Development Following the release of
The Rescuers Down Under (1990), director
Mike Gabriel was eager to collaborate with veteran Disney story artist
Joe Grant on a follow-up project that was vastly different from the animated adventure film. In April and May 1991, they first partnered on an adaptation of
Swan Lake with both of them writing story outlines and creating conceptual artwork. Gabriel and Grant then submitted their outline for approval, but it was negatively received by the studio's live-action
script readers. Earlier, during Thanksgiving weekend, 1990, Gabriel had wanted to direct an animated musical set in the
American West. At a relative's Thanksgiving dinner, while glancing through numerous titles in their bookcase, Gabriel struck on the idea of adapting the life of Pocahontas after finding a book about her. Following the cancellation of
Swan Lake, Gabriel returned to the idea. Shortly after, Gabriel
pitched his idea at the "Gong Show" meeting held by
Michael Eisner,
Jeffrey Katzenberg,
Peter Schneider and
Roy E. Disney. He had written the title ''Walt Disney's Pocahontas
on an image of Tiger Lily from Peter Pan'' (1953) to the back of which he taped a brief pitch that read "an
Indian princess who is torn between her father's wishes to destroy the English settlers and her wishes to help them – a girl caught between her father and her people, and her love for the enemy." Coincidentally,
Feature Animation president Peter Schneider had been developing an animated version of
William Shakespeare's play
Romeo and Juliet, and observed several similarities between his idea and Gabriel's
Pocahontas pitch; Schneider recalled: "We were particularly interested in exploring the theme of 'If we don't learn to live with one another, we will destroy ourselves. Gabriel's pitch was quickly accepted, becoming the quickest story turnaround in Disney studio history. hoped that
Pocahontas would be nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Picture. After
Beauty and the Beast (1991) was unprecedentedly nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Picture at the
64th Academy Awards, then-studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg opted to produce another animated romance film in the hopes of achieving a similar feat. While
Aladdin (1992) and
The Lion King (1994) were considered to be too far into development, Katzenberg deemed
Pocahontas a promising candidate, and thus pushed for the heroine to be older, the romance between her and Smith to be more mature, and the animals to be mute. Head of story
Tom Sito went on the record stating he wanted to include "broader" jokes, but the "higher-ups wanted it more winsome, more gentle. Some of the folks were so concerned about political correctness, they didn't want to be cuckoo-wacky about it."
Eric Goldberg—following his contributions to
Aladdin as the supervising animator of
the Genie and with all animation units for
The Lion King already occupied—was asked to co-direct
Pocahontas alongside Gabriel, to which he agreed. Likewise, he had originally expected the film to be more comedic and cartoonish like
Aladdin, but Schneider informed him that the film would be produced in a vein more similar to that of
Beauty and the Beast; It eventually reached a peak when Joe Grant drew Percy wearing a Native American feather, by which the animators took the concept one step further by placing a Spanish ruff on Meeko. One executive exclaimed, "Animals don't have the intelligence to switch their clothes! They don't even have opposing thumbs." The animators would retain their concept for the film. Under Katzenberg,
Frank Wells, and Michael Eisner, the Disney studios had begun a correlation of hiring Broadway personnel to manage the Disney animation staff on their feature films that brought such producers as Amy Pell to
Aladdin and Sarah McArthur and
Thomas Schumacher to
The Lion King. Before making his producing debut on
Pocahontas, James Pentecost had earlier worked as a
production stage manager on several Broadway productions including
La Cage aux Folles and
Crimes of the Heart. In June 1992, the filmmakers embarked on a research trip to the
Jamestown Settlement where Pentecost first met Shirley "Little Dove" Custalow-McGowan and Debbie "White Dove" Custalow, both descendants of the Powhatan Native Americans. The trip also included a visit to the
Pamunkey Indian Reservation, and conducted interviews with historians at
Old Dominion University. Following the research trip, Custalow-McGowan served as a consultant traveling to the Disney studios three times, and while Custalow-McGowan offered her services for free, Disney paid her a $500 daily consulting fee plus expenses. Ultimately, when it came to light that historical accuracy was not being pursued to the extent she had hoped, McGowan voiced her feelings of shame she felt in conjunction with her work on the film, saying "[she] wish[ed her] name wasn't on it". Additional Native American consultants were brought in to authenticate the clothing and
war dance choreography. That same month, Katzenberg held a meeting with the Feature Animation staff in which he predicted that
Pocahontas would be a commercial hit, while deeming
The Lion King experimental and less likely to succeed. As a result, most of the animators of Walt Disney Feature Animation decided to work on
Pocahontas instead, believing it would be the more prestigious and successful of the two.
