Animated Musical Song
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The integrated production number of an animated feature: a song that advances plot or reveals character within the film's story, staged with animated choreography and sung in character. Musically these draw on Broadway, operetta and pop, built around clear melodies, witty or heartfelt lyrics and full orchestral arrangements with brass, strings and rhythm. Performances are theatrical and character-voiced, from patter comedy to soaring ballad. The mood ranges widely but the craft is unified by story-driven, in-scene songwriting.
History
The animated musical song matured in the Disney Renaissance, as Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and Menken with Tim Rice on Aladdin (1992), set a gold standard of integrated numbers, extended by Stephen Schwartz on Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Menken again on Hercules. Trained performers — Samuel E. Wright, Robin Williams, Judy Kuhn, Paige O'Hara — delivered numbers that functioned as musical-theatre scenes. The style influenced DreamWorks, and its film-musical grammar still governs how animated features build songs around story beats.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Thomas S. Hischak and Mark A. Robinson, The Disney Song Encyclopedia (2009)
- Thomas S. Hischak, The Oxford Companion to the American Musical (2008)
- Mervyn Cooke, A History of Film Music (2008)