Art of Treasure Planet
/Treasure Planet is an animation movie produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, co-directed by Ron Clements and John Musker in 2002. The film is a science fiction adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 adventure novel Treasure Island. The 43rd Disney animated feature film, it employs a novel technique of hand-drawn 2D traditional animation set atop 3D computer animation. While designing for Treasure Planet, the crew operated on rule they call the "70/30 Law" (an idea that art director Andy Gaskill has credited to Ron Clements), which meant that the overall look of the film's artwork should be 70% traditional and 30% sci-fi. The overall look of Treasure Planet was based on the art style promoted by illustrators associated with the Brandywine School of Illustration (such as Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth), whose illustrations have been described by the film's crew as being the "classic storybook illustration," having a painterly feel to it, and being composed of a warm colour palette.
There were around forty animators on the crew, and were further divided into teams; for example, sixteen animators were assigned to Jim Hawkins because he appeared on the screen the most, and twelve were assigned to John Silver. To ensure "solidity" in illustration and personality, each major character in the film had a team of animators led by one supervisor. Conli mentioned that the personalities of the supervisors affect the final character, citing Glen Keane (the supervisor for John Silver) as well as John Ripa (the supervisor for Jim Hawkins) as examples.
The animators took Deep Canvas, a technology which they had initially developed for Tarzan (1999), and came up with a process they called "Virtual Sets" wherein they created entire 360 degree sets before they began staging the scenes. They combined this process with traditionally-drawn characters in order to achieve a "painted image with depth perception" and enabled the crew to place the camera anywhere in the set and move it as they would manoeuvre a camera for a live-action film. In order to test how a computer-generated body part (specifically John Silver's cyborg arm) would mesh with a traditionally animated character, the crew took a clip of Captain Hook from Peter Pan (1953) and replaced his arm with the cyborg arm. With a budget of $140 million, it was at the time the most expensive traditionally animated film ever made. The pictures on this page are a collection of artworks created for this movie.
THE STORY
On the planet Montressor, young Jim Hawkins is enchanted by stories of the legendary pirate Captain Nathaniel Flint and his ability to appear from out of nowhere, raid passing ships, and disappear in order to hide the loot on the mysterious "Treasure Planet". 12 years later, Jim has grown into an aloof and isolated troublemaker due to his father abandoning him. He reluctantly helps his mother Sarah run the family's Benbow Inn, and derives amusement from skysurfing atop a rocket-powered sailboard.
One day, a spaceship crashes near the inn. The dying pilot, Billy Bones, gives Jim a sphere and tells him to "beware the cyborg". Suddenly, a gang of pirates raid and burn the inn to the ground while Jim, his mother, and their dog-like friend Dr. Delbert Doppler flee. At Doppler's study, Jim discovers that the sphere is a holographic projector containing a star map, leading to the location of Treasure Planet. Despite Sarah's reluctance, Jim and Doppler decide to travel to Treasure Planet in order to gain the funds to rebuild the inn. Doppler commissions the ship RLS Legacy on a mission to find Treasure Planet. The ship is commanded by the feline Captain Amelia along with her stone-skinned and disciplined first mate, Mr. Arrow. The crew is a motley bunch, secretly led by the half-robot cook John Silver, whom Jim suspects is the cyborg he was warned about. Jim is sent down to work in the galley, where he is supervised by Silver and his shape-shifting pet, Morph, to prevent Jim discovering the crew's mutinous intentions…
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