Elsa Frozen 5
Eliz Mettert
Created by co-writers and directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Elsa is loosely based on the title character of "The Snow Queen", a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. In the Disney film adaptation, she is introduced as a princess in the fictional Scandinavian Kingdom of Arendelle, heiress to the throne and the elder sister of Anna (Kristen Bell). Elsa has the magical ability to create and manipulate ice and snow. She inadvertently sends Arendelle into an eternal winter on the evening of her coronation. Throughout the film, she struggles first with controlling and concealing her abilities and then with liberating herself from her fears of unintentionally harming others, especially her younger sister.
The Snow Queen character, neutral but cold-hearted in the original fairytale and villain in numerous adaptations of the character, proved difficult to adapt to film due to her transparent depiction. Several film executives, including Walt Disney, attempted to build on the character, and a number of scheduled film adaptations were shelved when they could not work out the character. Buck and his co-director, Jennifer Lee, were ultimately able to solve the dilemma by depicting Elsa and Anna as sisters. As much as Anna's struggle is external, Elsa's is internal. This led to Elsa being gradually rewritten as a sympathetic, misunderstood character.
Elsa has received largely positive reception from reviewers, who praised her complex characterization and vulnerability. Menzel was also widely praised for her vocal performance of Elsa, especially that of her performance of the song "Let It Go".
Several film executives later made efforts towards the project, including Paul and Gatan Brizzi, Dick Zondag, Glen Keane, and Dave Goetz. In 2011, director Chris Buck began work on another attempted adaption and also faced challenges with the Snow Queen character. Producer Peter Del Vecho explained that this was primarily because she was not relatable and too isolated, having no personal connections. As a result, they could not explain her motivations. After several changes were proposed, someone on the writing team suggested making the Snow Queen Anna's sister. "Once we realized that these characters could be siblings and have a relationship, everything changed," Del Vecho relayed.[11]
When Anna is cursed by her estranged sister, the cold-hearted Snow Queen, Anna's only hope of reversing the curse is to survive a perilous but thrilling journey across an icy and unforgiving landscape. Joined by a rugged, thrill-seeking outdoorsman, his one-antlered reindeer and a hapless snowman, Anna must race against time, conquer the elements and battle an army of menacing snowmen if she ever hopes to melt her frozen heart.[9]
Earlier manuscripts included more antagonistic actions by Elsa, such as intentionally cursing Arendelle with an eternal winter. Additionally, she is shown creating an army of snowmen similar to the original Snow Queen's army of snowflakes; the comedic character of Olaf was at the time written as a smaller snowman who was cast out by Elsa for being too unintimidating.[9][14] Within two months, however, scripts were altered to give emphasis to her lack of control over her powers.[15] Olaf was reduced to the only snowman created by Elsa, and he instead serves as a reminder of the sisters' childhood friendship.[16] In the final version, Elsa creates a single giant snow creature that Olaf nicknames "Marshmallow" to act as a guard after being branded as a monster for her powers.[15] According to director Jennifer Lee, the character ultimately became more of a composite of both Kai and the Snow Queen, enhancing her increasingly sympathetic portrayal.[10] Del Vecho added, "There are times when Elsa does villainous things but because you understand where it comes from, from this desire to defend herself, you can always relate to her."[17]
Eva Bella and Spencer Ganus were cast to portray Elsa as a young child and as a teenager, respectively.[18][19] Actress and singer Megan Mullally was originally cast to voice an adult Elsa,[20] but was replaced by Idina Menzel. Menzel already knew Kristen Bell,[21] who voiced Anna, and had previously auditioned for a lead role in the 2010 Disney film Tangled.[22] She was not cast for the part, but the casting director recorded her singing and later showed the recording to Frozen's film executives.[22] Menzel was surprised when she was subsequently asked to audition,[22] and she received the role after reading the script out loud.[21] In interviews, she acknowledged similarities between Elsa, her then-current role, and Elphaba from Wicked, her previous role.[23] Namely, she said, they were both very powerful and very misunderstood individuals.[24]
