Disney’s ‘Moana’ visuals and voice cast revealed
This week Disney, via People.com, have teased a little more of their upcoming animated feature Moana.
Longtime Disney directing partners Ron Clements and John Musker appear in a video announcing 14-year-old Hawaiian Auli’i Cravalho as voice actress to the film’s titular character. She was discovered by chance, singing at a charity competition, and this is her first film. Cravalho stars alongside Dwayne Johnson, who lends his voice to Demigod Maui, pictured above and seemingly based on the Hawaiian mythological figure of the same name.
Johnson shared the announcement earlier today via instagram:
The article also revealed the first fully public renders of characters from the film. More characters and development artwork had been shown at the D23 Event in August, plainly featured in photos from the film’s presentation. A more painterly rendering style, using the studio’s own Meander software (used for the short films Paperman and Feast) was originally planned for Moana, however an interview with John Musker revealed that –
…it’s far too early to apply the Paperman hybrid technique to a feature. The Meander digital in-betweening interface still has a host of production issues (including color) that need to be perfected.
Visibly from this newly-released still, you can see they’ve opted for a more typical rendering style.
The film is set to be the studio’s 56th animated feature, slated for UK release in December 2016, following the March release of Zootopia.