October 21st, 2020 
Jackson Murphy 
Dan Abraham and Trent Correy have spent the past year completely immersed in the world of a certain lovable snowman. In quarantine, Correy animated the At Home with Olaf installment “Ice” and Abraham directed the special Frozen piece I Am With You. But right after Frozen II wrapped production last Fall, they collaborated on the new short Once Upon a Snowman. It was completed before COVID hit and debuts this Friday October 23rd on Disney+. We finally learn Olaf’s origins through new scenes that take place in-between ones from the original Frozen movie. It was an idea that emerged in Correy’s mind way back in 2012.
Trent Correy: I started at Disney and was working as a crowds animator on the first Frozen. And then I started animating Olaf. And as I was starting to animate Olaf, “Let it Go” was being animated by our animation department. There’s that great scene that you now see at the start of Once Upon a Snowman of Elsa making Olaf for the first time. And in that moment I still remember super clearly, I thought, ‘There’s definitely a story here.’ As a fan of Olaf and as an animator, I was like, ‘I wanna see his Bambi moment: his first steps and how he comes to life and how he learns about all these things, like Summer.’
Trent Correy: In fact, I just found… an image – a drawing from 2012 of Olaf, and I wrote above there, ‘What happens between “Let it Go” and when he meets Anna, Kristoff and Sven in the forest later on?’ The short was always about that moment and then more about how he finds his nose.In that scene, you don’t see a carrot on him. So it was his search. And then when Dan came on board, we started playing around with the story a little more.
Jackson Murphy: That’s so cool. How many times did you have to watch and rewatch the first half-ish of Frozen to make sure the continuity is good with everything that you’re doing with this story?
Dan Abraham: That would be a really high number. I’m not sure. Like [maybe] 50 times. What are all the beats that happen in there, and can we cross-cut it? Was Olaf in the background of any of those shots and we just didn’t know it until now? Were there any kind of moments in there that he might’ve had something to do with and no one knew it before? It was fun to go in there and sort of Back to the Future: Part II it.
JM: (laughs) One of the charming things we find out in the first Frozen film is that Olaf is a snowman who just happens to love Summer. And we just accept that. And we love that we accept that. But here, we find out the truth behind that. Was there any hesitation in revealing the truth behind his love of Summer?
TC: In the original pitch it was… ‘These things that Olaf instinctively knows in the film: can we find ways to give truth to that and still keep them genuine?’ And Dan came-up with those beats of revealing what Summer is to Olaf.
DA: There was kind of a good opportunity through Olaf’s adventure that it sort of lined-up and just made sense about, ‘You know what? This is where he would learn about that.’ It lined-up story wise. The story led us to that moment, and it made perfect sense. I thought that was pretty cool.
JM: Josh Gad has been so supportive of this character. What kind of input did he have on what he wanted Olaf’s origins to be?
TC: We brought Josh in and revealed the story to him. And the great thing about Josh is that he’s 100% Olaf. He’s just as funny as Olaf, but he’s also just as endearing and genuine as Olaf. Josh came in, and I remember very clearly… when we saw the cut with Josh’s voice in there for the first time, it was like, ‘Now it’s an Olaf short.’ You really needed that Josh Gad voice in there to really bring that to life. He’s such a pleasure to work with.
DA: When we pitched him the short and the idea, he just fully embraced it from the start. And then by getting him to record the lines from the script, he does that but then he improvs and he embellishes and he brings that Olaf magic that no one else can do, where he puts a little spin on it. It was a super-fun collaborative effort.
TC: He comes in and is, by far, the most involved person we’ve worked with. He hangs out with the animators and chats with them about why Olaf does the things he does. He’s very invested in the character. I love working with them. And all the little inflections in his voice, down to the [smallest] giggle or scream, give the animators so much to play with.
JM: Chase sequences are key in the Frozen franchise. How challenging was [putting together] the one with the wolves here?
DA: We got a storyboard artist, Seth Boyden. He’s a really great action guy. And we sat down and we drew-out little sketches of different gags, but then Seth took it to a whole new level of tying those gags together and making it build. Seth brought so much action to it.
TC: When you give the animators the reign to break [Olaf] apart and have fun with him, they just kind of go to town. Our layout team and our animators all worked together. It’s one of the reasons why I love Olaf, and why The Genie from Aladdin is one of my favorite characters. You can go big and cartoony and have fun with all these shapes and playfulness, but also they both have a very genuine, sweet side. I love that we can show both aspects in this short: the extremes in the chase and his heart.
JM: You’re so right about that. And that’s a very good comparison because I know Josh has talked about how he was inspired by Robin Williams and The Genie for his love of Disney and getting to voice Olaf. Now, was there any temptation… to put a new song into this?
DA: There was. We thought about it and decided for six or seven minutes long, we had so much story to tell, eventually a song didn’t really fit in what we were doing – once we really got in there and were analyzing the story.
JM: I think it was a smart decision in this case. You get the action and the humor and the inner-weavings of it. You didn’t want to go so off-course. Is there a backstory of another character in the Frozen universe that you would want to explore in another short like this?
TC: I have one for sure. I wanna see the story of Elsa’s cape. After her cape hits Olaf off the hill, I wanna see what that cape gets into.
DA: (laughs) That’s a really good question. I would have to think about it.
JM: Well, based on the success of this, maybe Disney will want to approach you to find another sliver of Frozen or Frozen II to do another one.
DA: I would do it again.
TC: We honestly have so much fun animating and directing this snowman. It’d be a pleasure anytime he comes around.
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