Hello, I’m Rob Marshall. He is the director of “The Little Mermaid”. This is about two minutes into the musical number “Under the Sea.” This was the most challenging musical number I have ever created. Because he has one live actor. So she’s Ariel, played by Halle Bailey. Also, introducing dance into a sequence is very complicated as it has to feel seamless. It should feel organic. I don’t feel it applies. Now, when the turtle starts to move, you know, it starts a little dance. The difficulty with this was that he had only one real actor, so he needed a dancer or something. And I took some excerpts from Walt Disney’s strategy book and worked with the Alvin Ailey Company. He was working at the Ballets Russes when he created Fantasia. And I thought it was such a great idea. So I worked with the Alvin Ailey Company to bring them to London and create the movement of all these sea creatures on something so that our artists, the CGI artists, could actually do them. can be used as a template. This was incredible. And I discovered sea creatures that actually dance naturally. These are all real sea creatures. So there are mimicked octopuses and flatworms out there. Here we are moving into the world of bioluminescence. We had the Alvin Ailey Company hang umbrellas and literally ribbons and streamers to literally bring this jellyfish idea to life. But all these, all this moments were choreographed. And everything was counted and done, so it was very complicated. Well, it wasn’t like let them do what they want. Every moment of it was strategically choreographed by me, John DeLuca, and the choreographer. [‘UNDER THE SEA’]: — Music for me. Music for me — here’s a moment that’s really happening — [‘UNDER THE SEA’]: — Hot crustacean band — — Literally the CGI artist said they were the most prolific creatures ever to appear on screen. But it was really about protecting and celebrating this beautiful number. This is a nautilus shell I made in the style of Busby Berkeley. But all I really wanted was to not only get this incredible number right, but to bring a photorealistic and exciting world to life.
