Those that attended the premiere of Disney’s Frozen 2, way back in the fall of 2019, were given a special treat: they were the first to experience “Myth: A Frozen Tale,” a cutting-edge VR short film that took place in the world of Frozen 2. But instead of a cold, calculated tech demo, this was a beautiful, utterly transporting work and deeply emotional work that expanded the narrative of the feature film in a meaningful way. Structured like a bedtime story (with new dialogue provided by Evan Rachel Wood), it explored the elemental spirits from the film in a dazzling, uniquely stylized way, working as both a prologue to the film and a standalone marvel. And up until now, you’d only been able to experience “Myth” if you were at the premiere, visited Walt Disney Animation Studios (during the before time, like I did) or owned a consumer-grade Oculus VR headset (it was released earlier this year). That all changes now, as we can exclusively reveal that “Myth: A Frozen Tale” will be headed to Disney+ in a unique “flat” version on February 26.

Along with the announcement and these exclusive images, we also jumped on a Zoom call with Jeff Gipson, the short’s director. Gipson is a deeply spiritual, fearlessly technological whiz and one of the most exciting young talents at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He gives off the vibe of a skater poet, someone whose attraction to adventure has led him to pioneer VR technology for the studio. (His first VR short, the deeply moving “Cycles,” is also available in a flat version on Disney+ and will still make you cry.) We chatted about how he turned the 3D, user-generated experience into a more traditional short, the astounding design work done by Brittney Lee (another Disney Animation superstar) and the influence of classic Disney Parks dark rides on the creation of “Myth.”

People are finally going to see this short!

JEFF GIPSON: I know. Yeah.

How do you feel?

GIPSON: I'm so excited. I always think about it as like, well, my mom and dad, or my family that don't have headsets can now access it because they have Disney Plus. So it's so nice to just get that broader reach to folks that don't have a headset and weren't able experience it before.

Well, can you talk about the process of doing the 2D version? Because obviously you've been through this before on “Cycles,” which people can also watch and Disney+.

GIPSON: Yeah, so it's really similar to “Cycles.” That was what's cool about the VR, is because we have this, almost like a play that just will repeat, and we can kind of walk and move around it. We unlock it so we can move the camera around and basically, I could walk around the characters and find the angles that I wanted to try to tell the story. And we were fortunate to have Terry Moews, he was actually the DP on this and figured out all of our camera angles and did a really beautiful job working with it.

But I mean, it almost felt like live action, because we were able to have actors that did the same take every time. And we would set up cameras and then just basically render that out of the real-time engine and then edit it together. And we had done that towards the end of creating of it. I would say probably December of 2019, we started thinking about it. Even though that wasn't a priority at that point, we had started thinking like, oh, this would be cool if we could ... How does it translate to being a standard flat short?

And so we just started tinkering and looking and exploring what it would feel like. And then started working more or less on finishing that version in the middle of 2020. A lot of it too, was done at home as well. That was a challenge. We did some of it at home. We had started it before, we had done a lot of the camera work before, but a lot of the edit and a lot of the final touches were all at home.

That's amazing.

GIPSON: It was an experience, man. I think that's how all of us felt that are working on films at home, because it's different for everybody. But it was interesting and I think it's just incredible too, that we are able to do things like that at home. I think I went to the studio three or four times for a final color timing, a final sound mix. And we also have a little intro video for it as well, similar to how Cycles and the other Short Circuits have. So there's a little intro as well, just to set folks up of, this was a VR film. But really excited to bring it to Disney+ and have a place for audiences to view it.

I wanted to ask, in case people don't know much about “Myth,” how you became involved and what your approach was, because “Cycles” was such an intensely personal thing. And I imagine it was much different being assigned a tie-in to a pre-existing property. Can you talk about that whole process?

GIPSON: Yeah. After “Cycles,” it was amazing that we showed that around and won some awards. Jennifer Lee, the director of Frozen and Frozen 2, as well as our Chief Creative Officer, approached me and asked if I'd be interested to do something in VR for Frozen. And I was so excited because she was asking me to do that, but I also was so nervous because Frozen is one of our most beloved films, our most beloved characters and worlds.

I wanted to do something that was true to that film, but also, why VR? Why is this film created in VR and how can we make something special for the medium? And I started working on that. I think that was 2019, right around Sundance of 2019. I started creating pitch boards and things and then pitched her the idea.

But I kind of approached it too like, I always try to find something that connects to me personally in whatever film I'm directing, whatever I'm creating. And for me, I loved bedtime stories growing up. My family would tell me bedtime stories and I just loved how my mind would kind of drift to this magical place. And I started to imagine what was a bedtime story that you were told if you grew up in or around Arendelle. and “Myth “came about of that, just kind of setting it up with these magical elemental spirits that are such a big part Frozen 2.

And I love them because they really lend themselves to VR as well. You think about the giants and their scale, the horse is just this majestic creature. We have the fire salamander and the wind, and it just really felt like they lent themselves to be our storytelling. And so it really started centering the film around them.

Well, the documentary, Into the Unknown, also on Disney+, shows the 11th hour creative U-turns and changes. Was that stuff affecting you in the process of making “Myth?”

GIPSON: I think that's what I respect most about Jenn and Clark Spencer and ... Peter Del Vecho is the producer of Frozen. Clark is our president of the studio. As well as Chris Buck, the director Frozen 2. They really trusted myself and our team to create something for Frozen. Obviously, we would have check-ins with them, but I loved it because they really trusted me and the team to create something beautiful.

