Prince Of Egypt Production Diary


	"The Prince Of Egypt" was Dreamworks first traditionally animated feature film and it is soon coming to DVD which gives us the chance to take you behind the scenes to see how this production comes together. We will keep this section updated as soon as new information and material comes in, so make sure to check back often.


	by Guido Henkel September 9, 1999


	Elaborate menus are only half the rent however, and more bonus material had to be found to include on this Signature Selection release. Gustafson and co-producer Mark Atkinson started gathering assets by contacting the Effects department which lead to the Archive department, and then to the PR department. It was when they got to PR that they found a number of things that got them more and more excited with each new segment they viewed. “Once those had been identified.” Gustafson remembers, “We would all sit down and see how we could make well-rounded programming out of all of it. Bonus features need a sense of focus and clarity…as well as entertainment value. Educating people about the process of animation is fine, but it’s about doing it in a way that’s entertaining at the same time.

If you only talk in technical terms, you’re going to lose your audience. It has to have an understandable approach and a sense of fun and wonder… two things that animation has always had for me; it’s fun to watch and you wonder how the heck do they do that?! I think what we did with ANTZ

	was a good way of illustrating that. People got to see the process, and had fun along the way. What we’re doing with “The Prince of Egypt” is somewhat similar, but yet slightly different due to the unique differences that exist between traditional animation and CGI animation.”

	Gustafson also makes an interesting remark about DreamWorks’ approach to special editions in general. “Mark and I think there is something to be said about leaving your audience wanting more. We like to give them

just enough to satiate their appetite. We want viewers to walk away from it saying that it was great, that they really enjoyed it - it’s not too much and it’s not overdone. They didn’t make me sit through two hours of talking heads, I’m getting just enough information to satisfy my desire to know more.”


	By now, much of the material for the disc has been assembled, structured and prepared for the DVD. One thing that makes “The Prince of Egypt” quite different from other releases is the fact that it is an animated feature. A fact, that calls for a different requisite of approaches and technologies. “Mark Atkinson is in charge of all our technical aspects. He supervises the telecine transfers and does a lot of our post-production, not just for DVD. But DVD is an integral part of what he

does. Mark makes sure that everything looks as good as it possibly can, and with animation being a somewhat different animal than live action, he truly has to make sure that things are going to look and work the way we want them to.”

One of the reasons why DreamWorks’ releases continually reach reference quality has to do with their approach to compression. The average bit rate on ANTZ hovered around 9 to 10 Mbps (Mega-bits-per-second). It is a value that is extremely high compared to the average used on live action films. But even there DreamWorks exceeds the industry standard of 3 to 5 Mbps, encoding most of their releases at 5 to 7 Mbps for the best possible video quality.


	“Anamorphic transfers have a lot to do with it as well,” Gustafson remarks. “We do high-def transfers for all our films - nothing less is acceptable.” In all fairness, since DreamWorks is a new studio with a rather limited catalog, they have a luxury that other studios do not have. “We’re not trying to release 10 to 12 catalog titles a month like many of the other publishers are doing, we have the luxury to really focus on one title at a time. Once we’d caught up with our first six releases (Small Soldiers, Mouse

Hunt, The Peacemaker, Paulie, Amistad and ANTZ) we could put all our efforts into each new release, but even that is still tricky. DVD is still in its infancy for the most part, and proves to be a constant challenge for everyone.” This kind of leisure allows the team at DreamWorks to produce DVDs of the highest possible quality, and from what I’ve seen of “The Prince of Egypt”, they are getting ready to unleash yet another reference quality title into the market. A title that will set standards for all animation titles to come.

In only five days the “Prince Of Egypt” Special Edition will be officially released and there is not much left for us to say about this incredible release. As you will be able to see for yourself, this film is a masterpiece and the DVD is equally as good. Unfortunately various issues prevented us from having more frequent updates to this Production Diary, but nonetheless I hope I have been able to give you some more insight into the workings and mechanics of a DVD production once again.

Before I go I would like to say “Thank You” to everyone at Dreamworks for working so hard on this film and this DVD, but also for making this Production Diary possible and allowing us a look behind-the-scenes.
Very special thanks go out to the great Steve Gustafson and Mark Atkinson who were essential to this diary with their help, insight and knowledge, and of course their willingness to share it. I know we will see many more incredible DVD releases from Dreamworks thanks to their enthusiasm and love for the format.


	© 1999 by “DVD Review”. All rights reserved. Reprinting only with written permission by the publisher. All “Prince Of Egypt” images are copyrighted and used by permission from Dreamworks SKG.