Working on a Disney movie means being part of a legacy. Working on a Disney animated sequel amplifies that responsibility, as it means dealing with iconic characters dear to audiences’ hearts. For Trisha Hanley, that meant taking gentle care of Hei Hei the Rooster.
Yes, alongside burly demigod Maui and wayfinder Moana, everyone’s favorite rock-swallowing numbskull is back for Moana 2. It’s the sequel to the 2016 tale of a Polynesian heroine who saves her people from a life of isolation – accompanied, of course, by her traveling companion chicken.
“We fell in love with him,” said Hanley. “I crocheted my own little Hei Heis and gave them out to as gifts to my team, just as a thank you.”
“I crocheted my own little Hei Heis and gave them out to as gifts to my team, just as a thank you.”
Animation at a studio like Disney is, after all, a monumental process that covers multiple departments – storyboarding, layout, animation, technical animation, effects – and that’s where another UT alum, Kyle Lawson, comes in. As Production Supervisor for Layout, he described his job as “problem-solving” (or, as Hanley put it, being “the grease to make sure everything gets done”). He was tasked with providing continuity in the process, “to partner with the creative in the department that I’m in and really break down, ‘How are we going to make this film?’” In the case of Moana 2, the job of layout is literal world-building, to take the original edited storyboards into “the 3D realm. We’re placing the characters, adding camera movements, deciding the lenses. I work with the director of cinematography and we schedule out the film, we figure out how much labor time is it going to take to take the director’s vision and get it through our department to the very talented animators’ hands, where they bring the characters to life.”
It’s all part of what’s called the production pipeline, and for Lawson one of the favorite parts of his job is being able to track the story as it goes through every stage. “It’s amazing to see the film go from early artwork to the finished project, and how everyone takes the baton and just elevates it and elevates it. It’s what energizes me every day to go to work, just how fun of a process it is. … How do you get the most entertainment out of what I’ve been given, and how do I support the story, and do it in a way that flows together?”
Moana 2 is the first Disney project for both Lawson and Hanley, but not their first animated feature. Lawson cut his teeth as a production manager on titles such as Sony’s Spies in Disguise (based on the Austin-created short “Pigeon: Impossible“) and Netflix’s Nimona. Meanwhile, Hanley has done everything from building dragon necks for How to Train Your Dragon 2 to grooming hair for Smurfs: The Lost Village (she’s also no stranger to feathers, having worked on the titular angry birds of The Angry Birds Movie, and equally furious ostriches for Jumanji: The Next Level). However, part of the legacy of Disney is a dedication to pushing the state of the art forward, back from when Walt would keep his Nine Old Men on their toes to its constant development of new software in service of the art. “Disney really takes it to the next level,” Hanley explained.
Some of the biggest leaps forward have come in Technical Animation, especially in areas like hair. Indeed, it was actually Moana’s hair in the first film that made Hanley want to work at Disney. “The way it moves when she goes, the way the hair picks up in the wind, it’s just beautiful and just sings to you and just adds to the performance, and that’s what I get to do.”
The fact this is a sequel came with a mandate to provide a sense of continuity. While the technology of animation has evolved in leaps and bounds in the eight years since the first film, it’s important that they both feel like they take place in the same world. Luckily, Lawson noted, there was a lot of continuity in the crew from the original film who were on hand to help discover “what is the next step, what is the next chapter. It’s great to see those discussions that do happen, and every day making sure, are we within the realm and how far can we push it?”
Having joined the production right at the beginning in March 2022, Hanley said that ensuring people could watch Moana and Moana 2 back-to-back was on everyone’s minds, and that working in the most collaborative environment of her career made that infinitely easier. For her team, the start of the process was taking old assets created for the first film “and plus-ing them up.” That involved aging Moana up, as she’s now four years older than in the first film. “She’s a sailor now. How would that look? How would her body change? We got to add this subtle muscle on her shoulders because she’s working on a boat, she’s sailing, she’s built herself up.” Additionally, her haircut has changed from “that slicked-back look to that swoop that she has, and more subtle changes of texture. She’s been on the ocean even more, so we had a lot of conversations about her having salty hair.”
Those conversations led to another instance of Disney going above and beyond. Back in 2016, the studio established the Oceanic Culture Trust, a collective of Pacific Islanders who could guide them through cultural specifics to make Moana’s fantastical world still grounded in their experiences. For Moana 2, the artists went back to those same voices of experience, and so Hanley was able to draw on the knowledge of Polynesian voyager and navigator Lehua Kamalu. “She goes on the canoes, so her talking about her experiences opened up ideas for how Moana’s changed.”
However, this isn’t just a retread of the first film. Hanley’s team makes a big addition to the lore of Moana in new villain Matangi (voiced by Awhimai Fraser) – or, more specifically, her cloak. “She has this beautiful, magical cloak on her that we wanted to be an extension of her but not be its own character.” She compared Matangi’s cloak to Maui’s fishhook, in that “you feel it’s part of her magic – she’s controlling it, she’s making it move, but it doesn’t have a life of its own.” Back to the pipeline: “The animators that were animating Moana and Matangi, they would do some draw-overs for us that would be, ‘Well, this is what we’re thinking of doing with the cloak with this,’ and then we got to take it to the next level.”
Now Hanley and Lawson see their work complete and have become part of the rich history of Disney animation. “It didn’t hit me ‘til recently,’ said Hanley. “I’ve been a part of big films before, and part of beloved stuff, and I was super-excited when I accepted my job and knew I was going to work on Moana. I was like, ‘This is amazing, and I love her.’ But seeing it now, at the end of the film? Oh my god.”
However, it all has a little extra wonder for Lawson. Watch through the end of the closing credits, and his daughter is listed as a production baby – an honorific reserved for babies of crew born while their parents are working on a movie. He said, “Her first credit is also my first credit, so it was just magical.”
Moana 2 opens in theatres November 27. Find showtimes here.
This article appears in November 22 • 2024.
