A Dozen Things We Learned About Disney’s Moana 

A Dozen Things We Learned About Disney’s Moana

Here’s a peek inside Disney’s gorgeous-looking new animated feature Moana.

Den of Geek visited Disney’s Tujunga Campus in Burbank, California earlier this summer for an early look at the company’s new animated film for the fall,

. In addition to presentations on the film’s background, its folklore, the writing and production process and the animation, the day featured Polynesian dancing and music befitting its subject matter.

tells the story of a 16-year-old girl who heads out on a daring and dangerous quest by boat to save her people, the one-time pioneering explorers of Oceania who abruptly stopped their journeying one day and (according to the film) elected to stay home.

The part about the Polynesians ending their exploring (an embargo which lasted 1,000 years) is true enough, but the reasons why and how little Moana herself (voiced by 15-year-old newcomer Auli’i Cravalho) singlehandedly attempts to reinvigorate it are the stuff of which Disney animated features are made.

joins a recent line of non-Pixar animated movies from the Mouse House -- including

-- and aims to take its place alongside them as a modern Disney Animation classic.

1. Disney Animation itself was temporarily relocated to the Tujunga Campus location while their main studios on the Disney lot were undergoin renovations. The Tujunga Campus building is where Disney Imagineering would test out ideas for new theme park rides, so there’s a lot of space and history there.

2. Directors Ron Clements and John Musker were inspired by stories about the South Pacific and the god Maui that they heard or read when they were kids to make Moana.

is the first CGI film for both Clements and Musker, one of Disney’s most distinguished animation directing teams. Their previous credits include

(1992) and their last traditionally animated feature,

(2009). They began working at Disney more than 43 years ago, with both of them training under members of the legendary Disney core animating team known as the “Nine Old Men.”

4. The directors, along with several Disney Animation artists, made three extensive research trips to the Pacific, in October 2011, March 2014 and November 2014. They visited the islands of Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, Tetiaroa, Mo’orea and Manono -- along with additional visits to New Zealand -- to immerse themselves in the culture, history, geography and folklore of the region. Both said that the trips changed them as people whie also changing the story in fundamental ways. Moana’s island in the movie, Motan’nui, is a fictional creation.

5. They assembled what came to be called the Oceanic Story Trust -- a collection of anthropologists, cultural advisors, researchers, teachers and navigators, among others -- as an ongoing source of reference and knowledge for the film during the span of its production. Every single thing in the film, from lines of dialogue to the name of a character was sent to the Oceanic Story Trust for insight and guidance.

6. All the clothing seen in the movie is based on what Polynesians would have worn 2,000 years ago, when the story takes place. Unfortunately there are no surviving boats from that era, so the boats were based on the oldest known boats from the region, which are just a few hundred years old.

, including Cravalho, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (voice of Maui), Jermaine Clement (voice of Tamatoa) and Temeura Morrison (voice of Chief Tui) and Nicole Scherzinger (voice of Sina), all have South Pacific roots, as did several of the crew members.

8. Hundreds of actors were auditioned from many different areas of Polynesia for the title role of Moana, and Auli’i Cravalho, a teenager from Oahu with no previous film experience, was literally the last one to try out for the role. She was offered the part over Skype.

story team -- including screenwriter Jared Bush, story artists Dave Derrick and Sunmee Joh, and head of story Dave Pimentel -- worked on the story of

for almost five years (based on an initial screenplay by Taika Waititi) and put it on storyboards a dozen times during that period. As many as 100,000 storyboards were created for the film, although not all were used.

was an unusually collaborative effort; according to Bush and Pimentel, everyone involved with the production got to offer suggestions for the film, with the best ones winning.

11. The character of Heihei the rooster (voiced by Alan Tudyk) started out as a more aggressive character who was Chief Tui’s watchdog. But at some point it was decided to eliminate Heihei, and the story team had 48 hours to come up with a way to save him -- so he was re-imagined as a not-very-bright comic relief character who stows away on Moana’s boat. He got to live as a result.

built an entirely new program called Splash that allowed them to do new and interesting things with animated/CG water, in consultation with fellow in-house animation/FX shops Pixar and ILM. More than 80 percent of the film is FX shots.

opens on November 23, 2016. The official synopsis is below.

Three thousand years ago, the greatest sailors in the world voyaged across the vast Pacific, discovering the many islands of Oceania. But then, for a millennium, their voyages stopped – and no one knows why.  From Walt Disney Animation Studios comes “Moana,” a sweeping, CG-animated feature film about an adventurous teenager who sails out on a daring mission to save her people. During her journey, Moana (voice of Auliʻi Cravalho) meets the mighty demigod Maui (voice of Dwayne Johnson), who guides her in her quest to become a master wayfinder. Together, they sail across the open ocean on an action-packed voyage, encountering enormous monsters and impossible odds, and along the way, Moana fulfills the ancient quest of her ancestors and discovers the one thing she’s always sought: her own identity. 

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