And so we would have monthly check-ins, but really weren't affected too much by a lot of hecticness of, 11th hour, trying to figure out the story and film on Frozen. However, we were made at the same time as Frozen 2. So we would have artists that were on Frozen 2, and then roll onto our film for a week or two, and then roll back onto Frozen 2 as needed.

We were shuffling artists between the two shows. And I think that's what's cool about “Myth” is that all the artists that worked on Frozen 2 also worked on “Myth.” And it's cool that the quality and just the feel, overall, of the world is so in line with one another.

Myth_Nokk_Color_Key_by_Brittney_Lee
Image via Walt Disney Animation Studios

And one of the thrills of “Myth,” and one of the reasons I would beg someone to let me watch it every time I was at the studio was Brittney Lee’s amazing production design. And I was wondering if you could tell people who aren't rabidly obsessed with animation like I am, why this is such a big deal and what she lends to this production.

GIPSON: Brittney is a rockstar. I always just start with that, that she's just such a talented artist. She has such a unique style. And I would go as far as to say that a lot of people imitate her style. She came up with her own very distinct Brittney Lee style, but it's informed by Mary Blair and Disney artists of the past, but she brings her own take to it. And she also designed Elsa's dress. She's just such an incredible mind and just such a creative, incredible person.

Having her on board to be our production designer on “Myth” was just so amazing. I remember when we pitched to our viz dev team, in the back of my mind I was like, wow, it'd be so cool if Brittney would be down to work on “Myth,” because I just loved her work. A lot of her paperwork in particular, it's this unique kind of flat, but stylized and volumetric. And that was kind of the feel I was going for with “Myth,” was it's very much informed by shadow puppets. And I love that kind of flatness and bringing that into VR. And so I was always hoping like, please, I hope Brittney's down, I hope Brittney's down. And then after the pitch, she had reached out to Nick Russell, our producer, and I was just like, yes, she wants to work on it. I was just so happy. I was just such a fan of her work before, and then to have her be production design was awesome.

I think she told me that you guys looked at classic Disney dark rides a lot, in terms of how to reveal things and where to look. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that?

GIPSON: Yeah, we totally did. And looking at It's a Small World or Pirates of the Caribbean, or parts of Splash Mountain or Peter Pan, all those classic Disney rides, it's so cool because the way the sets are built, they are just cut out silhouettes of paper, of flowers, and that was a big part of the inspiration. And then trying to figure out how do we bring that in to frame those moments. In all those rides, the environment is framing, whatever story moment is happening in that ride.

When you're in It's a Small World, it's very much designed with ... your eye will drift to certain parts of the ride at certain times using sound. And we really tried to use that sound as well as the visuals to help guide you around. The set in Myth is almost like a proscenium in theater, where we really designed it as these little windows. It creates this intimate space where you're covered by trees, but it also allows these windows of very distinct staging moments within the film.

We were definitely looking at those rides. There's a moment in the film “Myth,” it's kind of this fifth spirit moment, we would call it. And this crescendo where all this harmony and this music, it really builds up to this peak. And I remember when Brittney first got in and she was like, oh, this feels just like a Disney ride. And it was like, yes. It is cool, because that was what we were aiming for.

Myth_Nokk_Exploration_by_Brittney_Lee
Image via Walt Disney Animation Studios

Well, can you talk about what you're working on? Are you doing more things in VR or are you on one of the features? What have you been up to?

GIPSON: I worked on the flat version of “Myth” through the early part of 2020, and then I actually rolled onto Raya and the Last Dragon and worked a little bit in lighting for a couple of weeks. But I can't really talk too much about what's next for me.

This seems to be a space though, that you are comfortable with and would like to explore further, perhaps. Can we say that?

GIPSON: I think there's a lot of potential. I think there's a lot of new technologies that are out or emerging that are really exciting, and I think can be utilized in a way that are accessible, that will show audiences around the world on a broader scale, what the potential of the technologies are and what they really mean to storytelling and entertainment. And I think it's really fun to be on the frontline of that at our studio, at Disney Animation and being enabled to pursue and look into those technologies and storytelling.

Has it been fun to see the film roll out to a consumer platform like Oculus and now Disney Plus, instead of having to rig somebody up with a helmet every time they come into the building?

GIPSON: Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cool. I mean, “Myth” was actually our first publicly distributed VR film. And so it's pretty incredible, just that alone. We launched on June 11th. June 11th. There was a lot of work to just get that created. Mike Anderson, Jose Gomez, Ed Robbins, they all worked incredibly hard to create that version that could be launched on Oculus. And so that was so cool, because a lot of my friends at home in Colorado, they all have headsets and they're like, yes, we can have “Myth,” and they'll be in it. My nephew loves VR. He just digs it. And so every time that I'm home, he's like, I want to watch the film. And so it's really cool.

But I'm excited for Disney+ just because it does open it up to so much of broader audience. It's really incredible just having “Cycles” on there as well. I get emails or messages on social media several times, maybe once a day, talking about “Cycles” and just the impact or just how an audience loved it. And so I'm just so happy to have work that's able to be seen on a platform like Disney+. It's just, I feel really fortunate.

“Myth” debuts on Disney+ on February 26. Be prepared to swoon.