[Del Vecho] Now that we've locked story,
everybody knows what's on their plate to finish.
So now it's just a race to the finish line.
[Unten] A lot of us are working six days a week right now.
There's a lot of long days and everybody putting in a lot of overtime.
I've worked about 20 days in a row.
Thank you, Saturday people.
[Smith] Soon as this goes out into the world, that's when it comes alive.
[Del Vecho] We have a release date. We have to hit that. There is no choice.
[Lee] You can tell the end of production's near
because we're decorating the studio.
The sculptures are going up. It's Frozen II everywhere.
The movie is locked. That means we finally locked the story.
[Lee] We actually decided to do something based on the audience preview,
which is, we brought families back in.
I wouldn't have ever locked until I knew those young kids could follow the story.
What we really learned was the fixes we made made a huge difference.
We were relieved.
But that does not take the pressure off us.
We have actually very limited time to get the movie done.
This is the final stage of productions,
where all the finishing touches have to be put into place
so that the whole film comes together.
There's still a lot of work to be done.
We still have to finish the animation, have to edit the movie
and arrange then score the orchestral version of "Show Yourself."
This is the final stretch.
It's intense. It's intense, guys.
[no audible dialogue]
[orchestral music playing]
[flutes trilling]
[flute sounds playing on keyboard]
Ah.
[flute sounds continue]
That'll work better.
We dream these sounds, these big songs and these big melodies.
[chorus] ♪ Where the Northwind ♪
♪ Meets the sea ♪
We make piano demos, and then Dave Metzger goes home
and orchestrates them on his setup at home.
What Dave brings is that size, that scale of emotion.
[orchestral score playing]
So my job is to write the parts for all the musicians in the orchestra,
which is about 85 people.
[string instruments play]
There's about 50 strings.
[brass instruments play]
About 14 brass.
[woodwind instruments play]
About 12 woodwinds.
[drums play]
The rest are percussion or rhythm section instruments.
[bass drums play]
[piano playing]
So this is piano and vocal demo from Bobby and Kristen.
And then my job is to, essentially,
give it that orchestral and that epic cinematic sound.
I then transfer the work that I've done here
into a different program that specializes in converting it to a printed score.
And then that's what the musicians play at the recording sessions.
[orchestra tuning up]
-How are you? -[Oremus] Fine, thanks.
The orchestra recording is the most fun that we have during the process.
You know, one of the highlights of the year, creatively.
And to be able to see "Show Yourself" finally done, it's exciting.
It feels like something really special.
We have all, sort of, been in our own little worlds.
I've been up in Oregon, and Bobby and Kristen have been in Brooklyn,
and all the folks in Burbank down here, and so to see each other,
but also see the fruition of all of this work and effort that we've put in,
it's just a complete joy.
[Del Vecho] "Show Yourself" was probably one of the most difficult sequences
for us to really crack.
And then once we did, we had so little time.
So sometimes, particularly at the end, we need to divide and conquer.
So while Jenn is doing one meeting, Chris is off doing another.
I thought it was important that I go to the orchestra recording,
which is, sort of, the final piece to make the sequence come to life.
Just so everyone's clear, 48 to 55, um,
we're gonna play all the accents will be on one, the "and" of two and four.
It's-- Yeah, it's...
-Just in case. -Yeah. Great, thanks.
[Elsa] ♪ Show yourself ♪
♪ I'm ready to learn ♪
[vocalizing]
Oh, Dave. It's so nice.
It's thrilling to hear it all come together.
Usually, the experience exceeds my expectations,
which just gives me chills sometimes.
