The Sweatbox is a 2002 American documentary film produced and directed by Trudie Styler, which documents the production of the Walt Disney Pictures film The Emperor's New Groove. Utilizing behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, it illustrates the slow and painful transformation of the original version of the film (titled Kingdom of the Sun) to the finished product, with a focus on Sting's work on the soundtrack. The documentary's major theme is creative-executive conflicts.

Background

Trudie Styler, a documentarian, had been allowed to film the production of Kingdom of the Sun/The Emperor's New Groove as part of the deal that originally brought her husband Sting to the project. As a result, Styler recorded on film much of the struggle, controversy, and troubles that went into making the picture (including the moment when producer Fullmer called Sting to inform the pop star that his songs were being deleted from the film). Disney owns the rights to the documentary and has not released it on home video or DVD.

The naming is due to the screening room at the Disney studio in Burbank, which when originally set up had "no air conditioning, causing the animators to sweat while their rough work was being critiqued." The "process of reviewing the animation as it developed" became known as the Sweatbox,[1] and as the documentary was about "the process of making an animated film," the term was chosen as the title. This "making of" documentary was co-directed by Styler and John-Paul Davidson.[1]

Der 95-minütige Film, dessen Veröffentlichung ursprünglich für Anfang 2001 geplant war, wurde stattdessen für die Bonus-Featurette der DVD-Veröffentlichung von „New Groove“ überarbeitet. Eine von Disney freigegebene Fassung des Films feierte am 13. September 2002 auf dem Toronto International Film Festival Weltpremiere. Er lief außerdem eine Woche lang im Loews Beverly Center Cineplex in Los Angeles – ohne vorherige Ankündigung –, um für eine Oscar-Nominierung in Frage zu kommen. Darüber hinaus wurde der Film im Enzian Theater in Orlando im Rahmen des Florida Film Festivals gezeigt. [ 1 ]

Zusammenfassung

1997 bat Regisseur Roger Allers den britischen Singer-Songwriter Sting , die Musik für einen neuen Disney-Animationsfilm mit dem Titel „ Kingdom of the Sun“ zu schreiben, der die Kultur der Inkas erkunden sollte . Sting war begeistert von der Idee, an einem Disney-Film mitzuarbeiten, und sagte zu. Die Dokumentation begleitete die Drehbuchautoren, Animatoren und Synchronsprecher bei ihrer Zusammenarbeit, um Allers’ Vision umzusetzen. Sting komponierte zusammen mit David Hartley den Soundtrack mit Liedern wie „Walk the Llama Llama“, „One Day She’ll Love Me“ und „Snuff Out the Light“ (gesungen von Eartha Kitt ). Anschließend präsentierte das Team seine Storyboards den ausführenden Produzenten Thomas Schumacher und Peter Schneider . Diese waren unzufrieden: Die Geschichte sei zu komplex, das Tempo zu langsam und der Ton des Films zu uneinheitlich. Infolgedessen musste der gesamte Film neu geschrieben werden.

Allers und sein Team sind fassungslos und haben das Gefühl, all ihre harte Arbeit sei umsonst gewesen. Sie entwickeln eine neue Handlung, doch die Animatoren sind besorgt über den plötzlichen Richtungswechsel und befürchten, dass ihre Beiträge es nicht in den fertigen Film schaffen werden. Mark Dindal übernimmt die Regie von Allers, und der Titel wird leicht abgeändert in „ Kingdom in the Sun“ . Schauspieler Owen Wilson wird durch John Goodman ersetzt , und die Handlung im Stil von „Der Prinz und der Bettelknabe“ wird verworfen. Der Film wird zu einer komischen Farce umgestaltet. Die neue Handlung findet die Zustimmung von Schneider und Schumacher.

Sting, though frustrated that the songs he has written for the previous storyline can no longer be used, continues to work on the film, writing a theme song ("Perfect World") and a song for the closing credits ("My Funny Friend and Me"). After seeing the story reels of the new film, he writes a letter of protest to the producers regarding the ending, in which Emperor Kuzco still builds his theme park and waterslide despite his moral transformation. His comments are passed on to the animation team, and the ending is altered to be more in line with the message of the film. As the film nears completion, the title is changed once again to The Emperor's New Groove. A musical score is composed by Marc Shaiman, but the producers are not happy with it, and John Debney is taken on instead to score the film. The documentary ends with Schumacher discussing the lessons he has learned about the production process, producer Don Hahn expressing his satisfaction with how the film turned out, and Sting reflecting that the artistic constraints that were placed upon him have ultimately improved the quality of his music.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 7 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.2/10.[2]

According to Wade Sampson, staff writer at MousePlanet who attended a screening, each time Tom Schumacher or Peter Schneider (then-Disney Feature Animation president and Disney Studios chairman respectively) were on the screen, "there were howls from the audience that was partly composed of animators from Disney Feature Animation Florida." He says that "the two executives did come across as nerdy bullies who really didn't seem to know what was going on when it came to animation," and that they "were unnecessarily hurtful and full of politically correct speech." He adds that it is left to the viewer to decide if this impression is due to editing or a "remarkable truthful glimpse."[1] Sampson adds, "Rarely have artists been caught so evocatively in fear of executives, or executives portrayed as so clueless as to how to deal with artists, how to resolve story problems and how to understand what audiences wanted." He says that "supporters of Allers' original vision still feel that if he had been given the time, money and support that the film would have been a masterpiece," but "instead of the more ambitious Kingdom of the Sun, the Disney Studio decides to go with a supposedly more commercial film incorporating some of the same characters and location, Emperor's New Groove."[1]

Although the film in its completed form had been kept under wraps for about a decade, on March 21, 2012, it was leaked online by an eighteen-year-old cartoonist in the UK.[3]

After the documentary was leaked online, Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew gave the following analysis of the film:

The Sweatbox is at turns infuriating, hilarious and enlightening. You’ll cringe in sympathy with the Disney artists as you see the gross bureaucratic incompetence they had to endure while working at the studio in the 1990s. The film not only captures the tortured morphing of the Kingdom of the Sun into The Emperor’s New Groove, it also serves as an invaluable historical document about Disney’s animation operations in the late-1990s. If any questions remain about why Disney fizzled out creatively and surrendered its feature animation crown to Pixar and DreamWorks, this film will answer them.[3]

Appearances

Referenzen