Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1438374
o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 1 c g w 2 1 animated musical H om e is where the heart is, but for the Madrigals, the focus of Walt Disney Animation Studios' (WDAS') 60th feature film, Encan- to, home is where the magic happens. It all started 50 years ago with Abuelo Pe- dro and his great sacrifice, and Abuela Alma, whose unwavering faith created the magical Encanto deep within the cloud-covered for- est mountains of Colombia and Casa Mad- rigal, the family's house, in a vibrant village within the Encanto, a special charmed place. The home's magic has bestowed a unique gi upon each child in the family during a ceremony on his or her 5th birthday. That is when a magical door appears in the house opening to an enchanted space, revealing the person's special gi and how that family member will serve the community. The ability to speak to and understand animals. Beauty and perfection that makes plants grow and flowers bloom. The ability to heal. Untold physical strength. And so on. For everyone, that is, except Mirabel, who is now a teen and still searching for her so-called family gi that will turn her from ordinary to extraordinary. However, she just may be the one Madrigal to save the family magic from disappearing. The central focus of Encanto is family, as the film explores the compelling but compli- cated relationships within families, especial- ly those with multiple generations living in one household — which is not uncommon in Colombia. "We thought it would be amazing to tell a story about not just a pair of charac- ters, but a large extended family," says Direc- tor Byron Howard (Zootopia, Tangled). "We wanted to celebrate and try to understand how the complex dynamics in big families really work." Sharing the director credit with Howard is Jared Bush (Zootopia co-director); co-di- recting the film is Charise Castro Smith. Encanto is produced by Clark Spencer and Yvett Merino. Bush and Castro Smith are screenwriters for the musical, which features songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, Moana). Some of the key filmmakers are musi- cians themselves, who had wanted to apply key storytelling principles, including depth of character, to a musical. "We love musicals," says Howard, referring to himself and Bush, who had written Moana. "We knew that if we wanted to take a fresh approach to musicals, we were going to have to work with the best — Lin-Manuel Miranda," who Bush had worked with on Moana. "Lin-Man- uel Miranda's whole career is about evolving what a musical can be, and what he brought to Moana (and subsequently, Encanto) was simply incredible." So, the filmmakers began examining the complex dynamics of large, extended families — something all of us have in some form or another. "It became an exciting challenge for us, telling a story with a large family," Howard says. Such an undertaking would involve many main characters, each imbued with personality dimensions and unique qualities. This led to the questions of how well do we know our family, and how well does our family know us. "Perspective and understanding is the foundation we started building this movie on," notes Howard. Next came the issue of where the film would be set, which was driven by story. Howard, Bush, and Miranda began discuss- ing Latin America and the importance of family within that region, and soon their sights turned to Colombia, considered the crossroads of Latin America. "Colombia is a melting pot of Latin culture, music, art, food, and dance, with some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet," says Howard. It's also home to magical realism, which Howard describes as magic that's grounded in reality. It's tied to real emotions, real events, and it's thoughtful and layered, he adds. Eventually, Howard, Bush, Miranda and his father, and head of music Tom MacDougall traveled to Colombia for a cultural journey of learning, with its larger cities and small towns, along with natural landmarks such as the Cocora Valley, which figures prominently in the film. They also visited secret forests and other areas of heightened spirituality and places of magic, usually found in areas of natural wonder — which some people call "Encantos," hence the name of the film. "They are all over Latin America, usually in areas of some incredible natural wonder where you just feel differently, inspired," says Howard. "Friends from Colombia told us that magic occurs in these places, in these Encantos — always has." However, it isn't European magic they were speaking of. It didn't involve wizards and wands, but rather magic that's tied to emotion and part of a tradition of "magical realism," a concept well known to Castro Smith, who came aboard as Bush's co-writ- er and co-director. "So we got to work with magical realism top of mind. And when we infused that magical realism into our story of family and thought about those Encan- tos, everything came alive and lined up," Howard says. A more extensive research trip was cancelled due to the pandemic, leaving the artists without the all-important photos they typically use as reference, making it even more important to lean on their consultants for information. In addition to the Colombian visit by the handful of key filmmakers, the group also relied on the so- This Madrigal's gi enables him to talk to animals.