One of the greatest adventure stories ever told - Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' - takes on a new dimension of entertainment and excitement. Redefining the state of the art for animation, the filmmakers take moviegoers on a daring and imaginative journey across a fantasy universe that combines expert hand-drawn animation, incredible 3D "virtual sets," along with superb acting and storytelling. As an added bonus, moviegoers in many cities around the world will be able to see special engagements of "Treasure Planet" in IMAX Theatres and large format cinemas. Reformatted with meticulous detail especially for these venues, the film becomes the first to ever open simultaneously in 35mm and large  format versions, showcasing the film's dimensional space settings to maximum advantage and immerse viewers into the beauty, grandeur and excitement of this fantasy world.

At the creative helm of Treasure Planet are Disney's acclaimed directing/ producing/ writing duo, John Musker and Ron Clements. This is the fifth film they have created for Disney and it follows such other distinguished features as The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992) and Hercules (1997). A CalArts graduate, Musker joined Disney in 1977 as an assistant animator (The Small One, The Fox and the Hound) and went on to work as an animator and story artist before becoming a director. Clements, who began making super-8 animated films as a teenager, came to Disney in 1976 and served a two-year apprenticeship under Disney animation great Frank Thomas. He moved from in-betweener to assistant to animator/story artist with credits on such films as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, The Rescuers, Pete's Dragon, The Fox and the Hound, and The Black Cauldron. He first teamed with Musker in 1983 to write and direct The Great Mouse Detective.

According to Thomas Schumacher, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, "There are many sources for the animated films we make at Disney. Sometimes we turn to myth, legend and lore; sometimes they're based on wholly original stories; and sometimes we turn to great literature like we did with 'Tarzan' and 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame.' In the case of 'Treasure Planet,' we were inspired by the fantastic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is the classic young man's adventure story; the classic pirate story; and the classic search-for-treasure story. John Musker and Ron Clements have invented great ideas for classics like 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Aladdin.' so when they came to us with the idea of adapting Treasure Island and setting it in a fantasy universe, we thought it would make a great film. There is something about classic material that just inspires this kind of reinvention. The source material offered us opportunities for comedy, big sweeping drama and fantastic adventure and not every story allows you to do that."

Schumacher adds, "This movie is very special for several reasons. First and foremost, it has some of the most brilliant acting ever in an animated film. The acting of the animators, who bring such truth and credibility to these characters, such charm and wit, reaches a new level of sophistication here. Glen Keane, who supervised the animation of John Silver, is a great actor who brings enormous depth and emotion to his characters. I can't think of any artist in animation who has had a greater impact on our movies than Glen. On top of that, the terrific stage actor Brian Murray gives one of the finest vocal performances ever heard in animation as the duplicitous Silver. John Ripa's great animation of Jim Hawkins combined with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's outstanding vocal performance is equally impressive. 'Treasure Planet' also marks a milestone for the integration of hand-drawn artwork and CG elements. For the first time, we have entire environments called 'virtual sets' where you see characters moving in space that is in fact three- dimensional. The technology is used to create fantastic settings and, in the case of Silver, a character with great credibility."

An outstanding group of actors was assembled to provide the voices for the colourful cast of characters. Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("Angels in the Outfield" TV's "3rd Rock From the Sun") lends a wide range of emotion and dimension to Jim Hawkins, a lonely fifteen-year-old trying to find his place in the universe. Three-time Tony Award-nominated Brian Murray ("The Crucible," "The Little Foxes," "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead") gives an inspired vocal turn as John Silver, the affable rogue whose good-natured charm masks a ruthless obsession. Academy Award- winning actress/ screenwriter Emma Thompson brings great sense and sensibilities to the character of Captain Amelia, the no-nonsense cat-like officer of the solar galleon, the RLS Legacy. David Hyde Pierce (who portrays Dr. Niles Crane on the long~running hit TV series, "Frasier") adds laughs, drama and a touch of romance with his vocal performance as the bookish astrophysicist Dr. Doppler who gets a chance to fulfill his fantasy when he finances a treasure-seeking expedition. Comedian/ actor Martin Short provides the hilariously manic voice of B.E.N. (Bio-Electronic- Navigator), a bucket-of-bolts robot plagued with a missing memory circuit and two big no-nos (touching and talking).

