Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1126636
DGA QUARTERLY 75 DGAQ: How did the two of you come to work together? Ortega: Disney brought me out to Salt Lake City prior to the start of the first High School Musical (2006). There was a line producer named Don Schain there, and Mark was Don's main production designer. And we just hit it off immediately, shared a language right off the bat. Hofeling: And it was interesting for me: I had never made a mu- sical before. It really wasn't part of the culture I grew up in. But then Hurricane Kenny blew into town. And I'd never worked with anybody with quite his energy or commitment to doing some- thing great. DGAQ: How does your target audience of young teens and ' tweens affect how you approach your design? Hofeling: A lot of people make a lot of assumptions about that, and they can generally be wrong. Obviously, the most apparent thing is a colorful palette, which young people certainly respond to. But the biggest mistake you can make in designing films for this audience is to underestimate them. They are incredibly sophis- ticated consumers of media, more than you and me are, actually. These kids play video games that have amazing graphics and backgrounds and storylines, and they're reading Harry Potter. So that's what we're competing with as creatives. Ortega: We tested these (Descendants) movies in the beginning, and asked the kids, "If you could visit Auradon (where the good folk live) or the Isle of the Lost (where the baddies live), which one would you want to visit?" And the kids said "Isle." I wanted to create a place that had edges and darkness and trouble, but also showed that you could turn it into something that worked for you. That where you come from doesn't have to be your pris- on; you can turn it into your own paradise. DGAQ: You had a particularly ambitious opening sequence in the first Descendants film, "Rotten to the Core," which introduces all of the young offspring characters, as well as their world, and culmi- nates in a huge dance number. Ortega: I draw from my theatrical background, in this case my love of Oliver, Carol Reed's film that has a musical number, "Con- sider Yourself," where they took you through the streets of old London and met the orphans, introducing them to the world, and then landed somewhere in the end. So here, I wanted to show our characters' world, what they were up against. So we find them moving through this world. Hofeling: Our idea was that this was a slum and a prison, but it's PHOTOS: JEFF WEDDELL/DISNEY CHANNEL; (OPPOSITE) DISNEY CHANNEL Opposite, Kenny Ortega and Mark Hofeling on location for Descendants 3; above, Ortega and Hofeling map out shots for their Descendants 2 cast during dance rehearsals.