Drawing inspiration from the 1926 literary creations of author A. A. Milne, "Pooh's Heffalump Movie" is the third original Pooh feature ever created for the big screen, following in the successful footsteps of "The Tigger Movie" (2001) and "Piglet's Big Movie" (2003).
Milne's Pooh books continue to be favourites with readers all over the world and have sold more than 50 million copies with translations into at least 31 languages. Disney Pooh films, including "Pooh's Heffalump Movie" represent an effort to tell new and original stories based on characters from Milne's popular books "Winnie-The-Pooh" (published in 1926) and "The House at Pooh Corner" (1928).
Frank Nissen, who has worked on such films as "Treasure Planet" and "Dinosaur," came on board to direct. "With a project like Winnie the Pooh, you have to pay a lot of respect to what has gone before," he explains. "The wonderful thing about the Pooh property is that it is full of rich characters and wonderful emotions."
"The literature is lovely," echoes producer Jessica Koplos-Miller, who brought the spirit of the Hundred Acre Wood to the production office by having crew tea parties. "It all goes back to beautiful storytelling."
The filmmakers were delighted, however, to have the opportunity to bring a new character into the world of Pooh and friends. But it was a daunting task to add a new element to a blue-print that has been cherished--and essentially unchanged--for over 75 years.
"In order to bring a new character in we had to make sure that he was true to the A.A. Milne characters," says screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos. "The character had to be at a level of quality that did the original work justice. I can absolutely say that with Lumpy, we achieved that."
Indeed, "Pooh's Heffalump Movie" unveils a new star in the Pooh galaxy--Lumpy the Heffalump -- a sweet, innocent, roly-poly bundle of energy with a giggle as infectious as his playful spirit, Lumpy could have been brought to life by Milne himself.
A WHOLE NEW ROO!: THE SCRIPT
A lovable pint-sized kangaroo, Roo is the youngest member of The Hundred Acre Wood gang. But don't let his age or size fool you. Roo lives life large--he's extremely curious and fun loving and he takes great joy in discovering the wonders of life. In "Pooh's Heffalump Movie," Roo earns star status as his innocent view of the world leads him into a friendship with Lumpy that proves him much wiser than his years. In the end, it's young Roo and Lumpy who teach the others a thing or two. 
"One of the things that happens a lot in the Pooh stories is that the important story points and message elements are often given by Rabbit or Tigger or one of the other characters," explains Frank Nissen. "I felt very strongly that since it's Roo's story and Lumpy is such an important part of the story, the really core messages and ideas should be expressed by them." 
The original script called for "everyone to get in trouble and for Mama Heffalump to come and rescue everybody, which is the usual scenario in the Pooh stories," adds Nissen. "I thought, wouldn't't it be better if--since we've invested all this emotion throughout the story in Roo--Roo is the one to get in trouble and that--if we've established the friendship between them strongly enough--Lumpy is the one who actually facilitates his rescue."
According to Nissen, it was important to everyone that the youngest characters move the story forward in this movie. "Roo sees the Heffalump footprint and while the other guys are busy just weaving wild stories, Roo's the only one who's actually looking around and saying, 'Wait a minute, what's that?' Roo takes the initiative to go look; Roo has to make a sacrifice; Roo has to do something that he wouldn't ordinarily do," says Nissen. "That's why I think it was important to give the kids all the important stuff in the story. The other characters are mostly the recipients of the message."
"We always talked about not underestimating children and keeping things elevated for them," says Jessica Koplos-Miller. "Kids are sophisticated. It's an honour and a delight to be able to present this kind of charming story about Roo to the world."
Twelve-year old Nikita Hopkins has voiced the character of Roo since 1999, in five movies. In "Pooh's Heffalump Movie," he is both the speaking and singing voice of the exuberant little kangaroo.
"Roo is the little boy in the movie. He's the youngest person in the Winnie the Pooh gang and he's full of energy all the time," says Hopkins. "He wants to capture a whole bunch of Heffalumps because he thinks it's the grown up thing to do. He wants to be the grown up in the movie."
