakers knew to build up to the big characters and climax of the film. A character is mentioned throughout but not seen til near the end, which makes his appearance all the more powerful.

While we waited for our roundtables, there was a photo op and animators doing portraits on the lawn. I chose Luis Grané because I loved his character design in The Boxtrolls and Ratatouille as well as the first Hotel Transylvania film. Very stylized, round people, usually. See?

What followed was not traditional roundtables so much as intimate, short college-style (minus the boring) lectures on animated filmmaking. It was fascinating! I hope they do it again. Production designer Michael Kurinsky, visual effects supervisor Karl Herbst and senior animation supervisor Alan Hawkins showed us how they created the mood for the settings with shapes, lighting and color and put the characters into that world, now able to work directly with Tartokovsky’s animation direction directly in the software; he draws the pose he wants, and three hours later, boom! A few seconds of animation that generates High Comedy where there wasn’t before.

Foley Artists Robin Harlan & Sarah Jacobs showed us how they did the sound effects for several scenes (and said nice things about Disney’s late master of the art Jimmy MacDonald). They use an actual animal skull for the clanking of the skeleton bones, and real shoes for walking, while werewolf claws are paper clips on a glove, a slithering blob of slime is two wet balls of chamois cloth, and a china tea set is…a china tea set. Most of the Q&A portion was centered around what union they belonged to, because they are actually performing artists and not technically technicians, and they have to use live foley artists because there is an aural version of The Uncanny Valley.

Director Genndy Tartakovsky and Producer

Genndy talked about designing Dennis, and how he had to change things in his original design like the size of his head, his body, his hair, and his hairstyle, finally settling on matching his body to those of the werewolf cubs to make them realistically play together, as they do in the film. His favorite part of the film was the big thing that happens at the end. And then this happened:

We had a group scratch recording session with voice actress Melissa Sturm (The Lego Movie, Hotel Transylvania 2) where we would overdub already-animated footage. I was terrible, but everyone was very polite and nice. I used to do this for a living in the late 80s, but in my defense, that was over Japanese so I could be a little more loose. Okay, no excuse.

With that, our day was done and I got on the train for Hollywood, which is where I left you, with the Groovy panel discussion.

Executive producer Don Hahn moderated the panel, which consisted of writer Chris Williams, head of story Steve Anderson, producer Randy Fullmer, director Mark Dindal and screenwriter David Reynolds.

They discussed the transformation of Kingdom of the Sun from a heavy, serious film to the no-holds-barred, anything-but-a-live-action-Space-Shuttle film we know and love today. Lots of people who worked on the film were in the audience, too, and a few actually got some love from the audience in the form of applause. Some didn’t, but please know that you’re awesome, and your work is fan-freaking-tastic. BOO-YAH!

And that, Fabtastics, is where Kronks come from. OH MY DISNEY is doing more of these. Stay tuned!

Infinity on your Phone

In the Fab mail:

“DISNEY INTERACTIVE DELIVERS TOY BOX 3.0 EXPERIENCE TO MOBILE DEVICES

Hi Everyone! I’m Sean Patton, Senior Producer for Disney Infinity mobile. I’m excited to announce that, beginning today, the Disney Infinity: Toy Box 3.0 app is now available for free for iOS, Android and Amazon devices. The new app delivers Disney Infinity’s Toy Box mode, with console-like graphics and functionality, tailored for mobile devices and tablets.

This launch is especially exciting for us because mobile has consistently been the most popular platform for Disney Infinity in terms of the number of players, and the overall engagement of the community. In fact, mobile players upload and download more Disney Infinity Toy Boxes through mobile devices and tablets than on any other platform.

We’ve packed the Disney Infinity: Toy Box 3.0 app with many of the most popular new areas of the Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition Toy Box mode, including the Toy Box Hub, the El Capitan community center and farming simulation. Also, we were sure to include all of the popular existing Toy Box features, such as Toy Box sharing, networked multiplayer, INteriors and of course, players can unlock toys and Power Discs in new Daily Challenge mini-adventures.

We want this to be a seamless community experience for our players, and with that in mind, Toy Box 3.0 players can easily share Toy Box creations with friends and the community on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Wii U. Mobile players will also be able to download and play any of the Toy Box levels created on console.

For those who already play Disney Infinity on console, you can unlock your existing characters via web codes that are included in the packaging with the figures. Mobile players will have access to all of the Disney Infinity characters, as well as the Toy Box Speedway Expansion Game via in-app purchase.  And three new trial characters will be available for free each week.

In addition, the Toy Box 3.0 app features forward-compatibility for all 1.0 and 2.0 characters – so you will be able to bring all of your favorites from previous installments of the game into new Toy Box creations.

I hope you enjoy the game. I can’t wait to see your Toy Box creations!”

Get it FREE at Amazon, the App store or Google Play store

This is Bound to be Good

Torrid just got in a bunch of Nightmare Before Christmas clothes that are pretty sweet. If you like to Disneybound (like me) and can’t sew to save your life (like me), this might be a good foundation for something this Halloween season. It’s a limited edition, and some of it is online-only (like the sweater).

These pants have patches in the back and are really adorable.

This is in addition to all of the Disney stuff they usually have. It’s a special, limited-edition collection.

New Posteropia

Here’s the cute new poster:

Here’s the information that came with it:

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