“THE EXPERIMENT”:
DEVELOPING THE ROBINSONS AND THEIR WORLD 

            Steve Anderson would now get a chance to turn that vision of the future into an amazing animated universe.  To kick off the project, Walt Disney Feature Animation asked the fledgling director to try something so unprecedented they simply called it “The Experiment.”  Explains Anderson, “The Experiment was this – to take the script and story-board the whole thing from A to Z.  You have to understand that this was previously unheard of at Disney.  Usually, you would board the first act of a film and then get some notes and then move on to the second act and go through the same process.  But in just six months, we boarded the entire thing in one go, said our entire piece, and put it up on reels.  It was a huge mountain to climb but our story crew had no fear in achieving it.”         

    Soon, the Robinsons and all the whimsical characters who surround them began to come to life.  The team carefully started to craft the first layers of quirks, oddities and humor-filled personalities that would ultimately add up to the Robinson’s world – and make them not only fun but relatable, loving and full of heart. Indeed, Anderson got so into the process of developing the characters that he ended up performing the voices for three of them, including the bumbling Bowler Hat Guy, the delightfully unusual Grandpa Bud and the fashionable Cousin Tallulah. 

            Anderson worked closely at this stage with the film’s Head of Story, Don Hall, another Disney veteran.  Right from the start, Hall’s enthusiasm for the project was bubbling over.  “I’ve never seen another movie like this.   It’s a completely unique experience,” he says.  “There are many familiar elements from Disney movies in that it’s about families and adventure and hope – but they way they’re all thrown into the mix together is completely new and different.” 

            Hall explains how the wildly creative process of conjuring the storyboards for MEET THE ROBINSONS worked.  “Steve, the story guys and I were basically the first strike team, trying out a billion different ideas,” he says. “What we really wanted to do was make sure each of the characters would bring their own unforgettable comic point of view. Every single one has a distinctive personality and look that we spent a lot of time thinking about, playing with and perfecting.”  

            After six months, “The Experiment” came to a close and the proof was, as they say, in the pudding.  “When we showed the storyboards on reels to the entire animation team it was a scary moment but the response was overwhelming,” recalls Anderson.  “In my entire career at Disney I’d never heard of such a swell of support for a story.  People really made their voices heard, saying, ‘You have got to make this movie.’  We were tickled to see that so many people at Disney now loved these characters as much as we did.” 

            Anderson credits the fact that he allowed the free spirit of the Robinsons to permeate the entire creative process – encouraging everyone involved to push past all known boundaries. Also collaborating with Anderson on this mission was the film’s producer, Dorothy McKim, who would help shepherd the project from page to storyboard to digital imagery of the future as it’s never been seen before.  Like Anderson, McKim found that meeting the Robinsons for the first time was an exhilarating experience.  “MEET THE ROBINSONS is comedy but it’s got so much soul,” she says.  “Lewis and the Robinsons are all inventors, so everything they do is inventive, which made for an incredibly creative process.”

            McKim especially liked the fact that this is also one animated tale with a mix of fun, action and adventure, as well as a number of surprise twists.  “Unlike traditional Disney movies of the past, there are a few major ‘gotchas’ in MEET THE ROBINSONS, such as secret identities and surprises from the future,” she muses.

MEET THE ROBINSONS later met up with further inspiration, this time from the new Chief Creative Officer for Disney and Pixar Studios, animation pioneer John Lasseter.  “John has set the bar in animated storytelling,” says Dorothy McKim, “and his input helped make a great movie even greater.  He helped to bring even more heart and comedy to the movie.” 

For Steve Anderson, that mix of heart and comedy puts MEET THE ROBINSONS squarely inside the grand Disney tradition, even as it forges a brave new digital future.  “The strength of Disney movies has always been the characters – that’s what they’ve given the world,” he says.  “Audiences fall in love with the good guys and the bad guys because they all connect.  MEET THE ROBINSONS has these same kinds of characters.  They’re fun, they’re unpredictable, but they also have an aspect that is very emotional and human.  I think that’s what audiences expect from Walt Disney, that you’re going to laugh, you might cry and you’re definitely going to care about these characters.  For me, I love these characters like they’re my own family and can’t wait to have audiences meet them.”