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Starring: Judi Dench, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Sarah Jessica Parker, Randy Quaid, David Burnham, Ja'Net DuBois, Gregory Jbara
Directed by: Will Finn, John Sanford
Release Date: April 2nd, 2004
MPAA Rating: PG for brief mild rude humor.
Box Office: $50,030,461 (US total)
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
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 Tagline: Bust A Moo.All trails lead to laughter, adventure and musical comedy in Walt Disney Pictures' rollicking new animated feature, “Home on the Range,” a wild and woolly tale spotlighting a colorful cast of animal characters and some larger-than-life humans.
Featuring six great new songs by Oscar-winning composer/songwriter Alan Menken (“The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” etc.) and lyricist Glenn Slater, this film follows in the best musical tradition of Disney animation.
Adding to the fun and entertainment is an all-star vocal ensemble led by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, Jennifer Tilly, Cuba Gooding Jr., Randy Quaid, Steve Buscemi, Carole Cook, and Governor Ann Richards. Equally impressive is the line-up of musical superstars - k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt,Tim McGraw and The Beu Sisters - who seem right at “home” singing the Menken/Slater tunes. Menken also composed the film's magnificent original score.
Set in a fanciful version of the untamed West, “Home on the Range” takes off at a full gallop when a greedy outlaw named Alameda Slim (voice of Randy Quaid) schemes to take possession of the “Patch of Heaven” dairy farm from its kindly owner, Pearl (voice of Carole Cook).
Unwilling to stand by and see their idyllic way of life threatened, three determined cows (voiced by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly), a karate-kicking stallion named Buck (voice of Cuba Gooding, Jr.), and a colorful corral of critters join forces to save the farm in a wild quest full of high-spirited adventure.
This unlikely assortment of animals brave bad guys and the rugged western landscape as they risk their hides and match wits with a mysterious bounty hunter named Rico (voice of Charles Dennis) in a high stakes race to capture Slim and collect the reward money. With its stylish animation, hilarious action sequences and inspired musical moments, “Home on the Range,” is an animated adventure that is fun for moo-viegoers of all ages.
Overseeing the film in her role as producer was Alice Dewey Goldstone, a 14-year Disney veteran whose previous credits include producing “Hercules,” a stint as associate producer on “The Lion King,” and production manager on “Aladdin.” Making their feature film directing debuts are Will Finn and John Sanford. During his 25-year career in animation, Finn supervised the creation of such memorable characters as the precision-minded clock Cogsworth (for “Beauty and the Beast”), the evil parrot Iago (for “Aladdin”), and the garrulous gargoyle Laverne (for “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”).
Sanford joined the Disney animation team in 1993 and contributed to the story development of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Mulan,” and “Lilo & Stitch.” He also served as head of story on “Atlantis: The Lost Empire.” Finn and Sanford wrote the screenplay for “Home on the Range,” and also received a “story by” credit along with Michael LaBash, Sam Levine, Mark Kennedy, and Robert Lence. David J. Steinberg served as the film's associate producer. H. Lee Peterson was the editor.
According to Sanford, “Our goal with this film was to make it a lot of fun for ourselves and for the audience. Will and I share a love of cartoons and feel that making them is a great art. There are values in our story that are good, but we didn't want to be too heavy handed with any kind of message. We're proud to have made a very fun and entertaining cartoon.”
Finn adds, “I've always loved broad characters and my favorite Disney films are the big funny crowd-pleasers like `101Dalmatians' and `The Jungle Book.' `The Jungle Book' is my desert island movie, and I could watch it every day. In creating a comedy western, we had to really roll up our sleeves and analyze the themes of the genre so we could work with them, use them and then turn them inside out.”
David Stainton, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, observes, “`Home on the Range' is pure entertainment from start to finish, and a great showcase for the talents of our animators. Alice,Will and John have done an outstanding job creating a fresh and original comedy western that will appeal to everyone who loves movies. Alan Menken and Glenn Slater have come up with some truly amazing songs that add so much to the film and are sure to become favorites. This film is a great example of the power and joy of animation and we're all very proud of this latest Disney animated musical. We hope audiences think it's as much fun as we do.
 Helping to give the film its whimsical style and colorful look were a team of top artistic talents. Art director David Cutler was instrumental in creating the film's graphic style that uses layering of textured shapes and a bright palette to set up a fun and fascinating world. Background supervisor Cristy Maltese Lynch led a team of 15 top artists in painting digital and traditional backgrounds that had the feel of “crafts projects,” with hard-edge faceting, and textures that suggest a handmade quality. Layout supervisor Jean-Christophe Poulain and his team were influenced by the classic movie westerns in their camera placement and shot composition, and used close-ups, long shots and the placement of the horizon to add to the scale, drama, and comedic possibilities. Character stylist Joe Moshier (“The Emperor's New Groove”) brought his unique design sensibilities to the visual development of the film.To prepare the filmmakers for their Western themed assignment, producer Goldstone brought twelve members of the creative team along on an authentic cattle drive. In the fall of 1998, the group - including songwriters Menken and Slater along with the art director, layout and background supervisors, etc. - headed for Wyoming for a rugged week-long 40-mile adventure. Spending up to eight hours a day on horseback, camping out under the stars, and rounding up herds of cattle gave the participants an opportunity to soak up the environment and observe the cowboy life firsthand. In the evenings, the group would gather around the campfire and listen to authentic western music sung by the ranch hands and cowboys. On the final evening, back at the lodge, Alan Menken picked up a guitar and gave an impromptu concert of his own compositions for an intimate audience of locals. By the time the Goldstone gang arrived home, they were no longer tenderfoots, but seasoned cowfolk.
