I was invited on an expenses paid trip to LA by Disney to cover the #CinderellaEvent in exchange for my posts of the trip experiences. As always, all opinions are my own. #FrozenFever
Last week in Los Angeles I was able to sit down with Directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee to talk about the new Disney short Frozen Fever which is only available before Cinderella in theaters. They were both very happy people which I was glad to see. Its always enlightening to see people who have created something you love and know that they love it as well. They looked like they had amazing chemistry together and talked over each other just to laugh about it like friends and close colleagues do. If you have ever read an interviews transcripts they include words like (sounds like) or (background noise). This interview transcripts has more instances of [OVERLAPPING] than I have ever seen because they were both so excited and so used to talking over one another. It was very great because I have a bad habit of doing that myself.
Question: So it’s been a year. How are your lives now?
Chris Buck: How are our lives now? Let’s see…
Jennifer Lee: We thought they’d be less busy, but they’re not. So…
Chris Buck: I still buy shirts at TJ Max. Hasn’t changed…
Jennifer Lee: I still find myself going I have to buy another dress? So. So yeah. So nothing’s changed, really.
Chris Buck: Since we last talked, it’s been overwhelming, the year. We still get Youtube sent to us. I mean, I got one just yesterday…mash-ups. All this kind of stuff. It doesn’t end. It’s actually very funny. It’s been overwhelming. It really has. We’ll get serious right away. Starting with the Reddit Round table. Reddit round table is where a woman wrote in saying, that she was in a bad place and was gonna commit suicide, and saw Frozen and inspired by Elsa and, and her journey, and she said, and I’m still here. Thank you. So, you know, we’re overwhelmed by that.
There are autistic kids that watch Frozen that parents tell us they hadn’t… They don’t sit still for anything, and they watch Frozen, and they relate to Olaf. Just a few weeks ago, a friend of ours working at a nursing home, and a senior citizen just, she wasn’t really. She was internal and not doing much. And she watched Frozen. And then she started drawing again. ‘Cause she used to draw when she was younger. And she was drawing the Frozen characters. And her husband was just so grateful she was coming back to life. So you get those are the stories that we go oh wow. And that’s how I think our life has changed.
That is what gets me about great directors. That is so inspiring that they know that their work is changing people, giving people hope for the future and they appreciate it. They both know how wonderful it is and it looks like it still surprises them. That is the mark of a great director. And they are both great directors. They even mentioned that someone had written in about feeling like they were going to commit suicide but they saw Frozen and it helped them not to make that choice.
Question: What’s the future of Frozen and Elsa and Ana? Can you tell us?
Jennifer Lee: We don’t know. We don’t know any..we just finished the short like two weeks ago.
Chris Buck: And we really didn’t have much of a break before we started on this… …after the, the whirlwind of the feature.
Jennifer Lee: But we’re working on the Broadway musical. And helping out in this, in the studio, and, I mean, all the directors helped us on Frozen, and we’re helping them on their projects. We’re kind of in that place of got to stop for second and then dream again. We don’t know what we’re gonna come up with.
I personally think they already have some ideas for the next Frozen film because of the way they laughed and looked at each other when we asked the question. But I may be wrong. They did seem kind of secretive to me. But honestly everyone wants more Frozen so they better make more or I will cry. My husband will definitely cry. Its his favorite movie.
Question: In the Frozen Fever short, Elsa sneezing is the cutest thing ever. How did you come up with that idea? Who came up with the idea of her sneezing and little snowmen coming out?
Jennifer Lee: One of our story artists, the head story artist on Frozen itself. We were brainstorming, it would be nice to focus on Elsa more. What’s she like now? We had this tragic character. We end the film, she’s free, but we’d love to play with her magic in a different way, and he just said what if she has a cold, and the cold wreaks havoc. And we just went crazy. It got ridiculous at some points. It was so much fun…
Chris Buck: Some of the ideas started with like spikes would show up. And we’re, like, “no we did that before in the last one”.
Jennifer Lee: We wanted to create something else. And a sneeze does this, and blowing your nose does that. Like, we had all of these crazy… Does she know? Does she not know? We just felt it when he suggested it. We all just went yes.
Chris Buck: And it gave us license to have fun with Elsa.
Jennifer Lee: Yeah, which was nice.
Elsa’s sneeze is the cutest thing ever even without the little snowmen. I want those little snowmen all over my house. And they told us that there would be merchandise with them on it. I need like five of them. One for each member of my family. And maybe a big ice monster to watch after them. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee both said that they didn’t expect the response for the Frozen merchandise and people were actually quite rude about them not having enough so this time they are going to be prepared.
Question: It seems like you revisited Ana waking up with that bed hair. Was there a reason? Was it something that a lot of people enjoyed that scene that you just, like…
Jennifer Lee: I have to say, it was something because growing up I always looked at how a lot of these fairy tales had lead female characters waking up all perfect. So we decided to do something a little more realistic. There’s even a little bit of drool. That was for Chris because I don’t drool.
Chirping each other? Oh y’all are meant to work together forever. I love it. I agree with her though about princesses waking up perfect. I never wake up even 50% perfect so I thought it was hilarious when they did it to Elsa and then again to Ana with the bed hair.
Question: One of my favorite parts was when Elsa busts out with the “A cold never bothered me anyway.”
Jennifer Lee: We just had to.
Chris Buck: Bobby and Kristen, they did that. It was great. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I know that a lot of kids, when they sang “Let it Go”, they sang “A cold never bothered me anyway”. Kids sing it like that is the lyric. I think it might have been riffed off of that.
Jennifer Lee: They think that’s it.
Chris Buck: It’s like a cold in their lives is so debilitating, and so big that it’s like, that’s not gonna bother me. I’m gonna get through this! So, it’s so cute when they do it. And I think of it as a little bit of a nod to that, too.
That is beyond cute to me. My 4 year old does sing it like “A cold” not “the cold” so I can totally see that. I don’t know if he is thinking of a cold but he will certainly think that its a funny joke when I take him to see the movie.
They were also kind enough to take a photo with us at the end! I wish we could have talked to them all day because they just had such amazing personality. If you have not seen the trailer yet, you should definitely watch it and get ready to go see Cinderella because you have to buy a ticket to see it if you want to see Frozen Fever (trust me, you WANT to see Frozen Fever).
And be sure to check out all the other posts on the Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee interview by searching the hashtag #FrozenFever or #CinderellaEvent! Cindrella releases March 13th in theaters and the new Frozen Fever short immediately precedes it when you watch it in theaters.
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My kids just saw this when we went to the Cinderella Screener. They loved it.