Editing Mulan (1998 film) (section)

===Animation and design===
[[File:Confucius Laozi Buddha.jpg|thumb|The animation crew was inspired by ancient Chinese art for the aesthetics of the movie]]
To achieve a harmonious visual look, producer designer Hans Bacher and art director Ric Sluiter, along with Robert Walker and Head of Backgrounds Robert Stanton collaborated to establish a proper chronological location for the film in Chinese history. Since there was no general consensus on the time of Mulan's existence, they based the visual design on the [[Ming dynasty|Ming]] and [[Qing dynasty|Qing]] dynasties.{{sfn|Kurtti|1998|p=72}} An important element of Bacher's design was to turn the art style closer to [[Chinese painting]], with [[Watercolor painting|watercolor]] and simpler design, as opposed to the details of ''The Lion King'' and ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]''.<ref>{{cite video|title="Art Design" |location=''Mulan'' DVD|type=Documentary film|publisher = [[Walt Disney Home Entertainment]] | date = 2004 }}</ref> Bacher further studied more than thirty-five film directors ranging from the silent era [[German expressionist cinema|German Expressionism]], British and American epics of the 1950s and 60s, and the [[Spaghetti Western]]s for inspiration for composition, lighting, and staging that would establish settings that enhanced the characters.{{sfn|Kurtti|1998|pp=84–86}} Additional inspiration was found in the earlier Disney animated films such as ''[[Bambi]]'', ''[[Pinocchio (1940 film)|Pinocchio]]'' and ''[[Dumbo]]'' to establish a sense of [[Staging (theatre)|staging]].{{sfn|Kurtti|1998|p=78}}

In October 1997, the Walt Disney Company announced a major expansion of its Florida animation operations constructing a 200,000-square-foot, four-story animation building and the addition of 400 animators to the workforce.<ref>{{cite news | last=Shenot | first=Christine | url=http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1997-03-08/business/9703070426_1_local-animators-animation-operations-disney-s-animation-work | title=Disney Expanding at Mgm, Building Animation Empire | newspaper=Sun Sentinel | date=March 8, 1997 | access-date=June 3, 2015 | archive-date=October 3, 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151003234508/http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1997-03-08/business/9703070426_1_local-animators-animation-operations-disney-s-animation-work | url-status=dead }}</ref>

To create 2,000 Hun soldiers during the Huns' attack sequence, the production team developed [[crowd simulation]] software called ''Attila''. This software allows thousands of unique characters to move autonomously. A variant of the program called ''Dynasty'' was used in the final battle sequence to create a crowd of 3,000 in the Forbidden City. [[Pixar]]'s photorealistic open [[Application programming interface|API]] [[RenderMan Interface Specification|RenderMan]] was used to render the crowd. Another software developed for this movie was ''Faux Plane'', which was used to add depth to flat two-dimensional painting. Although developed late in production progress, ''Faux Plane'' was used in five shots, including the dramatic sequence which features the [[Great Wall of China]], and the final battle sequence when Mulan runs to the [[Forbidden City]]. During the scene in which the citizens of China are bowing to Mulan, the crowd is a panoramic film of real people bowing. It was edited into the animated foreground of the scene.<ref name="DVD">{{cite video | title = Mulan DVD Commentary | medium = DVD | publisher = [[Walt Disney Home Entertainment]] | date = 2004 }}</ref>

{{Clear}}