The Nexus of Art and Science

Modern Disney’s Use of Physics Magic

             Disney movies are famous and world renowned for many reasons, and rightfully so. Walt and his studio were key pioneers when it came to the close and careful study of how things moved, how weight shifted, and how people’s emotions and personalities could be conveyed in how they used their body. Their first feature-length movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, was the result of all the dedicated study they had put in to how physics could be understood and visually recreated in a way that what the viewer saw on the screen could look believable, and they have been furthering that understanding in every film since then. Especially nowadays with the rise and now established norm of computer generated 3D animation, Disney films are still the shining example of what dedicated study, understanding, and faithful recreation of physics can do to make a truly fantastic story become believable right before our very eyes. By observing 3 of Disney’s most recent 3D successes, Tangled, Frozen, and Big Hero 6, we can observe how they use their understanding of physics to bring wonder and magic to their audience through the careful attention to detail in their most central effects.

            In Tangled (2010), Rapunzel’s hair is a key effect and plot device in the movie, and as such it required a lot of attention and care to make it believable as not only a long trail of human hair, but also as several tools and other forms it ends up taking throughout the film. Each and every strand and texture of hair trailing behind her looks so authentic, and instead of a curtain that maintains a single shape each bit of hair does shift its position, allowing the trail of hair to have varying shapes depending on what it interacts with. It’s movement is also very believable, its weight seems to be heavy enough to convey a bunch of long hairs grouped together, and yet light enough to move around and to carry because they’re all, well, hair. While the hair still tends to stay grouped as if it were a ribbon or a wedding train, and mysteriously never seems to get dirty from all the dirt and mud it goes through (though to be fair, it IS supposed to be “enchanted hair”), it still feels believable as human hair based on its texture, weight, and movement, and it’s unified behavior can lead to some whimsical moments (such as whenever she uses it as a rope or even as a weak parachute to emphasize her decent from the tower).

            The patterns and movements of Elsa’s ice powers in Frozen (2013) are an essential element in the movie for both its story and its image. Not only was it necessary to make the ice move in a manner that made it believable and readable as actual ice, but it also helped add to the aesthetic charm and spectacle of the movie’s most memorable moments. The “Let It Go” sequence is probably the most fitting scene in the movie to observe how well detailed these ice effects are, but even then the whole movie is filled with plenty of “Frozen” moments that work just as well. From swirls of magic diamond dust, to frozen snow bridges turned to sculpted ice, and to a whole castle made of solid ice pillars and plateaus, many different observable qualities of ice can be seen in Elsa’s magic. The way the castle grows out of the ground in particular is noteworthy, as all the fractal-based geometry of the ice’s growth pattern can be seen in full detail, resulting in a spectacle of both beauty and order, beautifully contrasted by the bombastic Broadway style of Idina Menzel’s singing. This is easily the selling point of the whole movie and the ice effects greatly sell the might and splendor or Elsa’s titular powers.

            As a unique take on the Marvel formula, still filled with heroes and their own accompanying effects and physics, there are many shining examples of Disney’s physics expertise in Big Hero 6 (2014). However the most striking element is in the particle-like movements of the microbots, in how they move as though they are “magnetic sand”, which is not only a visual spectacle but also potentially a technical “marvel” as a concept (get it?). Indeed, each and every bot is distinguishable and moves on its own track, similar to well-animated grain simulations. However what sets it apart from inanimate matter like sand is in how organized all of the bots move. Even as a swarm the microbots all move in various pillars of collective bots, which altogether can form the various waves, walls, and other constructs they produce. Even though they work as a sort of “hive-mind sand unit”, they still prefer to follow a pattern of order and stability, curves that are made out of straight lines, which helps convey the fact that they are all tiny robots. What’s more, while only one of them looks small and innocent enough (greatly helped by their initial design as a cute but deadly miniature street fighter in the beginning of the movie), the whole mass of them put together makes them into a striking and intimidating force. Like a wave of structuralized black sand, they help add to the silent yet calculated fury of the main villain Yokai. This contrasts greatly with how creative and optimistic Hiro’s demonstration of them was in the first half of the movie, which shows how the microbots themselves not only work as a tool but also as an extension of the personality of the characters that use them.

            Each of these films do an excellent job in portraying the effects of the objects and features that play such crucial roles in their respective films. From magical flowing hair, to frozen fractals of towering wonder, to terrifically tiny terrifying robots, Disney’s understanding of physics to make the impossible (or rather, the improbable…Pirates joke) believable and a wonder to behold has clearly only gotten better and stronger over nearly a century of animation. In all that time, not only has the technology behind the magic improved, but so has the understanding behind the movements and behaviors of so many seemingly mundane things. And yet in the end it all starts from simple observation. To make Rapunzel’s hair, they had to study days upon days of how actual human hair moves, to create Elsa’s magic they had to observe how actual ice crystals and patterns formed, and to make the microbots move the way they did must have taken plenty of hours of grain movement studies, as well as research into how believably practical they would be. All of these efforts put together result in cinematic spectacles truly fitting of a Disney movie, and as a result it helps to constantly refine and redefine what it means to even be a “Disney movie”, the pointed tip of the arrow that is the ever-evolving world of animation. They’ve certainly come a long way from simply studying how beards and capes move for Snow White, and if the last decade of animation is anything to go by, Disney will never cense to reach infinity, and beyond.