[Elsa] ♪ Don't make me wait ♪
♪ One moment more ♪
♪ Oh, come to me now ♪
♪ Open your door ♪
♪ Don't make me wait ♪
♪ One moment more ♪
[chorus] ♪ Where the Northwind ♪
-♪ Meets the sea ♪ -[angelic voice vocalizes]
-♪ There's a river ♪ -[angelic voice vocalizes]
♪ Full of memory ♪
♪ Come, my darling, homeward bound ♪
♪ I am found! ♪
[Elsa, Iduna] ♪ Show yourself ♪
♪ Step into your power ♪
♪ Grow yourself ♪
♪ Into something new ♪
[Iduna] ♪ You are the one You've been waiting for ♪
-[Elsa] ♪ All of my life ♪ -[Iduna] ♪ All of your life ♪
♪ Oh, show yourself! ♪
-[vocalizing] -[chorus harmonizing]
[vocalizing]
-[Lopez] Yeah. -Yes.
[applause, cheers]
[Lee] This is the last day of animation.
Over 70 animators, over 1,200 shots. It's a bit bittersweet.
I'm relieved, um, and a little sad that it's over.
Big day, because I'm gonna be showing my final shot on the show.
Today we're doing cinnamon bagel, cream cheese and strawberry jelly.
Just kinda sweet, to finish out a sweet show.
I think it's gonna go well,
so fingers crossed that I hit the note just the way they imagined it.
You know, we've had two or three months of pretty serious hours,
you know, long hours.
So there's a lot of people getting their final shots approved.
[Lee] Do you wanna Kristen Bell it?
-Yes! -[rings bell]
[cheers]
Getting applause and it's just fun
to kinda celebrate the end of the show that way.
You can just feel the weight of the show just getting off everyone's shoulders.
-[Buck] Thank you, guys. -[Lee] There you go.
Next up we have Brian showing a shot from "Reunion."
I got to animate the salamander. It's just a little moment,
but it's fun to touch all the characters as much as you can.
-[Lee] His shot. -[Buck] This is the one.
Ahtohallan is beautiful.
Oh! Hello.
Aw! Look at that!
-[woman] Aw. -[Scott chuckles]
Ahtohallan is beautiful.
[chuckles] Oh! Hello.
-This feels right. -[Buck] Yeah.
-Yes. -Yeah.
[Buck] Elsa's is across. So we're saying "yay" to Brian.
-[Scott] Yay! -[Lee] Yay to Brian.
[bells rattling]
["Lost in the Woods" instrumental playing]
[no audible dialogue]
Wow.
I am so excited.
It's a little surreal to be staring at the characters on such a giant screen.
I think people aren't ready for what they're about to get.
They don't know what they're in for. In a good way.
[Lee] Being an editor in an animated feature is a very unique role.
Jeff was our editor on Frozen I.
We couldn't imagine doing Frozen II without him.
[Draheim] We're at this phase where I'm literally working 14, 15 hours a day.
So, I'm waking up at 3:00 a.m.
I can get to work by 3:30.
I love to jump in the gym for about half an hour.
Then by 4:00 a.m., I'm at my desk.
As the editor, we're one of the first ones on.
The first year or so, it's all storyboards and cutting,
you know, rough dialogue and effects.
Now we're starting to see, "Oh, this is the final song.
Oh, now we're seeing final animation.
And now we're getting our sound designer on board."
I will see this movie all the way up through the final mix.
I usually roll off the movie about two weeks before the wrap party.
So it's literally right up to the very end.
You know the animators rolled off
when you could just see them on Facebook and everywhere,
"The movie's done! The movie's done!" It's like, "We're not done yet."
What I love about animation is we start off with nothing.
Everything has to be built. Everything has to be designed.
Actually starts off as a silent film.
Sound design is that final piece that makes our world come alive.
There is no sound editor more dedicated
to making Frozen as rich as it can be as Odin Benitez.
[Benitez] As the sound designer, I am responsible
for creating all the sounds in a movie.
Yeah, I think it's better if it hits naturally.
We're recording these rocks for the rock giants.
The rock giants themselves have these joints and these plates that kind of move,
and that's why we put some rocks in between the stones
and tried to hear what that would sound like.
What we decided to do was to slow it down.
[slate scraping]
And then we can match the giant's movement.
[cracking]
It's great. You can really hear that slate.