From a technological standpoint, Treasure Planet is truly a hybrid film that takes the integration of hand-drawn animation and CG elements to a new level of sophistication. Most of the film's characters are drawn by hand, with the exception of John Silver (who is a highly complicated blend of hand-drawn and computer animation) and the robot, B.E.N, who is completely animated with the computer. Over 75% of the film involves some form of "Deep Canvas" elements ranging from painted props to detailed "virtual sets." This is a significant advance over "Tarzan" (1999), in which "Deep Canvas" was used for less than 10 minutes of the film. "Deep Canvas" involves painting 3D geometry in the computer with paint strokes that adhere to points in space. This process is typically limited to one-time usage for a specific scene and the paint cannot be altered or relit. "Virtual sets" take the "Deep Canvas" process to the next level by creating actual three- dimensional environments that can be adjusted for any lighting situations and reused as needed. The camera can be placed anywhere in the set and travel through it once it is built.

One of the benefits of this new technology is that it gave the filmmakers greater choice in developing their staging. Muker explains, "For example, in the solar surfing sequence, we really wanted it to feel like an extreme sport and give it the sensation of skydiving and windsurfing with the camera rushing alongside Jim. This was the most liberating film we've ever made and we were free to choose camera angles that were never possible before."

Adding to this freedom was the contribution of layout supervisor Rasoul Azadani and his team. Working with "virtual sets" proved to be a real breakthrough in staging the film and allowed the layout artists to make bolder choices with regard to cinematography.

To create the cyborg character John Silver, Musker and Clements turned to Glen Keane, one of the top animators of all time and the supervisor of such favorite Disney characters as Ariel, the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas and Tarzan. Keane was charged with designing the character and animating the hand-drawn

live-action set that you could re-light and use over again. You could also place the camera anywhere you wanted to and make any kind of moves including dolly and trucking shots. It gave us tremendous freedom."

Rasoul Azadani, who has worked on all of Musker & Clements' previous films during his 17 years at Disney, headed up the Layout department for "Treasure Planet." He observes, "This film was really a breakthrough with regard to cinematography. We ended up building most of the key environments as 3-D virtual sets, which gave us a lot of freedom to move in and around them and change the lighting to suit the action and mood. Among the virtual sets we built were the kitchen galley where Jim first encounters John Silver, the longboat room, the stockade and Jim's bedroom. Even the RLS Legacy was built as a 3-D set.

`Deep Canvas' was a breakthrough because it allowed us to paint brushstrokes on geometric objects in space," adds Azadani. "That gave us dimension and a very painterly look. With virtual sets, the entire set is built in the computer and the painting is done in the same way with brushstrokes. We paint the objects in a base color which can be adjusted for lighting and mood. 'Deep Canvas' was limited to fixed lighting and would typically be used for one particular shot whereas with virtual sets, once they're built they have unlimited possibilities."

Dave Tidgwell was responsible for overseeing a team of 40 effects animators and technicians in creating all the visual effects in "Treasure Planet." This includes animating everything from the movements of the Legacy itself and Jim's solar surfer to such diverse effects as exploding stars, cosmic storms, swirling black holes, lightning, fire, rain, water, steam and hundreds of thousands of gold drubloons.

"This is probably the most ambitious animated film the studio has ever done from a visual effects standpoint," says Tidgwell. "Almost every scene has some effects in it ranging from something as simple as shadows or tones to something as substantial as an imploding planet. Our big challenge was figuring out how to fit our effects into the style of the film. How do you make a supernova look like it was created by a Brandywine painter? The directors wanted the film to have a real painterly look and the effects had to feel like they were part of that world. Another major challenge for us throughout the film was figuring out how to combine the hand-drawn and 3D elements. We had the ability to make our effects seem very realistic but they had to blend in with the character animation."

