Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1343869
F E AT U R E this page: Kim Possible house exterior and living room. opposite page: She-Ra bedroom still and bedroom concept art. Images courtesy of Disney Television Animation. 24 KEYFRAME KIM POSSIBLE DISNEY TELEVISION ANIMATION ART DIRECTION: ALAN BODNER As design began on the sleek family home for Kim Possible, Art Director Alan Bodner says, "We knew what she was going to do and who [Kim] was, and it was like, how can we make this be cool?" He and his team gravitated naturally toward a midcentury aesthetic, not only because it felt like the best answer to the question, but because of the genre's strong shape language. "In Kim Possible all the characters themselves were very shape oriented," says Bodner. "The amount of information was really minimalized, and that's what married them to those backgrounds." "We were trying to keep the details to a minimum and then being very specific about where we put the texture," adds Nick Filippi, a storyboard artist supervisor. He also notes the importance of using color and value in a way that allowed the removal of lines. Doing this, Bodner explains, directs the eye to specific spaces within a room. An Eames-esque chair, for example, or an overhanging lamp that creates "a neat flow of design. I was always thinking, how much can I not put in and still have it be dimensional. That was kind of the game." Among his favorite influences were Disneyland's attraction posters from the 1950s. "They had a great streamlined look, but they also had strong shapes and foreground, middle ground, background. [The background is] split into three levels, and it's very distinctive." Director Chris Bailey was a fan of this graphic approach, but only "as long as [the shapes were] grounded in reality and perspective," Bodner says. "I think that's what makes it work for me. If you look at the backgrounds, it's all the right perspective, [so] you buy it. You don't think, oh my God, I need to see more … That's what really makes it exciting." Shelter-at-home verdict: A spacious and groovy pad for socially distanced chill-out sessions.