ANIMATIONWorld — November 2014
Don Hall and Chris Williams Talk Disney’s ‘Big Hero 6’

Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams, Big Hero 6 is a superhero origin story centered on robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter), who’s growing up in San Fransokyo, a mash-up of San Francisco and Tokyo set in the near future. He hangs out with his tech-savvy friends — adrenaline junkie GoGo Tomago (Jamie Chung), neatnik Wasabi (Damon Wayans, Jr.), chemistry whiz Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez) and fanboy Fred (T.J. Miller) — and an inflatable compassionate healthcare companion robot named Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit). When the group discovers a plot to destroy the city using a swarm of 20 million microbots, designed by Hiro and controlled by neuro-cranial transmitters, they band together to defeat the nefarious plan and set things right.

The Big Hero 6 animation team reached 103 members, roughly 15 more animators than 2013’s Frozen. The studio’s most technologically advanced movie to date, Big Hero 6 is the first feature to employ Hyperion, Disney’s new global-illumination rendering system that allows animators to project, reflect and refract light, create realistic shadows, and show varying levels of light/dark contrast for objects and characters.  (Read full story…)