-[grunting] -[slate scraping]
Yeah, that sounds great.
[Benitez] There's so many sounds that need to be done,
so many things that would take too long for us to go through
and record ourselves individually.
So we hire Foley artists.
[footsteps]
Foley is sound that is performed to the film in sync.
So, right now I'm setting up for the salamander.
-Ready? -[Roden] Yes.
[Roden] What we do is look at the screen and think,
"What do you wanna hear in this very moment?
And what ingredients will create that sound?"
We'll make those adjustments until we get to the final stage,
and that's when we'll bring dialogue and music and everything all together
and see how this-- all these blends of sounds works.
[score playing]
We are playing the final playback of the entire movie
for the directors and the producer tomorrow.
This is the final mix.
This is where all the audio comes together.
For any particular moment, there could be thousands of sounds playing at once.
Thousands of tracks.
Look out!
I mean, you gotta make sure you're hearing all the dialogue.
You gotta make sure that the songs are nice and clear.
It's really a careful balancing act.
So, what's next? Oh, this is the applause, greeting Anna.
[applause]
Presenting Her Majesty, Queen Anna of Arendelle.
When we cut to that shot, we're inside the tent, looking out.
I feel like, literally, we're hearing these six people applauding,
as opposed to anything more than that.
So we just need a cheer from Odin.
[applause]
Presenting Her Majesty, Queen Anna...
I think that's the idea, yeah. I like that, yeah.
[Buck] This is it.
Our final day.
[Lee] The sound mix is where we give our final sign-off,
and it's our last moment with the film.
[Buck] Are we excited? Or tired? Exhausted?
[Lee] I keep joking that I have nothing left.
[Buck chuckles]
[Lee] But I don't know. I think I'm gonna try today.
-For the first time in forever. -[Buck] Forever.
[Lee] I'm gonna try to let myself just... process the fact that it's the end.
[Buck] Here we go. Here we go.
-Here we go. I can't believe it. -Here we go. [chuckles]
Come help us say goodbye.
-She's got it. She's got it. -Got it. You got it?
[Buck] Thank you.
-[Metzger] Hey, guys. -[Buck] Hi.
-[Metzger] Yay. -[Jenn] Hi.
[Buck] Everybody's here.
So this is it. Sound check, so final mix.
-[Buck] All right. -[Lee] You gonna hit the button?
The final sound is our moment to feel the entire film.
It's about everything coming together.
The visuals are there. Every piece of dialogue,
every blood, sweat and tear moment is in the film.
So, this is it.
Uh-oh. The princess is trapped in the snow goblin's evil spell.
-[Elsa gasps] -Quick, Elsa! Make a prince! A fancy one!
[Buck] There's a lot of long days,
but then you get there and you're like, "Yes. This is gonna work."
♪ Some things never change ♪
♪ Like the feel of your hand in mine ♪
[Lee] And usually this goes from being the hardest part
and then all of a sudden it shifts into the most enjoyable.
[Elsa] Hey, Gale? We're going for a ride, wanna come?
-[Gale screeching] -[music playing]
[music ends]
-[light cheers] -[Buck] Yeah.
[Del Vecho] Chris, Jenn, congratulations.
I think four months ago, I wasn't even sure when or how we would make it.
[Buck] Yeah. That's for sure.
[Del Vecho] And now that we're here, it's sort of emotional.
-Yeah, I wasn't prepared to cry at this. -[all chuckling]
It was like watching
-your kid go off to college. -[Lee] Yeah. Bye.
And you're like, "Bye, have a nice life."
I kinda felt like Elsa at the end, actually, I was like...
-[gasps, sighs] -[all chuckle]
-[Lee chuckling] -[Buck] Here we go.
-[Lee sighs, groans] -[Buck chuckles]
-Goodbye. -That's it. We are done.
-[Buck] How do we feel? -[Lee] How do we feel?
Well-- [chuckles] Tired.
-[Lee] Relieved. -[Buck] Exhausted, relieved.
