Disney’s ‘Beauty & The Beast’ To Mark 30 Years With Hybrid Animated Special
Image courtesy of Yellow Studio
Disney is looking back on a tale as old as time—30 years, to be exact—to commemorate the legacy of 1991’s Beauty and The Beast, which was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The movie went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
The Wonderful World of Disney is hoping that fans can be its guest again when it premieres Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration, a blended live-action animated special that won’t just celebrate this classic but also rekindle its artistic flair.
The two-hour reimagining will be taped in front of a live audience at Disney Studios, showcasing never-before-seen musical performances and all-new sets and costumes that embody Belle and the Beast. Yellow Studio, the design firm enlisted by Disney to make this wish come true, has shared the first look at the special’s set with us.
Yellow Studio decided to go back to the drawing board, quite literally, by dreaming up an aesthetic akin to “a finished work in progress,” making nods to the pencil strokes and sketches of the film, as well as “the multiplane camera narrative first employed by Walt Disney in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
Layers of translucent gauze will be peeled back one by one, each concealing various segments, just as Belle slowly lowered the defenses of the Beast.
“Our design language celebrates the art created for the film by its animators and artists who collectively produced a Disney masterpiece… I hope our designs add to the legacy of this wonderful iconic film,” details Yellow Studio’s Director Julio Himede.
The two-hour Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration will air on ABC on December 15 at 8 pm ET (5 pm PT), before arriving on Disney+ on December 16.
[via Yellow Studio]
