THE ART OF BRAVE (2012, Jenny Lerew)

Jenny Lerew. The Art of Brave, San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 2012.

26 MB / JPEG / English / 160 pages / 9781452101422 / 9781452101422

I like Brenda Chapman. She's been in the animation business for nearly 30 years: begining as sync checker in Dennis the Menace the TV Series (1986); Then Disney: Storyboard in The Little Mermaid (1989); Story in Beauty and the Beast (1991); Story Supervisor in The Lion King (1994); Story in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and Fantasia 2000 (1999). Moving to Dreamworks: Directing, The Prince of Egypt (1998). Story in Chicken Run (2000). Finally, directing Pixar's Brave (2012), creating the story and characters based on the relationship with her own daughter, and her love for Scotland. She has a sensibility that's quite rare in this boys club. 

She was replaced as a director due to "creative disagreements" (seems to me not everything is gold in the wonderful land of Pixar). Among many other changes, Disney-Pixar decided to make Merida thinner!!! I've always imagined Brenda to be just like her character, a fiery Scottish archer at heart (and she did not probed me wrong: pointed at Lasseter for her firing... I mean...yickes!) Certainly I admire her even more now: remained loyal to her believes on how female characters should be portrayed specially when your audience are kids. (by pelida77)

 

A lovely book: a preface by John Lasseter, Brenda Chapman, and Mark Andrews (the replacement). You'll see the very first drawings of Merida made by Steve Purcell (Story) after Brenda told him about her ideas; the artists trip to Scotland to "soak in the atmosphere of the country". How the designers created each character. The sculpts that helped the artists. The engravings are outstanding.

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