[Lee] Who ever thought this day would come?
-We need the audience. -[Buck] Yeah.
-We're just waiting for the audience now. -[Buck] Yeah.
[Del Vecho] Today is the wrap party.
This is the point where we get to share the film
with everybody who worked so hard to make it.
It's the opportunity for the studio to come together with their loved ones
and celebrate what they created.
It's a night that we all cherish.
A wrap party is when we finally finish the movie.
It's sort of like the prom for everyone who's worked on the movie.
-That looks good. -Yeah?
-Yeah. -I can't tell if you're telling the truth.
I am telling you the truth. Why would I lie?
So, it'll be the first time seeing it all put together.
All of the final music, audio, lighting, everything.
I'm very excited.
[child laughing]
Here, you get me snowballs. Go.
-[laughs] -[baby whines]
You know what we're doing tonight?
What party?
Elsa? [laughs]
[both laughing]
What size curling iron do you think we should use?
'Cause I want it to look like Anna's hair in the movie.
-So definitely the bigger barrel. -Okay.
-You excited to see the movie? -[Kling] Yes.
-I'm excited for you to see it. -Okay, turn your head that way.
Okay, stop jumping.
All right, let's see if it fits you.
-[child laughs] -Let's get your jacket on.
[shutter clicks]
-Nice. Nailed it. -It's a good one.
-All right, let's ride. -Okay.
Hey!
It's our last night with the movie where it's just ours.
The majority of the crew have not seen it.
They work on their section,
and they don't see more than that, usually.
So, I hope we surprise them in a good way.
We made it to the wrap party. Apparently we finished the film.
It's a little overwhelming.
Like, my gosh, I-- I worked with all of these folks.
It's incredible.
I've seen, like, every shot in this film, dozens of times,
but I've never seen them all together. I'm super excited.
-It's a great night. I can't stop smiling. -Ah.
This is the day to celebrate.
We're usually all, like, scruffy, and today we're all going all out.
-Watch for us on the dance floor. -Yes.
[chuckles]
-Amazing movie. Incredible journey. -[Lee chuckles]
Thank you for coming in my office that day...
-Sitting on your desk. -...and asking if I would join Frozen.
I mean, it's just-- There's so much we've been through.
-Love you guys. -Love you guys.
Love you too. Love you too.
[voices overlapping]
-[chattering] -[scattered cheers]
[applause]
[cheering]
[inaudible]
It has been 11 years since we all started on this Frozen journey together,
and none of that would have been possible without all of you incredible people
bringing our characters and their beautiful worlds to life.
[Lee] But I want you to know that none of you are ever alone.
We are here for you.
That's what makes us Disney Animation, because we give so much to each other,
and it shows in our films. It shows in the love on that screen.
And when you're watching the movie tonight,
I want you to... [sighs] Excuse me.
-[audience chuckles] -[scattered "aw"]
I want you to take the time to look at the person next to you
and hold their hand.
[applause]
They allow us to do what it is we love to do
and that's make a beautiful film.
We love you and thank you.
[Buck] Thank you.
[music starts]
[Agnarr] Anna. Elsa.
[Iduna] Bedtime soon.
[Lee] It's a big moment.
We can be proud of it today and celebrate all the work
with the people that you did the work with.
-[music ends] -[cheering]
[choir chanting yoik]
[Lee] I look at the journey of the whole thing and just say,
"I can't believe-- I can't believe I was a part of this."
[Buck] I'm proud of the crew.
Very proud of the movie.
[chanting continues]
One of this year's most anticipated movies.
The coolest movie around--
Just when we thought we could let it go, they're doing it again.
Frozen II opens November 22.
Please welcome Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad and Jonathan Groff.
The film as a whole is so rewarding.
This movie really bonded us all together as, kind of, a family unit.
And to know that I'm part of this family
and this history, it's an all-time high for me.
I literally love these people.
-[all laughing] -[Jimmy Kimmel] Frozen is...
