[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - The best response you can have to a payoff in a thriller is someone goes, "Oh, right, I forgot, of course..." [multiple voices chattering] [Narrator] On Story offers a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

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[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is On Story.

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

This week's On Story, "Brave" screenwriter, Brenda Chapman.

- I love the combination of... heart.

I have to be able to feel the true soul and heart in a project.

It's honoring that as you move forward and making sure you don't lose that.

I love magic, I love whimsy, I love period pieces.

In "Brave", my thing was my three loves, which was fairytales, Scotland, but mostly my daughter.

[paper crumples] [typing] [typewriter ding] [Narrator] In this episode, award-winning writer and director Brenda Chapman discusses how female perspective, a love of art, and an understanding of flawed characters influenced her writing in the animated classics, "The Lion King", "The Prince of Egypt", and "Brave".

[typewriter ding] - Today we welcome the co-director of "Prince of Egypt", the writer and director of "Brave", artist, writer, and Academy Award winning director, Brenda Chapman.

I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what you learned during your academic preparation, how that served you.

- Once I got to Cal Arts, I felt like I had found my tribe, my people.

So everybody who went to Cal Arts wanted to be an animator because that's the person who makes all the characters move and do all of that.

But I discovered at Cal Arts that my strength was storytelling, was actually figuring out the story and figuring out character development and who these characters were because that's all the work that's done before the animators actually get a hold of the character and start moving them around.

It's the blueprint of the film.

- You worked on some of the greatest Disney films of the 80s and 90s in one capacity or another, "Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "The Lion King", other things.

I wonder if you could walk us through your progress as an artist and storyteller.

- I started as a story trainee at Disney, and I was told when I was hired by a rather disgruntled...

I forget what his title was, but I had my entrance interview with him, and he basically told me I was hired because I was a woman, and because I was fresh out of school I was good and cheap.

And he had been getting flack from the new guys upstairs, which was Eisner, Katzenberg, and Frank Wells, for not having any women in the creative story department or in many creative positions.

So that was a little letting the air out of my balloon a little bit.

But the reality was my portfolio, what I'd done at Cal Arts was what got me hired and noticed by the other artists at the studio who were on the review board.

So once I got past that guy, I did feel like I had to work harder than I've ever worked in my life to prove that I should stay, but at the same time, I had so much support from all those... they were all men for the most part, the artists that recognized that I had something to offer at Disney.

So I had nearly eight years of just these wonderful mentors and I didn't really, other than that one moment, experience any issues with being a woman in the field.

They recognized that they didn't have a female perspective and they were starting to do these movies with female characters, like Ariel and Belle and those, and so they really looked to me a lot.

I was allowed to explore the characters.

Sometimes the story artist would come in and say, "You know, what do you think of this?"

Or, "What do you think of that?"

And they would listen.

It was great.

They would of course always give me the sensitive stuff.

I wasn't the funniest one in the group, but each film I had a sequence or a scene that they could build upon.

On "Rescuers Down Under" one of my favorite things was there's a giant golden eagle, and in the film, it doesn't speak, but for the longest time it was speaking and it was very... everyone was cringe every time because she was so regal.

"Hello, my name is Marahute and I am the last of my kind and blah blah blah."

It was just so... it was so hard and we were all trying to figure out how to get all the exposition.

But I was able to break the curse, the scene that was to give all the exposition was having the little boy, after he'd saved her from the trappers, she flew him up to her nest.

And so I had him give most of the exposition by asking questions and getting just sort of pantomime answers or just him figuring out what she meant.

- You're a mom.

♪ ♪ They're very warm.

Are they going to hatch soon?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Where's the daddy eagle?

♪ ♪ Oh.

My dad's gone too.

- That, I think, was sort of my solid landing as an accepted story artists there, that I was able to figure that out.

- "Beauty and the Beast" was the first animated film to get a best picture Oscar nomination, and I think of it as very close to a perfect movie.

I mean it's beautifully told, it's beautifully acted, the art is amazing.

Was there a scene like the scene on "The Rescuers" where you felt like you really made a solid contribution that you felt really proud of?

- Yeah.

The bandaging the beast scene.

They hadn't quite figured that out yet, and they just knew that Belle would fix his wounds when he came back after he saved her.

Just playing upon who he was, it was fun to finally have the heroine actually yell at her prince and just like... after he was mean to her.

- Well you should learn to control your temper.

- You know, I just wanted it to feel real.

- I think maybe the last of the Disney films that I want to talk about is "The Lion King".

Could you talk a little bit about your work on that, what you did on that movie and what you're particularly proud of today, as you reflect back on it?

- I was working with Mike Gabriel again, and he was looking at maybe trying to get a version of "Swan Lake" up and going and so I was working really hard with him to do that.

And I had after "Beauty and the Beast" felt like, "You know what?

I think my next step, I'd like to be a head of story."

So I'd gone to the heads of the studio and said, "If something comes up, would you mind considering me?"

And I was aiming for "Swan Lake" and I knew Mike would probably take me on as that, and then we found out another studio was doing the Swan Princess, so they canned that.

