Press Conference with Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, winners of the Animated Film category for Frozen at the EE Britsh Academy Film Awards in 2014.
Q. This must feel like the icing on the cake because Frozen has turned into a phenomenon. Can you believe just how successful this movie has become?
CHRIS BUCK: No, absolutely not. We really just tried to make a movie that, you know, people will laugh and cry and just have, you know, a good time with. But it has been -- it has been phenomenal. Even, we have a singalong now. I don't know if it is here, but it is in the States –
Q. It is here.
CHRIS BUCK: It is here? It is incredible to go. I don't even think people really need the words underneath it because we keep hearing from people that the kids are playing it in their house over and over and ...
JENNIFER LEE: Sorry.
CHRIS BUCK: We apologise.
Q. So have you both been to a singalong yet?
JENNIFER LEE: We did go. The best thing was that they knew the lines too. Screen writers never get to see that, so -- I will take it.
CHRIS BUCK: It was a sing and read along.
JENNIFER LEE: I will take it.
NEW SPEAKER: How does winning a BAFTA change your attitude to work?
JENNIFER LEE: Wow. I think it just makes us feel like we have to keep working harder and harder, because I don't know how to top this feeling and I think the crew expects us to push even harder next time. So --
CHRIS BUCK: Yes, the crew wants us to go back to work right away. We would like a vacation first.
JENNIFER LEE: That might be nice.
NEW SPEAKER: Hi. Presumably this is like a three- or four-year project. Do you watch all the other ones and you suddenly go: Ice Age 3 and you go: no, no, no?
JENNIFER LEE: Luckily they keep us way too busy. We are in the story room, like, ten hours a day until we are in the animation room until we are, you know, working with the actors –
CHRIS BUCK: I pitched this about five years ago, so you are on these a long time. It is like graduating college or probably -- what is it? Anyway, it is a long time.
NEW SPEAKER: What attracted you to it?
CHRIS BUCK: I loved the Snow Queen character and I loved the environment. I thought Disney had never done a feature that took place in the ice and the snow, and I knew we could do something really special with that.
JENNIFER LEE: For me, it was really that we were doing two very strong female heroines and we had not done that before, and I was really excited to be a part of that.
Q. There's such a strong Broadway musical background not just in your cast, but in, you know, also the Lopez. You talk about bringing those people on board, but I guess that sort of Broadway style as well?
JENNIFER LEE: We were looking to go edgier than Book of Mormon, so we thought we would start with Bobby.
CHRIS BUCK: It was always thought of as a musical. We always wanted to do that, and Bobby and Kristen came on later and, like Jen was saying, we saw Book of Mormon, we saw Avenue Q which Bobby had done, and it is just something fresh and different that he could add and Kristen could add to the Disney cannon.
JENNIFER LEE: We wanted to celebrate the Disney film but rediscover what that meant for 2013.
NEW SPEAKER: Hi. Frozen is going to be turned into a Broadway musical too. Are you involved with that?
JENNIFER LEE: We are. We are in very early stages, though. We are still opening the movie. We have still yet to open in Japan. We have been joyously travelling here. So I think we will get down busy some time in the late spring and start working on that.
Q. And are you working on anything together now or ...?
JENNIFER LEE: We are going to stay together, I think.
CHRIS BUCK: Yes, I think we are a good team.
JENNIFER LEE: So he says in public. He might dump me later.
CHRIS BUCK: We never fight. We would love to. We will go back into development probably in the summertime and start thinking up some new ideas.
NEW SPEAKER: 2013 was the year for animation films with your film Despicable Me 2. Do you think it is a game changer? What is the future for animation, and do you think you can win the Oscar?
JENNIFER LEE: That is a lot! I think what I love is that more and more the world is seeing in animation that because we can kind of do anything that we can push story telling just as big and as grand, and I think the challenge is on all of us though, now it is a busier market with -- to keep making better and better stories. And the Oscars, I don't know. I am from New England and we don't -- we have to knock on wood before we say anything like that. So ... (Laughs)
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EE British Academy Film Awards in 2014 - Winners Press Conference: Animated Film