[Buck] Tonight is the world premiere, and we always get to bring our families.
I think it really is gonna be something special.
[dog barks]
Yogi, no. No! No, out! Wet dog, out.
Oh, you poor thing. All right, never mind.
-You're so handsome. -Thank you.
-All right. -I blame you.
-Okay. Good? Good. -You're beautiful.
-Clear shot. Good. -...for you.
-[Reed] We're passing the building. -[Buck] So...
[Buck] There it is. There's the animation building.
Going right by it.
That's where it all happened. That's where magic happens.
[Reed] I don't know.
-Is there a way to turn the AC up in here? -I don't really know.
[Woody] I think that's because I don't really know what to expect.
You have a vent, like--
-Is that a vent or is that a light? -No, it's a light.
[Buck] Oh. Tonight's going to be fun.
This movie, this film, these characters, mean so much to so many people,
uh, way beyond anything I've ever done or could have even imagined.
And all that we can say to these people as they're about to see the second one,
is that we hope that they find the characters' journeys, um, satisfying.
-[Shelley] No spoilers. -I can't give it away.
Can't give stuff away, 'cause he hasn't seen anything yet.
I haven't seen it yet.
[cheering]
This movie and this franchise have connected
with so many people of so many different ages.
[Menzel] These movies take a long time and so much hard work.
It's just so nice to be here and celebrate with the entire Disney family.
You've been watching Disney films from the time that you're a little kid,
and now to be a part of one of those wonderful stories,
it's like a dream come true.
[Anderson-Lopez] Can you believe we're here?
[Lopez] Insane.
The fans all dressed up, so amazing.
[Lee] Oh, Peter.
-We're here. We're here. -[laughs] I know. I know.
[Lee] I keep getting emotional.
These sisters, I'm proud of them. They feel real to us.
I think tonight is gonna be very special for us.
[cheering in distance]
-[Shelley] Time? -[usher] Good evening.
-Coming out. -Okay.
Okay, here we go, guys.
[Woody] Let's do it.
I love the fans. They're why we're even here.
I hope this is as meaningful to everyone as the first one was to them.
That's what I really hope.
Finally, we get to share the movie. It's gonna be a great night.
[Groff] Now it goes out to the world.
Now it's theirs to enjoy and sing along with,
and it's exciting to open up the doors and let everybody come in.
["Into the Unknown" instrumental playing]
Frozen II on fire at the box office.
[speaking German]
-[speaking Japanese] -[crowd shouting]
Samantha?
♪ Everyone I've ever loved ♪
♪ Is here within these walls ♪
-[speaking Portuguese] -[man speaking French]
♪ I've had my adventure ♪
♪ I don't need something new ♪
♪ I'm afraid of what I'm risking If I follow you ♪
-[Elsa] ♪ Into the unknown ♪ -[children belting along]
[man] ♪ Into the unknown ♪
[speaking Korean]
[Australian woman] Frozen II has just cracked an incredible milestone.
[vocalizing]
Ooh. [giggles]
[cheering, screaming]
Frozen II is now officially the highest grossing animated movie of all time.
[cheering, applause]
[Del Vecho] This is probably one of the hardest movies
I think we've ever worked on.
But somehow, when you see the film and how the world reacts,
all of that goes away and all you remember is the joy.
[Anderson-Lopez] Frozen II, while it wasn't easy--
I mean this was a bit of a nail-biter of a project.
As a team, we had each other's back.
Frozen has done all this work to bring us closer.
It's been a beautiful journey to do this together.
[Lee] We talk about how Frozen II really is a journey of growing up.
We like to joke that we grew up a lot on this film.
It's an amazing thing that these films do and have done.
And we are a family, as cliché as that sounds.
We've become a family.
And we care about one another deeply, and we care about the film.
I couldn't have asked for anything more amazing than working on these films.
I am so proud of our studio and everybody, the cast, the crew.
Every single person put a lot of love into this film.
[choir chanting yoik]
[chanting ends]