Waking Sleeping Beauty (with special guests....)



This week, I attended a SCAD-Atlanta screening of the documentary "Waking Sleeping Beauty," presented by none other than Peter Schneider, co-director of the film and erstwhile President of Disney Animation. Ah, the perks of being an alumnus!

The movie was excellent, created as it was entirely using old clips (grain and all) from the period in question: 1984-1994 at Disney Feature Animation. No talking heads, as Peter said. This approach gave the film a unique honesty, even showing some heroes of the animation world in a less-than-heroic light, and setting it in stark contrast to the highly sanitized DVD features to which we've all become accustomed. There were appearances by all my favorite artists (I screamed..... er, cheered particularly loudly for a former professor of ours, Phil Young, when he popped up on screen for about two seconds), and plenty of never-before-seen footage that left my little animator's heart all a-twitter. Or twitterpated, as the case may have been. Overall, I found the film highly entertaining and educational, and will be pre-ordering the DVD as soon as it becomes available.

Just before the show, Peter had introduced a special guest.... Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel from The Little Mermaid! Now, I knew she lived in the Atlanta area, but her attendance at the presentation was a total surprise, so when she was announced, my friend Jo and I LEAPT to our feet and clapped and squealed like the fangirls we are. After the movie, she answered some questions along with Peter, until someone got the cojones to ask her what all of us were hoping: "Will you sing for us?"

***EDIT: So YouTube sucks, because they took the video down.  Come on, you can't even post a home video of the voice of Ariel singing her own song in a casual setting? Really? LAME.  Anyway, just go pop in your copy of The Little Mermaid and close your eyes, and you can imagine the awesomeness of the video that used to reside here.***

Bliss. My husband took this video, so that's me bobbing in and out of frame at left like a hyperactive squirrel.

Anyway, the whole experience was an absolute pleasure, and I highly recommend the movie even if you're not animation-obsessed. As a time capsule of a huge part of many of our childhoods, it's fascinating.

Related viewing: Dream On Silly Dreamer

1 comment:

  1. Missy, you should have told me I so would have gone! Feels like I missed out on an awesome night :-(
    -Anna-mator

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