How Disney brought back Robin Williams without using AI

Disney’s team of creative buffs has pulled off a new feat just in time for their 100th anniversary – which includes the reappearance of Robin Williams.

Williams, who was best known in the world of Disney for voicing the role of the genie in the 1992 animation Aladdin, died in 2014 at the age of 63 after taking his own life. His family has blasted recent attempts at restoring William’s work through Artificial Intelligence as “disturbing.”

However, his Disney legacy has been included in the new animated short Once Upon A Studio, which takes a look behind the scenes at the renowned studios’ century’s worth of cartoon history.

Bringing Genie back to the small screen was achieved without using AI, with 70% of the 543 characters featured in the short film coming from hand-drawn animation.

Disney creators knew Robin Williams “needed” to be in short film

According to an interview with Variety, Once Upon A Studio directors Dan Abraham and Trent Correy knew that Robin Williams’ iconic genie “needed” to be featured in the 100th anniversary celebrations.

“We tried to take them on the journey with us to say, ‘We’ve got this very special short that we’re doing. Robin as the genie means so much to so many people and we would really love to involve him,” producer Bradford Simonsen explained after reaching out to Williams’ estate.

“So Dan listened to the outtakes from the original recording and he found those little bites that we could use. We went back to the estate and said, ‘This is what we hope to do.’ Eric, who originally animated the genie is on the show, and he’s going to be part of it.’ And it was wonderful to see that happen.”

Robin Williams’ role of Genie not only became a beloved character within Aladdin, but also one of the most iconic characters in the entire animated history of Disney. His original song Friend Like Me was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 65th Academy Awards and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song at the 50th Golden Globe Awards in 1993.

As for the rest of Disney’s famous faces, the creative team wanted them to feel as though they had just stepped out of their respective movies.

“It needed to feel that so the audience response would be visceral. We used our animation research library where we pulled out model sheets for the animators to work from. We had Eric Goldberg who has the studio history, and we did tests to make sure it was all working together in the scenes,” Simonsen stated.

Genie is one of the 543 characters and 85 full-length films featured in Once Upon A Studio, which as a 70-30% balance between hand-drawn and computer animation.

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