Happy 30th Anniversary Disney's THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME

It's that time of year again.

We get to celebrate a film's anniversary and what film is that?

Why none other than DISNEY's 1996 Animated film

This film has now reached it's 30th Anniversary.

And I've got a confession to make....

This film alongside 1997's HERCULES is a particular favorite of mine from DISNEY's renaissance era.

Not just because I had originally had a VHS tape of it, or the fact that it's one of the few 2D Disney Movies to surpass the 90 minute mark but it's also the DARKEST of all films due to the subject matter.

And by Darkest, It has a lot of Dark Moments and it still has a G-Rating despite all of that.

(Unlike 1985's THE BLACK CAULDRON whose darker themes earned it it's PG-Rating.)

The film uses topics like infanticide, damnnation, sin, lust, genocide, moral resistance, you name it.

So as you can see, animation does not need to be strictly soft and gentle as some of us demand.

If Wars between Bunnies(1972's WATERSHIP DOWN),

Children trying to survive the horrors of WWII(1988's GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES)

Cats solving murder mysteries(1994's FELIDAE),

Animals rebelling against their drunken master(1954's ANIMAL FARM), 

etc.,

Can be made, then a film like HUNCHBACK can also be made.

And this was not the first as there were several adaptations of HUNCHBACK going as far back as the 1920s.

The 1923 version starring LON CHANEY.

But surprisingly, the movie more a musical take on the 1939 RKO movie featuring Charles Laughton.

Actually..... the film takes many liberties from the 1939 RKO film than any other adaptation but retrofits it for an animated film.

For example,

the ever famous JUDGE CLAUDE FROLLO as originally portrayed by the late TONY JAY,

His character's based on the 1939 version.

How so?

Well, in the original Novel by VICTOR HUGO, Frollo was actually the ARCHDEACON.

But due to the HAYS OFFICE being in Serious effect in from 1934 until 1968, FROLLO was split into TWO in RKO's film.

Disney decided to follow suit, probably because DON HAHN liked RKO's 1939 film so much that he wanted to emulate that.

And who's doing the voice of QUASIMODO in this 1996 Classic?

Why none other than TOM HULCE, 

Actor who's famous for his portrayal of Mozart in the 1984 film AMADEUS.

The strange thing is that for a film that's got a lot of dark material like lust, religion, references to genocide, etc., you'd think the film would have earned a PG Rating.

But nooooo. HUNCHBACK wound up getting a G-Rating.

HUNCHBACK is also known for taking many liberties with COMPUTERS being used....

After all, it was the 7th film to use Disney's famous CAPS computers of the 1990s which allowed the film to have a very smooth look to the 2D Digital Cels.

Even after 30 years since it's original 1996 theatrical release, Hunchback's 2D digital ink and paint cels still look 10 times better than most of today's Digitally colored cels done on TOONBOOM or ADOBE ANIMATE..

It helps that Disney had access to it's more proprietary software and hardware packages that would have cost others a fortune on them uber expensive UNIX based Machines.

Of course, Digital Ink and Paint wasn't the only thing that films like Hunchback had.

Shots like the Opening Cloud Sequence.....

That uses Disney's then most sophisticated MULTIPLANE CAMERA system that their computers could do that would make even 3D Cameras in MAYA and BLENDER blush.

Unlike in the past where the camera stayed put while the artwork moved,

Here in 90s Disney, the camera was treated like a moving object which allowed for far more versatile shots that could not be achieved through the old school physical rigs.

(Didn't help that Disney's old Multiplane Camera has long since been dilapidated.)

All you had to do  was to set your keyframes for the camera and move the camera places to allow for that more versatile parallax effect

I know what I'm gonna say is still going to be pretty controversial with 2D Art fans but.....

HUNCHBACK also made greater use of CG Background Dolly Shots.

The reason is because DISNEY had their own computers and they've done shots like this going as far back as 1991's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST's famous Ballroom Sequence. 

After having limited their CG to Texture mapping the carpet in ALADDIN(1992)

Wildebeests in THE LION KING(1994)

and ships in POCAHONTAS(1995)

HUNCHBACK wanted more Tracking shots that were done in a similar style to BEAST back in 1991.

Some might think the way that scaffolding in the image above looks  like it came from TOY STORY and is nothing but bump mapping and some may call the lighting here a downgrade compared to the photorealism that BEAUTY & THE BEAST had back in 1991

But I guess it's all relative to make the 2D Animation blend better with less emphasis on Ray-Traced objects.

Also, you might notice the crowds here

A majority of the crowds are rendered in CGI too.

Why would they do that?

Because Animators themselves always dread having to animate Crowds.... 

Even if they're working on CG films.

So it's important to cheat your way with the crowds instead of overworking yourself to death having to plot out animations for each character without risking going overbudget.

Of course, the crowds can't move in unison so the animators wrote a program that allowed animators to make preliminary animation loops for each character and they assign that animation loop to each character.

This allows the crowds to have individuality in their movements without them looking like they'd just graduated from R. LEE ERMEY's military academy.

CROWD FORMATIONS in unison are only for the Army.

Not Feature Length Animation

There's so much I can prod on about things like THE GARGOYLES

or the fact that they were almost named after QUASIMODO's past actors.....

or how one of them was MARY WICKE's last performance before his 1995 passing....

But the list would go on for so long that I'd have no time to type it out.

So instead, I truncate this post for anniversarial purposes.

Why am I posting this on June 19 instead of June 21?

I chose the 19th because of it being 30 years since HUNCHBACK premiered at the LOUSIANA SUPERDOME back in 1996

How did they play the movie like that?

They had to rig a sound system for each of the 8 sides of the stadium and for 8 sides were six enormous screens.

I don't know how they rigged it up like that but If you were there at the New Orleans Premiere, leave me a comment and I'll update with some new photos of how they might have set up the premiere.

The film somehow got a resurgence in 2019 when in April of that year, a fire broke out and destroyed an old spire that stood on the roof.

I won't mention any more of that incident, nor share any photos,

Because the horrific fire that took down that spire really hurts my soul.

Oh... and of another note, This was the first film to be completed at the then-new WALT DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIOS building completed in 1995.

The building is now referred to as the ROY E. DISNEY ANIMATION BUILDING.

Production on HUNCHBACK actually started at GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA but then the animators were brought back to BURBANK at the new Animation Building in 1995 so HUNCHBACK became the first to be completed at the new building.

And the move to the building was made easier due to the film having been made with Computers.

STILL DON'T BELIEVE ME?

To end the blogpost, 

here's a quote from DON HAHN from the DVD/Blu-Ray Commentary regarding how difficult it was to render the opening cloud shot:

"We were told the computers could not crash,

that they could handle so much information,

AND WE'VE CRASHED THEM TWICE,

AND WE'RE DAMN PROUD OF IT."

And no... I didn't forget about HUGO(George Costanza) Himself.....

"GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY!

WOO HOO HOO!!!!"

On a side note:

Where to watch this film:

Disney+ is the easiest to find it but for you PHYSICAL MEDIA LOVERS, I'd advise you to consult your 2013 Blu-Rays and place them into your Player, PS5s, or XBOXs.

Otherwise, Use a SATA or USB Blu-Ray burner to rip the contents and save it into your HDDS, SSDs or NAS Storage so you can watch on your 4K TV with HDR turned on.

And I recommend watching this movie with your Soundbar+Subwoofer or Surround System turned up to the maximum.