"Cinefantastique" Vol. 13 No. 5 pg. 26-27
"The Black Cauldron: Disney steps back into darkness with a robust Sword & Sorcery tale" - Dan Scapperotti
There's an expression at the Disney studios - "sweat box session" - that originated decades ago when Walt Disney sat in on the rushes of the latest cartoon and offered his comments. This was well before the advent of air conditioning, and the screening room quickly became a sauna; a sweat box if you will.
Today, the room can get just as hot - the intensity of viewing a new animated work in progress at Disney can still be an explosive, feverish experience.
The latest film to create this friction is THE BLACK CAULDRON, a rousing $20 million, animated sword and sorcery tale planned for a 1985 release, which could be the first film ever to project 3-D holograms into an audience. The film's producer, Joe Hale; directors, Art Stevens, Ted Berman and Rick Rich; and writers Dave Jonas, Roy Morita and Al Wilson sit confidently (but perhaps a bit nervously) in the screening room - waiting for their creation to ignite on the screen.
The film is based on Lloyd Alexander's five-book adventure series, The Pyrdain Chronicles, which consist of The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer and The High King. Alexander originally wrote these novels for adolescents; his stories are filled with mysticism and action but contain little bloodshed. Disney's film won't have much gore either, but the studio hopes to garner a larger and more adult audience.
Joe Hale gives a quick run through of the plot: the cauldron of the title is in the possession of the evil Horned King who immerses his dead enemies in it. Later, they emerge as the invincible, soulless Cauldron Born Warriors. With his army of the dead, the Horned King plans to conquer the peaceful land of Pyrdain. The wicked wizard, however, must perform a human sacrifice before each full moon in order to maintain the life of his army and the cauldron.
The Horned King captures Dallben, a wise and good enchanter, as his next victim, and Taran, the enchanter's assistant, sets out to rescue him. Taran is then seized by the evil King and taken back to his castle. Upon their arrival, however, the Horned King discovers that the cauldron has vanished; Taran realizes that if he can find and destroy the cauldron, he can save Pyrdain. Through the aid of Eilonwy, a young princess and enchantress in her own right, Taran escapes and begins his search for the lost cauldron.
On his mission, Taran meets an array of unusual and offbeat characters: Flewddur Fflam, a king who would prefer traveling the countryside, strumming a tune; Doli, an elfin character, who manages to harness the power of invisibility; and Gurgi, part man, part animal, who desires "crunchings and munchings," but fears "smackings and whackings on my poor tender head."
Another strange creature is Hen Wen, an oracular pig who tells Taran that the cauldron is in the clutches of three witches. Taran searches for and eventually finds the hags, who trade the cauldron for Taran's sword, his most prized possession. The Horned King learns of the cauldron's new location, and taking the captive Dallben along, leads his ghoulish army into attack against Taran and his band.
Alterations had to be made in adapting the large scale epic of the Chronicles to the screen. Much of Disney's BLACK CAULDRON is based on the introductory novel, The Book of Three, but several of the movie's sequences are lifted from the second book. Also, The Horned King becomes the chief villain of the film, although he doesn't even survive the first of five books.
Joe Hale, who previously directed animation special effects on Disney's science fiction epic, THE BLACK HOLE, wants to make THE BLACK CAULDRON something truly spectacular, and began looking into the possibilities of using holography.
"We're talking to designers over at WED, who design rides at Disneyland and Disney World," Hale said. "Now that they're winding up at EPCOT, we're going to have them work on an effect for the next to the last sequence. We want an effect where the Cauldron-Born Warriors float right out over the audience and into the back of the theater. Our engineers already have the capability to use holograms better than anybody around. Right now, they can give us a hologram of a cauldron in the theater lobby with an endless stream of Cauldron Born coming out and going right up to the top of the theater. There is a lot of experimental work being done on this. WED is sending over a creative team to see what they can do for us. We're going to have some kind of spectacular effect, something out of the oridinary.
Voices being used for the characters include Freddie Jones (Dallben), Grant Bardsley (Taran), Susan Sheridan (Eilonwy), Nigel Hawthorne (Flewdur), John Hurt (Horned King), John Byner (Gurgi), Jonathan Winters (King Eidellig) and Phil Fondacar (Creeper, the dwarf). An agent in England sent the studio tapes of dozens of voices from which to select the characters. It turned out that the voice chosen for Taran belonged to a 14 year old and that for Princess Eilonwy came from a 34-year-old actress, yet the two characters in the film are the same age.
The lights dim in the screening room, and the screen brightens with the opening shots of a forest. The camera pans down to a small cluster of buildings in a rural setting. What is being shown is a work print, a technique used for the production of animated films. The first work reels of the film will consist solely of storyboard art and soundtrack. As concepts change, so does the work print. Rough pencil sketches give way to animated pencil drawings. As backgrounds are defined they are added, first in black and white and then color. Where a month before a sequence may have been only two or three story-board diagrams, animated footage of the pencil art now appears. As each step in the arduous process of animation is completed, it's added to the work print.
"Once the directors OK the rough animation scenes, the layout and pencil backgrounds go to the background department, and they paint and color them," explained Joe Hale. "At the same time the scenes themselves are being cleaned up, and then they go to the Ink and Paint department, where they're produced in color. From all of this, we get a daily color print. We then cut these prints into the work reel."
Following the screening, the sweat box members buzz with excitement and begin discussing the film's strong points. It's a big film for the new animators, who cut their eyeteeth on 1981's THE FOX AND THE HOUND and MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL, a theatrical short that is scheduled for a Christmas '83 release. Prior to THE FOX AND THE HOUND, the studio's previous cartoon feature, the immensely popular THE RESCUERS, was the last to depend on the talents of the veteran animators. In the past few years, Disney has developed a special training program, headed by Eric Larson, a 45-year Disney veteran. From the thousands of applications received, less than 100 were selected for Disney apprenticeship, and only 45 completed the full course.
The animators have experimented with new and old techniques for this film. In one sequence Hen Wen dashes down a path pursued by gwythaints, dragon-like vultures who act as the eyes and ears of the Horned King. The scenery on either side of the path lashes by as Hen Wen runs toward the camera. This scene called for the use of animated backgrounds, a technique used as early as the silent Mickey Mouse cartoons, but according to the staff, this is the first time it is being used in a feature.
THE BLACK CAULDRON is being shot in 70mm, the studio's first use of this large screen format since 1959's SLEEPING BEAUTY. Studio insiders claim that the film will rely on a pervading atmosphere of horror, with forboding settings reminiscent of the studio's early cartoon work, as viewed in THE SKELETON DANCE, THE OLD MILL, and the Evil Queen's dungeon in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS.
Ron Miller, the studio's executive producer, believes THE BLACK CAULDRON is the newcomers' SNOW WHITE - a ground breaking experience for both animators and audiences.
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Here are a few interesting YouTube clips on The Black Cauldron as well (sorry if they've already been posted elsewhere):
1. Siskel and Ebert review "The Black Cauldron":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fojNooSRccA
2. "The Black Cauldron" trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOpRmYPqX84
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw76QgoN ... re=related
3. The trailer for the Home Video release of "The Black Cauldron" (Note "The Rocketeer" theme music Albert
):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T0kdRj- ... re=related