Hopkins views the friendship that blossoms between Roo and Lumpy as completely natural. "They both have the same attitude because Roo and Lumpy are both younger," he observes. "They're the same kind of person so they go well together."
Befriending Lumpy is no small undertaking for Roo. It takes courage to go against the status quo in the idyllic Hundred Acre Wood. It's clear that a new, more confident Roo has emerged by the film's final scene.
"Roo finishes the movie with a final monologue, which is a few sentences explaining why everyone's actions and understanding and behavior has all been inappropriate," says Jessica Koplos-Miller. "The entire gang is in front of him, and he stands up for his new friend, Lumpy. It's a lovely message for all ages."
"This film, at its core, is about entertainment for families," says Sharon Morrill, President of DisneyToon Studios, "but it also shares an important message for parents and children alike - it shows how each individual needs to make their own assessment of other people.  It imparts a universal message about prejudice and how you can't judge a book by its cover, or even a Heffalump."
THE HISTORY OF POOH
It all began in 1921 when young Christopher Robin Milne received a teddy bear named Edward as a gift for his first birthday.  Over the next few years, he added other stuffed toys to his collection, which grew to include a donkey, a kangaroo or two, a pig and a striped tiger.  Owl and Rabbit were based on animals that lived near the author's Cotchford Farm in East Sussex.  When Christopher was four, he went to the London Zoo and struck up a friendship with a Canadian black bear named Winnie (short for his hometown of Winnipeg).  This fascination led the boy's famous father, noted playwright/journalist A. A. Milne, to invent a wonderful series of stories and books.  The books were written at the suggestion of the author's wife, Daphne.  On December 24th, 1925, the first Pooh story was published in the London Evening News.  It had the descriptive title, "In Which We Are Introduced to Winnie-The-Pooh and Some Bees, and the Stories Begin."  The story proved to be so popular that it was broadcast by BBC radio the following day (Christmas Day).
Milne, who was born in 1882 and died in 1956, was one of England's most successful playwrights.  He also spent many years writing humorous essays for Punch Magazine, where he served as an assistant editor for eight years.  Milne wrote the original Pooh stories primarily to amuse himself.  In the great tradition of JM Barrie and Lewis Carroll, he used a child as the catalyst to pen his stories.  In fact, he was truly writing of worldly affairs, politics, puzzles and the beauty of childhood.
Milne went on to write two Pooh books - Winnie-The-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928).  Both books were beautifully illustrated with line drawings by noted artist, E. H. Shepard.  The same team collaborated on two other acclaimed books of children's verse which featured the beloved character - When We Were Very Young (1924) and Now We Are Six (1927). 
Many of the locales used in the Pooh stories are based on real areas near the author's home in East Sussex, England.  The Forest and the Hundred Acre Wood were inspired by Ashdown Forest and the Five Hundred Acre Wood.
According to leading Pooh authority Peter Dennis, Milne didn't base the character of Tigger on a tiger but rather on a spirited black Spaniel dog named "Chum."  Chum was always bouncing or jumping into things and causing a great deal of trouble for his owners.  Tigger only appears in three of the 20 Pooh stories and didn't bounce on the scene until 1928. 
The real Christopher Robin died on April 20th, 1996.  Several years before he passed away, he became actively involved in efforts to preserve and protect the wooded area near his childhood home that had inspired his father's masterworks.
Walt Disney bought rights to the Pooh books in 1961.  The first featurette, "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" was released in 1966.  A second featurette, "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" followed in 1968 and went on to win an Academy Award^® for Best Cartoon Short Subject.  Six years later, the lovable bear returned to the big screen in "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" and picked up another Oscar^® nomination.  The first three shorts were compiled for the 1977 feature film, "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh," with some new animated bridges added for the release.  A fourth Pooh featurette arrived in theaters in 1983 and was entitled "Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore."
