By November 1991, the recently anointed codirector of The Lion King was three weeks into a trip to Kenya with a small group of animators and artists to scout, photograph, and sketch the region’s wildlife. Together they roamed the savanna by Jeep, stopping in silence to observe a hornbill hopping around, a distant rainstorm, or a pride of lions stalking its prey.
“We watched a mother and her two cubs,” Allers remembers. “The next morning, we saw their kill, a gazelle. The little cubs would poke their heads up from the carcass with their charming whiskers clotted with blood, and you go, ‘Wow, this is such a dramatic contrast.’ It was very inspiring.”
But for Allers, it was when he stared down at the valley from up high that the movie’s primary theme came into focus. “I almost don’t want to say it because it’s too corny, but I just had this ‘king of the mountain’ point of view,” Allers said. “You got to look over the kingdom, the kingdom of animals.”
The conceptual seeds for “The Circle of Life”—the majestic, chill-inducing opening sequence of the iconic 1994 Disney film—had been sown. Rob Minkoff later joined the project as codirector, Andy Gaskill took over as art director, and a story that had initially been constructed with a variety of sensibilities took on a unified and epic scope. Combined with Hans Zimmer’s score, the artistry made for an innovative and dramatic overture of camera movement and vibrant detail, previewing the Shakespearean story to come.
Six months before The Lion King hit theaters in 1994, producers used this prologue for the movie’s first trailer, a genius tactic used 25 years later for Disney’s photorealistic remake. The new version, now in theaters, captures a stunning authenticity, while simultaneously making many viewers nostalgic for the original animated feature’s colorful, expressive, and emotional artwork. And understandably so. Thanks to an underdog team of animators, the movie told an engrossing story without the safety of source material—the first time in Walt Disney Animation Studios history. Over three years, its creators faced numerous obstacles but combined to produce a morality play that popped with distinct, hand-drawn African themes, ultimately becoming a technical and philosophical feat ...
[Read more from Jake Kring-Schreifels on how a team of mostly upstart animators turned Walt Disney Animation Studios’ first original concept into a classic.]
