Friday, September 13, 2019

A Father Daughter Story



I remember animating this sequence from The Little Mermaid. 
King Triton is having a serious conversation with his daughter, who has disobeyed the rules by going up to the ocean's surface. 
His tone of voice has concern, anger, frustration and disbelief. I was in the middle of animating this, when suddenly it dawned on me that all of his feels too familiar. My older sister Christa had started dating way back, and she would go out to have a good time at a nearby disco. 
My dad told her to be back home by 11pm, but of course Christa had a habit of being late. My father would wait in the living room until she returned in order to face her and read her the riot act.
He was very loud in his rants, and he got close to my sister, pointing at her, but never touching her. 
My sister held her ground. 
How could I not reference my dad when animating this? It was a case of art imitating life.

Years later I told my father that his personality and demeanor made it into a Disney animated film.
He wasn't sure if this was a good or a bad thing.

More on King Triton in this sequence here:
https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2016/03/king-triton-stuff.html
https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2015/12/king-triton.html


7 comments:

  1. I always loved that The Little Mermaid is a story about the growing of Ariel and King Triton.I think sometimes this is overlooked. When he "gives" Ariel legs is because he learned something important about your daughter and love.

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  2. Great story, Andreas! That's how we should animate scenes, based on life experiences, just perfect and that scene is superb!

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  3. Bravo! That is a very fine example of writing what or who you know! And I really love hearing about how you based King Triton on your dad, Mr. Deja!

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  4. An informative and helpful post! Thank you! :)
    Thank you too for your openness! :) ...
    For me personally...That gives me a lot to think and write about....

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  5. Wow all I have is wow Mr deja Vu ❤️

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  6. any chance of posting keys from that scene?...especially the "by one of those humans"...line with the great head movement....Thanks fer sharing.

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  7. what bothers me in this movie (not more than the cgi ursula) is the scene when triton CLEARLY destroys the statue's face and still it remains intact two seconds after we saw it exploding!!

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