On television, Pooh and the gang from the Hundred Acre Wood are seen regularly on network, cable and syndicated TV in the popular long-running series, "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh."  There have been numerous holiday specials ("Winnie the Pooh & Christmas Too," "Boo To You Too! Winnie the Pooh," etc.) and educational videos.  In the last few years Walt Disney Pictures released "The Tigger Movie" and "Piglet's Big Movie."  Buena Vista Home Entertainment has met with much success releasing numerous original DVD and direct-to-video titles and will be releasing this fall "Pooh's Heffalump Halloween" produced by DisneyToon Studios
Watching "Pooh's Heffalump Movie," it's clear why Pooh and his friends have stood the test of time and continue to remain in the hearts of children and adults everywhere. "Despite all their quirks and their foibles, these characters have compassion for each other," says Frank Nissen. "They really care about each other and they're really good friends deep down. I think that's a message that people always love to be around."
In this film, Pooh, Roo, Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit, Piglet and Lumpy convey another universal message, articulated by Brenda Blethyn: "Once we come into contact and learn about our fellow creatures," says the actress, "it all falls into place and they're not scary after all. We are all very similar people."
"The movie is about overcoming prejudice and how people are really all just exactly the same if you think about it," echoes Nikita Hopkins, the voice of Roo. "Everyone's not so different."
THE ANIMATION: HEFFALUMP HOLLOW COMES TO LIFE
Veteran animator and director Don MacKinnon, in the industry for over 35 years, served as the director who guided the animators through their paces. "These characters are familiar characters that we didn't have to develop. We already had a template. We just had to be true to the previous films," he explains.
MacKinnon describes the artistic process with the Pooh characters as "very soft animation. It's not wild and crazy; it's much gentler," he says. "The audience already knows certain things: things Tigger would do and things Piglet wouldn't. We had to be true to that."
An artistic challenge the animators were excited to tackle was the creation of an entirely uncharted corner of the Hundred Acre Wood--Heffalump Hollow.
"You have to create a sense of place. You have to create a world and not only shapes and environments but colour, terrain and mood," says Frank Nissen. "We wanted Heffalump Hollow to be a very different place from the Hundred Acre Wood. Everybody knows the Hundred Acre Wood, everybody's comfortable with it.  Heffalump Hollow, where the Heffalumps live, had to represent a place where the gang had never been and were a bit afraid of. It also had to provide dramatic tension.  It is where Roo overcomes his fears and his prejudices in order to seek the unknown".
"While we didn't actually make it a real scary place," the director continues. "It was much older forest and less travelled than the Hundred Acre Wood, and so we had very nice opportunities for lighting and drawing big gnarly trees and adding other rich details."
"The idea was to show a forest that was more overgrown, more lush, more left to its own devices," explains art director Tony Pulham, of the design for the Hollow. "It just feels a bit more wild, like you don't know what's going to happen around the next tree. When you cross the fence into the Hollow, it looks darker and creepier." 
"As the friendship between Lumpy and Roo intensifies, we gradually lighten the look," says Pulham. "It becomes prettier rather than creepy, so that as Roo gets to know Lumpy, the forest around him changes with the mood."
Even still, the changes are minor. "It's a subtle change. The palette changes. The colours change. It's still the same place. There's always a consistent style to the way the Pooh films look," says Pulham.
The Hundred Acre Wood--actually based on the real-life, 14,000-acre Ashdown Forest in southeast England--is as bright and cheery as it always has been. "It's pleasant there with flowers and there's sunlight and it's very pretty and quite placid," says English-born Pulham of the Wood. "There are no storms. There are no cliffs. There's nothing dangerous to run into."
But that doesn't mean that this story hasn't grown up a little bit, just like Roo. "This story is a little more sophisticated," says Pulham.  Sophisticated for the world of Winnie the Pooh, that is."

THE CHARACTERS: WHAT IS A HEFFALUMP?
MUSIC: HARMONY IN THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD

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