During production, Menzel and Jonathan Groff, who portrays Kristoff, went to the animation studio to explain to the animators how they were approaching their characters.[27] Animators asked Menzel questions about her singing, observed how she breathed as she sang live, and made videorecordings of her recording sessions; they then animated Elsa's breathing to match Menzel's breathing, for further realism.[26][28] Her voice supplied inspiration for Elsa's most prominent song, "Let It Go". According to composer Robert Lopez, Menzel's vocal range was able to clearly convey Elsa's "low, vulnerable, fragile side" as well as her power and self-realization.[29] Menzel commented that it was "an honor" to have the song and that she enjoyed recording it. "It's a collision of a bunch of forces that are all coming together in the right way," she explained. "The character, what she is singing and what she is experiencing; beautiful lyrics, beautiful melody and a little bit of me."[26] Buck and Lee were also surprised by how compatible Menzel and Kristen Bell's voices were. At one point during a table read, they sang a ballad (later revealed as "Wind Beneath My Wings"[30]) back and forth to one another with so much sentiment that it reportedly left everyone who was present with tears in their eyes.[31] Subsequently, Lee wanted Menzel and Bell to be in the same room when they were recording the important emotional scenes of the film.[32]
Following the casting of Idina Menzel, Elsa's characterization underwent several alterations. According to Menzel, she was originally scripted as a one-dimensional antagonist but was gradually revised as a more vulnerable, multifaceted figure.[33] Menzel further described her character as "extremely complicated and misunderstood".[25] Director Jennifer Lee stated that Elsa is largely driven by fear throughout the film,[34] while Menzel added that she was also struggling with her potential to be "a strong, powerful, extraordinary woman".[21] Executive producer and animator John Lasseter became very "protective of Elsa" and was adamant about portraying her in a more favorable, sympathetic light.[35] Writer and director Jennifer Lee stated on Twitter that Elsa's body language and mannerisms were "intentional to show anxiety and depression".[36] In July 2013, Disney released images of the film's main characters along with outlines of their roles in the story. Elsa received the following description:
Elsa's supervising animator was Wayne Unten, who asked for that role because he was fascinated by her complexity.[38] Unten carefully developed Elsa's facial expressions in order to bring out her fear as contrasted against Anna's fearlessness.[38] For their work on designing and animating Elsa, Unten and three other Disney Animation employees later won an award for Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture at the 2013 Visual Effects Society Awards: Joy Johnson, character technical director (rigging); Alexander Alvarado, look development artist (Disney's job title for texture artists); and Chad Stubblefield, modeling supervisor.[39] FX technical director Yoo Jae-hyun worked for a year and a half on creating Elsa's ice-based special effects, including effects associated with her dress.[40][41]
The scene was also a pivotal point in the development of Elsa's character and was initially planned to depict her becoming evil. Robert Lopez, who composed the song with his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, explained, "Elsa was going to go from being this perfect princess that had tried to keep her personality down her whole life to saying, 'Screw it. I'm gonna be me.'"[44] They had wanted to use the song as a way to gain a better understanding of the character and what she would be like if she was no longer living in fear, which ultimately resulted in her becoming much more complex.[31] The final lyrics and Menzel's "ability to be so fragile and vulnerable and then break into this powerhouse voice" turned the plot around and led to Elsa being revised as a "good" character.[44] She initially attempts to suppress her powers in order to avoid hurting others, particularly Anna, and when she is no longer able to do so, she banishes herself from the kingdom to protect those around her.[25][45] Lead writer Paul Briggs said that Anna's support is what Elsa needs most when her secret is exposed. "The strength of the family bond is what makes this story so powerful," he explained, "because it's her sibling who's willing to look beyond her powers and stand between her and the world if that's what it takes."[25]
Elsa's appearance had to be redesigned following her transition from antagonist to protagonist. She was originally drawn in a style similar to other Disney villains, with blue skin and spiky black hair.[35] A few months after the film's release, visual development artist Claire Keane (the daughter of Disney Legend Glen Keane) published early concept art of Elsa that was modeled after the singer Amy Winehouse.[46] At the time, she was imagined as having blue "bouffant" hair as well as "a deep, soulful voice and dramatic mood swings".[46] Lasseter reportedly influenced the creation of the character's much softer final appearance, particularly in regards to her very thick platinum blonde hair, which animators found difficult to design. Art director Michael Giaimo said that while a number of strategies were proposed for Elsa's hair, Lasseter would push the animation team to continue making improvements, saying, "It's not aspirational enough. We want people to feel like this hair is a beautiful statement."[47] During a research trip, producers found that "there are lots of braids" worn by women in Norway; they then hired a stylist from New York named "Danilo" who helped to create a style that would reflect that while still being "a little different".[48][49][50] A new animation program called Tonic was invented to assist with the task, and the character's hair ultimately required 420,000 CGI threads.[42][51] By contrast, Anna was given roughly 140,000 hairs[48][52] while Rapunzel from Tangled had only required 27,000 CGI threads for her hair.[51]
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