CAS Quarterly

C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I FA L L 2 0 2 1 19 David Bess: Series Creator and Picture Editor How did this idea come to you and how did you pitch it to the executives—especially since the audio would, basically, just be the sound design? A few years ago, whileprepping AV materials for the D23 Expo [the huge Disney fan event held every two years in Anaheim, CA], I was trying to gure out a way to showcase what have always been some of my favorite scenes in the canon of Walt Disney Animation Studios:scenic establishing shots and long takes of characters simply enjoying their surroundings. I was also fascinated with the popularity of ASMR videos, and considered how many of the scenes in Disney animated lms could work for something like that, whether it was the soft sound of Rapunzel combing her hair or the crunch of Anna and Kristoff walking through the snow inFrozen. I ended up pulling a handful of clips that sporadically played on a monitor at our exhibit- oor booth, with a Zenimation bumper and meditation bell to kick off each one. The hope was that Expo guests would enjoy them as a relaxing and calming alternative to the sensory overload of the D23 Expo—as fun as all that excitement can be. And apparently, it helped some guests! Our producer Amy Astley pitched them to [Director, Original Programming] Jordan Gilbert at Disney+ and they asked us to turn them into some sort of a short-form series. What was the thought behind having each episode run about four to seven minutes? It just kind of worked out that way. Four to seven minutes felt right for this kind of thing—like a "moment of mindfulness" where you watch one of these for a nice little breath of fresh air, so to speak. From a craft perspective, I was really impressed with how everything flows and transitions—visually and sonically—so smoothly from clip to clip. Are you secretly a sound designer or musician? I ask because I find some of the most fluid picture editing comes from editors who have a direct love or connection with sound. Thank you, that's a nicecompliment. I'm no musician, that's for sure! However, my parents let me take piano lessons all the way through school, and I would sometimes play for my mom's church or accompany our high school choir. I loved messing around on the piano. I'm sure that helped me appreciate things like timing, tone, tempo, and all that good stuff. Also, we didn't have a TV in our house until I was around 13, so my brother and I would listen to a ton of old radio shows, comedy albums, Halloween sound effectLP's for kids, those little storybook records that Disney used to put out, fun stuff like that.All those records de nitely gave me an appreciation and love for the power of sound, and how it paints pictures in your imagination. Picture-wise, a valuable tip I learned from editor Chuck Weiss while working under him at Craig Murray Productions (now mOcean) was to really focus on the tempo and rhythms of theactionin your footage when editing and how the location of the cuts themselves—thein and out points—tend to nd their natural place as a result. I also learned a lot from working under another fantastic editor at CMP, Mark Lowrie, who would nd these delightful pairings and transitions between the most disparate of shots in the trailers he cut, which were usually for Disney animated lms. David Fluhr CAS and Shannon Mills While you both have long histories of working on Disney animated features, how were you approached with the concept for Zenimation? Shannon: I was approached when David Bess came up with the concept of David Fluhr CAS Shannon Mills David Bess

• Cover