Goldstone recalls, “It was so inspirational hearing those wonderful catchy songs when we were on our cattle drive. There's something about riding along and hearing that sweet music. One of the purposes of our trip was to study horse and cow behavior. We each had our own horse for the week and we had to brush, saddle and feed them. You got quite attached to your horse and got to know their moods. From an art direction standpoint, we started above the timberline and went through the timber, chaparral and into the high desert. In a week's time, we really got to see a lot. During that time, we saw no cars, no phone wires, had no cell phones, and ate off tin plates.”
She adds, “I'm so proud that we ended up with the film that we wanted to make.We all feel like we got the movie that was in our head and that it delivers such a rollicking, good, fun time.”
The Story
Life is at its best for the happy animals at “Patch of Heaven,” a “pretty as pie” dairy farm way out west owned by a kindly lady named Pearl. Seldom is heard a discouraging word except perhaps from Jeb, a cantankerous old goat who thinks every tin can belongs to him. In her unofficial role as barnyard boss is Mrs. Caloway, a fastidious British cow with an air of authority and a stylish straw hat. Grace, the younger cow, is wide-eyed, a bit naïve, and has a penchant for new age thinking.The farm's other inhabitants include a colorful assortment of pigs, chicks, and ducks.
This idyllic life is shaken to its core by two major events. A sassy show cow named Maggie (three time winner of the Golden Udder Award and the original Happy Heifer) comes to live at the farm when her owner's land is foreclosed and she finds herself in need of a new home. Shortly afterwards, Sheriff Brown, on his hotshot horse Buck, arrives to tell Pearl that “Patch of Heaven” is set to go on the auction block in three days unless she comes up with a payment of $750.Maggie proposes that the animals could win some Blue Ribbon prize money at the upcoming county fair, and suggests the three cows mosey into town to convince Buck to help them get more time.Mrs. Caloway sees Maggie as an outsider and is reluctant to leave Pearl, but ultimately agrees to go along with the plan.
In town, Maggie, Mrs. Caloway and Grace learn about a $750 reward being offered for a notorious cattle rustler named Alameda Slim. They decide to pursue the desperado themselves and collect the reward money in order to save the farm. Buck refuses to help the girls, and sets his sights instead on assisting his hero, a mysterious champion bounty hunter named Rico. When Rico chooses Buck to be his horse, the ambitious horse champs at the bit to ride into action.
Meanwhile, the three cows attempt to find Slim by hitching up to a chuck wagon that is headed to a cattle drive. Their plan pays off, but the wily cattle rustler sends all of the cattle into a hypnotic trance with his trademark yodel before Maggie and the gang can stop him. Luckily, a tone-deaf Grace is unaffected and manages to save her two traveling companions while Slim makes off with the rest of the herd. Rico arrives too late to catch the slippery varmint, and ends up dumping Buck in favor of a more reliable horse.
The cow trio can't seem to catch a break, and getting caught in a turbulent flash flood leaves them wondering, “will the sun ever shine again?” Their luck changes with the arrival of Lucky Jack, a onefooted rabbit who turns out to be a Jack-of-all-trades. When he reveals that his home at Echo Mine has been taken over by a yodeling cattle rustler, the girls set out with a new sense of purpose.
At the mine, Slim outlines his master plan to his knuckle-headed nephews, the Willies, and prepares to sell off his hijacked cows to a shifty cattle broker named Wesley. Maggie, Grace and Mrs. Caloway arrive on the scene and set into motion a daring plan to de-rail Slim. Things seem to be going their way until Rico makes an appearance and reveals a few surprises of his own.
Slim escapes and heads for the “Patch of Heaven” auction. It is the last parcel of land he needs to complete his real estate kingdom and exact his revenge on the homesteaders who failed to appreciate his genius for yodeling. Buck finally sees Rico's true colors and joins the girls as they make a last ditch effort to save the farm.With the odds firmly against them and time rapidly running out, the stage is set for a final confrontation with Alameda Slim.
Origins of the Project
Walt Disney Feature Animation had been interested in making a western themed comedy for many years, and several different storylines were explored during the film's development period. One early version of the story, entitled “Sweating Bullets,” followed a little calf named Bullets, who wanted to be more like the horses who led the herd. In 1999, story artist Michael LaBash suggested a surprising approach involving three cow protagonists who become bounty hunters to save the farm. Other story artists and writers contributed to the new idea - including Sam Levine, Mark Kennedy, and Robert Lence and Shirley Pierce. Directors Finn and Sanford came on board in October, 2000, and helped to shape the story further and write the final screenplay.
