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Disney’s latest film Frozen has become a phenomenon, with its soundtrack beating Beyonce’s new album on the Billboards.
It is a story about a girl with a curse of uncontrollable ice powers that force her to flee her own kingdom after accidentally hurting her sister.
If you’ve already been to see Frozen, you will have seen the short before the film called ‘Get A Horse.’
This exciting short makes a link between the original Mickey Mouse cartoons of the 1920s and modern 3D animation, something that Disney hasn’t done before and could mark the beginning of a brand new technique.
The short starts with a black and white cartoon complete with vintage title sequence is an enjoyable introduction to the film.
Director Lauren MacMullen tasked her team of both hand drawing artists and CGI animators to create a whole new cartoon, meaning they had to ignore their instincts of creating a flawless cartoon sequence, making sure to add in small ‘mistakes’ like not allowing Minnie’s feet to touch the ground when she boards the hay cart.
The villain of the short, Pete, takes a fancy to Minnie which leads to a chase with Pete throwing Mickey at the audience, out of the screen and into his CGI form.
This moves into a back and forth swap between the cartoon and CGI as Mickey and his friends get revenge on Pete, resulting in all the characters seemingly running wild around the picture theatre.
There is a small reference in the short that has led many people to believe that it is insulting the old simpler traditions of black and white cartoons. That it is just something to endure until the real action starts when the short becomes 3D.
The hay cart is obviously moving slowly on the road but when Pete drives into the picture and becomes agitated because he is stuck behind the cart, his car horn screams ‘make way for the future!’, apparently expressing that the past is boring, slow and outdated.
However, Pete is ultimately defeated in this short, with one of the characters shouting back ‘get a horse!’ at the very end, expressing that traditional is better.
But why did they choose to try something new with their short instead of sticking to a formula that works like Wreck It Ralph’s Paper Man?
Well, Frozen is the first Disney film to use Broadway singers since movies like Mary Poppins, so by using a short that is created around an old traditional cartoon, sampling Walt Disney’s voice as Mickey Mouse, the team are showing that going back to their roots and embracing the traditional factors that make up their productions, still have the timeless power to please an audience.
As MacMullen said about Get A Horse, ‘One of the best things about sitting with an audience to see this is that they’re laughing.’