Disney's Wish: Juan Pablo Reyes Talks Disney''s Animated Masterpiece

What is going on everybody? It's Austin Putnam here with FlickDirect and I have the incredible honor of talking to Juan Pablo Reyes on his Brand new film Disney's Wish. How are you doing today, sir? I'm great. I'm happy to have you here Oh, I the pleasure could not be more my man I saw this from a couple of days ago, and we were just mentioning off-camera.

Yeah, I loved this movie and as a Massive Disney fan this felt like I was talking to someone how it felt like almost like a greatest hits of about to ball this Developments while also going into the future as well. So when this idea comes to What was the thing about the pitch to that made you say I gotta have my name on this thing Well, it's the story of how it came about is kind of cool because in 2018 Jen Lee became chief creative officer of Disney animation and she noticed that in 2023 was gonna be the hundred years of Disney and Disney animation So she cannot announced to the studio that she wanted to pursue an animated movie that was completely original While still having the Disney DNA to celebrate the hundred so I immediately raised my hand and at the time I was in Development I was a creative executive So I got the privilege of being with the movie from the conception of the idea And we brought in people from the studio because we're all Disney fans and we wanted to create, you know a love letter to Disney so people started to bring up in roundtables ideas like hope and joy and Wishing and wishing on stars of like what Disney meant to them and that's where we started and that concept of stars Became a big a big north knowing it's the hundred year anniversary of Disney Let's just say hypothetically as a fun one if Disney was still alive if you could ask him one question I know it's a big one.

What could you ask him? I guess I would ask him if he's proud of us and and everything that the Subsequential generations that have been at Disney have done for for his passion the animation this movie is Stunning to say the least. I mean not only do this great It's almost like a hybrid of now a CG animation But the old almost Renaissance style of Snow White Pinocchio and I keep hearing that when you when you make an anime movie you make it at least three different times before selling on Everything so talk about the crossover hybrid of the two animation styles Well when it came to the look of picture we want like it's the hundred.

It's a fairy tale We really wanted to convey the idea of those older movies like the first fairy tales that Walt Disney himself worked on So you're correct Snow White and Pinocchio. We looked at the watercolor look on those movies So our art team started to explore that and then they had to work with our technology team to figure out how in today We can evoke that feeling of that pastime while also pushing it forward doing something fresh So it was a really good combination and then in the story side you were talking about how we make the movie at least three Times we actually make it like five to eight times.

Oh my god Because we you know, we we have our story artists the storyboarding process They put a version of the movie together and then we start to figure it out and explore it to make the best version of itself And this movie has really a lot of Disney references and I mean, of course, then I want to give anything away How do you go into which specific references as a way to only help enhance the storytelling of it?

Well, we started with the star right and wishing on a star that we've seen so many Disney movies That was kind of our starting point and then we wanted a the return of the Disney villain So we knew that we knew they wanted to be a musical. We knew that he wanted to be a fairy tale So all of those Disney elements and the talking animal all of those things were kind of like in the basis of it And then after that we allowed for people throughout the process, you know from writing to animation to art To put in their own Disney references that fit into the movie.

Well as long as they make sense with the story We allowed everyone to kind of like add to it, you know, so it's again Disney fans making a movie for Disney fans I just want to say Congratulations on this. It was such a terrific film You (dramatic music)