How Pixar and Disney Shaped Brave

When Pixar released Brave in 2012, it was the seventh film Pixar had released since it was acquired by Disney in 2006 (Muir, 2012). The film marked a milestone in several ways. Not only was it the first Pixar film to feature a female lead (García Gual, 2022), it was also the first film to use Pixar’s proprietary Presto animation system (Pixar, n.d.). But what perhaps makes Brave most special is the dedication with which its creators built the film’s world down to the smallest detail (MacQuarrie, 2012).

The film had a long and intensive production of seven years (Kirkland, 2012). Originally titled ‘The Bear and the Bow’ (Breen, 2015), the project was set in a generic Northern European landscape. However, when director Brenda Chapman, herself of Scottish origin, developed the story further, a setting deeply rooted in Scottish culture was chosen (Pixar Portal, n.d.). To create this Scottish world convincingly, Pixar sent teams to Scotland on multiple occasions. Directors, storyboard artists, and designers would venture out into the landscape and return with sketchbooks full of drawings, cameras full of photos, and notes full of Scottish expressions, song lyrics, and spontaneous conversations (Leadbetter, 2012; Pixar Animation Studios, n.d.). Some even literally rolled through the moorland to truly understand the textures and smells of the environment (Kirkland, 2012). During their travels they tried to record as much as possible, from the typical architecture to the mentality of the Scots, to make the world of Brave believable and alive (MacQuarrie, 2012).

To bring the rich, detailed world of Brave to life, Pixar developed an entirely new animation system called Presto. The system was designed to give animators greater flexibility, speed, and control over character movement. In particular, the complexity of Merida’s iconic red curls, consisting of over 1,500 individual strands, required advanced simulations that the old software could not handle (Pixar, n.d.; Fowler, 2012). Presto allowed animators to switch between different animation positions more quickly and work more intuitively, which was essential to the film’s vibrant and fluid animation style (Amidi, 2012).