Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1469966
D E PA R T M E N T 19 KEYFRAME opposite page: Intensive research into the natural environment was essential for designing Moana's authentic landscape. this page: The color of water in different circumstances helped develop the mood of various scenes. Moana images courtesy of Walt Disney Animation Studios. TR AVE L TI P The world of MOANA is enticing with its idyllic island setting. While Gooding found Bora Bora gorgeous, the holiday splurge he'd recommend for those with infinite funds is the exclusive, pristine Tetiaroa Atoll. was similar because of the way people had moved plants around the world over time. A botanist, Frank Murphy—who is married to Hinano Murphy, the film's Tahitian cultural consultant on the Oceanic Story Trust—helped map out which plants would have been on the islands 2,000 years ago, information gleaned from pollen samples taken from drill cores. Gooding says that in a flashback scene they were able to show the island before the Polynesians arrived and how the vegetation differed. That said, the plants at that time had chiefly yellow and white flowers, so they did take creative license in order to have a broader range of colors. Gooding points out that while the rest of the world might find it confining to live on a small island, "the Polynesians see the ocean … like connective tissue, the thing that joins the islands together, as opposed to the thing that separates them." He adds that they "were navigating the world's largest ocean reliably, hundreds of years before the Vikings." This was why it felt so important to depict the ocean with such accuracy, to convey the courage and strength required to venture out across its vast waters. "[Motunui] was inspired by the three islands that were where anthropologists believe initial [Polynesian] migrations ended: Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa" – ian gooding SUMMER 2022 19