Anna (Frozen)

Origins and conception Attempts to produce an adaption of "The Snow Queen" in the Disney studio dated back to 1943, when Walt Disney considered collaborating with Samuel Goldwyn to produce a biography film of Hans Christian Andersen. However, the story and particularly the Snow Queen character proved to be too problematic to Disney and his animators. Namely one of the troubles they encountered was that the original story lacked necessary interaction between the main protagonist, Gerda (who later served as an inspiration for Anna), and the Snow Queen. Most obviously, Andersen's version did not feature any confrontation between them: when brave little Gerda enters the Snow Queen's ice castle and sheds her tears on Kay, the Snow Queen is nowhere to be seen. There just was not enough character conflict to form a full-length feature. Later on, Glen Keane, Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, Harvey Fierstein, Dick Zondag and Dave Goetz were among other Disney executives to make efforts towards translating this potential material to the big screen, but none of them made their way. Around 2008, Chris Buck pitched Disney his version of The Snow Queen. At the time, the project was planned to be traditionally animated under the name of Anna and the Snow Queen. However, by early 2010, the project encountered the same problem and was stuck again. Jennifer Lee, Frozens co-director, later recalled, "The issue with the original for us in a lot of ways is it's a very symbolic story. It's very hard to translate symbolism into concrete things. Film is concrete, so you translate it." The storyboards were presented to John Lasseter, who told the assembled production team, "You haven't dug deep enough." Lasseter said that Chris Buck's latest version was fun and very light-hearted, but the characters were not multifaceted, and thus did not resonate with the producer. or relatable. An interpersonal and family dynamic was created once Anna and Elsa were established as sisters, an idea suggested by someone on the writing team, but no one remembered who made the suggestion. This changed the story dramatically, shifting from the conflict between the good and the evil to the conflict between love and fear. Buck stated that their script still retained basic parts of the story and the character of Gerda, citing the similarities between the original story and his version, "[Gerda] won't give up on finding her friend Kay. The only thing she really has in her, because she's not a superhero or anything, is love. In the end it's love that conquers fear." Livvy Stubenrauch was chosen to portray Anna as a young child, while Katie Lopez, daughter of the husband-and-wife songwriting team of the film, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, provided the singing voice for young Anna in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" musical sequence. Additionally, Agatha Lee Monn, daughter of the film's director Jennifer Lee, portrayed teenage Anna in this song. Bell and Idina Menzel, who voiced Elsa, had both auditioned for Rapunzel in Tangled and had already known each other, but they did not get the part. Talking about her feelings when she got the part, Bell expressed, "Since I was 4 years old, I dreamed of being in a Disney animated film," she said. "It was the first goal I ever set for myself. It seemed like it would be a very unrealistic one." Bell described her initial reaction when she first found that she was cast as "I was in glee". Lee admitted Bell's casting selection was influenced after the filmmakers listened a couple of vocal tracks from The Little Mermaid, including "Part of Your World" that the actress recorded when she was young, stating that without these recordings, it would've been very difficult to the find the right one to play Anna. The two directors, Buck and Lee, were also impressed by how Bell and Menzel related. "During one of our early read-throughs, Kristen and Idina sang a ballad to each other which had so much emotion that everyone in the room was in tears," Buck said. "It not only showed how great their voices were together, but showed the power the music would have in the story." However, Bell was not all confidence when recording with Menzel, described the experiences working with her co-star as "nerve-racking". Director Jennifer Lee strongly believed that there could not be any other Anna but Kristen Bell, saying, "It was definitely a wonderful surprise hearing her voice [during auditions], not knowing that she had been classically trained. Also, she had such a warm, sweet voice. She was everything that we could've hoped for Anna." Idina Menzel was also surprised by her co-star's singing ability, stating that, "I didn't know how great a singer she was. I quickly found out and need to constantly tell her because she doesn't tell anybody else! She's always playing it down." Anna's animator Becky Bresee commented that Bell's voice "lends itself well, so you are taking bits and pieces." Bell's recording sessions were completed while she was pregnant, and later she had to re-record some of the lines after giving birth, as her voice had deepened. After watching the completed film, Bell described her performance as "cool and weird and surreal and jarring", saying that she was really proud that Anna "came out like she did that [the directors] let [Bell] do her like this." Design and characterization Anna in particular and the whole film in general had undergone a number of changes in the story, most notably making the heroine the younger sister of the Snow Queen. Bell generally described her character as "She doesn't have good postures, she's not very elegant, but she's a good person and she's utterly determined." Lee added, "She doesn't have any superpowers, but Anna is one of these ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing." with an extraordinary heart. In the images of Frozens main characters released by Disney in July 2013, Anna and her role in the film was described as follows: In order to have one person fully understand and develop their own character, as well as later be able to impart that to the crew, the film's directors and producers decided to have character leads and supervising animators on specific characters. First-time character lead Becky Bresee serves as the supervising animator for Anna. embodying a relatable heroine, She called the scene where Anna first meets Hans is a "typical Disney moment", as they come too close physically and find out that they both fall in love with each other. Bell wanted Anna's words to reflect what she herself would say in real life, which included some "nonsensical rambling". "I think I said, "This is awkward. You're not awkward. Me, I'm awkward. You're gorgeous. Wait—what?" Words just spill out of her mouth too quickly and she has to backtrack." Bell continued. According to director Jennifer Lee, Anna is a bit flawed. He also admitted that he "fell in love with [Bell]'s voice and [Bell]'s spirit". Director Jennifer Lee said that she loved Bell because the actress shared a similarity with her, that girls could be funny. "So she was a fantastic collaborator," Lee added. Songwriting duo Kristen-Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez later commented that they had written a lot of first songs for Bell, for Anna but, "The more we were working with Kristen Bell, the more, the more she influenced." They quickly understand who Anna was because Bell. Anna's costumes in the film were informed by the research of Norwegian clothing styles. Based on these findings, art director Brittney Lee and her team later found out what materials should be used for the costumes. The animators added structures to the costumes in a way, such as pleated dresses, that allows movements, giving the character a free range of "twirl[ing] all she wants" throughout the film. To deepen the cultural context of the film, rosemaling, a traditional form of Norwegian decorative folk art, was added to almost every character's costumes. Anna and her sister, Elsa, also enjoyed a large number of types of costumes and the layers of costuming that have never been done before. As these characters are running around in the snow, they have to have petticoats, undergarments, capes, "and they have all these layers and layers of things that are all meticulously designed," Brittney explained. ==International voices==