Hold your horses, Frozen fans! Disney just announced that a new VR short called Myth: A Frozen Tale will debut today at the Frozen 2 world premiere in Hollywood, CA.
Myth: A Frozen Tale allows fans a “unique virtual and visceral experience” to explore the world Frozen. The short is directed by Jeff Gipson and produced by by Nicholas Russell. Jose Luis Gomez Diaz is the VR Technology Supervisor and Brittney Lee, a visual development artist for both Frozen films, is the production designer.
“The idea for ‘Myth: A Frozen Tale‘ came from a personal place for me, and was inspired by my family’s tradition of telling bedtime stories. This led me to start thinking about what the world of Frozen and some of the film’s new elemental characters would look like in VR.
‘Myth: A Frozen Tale‘ is set in a forest outside of Arendelle as a family sits down for a bedtime story. As the mother reads, the audience is transported to a mystical and enchanted forest where the elemental spirits come to life and the myths of their past and future is revealed. With breathtaking production design by Brittney Lee, and a brilliant musical score by Joseph Trapanese, this film follows in the Fantasia legacy of using imagery and music together in an experimental way, using the latest advances in virtual reality to achieve that.”
Jeff Gipson, director ‘Myth: A Frozen Tale’
The initial artwork and title treatment for Myth: A Frozen Tale is stunning, capturing Lee’s signature whimsical stylized art style. We see a Nokk, the horse water spirit from the Frozen 2 trailer, running through a rainy blue forest and into a fuchsia fire, leaving a water trail in its wake. While still uncertain the Nokk’s role in the sequel, it clearly has a key role as it’s been seen in so many aspects of the marketing materials.
VR company, Positron, partnered with Walt Disney Animation Studios to allow the Frozen 2 world premiere guests to view the short on the Positron Voyager Chair, which rotates 360 degrees horizontally and 35-degrees backwards and forwards. The chair “provides a cinematic VR experience showcasing Positron’s unique motion and multi-sensory capabilities which brings the audience into a deeper level of immersion and emotional connection to the story.”
Due to the VR-nature of the short, it’s unlikely that it will play before Frozen 2 in theaters. However, the press release stated that locations where VR and Frozen fans can view the short will be announced at a later date.
Frozen 2 hits theaters November 22, 2019.