Sanford recalls, “When we came on board, we had a free hand. The song `Little Patch of Heaven' was already in production, but other than that we had no restrictions. We knew we wanted to make an upside-down western where the cows are the heroes instead of the cowboys. And from there, we had the freedom to move in any direction.”
Finn adds, “The good news was we could make it our own, in any shape or form we wanted.The bad news was we had to move the project along quickly. It was like jumping on a moving train. We were pretty bold with the story and with the arcs of the characters. Buck and Slim were the characters that needed a lot of work. Buck was unlikable and arrogant. Instead of being the best bounty-hunting horse in the West, we made him this sort of untried, young hopeful character who wanted to be a hero but never had a shot.”
“Figuring out what to do with Slim was another major hurdle for our story team,” adds Sanford.“We went through so many motivations and so many different reasons for why he was doing what he was doing. The problem was we had heroes who had absolutely nothing to do with the villain. When we came up with the idea that Slim was stealing cows to buy up the land, it all started to fall into place. By going after the land, and specifically `Patch of Heaven,' we gave the cows something to gain by catching him.”
Another major piece of the story puzzle fell into place with the inspired idea to cast Roseanne Barr as the outsider cow, Maggie. Sanford explains, “Will and I have been huge fans of the Roseanne show from way back, and I loved her HBO specials. But the idea to cast her really came from my wife Sara. I was showing her some scenes from the movie, and she was having trouble liking or understanding the Maggie character. She just blurted out, `Why don't you get Roseanne?'Will and I had been racking our brains trying to figure out what kind of personality might contrast with Caloway and Grace.This seemed like a great idea and when I brought it up at the Studio, everyone seemed to agree. Suddenly we had a character who was disruptive and a consensus breaker.”
Finn adds, “Maggie adds a tension that wasn't there before. Even if they do save the farm, will Maggie ever fit in? And is Mrs. Caloway going to accept her? It made the tension that we always wanted to have between those characters real.”
Musical Trails
The name Alan Menken has come to be closely associated with the very best in Broadway music, as well as Academy Award®-winning songs and scores for Disney animated films including such modern standards as “Under the Sea,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “AWhole New World,” and “Colors of the Wind.” One genre he has not tackled before is the western. The renowned composer/songwriter set out to demonstrate the full range of his musical talents with the songs and score for “Home on the Range.” Working with lyricist Glenn Slater, a major new talent, Menken proved that he was very at home with this genre too.
“`Home on the Range' is a hybrid kind of musical,” notes Menken. “Two of the songs are sung by characters in the film and the rest are under the action. This was quite different from the musicals I have written in the past, where the characters break into song. As a musical theatre writer, my job is to create a stylistic language for telling the story.With this film, the language and the intent were quite different from things I've done in the past. It was fun and challenging at the same time.
“The main thing I want is to provide an audience in a song something to take away with them,” he continues. “So that after they've heard that song, it's alive to them. That, to me, is the most important aspect of songwriting. It should be evocative and memorable. And it should be something that, once sombody's heard it, belongs to them for the rest of their lives.”
Slater explains, “To capture the tone we were looking for, I did huge amounts of research before starting in on the lyrics for this film. I read dozens of westerns, like Little Big Man, The Virginian, and Lonesome Dove. And I watched dozens of western films. I actually kept a notebook and would jot down any phrase or chunk of language that seemed like it had good juice to it. I filled an entire book with evocative phrases and details of what you might find out West.Anything that could be remotely useful.”
For the title song, “(You Ain't) Home on the Range,” the songwriters had the challenge of dealing with another song with a similar title that is known to just about anyone over the age of three. They decided to take their song in quite the opposite direction of the song that we all grew up knowing.
Slater explains, “With our opening song, we wanted to establish a connection with all of the western films that everyone knows and to create that big sense of open plains, vast deserts, and rollicking cowboys. We wanted to get all that imagery in one place and let the audience know that this is the world they're about to enter. We also wanted to signal to them that this was not a serious drama about western myth-making. This is very definitely a comedy. The trick was to create a western sound with a tough cowboy chorus, but to poke a little fun at that style of music and let the audience know they're in for some laughs.”
Menken adds, “This song has kind of a hoedown feel. Aaron Copland was one of my big influences in writing it. It's a really energetic, footstomping song that is a bit sophisticated in its musical style and humor. It is quintessentially old western in its basic feel.”
One of the film's standout numbers is “Little Patch of Heaven,” the song that introduces the animal residents of Pearl's dairy farm and the happy life they lead. The filmmakers enlisted three-time Grammy Award winner k.d. lang to sing this song. lang, a native of Alberta, Canada, has released 11 fulllength albums, including Absolute Torch and Twang (which earned her a Grammy), Angel with a Lariat, Shadowland, All You Can Eat, and the smoke-themed collection of classic covers, Drag. She received her latest Grammy Award this February for Awonderful World (an album of traditional pop vocals with Tony Bennett).
“This song has a Gene Autry kind of feel to it,” observes Menken. “Glenn created all these images of nature gathering in support of this wonderful place. k.d. lang brings something very interesting to the project. She's not Nashville or country western. She is true western. In fact, she's from Western Canada.”
