Disney ‘Parachutes’

Disney welcomes the arrival of a New Generation in this larger-than-life spot directed by MTh’s Mathew Cullen and Christopher Leone.

Animated worlds collide as Buzz Lightyear & Woody of Toy Story lead a new generation of Pixar and Disney characters out of the Dinoco helicopter, parachuting into Disneyland Paris and surprising park visitors and classic animated Disney characters alike. Excitement builds as each of the characters begin to land - Sulley from Monsters, Inc. makes a crash landing in Snow White’s idyllic cottage, startling her, her dwarves and children. Next, Lightning McQueen from Cars screeches to a halt beside Cinderella, who blows him a kiss. The grand finale brings the new Disney family together with Mickey as the ringleader in a historic welcome parade down the center of Disney's famed Main Street.

"Parachutes" combined live-action, with 2D and 3D animation, visual effects and design – all seamlessly blended to create a magical look and tell a one-of-a-kind story of wonder and surprise. The spot was shot over four days at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California where the goal was to capture as much of this new adventure in camera as possible to allow animated characters to integrate naturally into a live-action world. Elements like Nemo's fishbowl were a custom prop photographed against bluescreen and a half-scale model of Snow White's cottage was built – complete with a breakaway roof designed to collapse upon Sulley's impact.

The Disney project was a collaborative effort across multiple creative studios. Motion Theory directors shot the live-action while in-house artists simultaneously developed character pre-viz, created cg environments, 3D elements, and handled heavy compositing – with efforts led by Art Director Ram Bhat, CG Supervisor Danny Zobrist and Compositing Supervisor Andrew Ashton. MTh also partnered with Duck Studios to craft hand drawn 2D cel animation for Disney characters, and Pixar/ Pencil Test studios who animated Buzz and Woody.