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 August 1, 1999


		The work on the DVD for “The Prince Of Egypt” started by setting out specific goals for the disc. “The process at that point was to define what kinds of bonus programming we wanted to put on the disc. What the focus was going to be and what we thought the best way to represent the product would be.” Gustafson elaborates and I remember talking to him on the issue a few months ago where he candidly told me that he was currently in the process of gathering materials and ideas for the then-unannounced "The Prince Of Egypt" DVD. When a movie hits theaters it usually does so domestically first with a staggered world-wide release that can take as long as nine months until

the last country actually gets to see the film. In part this has to do with the time it takes to completely translate and dub a film for the different territories. With "The Prince Of Egypt" however, Dreamworks took a slightly different route and actually launched the film simultaneously on 6000 screens in the European market in 50 different countries around the world in 28 different languages.

The result of this effort is a special feature on the DVD that is quite unique, a multi-language presentation of the song “When You Believe” from the end of the movie. ”This is the first time that anyone has ever seen how this is done.” Gustafson says. “You’re going to hear the song in its entirety - it’s about seven or seven-and-a-half minutes in length - but you’re going to hear it sung in every single different language it was recorded in. You literally go seamlessly from one line of the song to the next, from Japanese to Finnish to Dutch and so on. You get an indication on-screen, telling you which language you’re listening to. It’s amazing because you’re not realizing you’re hearing a different person every single time. It’s not just one person singing the song in all these different languages. It’s different people every single time we’re changing the language and yet it sounds like the same exact person.”

This is incidentally one of the ever-amazing things about animated feature films - the fact that the voices in the foreign language versions sound so much like their original counterparts. Never has it been more obvious than in this particular case. After seeing the multi-language presentation for myself I was left speechless at the perfection displayed in this piece. Going through all the languages you will always have the feeling it is one and the same person singing the song in all these languages, while it is of course not. It is a showcase of technical and artistic excellence and at the same time emphasizes the multi-national appeal for the film. It is without a doubt the most amazing supplement I have ever seen and left me completely fascinated.

“They did the best they possibly could, “Gustafson adds, “in matching identical star talent in Germany, star talent in Italy, that could bring the same kind of quality to the recording the original American cast had.” It’s certainly not easy to find voice talent that can match the voices of stars like Val Kilmer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ralph Fiennes, Sandra Bullock and many others, and it took Dreamworks seven months of listening to tapes, finding the talent, and making the recordings in their relentless effort to make things

match. “It was a massive undertaking, and that’s one of the things we want to showcase on the disc, this incredible feat that was accomplished. This segment was one of the first things that came up many months ago, and it was just an absolute must for the disc.”

The team of Dreamworks’ international productions themselves put this reel together as a showcase, calling it a multi-language-piece and when producer Gustafson saw it he knew he had to have it on the DVD. In order to make sure viewers know what it is they are witnessing, a bit of an introduction was created at the beginning that leads viewers into it.

“Then we began to think about the film from an effects aspect, “ I am told. Gustafson and co-producer Atkinson waded through tons of material and a number of segments that had been created on "The Prince Of Egypt" but nothing really quite seemed to fit. “A lot of these segments were done early on,” he explains, “before things were finalized, and would have required a lot of explanation for the viewer to really understand what it was they were seeing.”

Most of it was effects tests that were done to streamline the process, or to simply research certain technologies and technical approaches to see if things would work out or not. Although he believes it would certainly be

interesting for viewers to see these things, Gustafson and Atkinson ultimately felt it would take too much to really explain what it was you’re seeing on the screen.

"With titles like “Antz” and “Small Soldiers”, Mark and I like to keep things fast and fun... but something like "The Prince of Egypt" is altogether different.” Gustafson confides. “Even though it's an action-packed family adventure, you still need to treat it with a certain reverance, a certain classic quality that stays in tune with the subject matter. "The Prince of Egypt" is the first traditonally animated film to come from DreamWorks and that makes it important to us... from menu design to bonus programming, the disc needed to reflect those qualities as well as give people an inside look at what it took to create a film of this size and scope."


	We will keep these pages updated with new information, as soon as we get it in, so check back frequently to see what happened on the production of the “Prince Of Egypt Signature Selection”


	... Next page ...


	© 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.