Slater adds, “This song sets up the idea that the main characters live in an idyllic little jewel of a place - a little green enclave amidst this vast western desert. As soon as you hear this song you know that this is a place with warmth and love; which helps later in the film when that place is threatened and you then have a sense of what the stakes are and how terrible it would be if it were lost. What k.d. brings to the song is pure sunshine. She has such warmth and humanity, and such a glow in her voice. She takes mere words and imbues them with a sense of growth and greenness, wonder and content. When she sings about the flowers and the bees and the pastures and the prairies, they're not just nouns but actual characters. It was such a pleasure watching her in the studio because you could feel that sense of happiness and warmth just flowing out of her as she sang. It was really astonishing to watch how the song came to life with her singing. She's a crooner in the Bing Crosby and Gene Autry style, so when you hear her it's almost like you're beamed back to the era we're trying to capture.”
lang notes, “Being an animal rights activist, I was really excited about the fact that the animals were saving the farm. I love animation, especially when it puts animals in a compassionate light. I think that's something children of all ages need to be reminded of. Animals are a very important cog in the wheel of life. It's very honorable to be part of this film.
“One of the things I really enjoyed about doing this song was trying to emulate the feeling of the film and the characters and the overall moral theme,” continues lang. “On your own record, you're searching for the personal emotion of a song and you wade through all this stuff looking for the right thing. Here, you're zeroing in on a character. As in any vocal performance, it's really about attitude. I focused on the integrity of the characters and the happiness and sense of belonging.”
Menken and Slater had perhaps their toughest assignment creating the song “Yodel-Adle-Eedle- Idle-Oo” for the villain - Alameda Slim. Not only is the song sung by the character himself (Randy Quaid) but it required the creation of a big production number that included yodeling.
Slater says, “This was a very difficult song to write because it's the first time we meet Alameda Slim and we had to find a way to establish the mechanism of how his yodeling trick works, while doing it in a song that was also a big production number. Another thing I wanted to do with this song was to tap into that Disney tradition of nonsense word songs, like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” or “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.” I was looking for a phrase that captured the silliness of the yodeling in a way that was instantly memorable and recognizable without taking itself too seriously.”
To make the song work, the music team called in two expert yodelers who could blend in with Quaid's singing voice. They searched for just the right yodelers who could take the song several levels beyond what audiences might be expecting. Randy Erwin and Kerry Christenson, two world champions in their field, supplied the vocal gymnastics.
“What's magical about yodeling is that it crosses every culture,” observes Erwin. “It's every place in the world and it is something people do when they're feeling really happy. In doing my portion of the yodeling for this song, I had to keep the character in mind at all times. He's a large man who is hopping up and down on the screen. He's got to be bad but he also has this magical quality about him.”
Slater adds, “What made recording this song such a complicated process was matching Randy's singing voice to the voices of two incredible yodelers. When Alameda Slim does his thing, what you're hearing is Randy Quaid's consonants and the yodeler's vowels spliced together in such a way that it sounds like a seamless performance.”
“Will the Sun Ever Shine Again,” sung in the film by the multiple Grammy Award-winning blues singer/guitarist Bonnie Raitt, expresses the hopelessness felt by the principal characters in the film at an emotional turning point.
Slater recalls, “Alan and I were in a creative meeting with the filmmakers and we had all focused on the same place in the script where we felt something was missing in the score. It's pouring rain and all hope seems lost. It's such an emotional moment for the characters that it seemed like a great place for music to lift it to the next level. Thomas Schumacher, then president of Feature Animation, suggested that we not tip our hand and say everything's going to be all right. He felt we needed to make the audience feel that everything is as hopeless as the characters think it is.”
According to Menken, “The night before Glenn was coming over to work on this song, I went with a friend to the `O Brother Where Art Thou?' concert. In the Appalachian style folk songs they sang there was a germ of angst that sparked a stylistic feel in me. I sat down at the piano and, basically in one play through, I played this piece of music. Glenn loved the melody and came back with `Will the Sun Ever Shine Again.' I was floored.”
Slater notes, “The song is two and a half minutes long, and that's precisely how long it took Alan to write it. As soon as he played the last note, I said `Give this to me, I'm going home to write the lyric.' He had somehow managed to capture in music something that felt like it had always existed; something that felt like part of the landscape. It had exactly that feeling of utter despair that the script called for at that point, and yet it also somehow had that little tinge of `everything's gonna be okay.'”
Menken adds, “We wrote this song about five months after 9-11 and, without knowing it, it had tapped into my desire to express the deep horror and shock and pain that we all felt. I can think of few songs in my career that have engendered such a strong and immediate response from people. I knew the song was special, and when Bonnie Raitt came into the picture to sing it, there was ever greater power in the song. What comes out of Bonnie is this soul. She brought something else entirely to the piece. It brought everything to another place for all of us.”