And then I was like, "Oh, no."

There was this horrible project that was in development that had been in development hell for years called "King of the Jungle".

And one of my closest mentors, Roger Allers had just been asked to co-direct on that one.

And I thought, "Oh no, Roger's going to ask me.

Oh no.

Oh no."

And of course he did.

And I thought, "Well, I can't say no because I've thrown my name in the ring."

The project that I had no desire to work on was the project I got asked to be on.

But I consider myself professional and so I gave it everything I had, and it was a really, really wonderful experience.

I wrote a lot on that film move.

Mufasa's ghost scene was the big sequence that I boarded, and I remember the whole scene says, "Remember who you are.

Remember, remember, remember."

And I went...

They decided to put the scene in but they didn't know what Mufasa words of wisdom he would give to Simba.

And I...

Remember the scene back in act one where Mufasa yells at Simba for going to the elephant grave.

Remember what he said?

So my son, remember what I said back in act one.

Remember.

So it was sort of this placeholder scene that we were going to rewrite once it was boarded, but then just the remember stuck.

- You have forgotten who you are and so forgotten me.

Look inside yourself, Simba.

You are more than what you have become.

You must take your place in the circle of life.

- How can I go back?

I'm not who I used to be.

- Remember who you are.

You are my son and the one true king.

Remember who you are.

- You have silly things like that that turn into actually pretty heavy-- heavy-hitting scenes.

Working with a lot of story artists and artists who were green, because "Pocahontas" was the A movie, "Lion King" was the B movie, and so a lot of people who wouldn't have normally gotten the chance to be leads on the project and animation and story and layout and all of these suddenly were rising to the top and really determined to do the best they could, and I think that's partly why "Lion King" was so successful.

[typewriter ding] - In 1994, you left Disney to join the inaugural team at DreamWorks Animation.

Why did you leave a situation where you felt like you were valued and your voice was heard?

- With the success of "The Lion King", there was a bit of a shift at Disney.

Prior to that, we were the ones leading the journey as creating the stories and deciding what was going to work and what wasn't.

Suddenly we had so many executives and marketing and all of this thrown at us and kind of telling us how to do the stories.

It was very frustrating.

It was starting to become very corporate.

Jeffrey was the one who had been so incredibly supportive.

I was initially just going to build a story department for DreamWorks and it was going to be more creator-friendly like it used to be at Disney and that's what he wanted to recapture.

So I went over and then he was also the one who insisted that I become a director.

That was not my goal.

My goal was my love, which was story and I felt I was strong at that.

He saw me moving further and he challenged me.

I'd been sort leading the development of "Prince of Egypt" before the eventual co-directors came onto it because he couldn't get anyone to come over and direct this picture with such a minefield of...

It has God in it, you know.

You're just opening yourself up.

After several months of leading the team, I felt like maybe I could do this, and I certainly had the support.

- You used the word minefield in connection with "Prince of Egypt".

I mean, not least because like in all three of the Abrahamic faiths, this is a story that is kind of central to the tradition.

This is not a traditional animated story.

And in the visual look and in the actual story that you chose, I remember some interviews where you talked about we wanted to expand the possibilities in the audience for animated films.

- We were so excited about the possibility of welcoming in an older audience.

Disney had done this wonderful thing for years and gave families these wonderful things, but they were mainly... People saw them as films for children, even though plenty of adults love them.

So that's what we were trying to do with DreamWorks, we were trying to find just the older audience.

- Could you talk a little bit about where you found your story space on "Prince of Egypt" and maybe also about where you felt like you brought something that your co-directors couldn't or didn't bring to that project?

- "Prince of Egypt" was different for me in that I couldn't just focus on the sensitive parts.

As a director, I had to focus on everything.

So what we ended up doing was splitting up our strengths, which mine was in story, Simon's was in animation and cinematography, and Steve's was global.

He is the great organizer.

We talked about it and I felt very strongly that we all had to be on the same page for story, and we also felt that the acting of the film, the animation, was something we all should be on board with.

So we stayed together for the real storytelling part of it, so creatively we had a really strong, unified front.

- Is there something from "Prince of Egypt" that you're particularly proud of, that you feel like you brought to that project?

- There is a scene within there that all three of us, but I know because it's... it's such a strong scene is where Moses after he goes in to see sees Rameses is Rameses standing over his dead son and we cut outside and Moses collapses, crying against the wall.

No one really wanted us to do that scene, but we fought hard for that and felt if we want to continue admiring this character, he cannot leave that scene and be jubilant about taking his people away.

That's his brother's son, that's his nephew, that's on that table.

We did our best to try to keep that real and that was something you just didn't see in an animated film at that point.

[typewriter ding] - I've read a few things about art direction and some of the look that you were looking for, but could you talk with us a little bit about what you and your co-directors were trying to do visually?

- I think it started with trying to find the visual look of the film.

Darek Gogol and Richie Chavez and Kathy Altieri, those were the three main visual people on the film, and Darek was able to capture the Egyptian world with their clothing and their head dresses and all of that.

