RC: So we had this new innovation we called the "layout animatics," where we actually put it on film and could watch it like a movie that goes beyond the story reels. There's still no animation; but all the cutting is there, the characters are still drawings, but the camera's moving and the lighting is there. It gives you a chance to see the movie in a much more realized form before the animation is done. And I would just say there were a lot of benefits that came out of that.

BD: So your scenes would be shot and timed as animatics?

JM: Yes, it was actually an added step to the process…

RC: It actually slowed down the process in the early stages but it was more than worth it and it just elevated the filmmaking: there were less redos of things because the animators could look at the animatic and could see exactly how the shot was going to work and know everything in advance. We could still make changes; there's nothing about the process that doesn't mean you can't plus it but it was a way of seeing it.

BD: What classic Disney films informed your look?

RC: Very early on we zeroed in on Bambi and Lady and the Tramp: elements of both those films that we liked. Lady and the Tramp for New Orleans and Bambi for the bayou. Those are not the same style but in terms of character design, they both have a dimensional and very appealing [look]. I think John said that a certain kind of Disney animation reached its peak with Lady and the Tramp. In a way, that's the most sophisticated version of classic Disney animation, a sort of rounded beauty…

JM: Then Sleeping Beauty was the next feature and everything was flatter…

RC: Which was a stylistic choice to emphasize the sort of graphic nature of the drawing. So we went back to the more dimensional drawing.

JM: And the idea of backgrounds that had atmosphere, which is why we looked at Bambi. And on Lady and the Tramp they found ways of simplifying architecture that implied more than what was painted in terms of the city and those Victorian houses.

RC: The same was true of Bambi dealing with a forest where there was a lot of Impressionism and lighting that emphasizes what you're supposed to look at and de-emphasizes what is not important.