Raitt observes,“This song is something that we can all relate to. It has such a universal tone to it, especially in light of world events.When I heard it I choked up before I had even seen the film. I think it was a real inspiration to come up with this song. I was honored to sing an Alan Menken tune because I've heard all of his other works and think he is fantastic. I'm just thrilled to be a part of it. I was excited to do a film where the women get the bad guy.”
“Home on the Range” features two terrific end credit songs - “Wherever the Trail May Lead” and “Anytime You Need a Friend.”
Grammy-winning country artist Tim McGraw sings “Wherever the Trail May Lead.” The Louisiana-born singer-songwriter has sold over 25 million albums and released 21 number-one singles since 1994. His 1997 single, “It's Your Love,” became the most-played single in the history of Billboard's airplay monitoring. In 2001, McGraw earned his first Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration for “Let's Make Love,” a duet with his wife Faith Hill.
“`Wherever the Trail May Lead' is a ballad that's very optimistic,” says Menken. “It's inspiring and a song I really feel strongly about. Tim McGraw's voice conveys a lot of soul with a hint of roughness to it. He brings something very broad and appealing to the performance.”
McGraw explains, “The song, to me, is about life. It's about the road you travel. It talks about a couple traveling through life together, and helping each other along; and holding each other up when they stumble. I think it's a great lesson song for all of us, especially kids, to listen to. It's a different kind of song than what I've done in the past but I've always looked for things that are a little different. It has a bit of a western flair to it, but also a bit of a gospel feel too. I liked the song right away and I liked what it said. Alan Menken is a legend whose songs transcend all genres of music. I feel lucky, as an artist, to be able to interpret a great songwriter's song.
“Disney films are always an inspiration,” continues the singer. “They're magical with a sense of limitlessness to them. They empower kids to be good friends and good role models. Having kids of my own, I hear them singing the songs from the Disney films over and over. It's a pretty good feeling to realize that, if they like this film, they'll be singing one of daddy's songs. That's a cool thing.”
The final song in the film is the upbeat pop tune “Anytime You Need a Friend,” sung by The Beu Sisters. The four siblings - Candice, Christie, Jiliane, and Danielle - range in age from 18 to 29 and first started singing together in 1994 in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. They were signed to S-Curve Records in 2001 and their self-titled debut album arrived the following year.They are currently on tour opening for Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken.
Reflecting on his collaboration with Alan Menken, Slater says, “For a lyricist, there's just no better treat. The first time I sat down to work with him, I gave him a lyric and as he started playing it, I felt like jumping up in the air and saying, `Oh my God, I just wrote an Alan Menken song!' He has such a distinctive voice and style, and there's something in his sound that makes a song feel both completely fresh and as if you've loved it forever. One of Alan's unique talents is that he has an almost uncanny ability to find the vein of emotion and just tap directly into it. He does it almost by intuition. There's no gap between the thought and the deed. He just jumps to the piano and out pours this astonishing music that hits you, without fail, in all the right places.”
Menken concludes, “Glenn and I work very much the way I've worked with most other lyricists in the past, and very much the way I worked with Howard Ashman. He may come in with a lyric and I'll set it. Or I may come in with a piece of music and he'll write a lyric to it. More often than not, we'll meet somewhere in the middle and we'll sculpt something until he says he has something he can work with.We go back and forth. Sometimes it's very fast; sometimes it's a lot of work. I found consistently that he is one of the most versatile lyricists I've worked with and he's able to deliver funny and clever lyrics. He's also able to deliver lyrics that sound great with music. And he's able to write heartbreakingly profound, beautiful lyrics. I'm very excited about this collaboration.”
The Score: Alan Menken Conjures the Best of the West
In addition to writing memorable melodies for the film's six songs,Alan Menken also composed the rich and colorful western underscore for “Home on the Range.” The composer has previously written scores for six Disney films starting with “The Little Mermaid” in 1989 up through “Hercules” in 1997. For this film, Menken worked with a large orchestra that ranged in size from 60 to 87 pieces.
“The score for `Home on the Range' is evocative of the classic western themes and is filtered through my memories and love of the great works of other film composers,” says Menken. “My goal was to try and bring a language of the West in as emotionally honest a way as I could.
“What I aim for in the score is to bring as many colors of the West as I can,” continues the composer. “Compared to some of my other scores, this is a little less busy, but still very song driven. I was really excited to be doing a western score. I've never written for the genre before, but I love listening to it. I respond to it and absorb the colors and musical styles that are associated with the westerns. Everything from Elmer Bernstein's brilliant score for `The Magnificent Seven' and Dimitri Tiomkin's great western music to Aaron Copeland's evocative compositions had an influence on me.
“I think the Disney animated world is fueled on stylistic references,” concludes Menken. “It lets the audience know what world they're in. With all the scores I've done, I've deliberately found different musical palettes to work with.With `Home on the Range,' I aimed for a western palette. Each project gives me an opportunity to find really specific colors, just as gospel defined the color for `Hercules,' Native American and English music for `Pocahontas,' liturgical and French music for `The Hunchback of Notre Dame,' and Middle Eastern music and Fats Waller jazz for `Aladdin.'”