Overseeing the CGI department on "Treasure Planet" was Kyle Odermatt. Unlike previous films where the CGI team was a separate unit that would handle an element or two, this film integrated CG experts into each department and put the tools more directly into the hands of the artists.

"I think the thing that John and Ron wanted from the first day I talked to them was a dimensional place that they could create," recalls Odermatt. "They wanted it to have impact and they wanted it to have hybrid characters that had never been done before. And I'm very proud that those things, which seemed rather daunting at the time, proceeded along a development path and moved into a production path that was no more of a hiccup to the normal process than any of the challenging elements we've tackled in the past. We always make it hard for ourselves because we want to achieve lofty goals. And that was true of all the digital elements in this film. We worked very closely with (associate producer) Peter Del Vecho to educate all the members of the creative team. Digital production requires lots of patience. With a hand-drawn element, if I have an idea, I can draw it for you in two minutes. With a digital element, I can have an idea and the first worthwhile thing that a director might be able to see might be six weeks later. There is a certain leap of faith involved."

Early on in the production process, Odermatt and his team did a test of a cyborg character to show the directors how it might look in the film. Even before Glen Keane and Eric Daniels were on board, the CGI team took original drawings of Captain Hook (from the 1953 Disney classic, "Peter Pan") from the Studio's Animation Research Library, scanned them into a computer and erased the arm. A CG model was created to show that the concept was valid. Odermatt recalls, "It was a test that completely convinced everyone that a cyborg John Silver was possible."

Thomas SchLimacher concludes, "The lines are very blurred between the departments now because everybody is interacting with everyone else's stuff. The computer now plays a large role in what everyone is doing. The sense of art, the sense of legacy, the history of the hand-made quality is very much alive inside 'Treasure Planet,' but it requires people to collaborate in ways that they frankly have never done before. This is a wonderful thing and I'm so proud of the jaw-dropping beauty of this movie."

the music

No adventure tale is complete without a grand musical score to accentuate the action and enhance the elements of drama and comedy that accompany it. To help "Treasure Planet" strike all the right chords, the filmmakers enlisted the talents of composer James Newton Howard. This is Howard's third score for a Disney animated feature, following previous credits on "Dinosaur" and "Atlantis: The Lost Empire."

Producer Roy Conli describes the composer's work as "romantically transcendent and very much in the tradition of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's great swashbuckling scores for films like 'Captain Blood' and 'The Seahawk.' The score is a huge orchestral piece that pays homage to the great sea adventures of the 1940s. James is one of the few composers who can write to comedy, adventure, romance and emotion."

Howard notes, "This is probably the culmination of a lot of things I've attempted in the past. This movie fits in with the rich tradition of Korngold, Tiornkin, and Steiner and the swashbuckling films they helped to create. There was an expectation on this film that the music had to really perform on a classic level. Animated films are at once exciting and terrifying for any composer because there is a ton of work and you realise this is a very music-driven medium. The scary thing is you know how good it could be and you strive towards achieving that. A large part of my job is to help clarify and emphasise the emotional point of view at any given time."

In addition to a great score, the film features two songs by singer/ songwriter John Rzeznik (one of the founding members and lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls), who marks his solo artist debut on this project. The first song, "I'm Still Here (Jim's Theme)" accompanies a montage of images in which Jim and John Silver develop a friendship. For this rock ballad, Rzeznik drew on his own memories of adolescence and infused the song with a great understanding of the character and emotional feeling. He observes, "Jim became a real person to me. He goes on an adventure to find his real identity, and though he winds up with a few scars, he becomes a man. It's a great story and the animation is absolutely mind-blowing. I found it easy to relate to Jim because I felt a lot like him when I was his age."

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