REES: There are only four lines in TOASTER that were actual lines from the book. So you have to go to the edge, and come back. You can veer away from the material, but sometimes you'll break the essence of what this story is if you go too far away.

We really see that as a storyman's job: to get as much entertainment as possible. JOE RANFT (writer, THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, current Disney writer) : I see it as a jumping-off point, and I try to maintain fidelity to the original material in spirit while, as that quote of Walt Disney suggests, exploring the possibilities of entertainment. On a few of the scenes Joe would go ahead and make preliminary notes of possible dialogue, character things that we could feel out.ĬANEMAKER: Joe, how sacred is the original material? When it came to the script, I would go back to the word processor, and get a couple of hours at a time to keep ahead of all the rest of the process. We both, actually, started storyboarding then. Then Joe started storyboarding, as we finished that first phase and while I was writing.

REES: We worked on index cards together, madly, quickly, for long days. There's certainly room to develop and let that evolve, but you know what is in their nature and what isn't, and it builds.ĬANEMAKER: Did you and Joe work on the story together? You knew what they would or wouldn't say. Once character was clearly defined, the scenes began to almost write themselves. The film has appliances in it we decided that the lamp was a little bit dim the vacuum tended to hold things inside and not let them out, and he has a nervous breakdown later because of that the radio is an entertainer at all costs the toaster's very warm, and everybody sees themselves in that character and the blanket, without a child to hug it, instead of being a security blanket, is an insecure blanket. We had to find some way to really get a handle on building the thing solidly. Instead of a couple years, which is the studio standard, we had four weeks. When Joe and I were working on the story of THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER (1987), it was a big shift from our previous experience. JERRY REES (director, THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, former Disney animator) : It can really build the story. In June of 1988, shortly after the completion of THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, John Canemaker moderated a conversation among Bill Peet, Joe Ranft, Jerry Rees and Peter Schneider about Storytelling in Animation.Īn excerpt from the resulting book (shown above) is presented below.ĬANEMAKER: Jerry, how important is personality in storytelling?

Brave little toaster 1987 streaming