Producer Goldstone notes, “Alan's score gives the film a tremendous sense of scope and scale. The film has always been a lot of fun, but in those moments where there's some space between the zaniness, his score provides a real grandeur. The music heightens the comedy and emotion, but also gives the movie a real cinematic feel.”
Animal's Instincts: Disney's Top Animators and An All-Star and An All-Star Vocal Cast Bring the Characters to Life
To bring life to the colorful cast of “Home on bthe Range,” Goldstone and the directors enlisted some of the very best animators in the business, along with a great ensemble of voice talents.With its broad characters and zany story, this film gave the artists a rare opportunity to let their imaginations run wild and show how quick they were on the “draw.” The actors were equally inspired by the clever heartfelt script to deliver some of their most entertaining performances.
Mark Henn, Chris Buck, and Duncan Marjoribanks were the trio of top talents who guided the actions and personalities for the three distinctly different cow characters.
Buck, a veteran Disney animator who also served as co-director of the hit feature, “Tarzan,” was responsible for overseeing the character of Maggie, the feisty outspoken outsider voiced by Roseanne Barr.
“In real life, cows don't really do a heck of a lot,” says Buck. “We went to a local dairy farm and spent time observing hundreds of cows. I thought I was going to see all these great cow motions, but all 22 they did was stand and eat and then stand and eat some more.We had to push our characters to run and jump and do things in the film that cows don't normally do. The dairy farm visit did allow us to see the subtleties of the animals. Looking at their faces, cows have very soulful eyes and a soft muzzle. They're very expressive with their tails and the way they swish them back and forth. There's nothing like seeing your animal character in three dimensions right in front of you.”
Buck got to see the more active side of cow behavior when he went on a cattle drive in Wyoming, and visited the local Equestrian Center in Burbank. On those occasions, he watched cowboy riders “cut” the herd and saw first hand how cows run.
“For the film, we ended up caricaturing how a cow would move,” he adds. “Our characters move semi-realistically and their anatomy is mostly correct. We fudged things a little so that our cows could jump, run, climb, and do things a real cow could never do.”
Buck's biggest inspiration for the character of Maggie came from the vocal performance of comedienne Roseanne Barr.
“I love what Roseanne gives to the character,” says Buck. “She brings a sense of fun with her jokes and one-liners. But she also has some pretty subtle timing and a great deadpan delivery that I tried to capture. Sometimes it's just a little look out of the corner of her eye that says it all. She also talks out of the side of her mouth a bit and we pushed that aspect with the character. Roseanne also has a tendency to squint, especially when she smiles, and that came through in the animation too.”
According to Barr, “The character of Maggie was like a real person to me. I thought of her as a person who just happened to be a cow. I know she's a cartoon, but there's a lot of depth to these characters. To play this role, I was fortunately able to connect with, what do you call it, my `inner cow.'
“I've always wanted to be in a western,” adds the actress. “I spent a lot of time on farms being from Utah, and my father was a huge western fan. I thought it was a very honorable thing to play a cow, especially one who figures out something new and has such good intentions. It was actually like a huge fantasy for me to be in a western. It was really fun to hear my voice coming out of the cartoon. It was just exciting and cool. I also love the songs in the movie, and think that everybody's voice was fantastic. It's the perfect soundtrack.”
For the character of Mrs. Caloway, the filmmakers turned to supervising animator Duncan Marjoribanks, the talented artist who brought life to Sebastian the crab (“The Little Mermaid”), the evil poacher McLeach (“The Rescuers Down Under”), and the gold-loving Governor Ratcliffe (“Pocahontas”).
According to Marjoribanks, “The big clue to understanding Mrs.Caloway is that she doesn't realize she's in an animated movie to the extent that the other cows might. She's quite a fish out of water in her environment, but she's also the centrifugal force. She's very oriented on the farm and less adventurous than the others. She's also a bit more civilized and refined. She's very motherly and protective of Grace. She sees Grace as something of a project. A lot of the humor in the film comes from the fact that all of these cows have a very different point of view of events as they unfold. They have distinct personalities and the relationships between them are quite interesting. Mrs. Caloway is put off by Maggie and tries to gently guide her in a subtle way, which has absolutely no effect whatsoever.
“Judi Dench's voice was great and just coming into work each morning and playing that soundtrack, I knew it was going to be a good day,” recalls Marjoribanks. “Watching video of her recordings provided great inspiration for mannerisms and expressions. I never tried to caricature her; it was largely a matter of knowing her intent and then trying to stay out of her way.”
Dench observes, “I love cows, so being asked to play a cow called Mrs. Caloway with a charming hat, who could resist that? I certainly couldn't. I'm not sure how a British cow got to Patch of Heaven, but I'm frightfully pleased she did. It just made me laugh a great deal. She has kind of that British stiff upper lip thing about her. She's obviously very soft hearted but you don't see that much.
“I enjoyed the experience of making this film because it is something I have never done before,” adds the actress. “This is a totally new thing for me. I have voiced a mouse named Miss Lilly for the `Angelina Ballerina' series, but we're all together for that. Since most of the recording sessions for `Home on the Range' were done without other actors present, it was like doing a one-woman show and then coming to find there's a cast of thousands.”