We made them more architectural.

And with the Hebrews who were mainly in rags and they were just much more organic.

And so that was sort of the approach we took.

And the further Moses got away from Egypt, the more organic he became in look, more curves, just that kind of a feel.

And also just wanting to give a scope of the desert and just the world.

[typewriter ding] - Could you talk a little bit about this idea about to flaw or damage or brokenness in some of the compelling characters that you've been involved with in your career?

- It's that thing where it's the reason you follow a character through an entire hour to two hours is you want to see how they will conquer what it is in front of them, whether that's something inside of them or something exterior.

With Belle, I mean, she has the issue of judging a book by its cover.

Even this little town full of little people, she's only seeing them through her lens as opposed to the possible nice people that they could be and she doesn't invite them in, she just has them that way.

And then watching her with Gaston, you understand why she doesn't like Gaston, that's really clear, but then once she gets to Beast and he's not what she wants him to be in the beginning, because... it's seeing her grow and watching another character change because of her growth.

I think Simba's obvious.

He's growing up and he's learning to become a responsible adult basically and has to go through some pretty awful things to get there.

And for Merida in "Brave", it was she was having to grow up, but stubborn and wanting what she wanted, but wasn't listening.

But then again neither was mother, on some levels.

They needed to listen to each other to actually be able to come together and understand each other.

So finding those weaknesses that the characters have or the flaws, that to me is the key to what your plot is eventually going to be.

[typewriter ding] - You said, "Stories," and I quote, "usually come from personal experience.

Just something in my life that touched me or a strong memory or a strong emotional connection, and I go from there."

This could lead us to "Brave", but I'm wondering, could you tell us more about where in your films you've used material from your own life to tell these powerful stories?

- "Brave" was special simply because they were wanting me to create my own story.

So, I could really draw upon that.

It just was a natural thing to do at that point in time.

When it comes to the earlier films...

I go back to the scene in "Rescuers Down Under" with the little boy at the nest.

There was a little live action short that Roy Disney, Roy Disney, Jr., had done about a little boy with an eagle.

And I haven't seen it in years, but it was this little boy who was always bullied by these other little Native American kids, and he ends up having this relationship with this eagle.

It so impacted me and when we were doing that, I just remembered that and how strong that was, and I tried to take that essence and put it into that scene.

And that's why that ended up being that way.

There's small little moments, but if you imbue something with something that was real from your inner being, that will come off as sincere on film.

- I have read that you wanted Merida to sort of break open the conception of what a princess might be.

So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your struggle to try and create that character for "Brave" and maybe I'll park this over here, but I would love to hear where you think animated features are now in their depiction of women.

- I felt like we had gone a long way with Ariel and Belle from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

They didn't have a lot going on upstairs other than waiting for their prince.

I never related to Snow White.

I liked the dwarves, but there's been a lot of criticism of Belle and Ariel about their main goal was getting a man, and I'd say Belle just wanted a bigger life and got thrown into this situation.

And Ariel, she was proactive, and Belle, again, she went in and sacrificed herself to save her father.

The Beast didn't pull her into his way of life.

She didn't become a beast.

She didn't live in the squalor.

She actually changed him.

With Merida, I just wanted to turn it all on her ear and just say, "Okay, this is a real princess of a semi real kind of time where they were grittier, but they were also used as tools to keep peace among warring kingdoms.

They would be married off to make these links."

And so I wanted to put a little of that reality in there with this impending marriage thing, but also having her show that no, I'm a warrior.

I can stand up for...

I can be who I need to be.

I am my own person, but yet honor the history of how things kind of were.

So it was trying to find that balance and also showing a strong queen, being a diplomat, learning how to navigate those waters and show that there are other ways to do this other than war.

- I know now how one selfish act can turn the fate of a kingdom.

- It's just a legend.

- Legends are lessons.

They ring with truths.

Our kingdom is young, our stories are not yet legend, but in them, our bond was struck.

Our clans were once enemies, but when invaders threatened us from the sea, you joined together to defend our lands.

You fought for each other, you risked everything for each other.

- I remember that one of your fights is with the marketing people who wanted to redesign Merida and her body type and make her one of these sort of big-eyed anime Disney princesses.

- I felt like I'd handed them this opportunity.

Here's a new thing for these young girls who want more, that are searching and they don't see it, the athletes, and just the smart girls who want a smart, you know, role model.

And it was just very frustrating because everything they did to Merida was the exact things she hated in the film.

It was like they didn't watch the film.

- What is your North star?

- I love the combination of... heart.

I have to be able to feel the true soul and heart in a project.

It's honoring that as you move forward and making sure you don't lose that.

I love magic, I love whimsy, I love period pieces.

It's like in "Brave" it's always, my thing was my three loves, which was fairytales, Scotland, but mostly my daughter.

It's just having those things that I can really hang on to.

[Narrator] You've been watching A Conversation with Brenda Chapman on On Story.

On Story is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story project.

That also includes the On Story radio program, podcast, book series, and the On Story archive, accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

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