During my behind the scenes tour of Disney Toons Studio, I had the pleasure of meeting with Disney Planes Director Klay Hall and Producer Traci Balthsor Flynn who provided us with the background of how the movie came to fruition.
Originally, Klay was planning to do a movie about Trains and was all set to begin brainstorming ideas about the script and characters. Then Klay received a call from John Lasseter who had a lightbulb moment flying from Disney Pixar northern California office down to Disney Toons proposing that next movie be about Planes.
Klay was definitely on board given that his background and passion is in aviation, having both his Father and Grandfather fly planes.
One of the hallmarks of any Disney movie and Lasseter’s mandate is research, research and more research. Klay and Traci talked about the extensive research involved from visiting airshows, air and space museums, little field airstrips, big airports, and working with the US Navy and even being able to go aboard an aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson. Of course, they spoke to numerous pilots.
One of the interesting things I learned and was mentioned by all the creators of the movie was John Lasseter’s explicit instrutions that when the planes were in the air they perform like planes and when they were on the ground is when the emotional and humourous elements are to communicate. That meant that the animators needed to understand how exactly planes would react and perform in the air. Such an interesting fact.
As I mentioned, Klay comes from a family immersed in aviation with a father and grandfather who were pilots in the armed forces. In this touching clip he shares his passion for flying vintage planes with his own two sons.
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Disclosure: NYC Single Mom is being provided a trip to the Los Angeles for the Thor:The Dark World, Delivery Man and Disney Planes and Marvel Hulk/Iron Man press events. Opinions are 100% my own.