Supervising the character of Grace was Disney veteran Mark Henn, one of the Studio's all-time top animators and the artist who gave life to such film favorites as Ariel, Belle, Princess Jasmine, Adult Simba, and Mulan, among others. Henn was the first animator to come aboard the “Home on the Range” team. As one of the fastest and most prolific animators at the Studio, Henn found time to supervise two other characters in the film - the Sheriff's dog, Rusty, and the shifty cattle broker Wesley (voiced by Steve Buscemi). He also animated some scenes with “Patch of Heaven's” kindly owner, Pearl.
“I think cows are neat animals,” says Henn. “My brother-in-law lives on a farm in Erie, Pennsylvania, and he sent me lots of reference footage of his animals. I also went to the dairy farm, and spent some time with a real cow they brought to the Studio for a drawing class. All three of the cows in our film are visually different from each other. Grace was always a younger cow, and a little more slender. She's more deer-like in a lot of ways, with longer legs. Mechanically, we put in just enough anatomy to make her plausible and believable.
“Jennifer Tilly gave us a great vocal performance to work with,” adds Henn. “She was very professional and I think she really enjoyed the role. She was so energetic and bubbly, and always gave 110%. Jennifer made it a lot easier to animate Grace. She was very expressive, particularly in her eyes, and we tried to put some of her look into Grace. Her energy and love of life made the voice a great fit for our character.”
Tilly explains, “Grace is sort of the Switzerland of cows because she's a peacemaker. Her thinking is very new age and she has all these holistic sayings that she's always spouting. I know a lot of people like Grace, and I based her on sort of an amalgamation of all the aromatherapy, candle-making, back to earth, nature-loving people that I know. I'm actually a bit like Grace myself, but when I catch myself saying something new agey, I try to stop immediately.
“It's really an actor's dream doing an animated voice,” she adds. “You can do as many takes as you want. I'd do it different ways, sometimes just to make the directors laugh. Usually, I would do the first two or three takes as they were written on the page. Then I'd do variations, and I would get crazier and crazier. I think my voice is really good for somebody that's holistic and new agey, because I think I have a soothing voice. I loved when they came in one day and said that there was a storyline where Grace is a really bad singer. I thought that was great because I am a really bad singer.
“I love westerns,” concludes Tilly. “I think they're so appealing because people like the idea that there's still unchartered territory out there. It's exciting that these cows are leaving the farm and going out into the big world. Everybody can identify with that; being out in a big open area where you don't really know what to expect, and where you have to survive with your ingenuity. The theme of `Home on the Range' is the value of friendship; and how animals from all different types of farms can get along. Different breeds of cows can get along. It also shows that there's strength in numbers and that three heads are better than one.”
The prize assignment of animating Alameda Slim, a larger-than-life cattle rustler with a hypnotic personality, was given to veteran animator Dale Baer (whose association with Disney goes back over years to “Robin Hood” and whose credits include the supervision of Yzma in “The Emperor's New Groove” and some major scenes in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”). With Randy Quaid's voice for inspiration, Baer found a rich source of comedy and physical antics.
The Production
“Watching Randy at the recording sessions was amazing,” says Baer. “He would just transform himself into the character with his gestures and expressions. He would actually physically act things out while he was reading his lines. I loved everything he did and ideas would start popping into my head immediately. He was really feeling the character and watching him on the tapes, you knew exactly what Slim should do. My favorite part of the film is the yodeling sequence. It was fun to animate a character of Slim's stature moving around so actively and gracefully. It set the tone for the character for the rest of the film. There was no limits to what he could do.
“Will and John were terrific to work with and were always there to answer questions and keep you energized,” he adds. “The directors keep everybody going. They're the ones with the hardest job because they have to envision the whole movie in their heads. I'm just envisioning one tiny piece at a time. I've been animating for over thirty-two years and every day has been exciting.”
Quaid observes, “I just connected with Slim pretty much from the get-go. The voice just sort of happened and I got this attitude of being a megalomaniac king or world conqueror. Through these cows he is trying to rule the earth. I just wanted to bring this conquering madman to the screen. For me, the character is not just about doing the voice. I'm using my whole body when I'm recording. Actingwise, it was one of the most grueling things I've ever done. It takes a lot of emotion to get the voice through the microphone and make it fill the character. This is a very big character. It required a big voice to carry across vast distances. I just love the whole process. I go in and do the voice, and act it out. Then Dale incorporates my gestures into his drawing. It's a real accomplishment and I think that the film is one of Disney's great ones and something they'll be proud tohave in their collection.
“The western is purely an American experience,” says the actor. “It deals with a transitional time in our history. The genre has so many marvelous kinds of romantic characters with gunfighters, cattle rustlers, famous lawmen, and all of the interconnecting relationships. I think the animators are so gifted because they capture this little Patch of Heaven in the midst of the vastness. This is one of the best westerns I've ever seen. It's just a really good movie.”
Supervising animator Mike Surrey (whose credits include Timon in “The Lion King” and Clopin in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”) was in charge of the character of Buck, voiced by Cuba Gooding, Jr.
