March 5th, 2021 
Jackson Murphy 
Zach Parrish is the director of the new Disney animated short film Us Again. It plays exclusively in theaters before Raya and the Last Dragon starting today (and will be on Disney+ in June). Parrish is excited for families to experience this story of an older couple re-connecting through the art of dance.
Jackson Murphy: I was fortunate enough to (meet you and) be a part of the Short Circuit event at Disney Animation in January 2020. It was one of the last big hurrahs before COVID and the shutdown happened. Does that day still stand out in your mind?
Zach Parrish: (laughs) Oh yeah. We were at the big conference table for that one, right?
JM: Yeah. We had the big conference table and we went into the screening room… and we watched all of the shorts, including yours “Puddles”, on the big screen. And I’m thinking back on it now going, “Wow. It was only two months before all of this and we were all in a tight room.”
ZP: (laughs) We had no idea! We had no idea how lucky we were.
JM: I know! How soon after you worked on “Puddles” did you begin “Us Again”?
ZP: Oh it was quite a while after, actually. “Puddles” was finished three or four years ago. So it actually sat on the shelf for a while before Disney+ became a thing. So we were super excited to actually get to share “Puddles”. But its release came out quite a while later. After “Puddles” I worked on “Ralph Breaks the Internet” and “Frozen II” for a little bit. I was a workflow supervisor. And then I started on this at the tail end of 2018 / beginning of 2019.
JM: Wow. So it must feel good that now, two years later, it’s finally out into the world.
ZP: (laughs) It feels great because we’ve been sitting on this one for about six months as well. We finished in July 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. And now it’s coming out into the world. I’m stoked.
JM: Did you know right away as you were getting into production on this that it would coincide with “Raya”?
ZP: We didn’t. Not necessarily. We knew it was intended to go on a theatrical release, but we didn’t know that we’d be paired with “Raya” until maybe a week before it was announced. It was very recent for us as well! It’s very exciting.
JM: Wow. That’s amazing. But it’s cool that at least you know when you’re working on it that this is gonna go to theaters. That’s fantastic. And with “Puddles”, you obviously worked a lot with rain, water, liquid. You really wanted to amp that up here, didn’t you?!
ZP: (laughs) Yeah. Apparently I have a thing for rain. I don’t know what my deal is but yeah. I pitched a bunch of ideas for shorts for this project, and “Us Again” was selected, and it just happened to be the one that had rain in it. The other ones did not. But because we wanted to tell a sound of youth story, and because I wanted it to be about this relationship, rain just like the perfect match for both the youthfulness of playing in the rain and also the romanticness of dancing in the rain. It worked out. But yeah, it starts to look like I’m gonna make a trilogy of water films.
Zach Parrish
JM: You have your own Water Cinematic Universe with Disney.
ZP: Yeah. Everybody’s got one now.
JM: There’s a great reference in this to “Singin’ in the Rain”. I remember seeing that film on the big screen at one of those Turner Classic Movies Fathom Events years ago. How does that movie stand out to you?
ZP: There’s so many films like that. But “Singin’ in the Rain” is so iconic. That scene – the lamppost – and everything. It’s so iconic but we also looked at all kinds of references to include. We looked at “La La Land” a lot because it included, within itself, so many references to other theatrical musicals, as well as other non-musical films as well as animated films. We looked at everything to find the exact tone we were looking for with this film.
JM: I can absolutely see the “La La Land” vibes with this. I was also thinking with the older / younger couple storyline, it reminded me a bit of “Up”: how a couple goes from the younger days to the older days.
ZP: That first 10 minutes of “Up”, I think, is one of the best in animation history as far as pulling at the heartstrings and telling so much story and having so much empathy. You have to watch that. But we really wanted this to feel unique in and of itself but to elicit that feeling of that long history together and the love that a couple shares even through difficult times.
JM: And a love I could feel, through you, of animation. How did working on this bring you back to your younger days and falling in love with animation?
ZP: It was great. I was fortunate enough to get to be hands-on in the making of this. I did a lot of the layout myself. I got to do a lot of the animation myself. And having reference of Keone & Mari doing their dance was awesome. I love doing broad physical activity. I also love doing small, subtle animation. And [with] this film, we got to run the full spectrum as far as really small and really subtle to really big and really broad. And then to also get to participate in every department along the way to craft the lighting and the cameras and the sound. It was a huge, huge honor.
JM: So you worked with Keone & Mari of [NBC’s] “World of Dance”. Isn’t it amazing with all these dance competition series on TV over the last 10-15 years, television has been able to provide for families and people [a way] to look at dance in new and innovative ways?
ZP: What a great way of putting it. That’s exactly right. I started watching “So You Think You Can Dance”… when it first came out. It was a huge pastime of mine with my mom. She’s a huge theater fan… huge dance fan. We would always watch that together even when I moved out to L.A. When I would come home, she would give me her curated list of her favorite dances. We always geeked out together on not just the physicality and the athleticism, but the emotion and the storytelling. I think you’re absolutely. There’s this newfound love of dance that is well deserved and something that we really wanted to represent on screen with Keone & Mari specifically.
JM: And what input did they offer in terms of the storytelling and what you were able to do with the animation?
ZP: You know it’s interesting because we brought them and we were asking, “What can we do? What can we not do?” And they were like, “You can do whatever you want.” We kind of encouraged them to think, “Hey, this is animation. If there’s an idea that you don’t think you can physically do, just tell us what you’d like it to be and we’ll do it.” It was a great collaboration. They really got into character and the emotion of it early on because they’re not just dancers… I shouldn’t even say “just”… they’re incredible storytellers and collaborators on the story side as well.
JM: As I was watching it, I was thinking how difficult it must’ve been to make these scenes and moments with so many people in the streets, during nighttime, in the rain. What kinds of challenges did you face in trying to pull that off?
ZP: Yeah man – you’re nailing it. It was really hard. When I pitched the whole thing and we had our team together, you could kind of see people’s eyes go “Whoa!” ‘Cause you’re right, we had a lot of sets. We had a lot of effects with the rain and the fountain. And then crowds, traffic, a carnival, a pier over an ocean. There were many levels of complexity to this film. But everybody really got behind it and rose to the challenge. I’m honored to get to have a team that was so talented and so collaborative that we could figure out how to do it and in the smartest way possible to get the most for our time.
JM: Sure. And the pier and the colors at nighttime reminded me of when I visited Chicago in 2011. Have you ever been to Chicago?
ZP: Absolutely. I think you’re talking about Navy Pier. I’m from Indiana. My family and I: we would go to Chicago when I was a kid, and that was my first big city experience. And I remember standing out on Navy Pier or in Grant Park down by the water and turning around and seeing the skyline and having the water and the city. And then also being in New York and having similar experiences. There’s the Santa Monica Pier that kind of has that feeling as well. We wanted it to feel like all of those and none of those at the same time.
JM: I love the Santa Monica Pier. So you finished working on this mid-last year. Is there something else going on? Are you working on another short that we’ll see in a year but hopefully sooner?
ZP: I’m fortunate to get to support other filmmakers in creating their visions as well. As soon as I rolled off of “Us Again”, I started animating on “Raya and the Last Dragon”. I’m animating on some content for Disney+ that isn’t announced yet. So I get to support colleagues and friends and we just keep creating more Disney magic!
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