“Buck is like a well trained athlete that never really gets to play in the game,” explains Surrey. “He just really wants to be out there trying to do something, and he gets his big opportunity when he's picked to help capture Slim. Drawing a horse, in general, was pretty intimidating because their head is so removed from their body. It can just be overwhelming figuring out how it's all going to work together. Luckily Buck is pretty cartoony, and we didn't have to get too bogged down with the realism of how a horse moves and what they can and cannot do.
“Buck's gestures mainly came from listening to Cuba's dialogue,” continues Surrey. “He's a very animated guy and gave a high energy performance that suggested a hyper personality. I would just let the voice dictate what I would draw. He gave me some great material to work with and made it pretty easy for me to come up with some funny drawings to keep the same energy.”
Among the other standout performances in “Home on the Range,” supervising animator Sandro Lucio Cleuzo did double duty on Sheriff Brown and the cantankerous can-hoarding goat, Jeb; Bruce Smith and Mark Henn shared supervising animator responsibilities for the kindly farm owner, Pearl; Shawn Keller oversaw the hilarious antics of a rabbit named Lucky Jack; and Russ Edmonds was in charge of Rico, the Willies, and some of the other horse characters.
Homing in on A Look and Style
In the western film genre, the color palette tends to be brown and earth tone to highlight the dusty terrain and frontier towns. “Home on the Range” ventures into uncharted territory and breaks all the rules with its bright colors and stylish designs.
“We wanted the colors in our film to be very playful,” explains art director David Cutler. “A great example of that is the western town where we have buildings that are purple, yellow, and blue.We could have made the film more monochromatic, but we went for a more colorful and playful look. We were influenced a lot by the legendary color stylist Mary Blair, who had such a big impact on `Cinderella' and `Alice in Wonderland.'”
This playful use of colors is particularly evident in the song sequence, “Yodel-Adle-Eedle-Idle-Oo,” where Alameda Slim yodels as backgrounds and characters change colors in rapid order. Directors Finn and Sanford wanted Slim's yodel soliloquy to be one of the most colorful sequences in a Disney movie and take its place along such other classic moments as “Pink Elephants on Parade” from “Dumbo,” and the “Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat” number in “The Aristocats.”
Background supervisor Cristy Maltese Lynch notes, “We went kind of wild in that sequence because we wanted the audience to experience what the cows were feeling. They don't know what's going on. All this weird stuff is happening. They're seeing the world through different eyes and they're hearing music that is taking them away. They have no control over what's happening. We let the audience have a little taste of that.”
Lynch and her team added to the film's unique look by pushing the color palette and by giving the film a handcrafted look. “When I first gathered the background team together, I asked them to approach their paintings as if they were a craft project,” says Lynch. “I asked them to remember back to when they were in kindergarten, and they would cut colored paper, and glue macaroni and beans and sequins onto it.That was the approach we wanted for this film, as opposed to a rendered painting. Our film is very graphic and textural. The backgrounds are not illustrations, or beautiful landscape paintings in oil, but something closer to a crafts project.”
The background department used a technique called “faceting” to reinforce the film's graphic style. Typically, the artists would lay down a flat plain of color, and then go back on top of that with other angular areas of color. Pieces of textured watercolor paper or fabric painted a different color might be layered on top of a painted area. This hard-edge faceting provided a jewel-like quality to the skies, mountains, and other background objects. When composited with the characters, it created the illusion of perspective, with lots of visible ruts, grains and textures.
From a layout perspective, Jean-Christophe Poulain and his team tried to give the film a sense of the camera work and composition of classic western films. Cutler elaborates, “Watching John Ford movies like `TheSearchers' and `My Darling Clementine,' we learned a lot about the scope and intimacy of westerns. In our film, when we're on the dairy farm, the camera is pretty close in and there is a sense of intimacy.As the cows go off on their adventure and become fish out of water, we tried to open things up more and more in the landscapes. The camera pulls back further so that you get a sense that they're in a vastly bigger world than their little home on the farm.
Overseeing the character design for “Home on the Range”was Joe Moshier, a talented artist who had previously designed the characters for “The Emperor's New Groove.” Among his many influences, Moshier drew inspiration for this assignment from the work of legendary Disney animator Milt Kahl (one of Walt Disney's “Nine Old Men”) and such popular children's book illustrators as Martin and Alice Provensen, and Aurelius Battaglia. He also credits animator Sandro Kleuzo for helping to create the turnaround model sheets, and Christopher Ure for his early design work on the cows.
“Our biggest challenge was the cows,” says Moshier. “It's very tough coming up with three different versions of the same animal. And I can't think of a harder animal to caricature than a cow. They're very jowly, which was one aspect we jumped on right away. There was that boxy, jowly nature with the sort of high-set eyes and overhanging muzzle. Chris Ure had established the shape language early on according to their personalities.Mrs. Caloway was very boxy, Grace had a triangular silhouette, and there was a roundness to Maggie. We didn't want them to look like realistic cows. Knowing that this was a whimsical, wacky take on a western,we were allowed to really push the shapes of the characters.”
 Production notes provided by Walt Disney Pictures. |
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