Writing In January 1993,
Carl Binder joined the project, having previous expertise as a
television writer on shows such as
Punky Brewster,
War of the Worlds,
Friday the 13th: The Series, and
Top Cops. Four months later,
Susannah Grant and
Philip LaZebnik joined the writing team. Susannah Grant was selected by Disney as a screenwriter on
Pocahontas after winning the
Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting awarded by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the year before while still attending film school. On board as a screenwriter, she was only one of the many who was contributing the specific vision the upper management at Disney had in mind, and collaborated with Native American consultants. While working on the film, Susannah Grant wrote to a specific story outline, and no scene was rewritten fewer than thirty-five times until she felt it was perfect. Story supervisor Tom Sito, who became the project's unofficial historical consultant, did extensive research into the early colonial era and the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, but was confronted over the historical inaccuracies by historians. Already knowing that in reality, Pocahontas married
John Rolfe, Gabriel explained it was felt that "the story of Pocahontas and Rolfe was too complicated and violent for a youthful audience" so instead, they would focus on Pocahontas's meeting with John Smith. Likewise, when searching for an appropriate age for Pocahontas to begin her relationship with Smith,
Glen Keane explained, "We had the choice of being historically accurate or socially responsible, so we chose the socially responsible side" by increasing Pocahontas's age from a girl into a young woman. served as the story supervisor. One of Gabriel's early ideas was for Pocahontas's mother to be embodied in a certain star in the sky that would help Pocahontas find her path to Smith.
The Lion King however had concurrently carried a similar idea of the ancestors giving wisdom and guidance to the protagonist so the idea was discarded. Michael Eisner pushed for Pocahontas to have a mother, lamenting that "We're always getting fried for having no mothers." The writers countered that Powhatan was polygamous and formed dynastic alliances among other neighboring tribes by impregnating a local woman and giving away the child, so it was believed that Pocahontas herself probably did not see her mother that much. "Well", Eisner conceded, "I guess that means we're toasted." Ultimately, her mother's spirit would become the swirling wind that occurs throughout the film. For the villain, they chose
John Ratcliffe, whose portrayal was based on actual English captains, including
John Martin,
Christopher Newport, and
Edward Maria Wingfield. In reality, it was Wingfield who despised John Smith, but the filmmakers preferred the sinister sound of "Ratcliffe". The writers tried to adapt actual events from Pocahontas's life into the film such as her warning Smith that the Native Americans were after him so he could escape in the middle of the night, Powhatan ordering the captured Smith to make bead necklaces to humiliate him, and Pocahontas being captured by Ratcliffe (instead of
Samuel Argall), though none of them worked with the story. Sito mentioned that Joe Grant contributed heavily towards the film, as he was the creator of Redfeather, Meeko, and Flit. Redfeather was a wise-cracking turkey who was intended to be voiced by
John Candy, and Percy, who was to be voiced by
Richard E. Grant, was revised to become mute. Following the death of John Candy in March 1994, co-screenwriter Susannah Grant decided the turkey was inappropriate for the script she co-wrote for
Pocahontas, and a more realistic approach would have the animals
pantomime instead of talking. Joe Grant stated Redfeather "had comic potential–he thought he was handsome, a lady's man. When we decided he couldn't talk, and, having no hands, he couldn't mime ...". Joe Grant would later draw a concept sketch of a hair-braiding raccoon, which Glen Keane animated and claimed the directors "loved the idea and got rid of the turkey character." Similarly, according to Sito, Meeko was created because raccoons were "naturally enigmatic, because they have little hands and a little mask over their face like a thief." Gabriel described the inspiration for Flit the hummingbird from having "hummingbirds all over my backyard, [and] I thought, 'That's a great animal to animate.'" Conceived as a
tree of life whose seasonal changes would frame the story, Joe Grant would continue to protest to have the tree be more a character within the story, and her character flowered into the idea of a grandmotherly spiritual adviser to Pocahontas. For the role of Pocahontas, Broadway actress-singer
Judy Kuhn was hired to provide the singing voice for the eponymous character before
Irene Bedard was cast. Kuhn explained "They said, 'You are going to do the dialogue unless we find a Native American actress whose singing voice matched yours.' I was cast before Irene, so it actually went backwards." Bedard herself was filming
Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (1994) where she was informed by the casting director that they were looking for someone to voice the title role. According to Bedard, she took a train to
Buffalo, New York, where she walked in wearing a
sundress and a
straw hat, and read for the part. Back on the set of
Lakota Woman, she learned that she was cast in the role. Michelle St. John had also auditioned for the role of Pocahontas, and was given the role of Nakoma after Bedard was cast. which the actor has described as the most difficult part of his role.
Richard White, the voice of
Gaston in
Beauty and the Beast, was supposed to voice Ratcliffe, but the crew was worried he might sound too much like Gaston, so he was replaced by his co-star
David Ogden Stiers, who also voices Ratcliffe's dimwitted assistant Wiggins.
Robbie Coltrane and
Chris Barrie were brought in to read for Ratcliffe, while Goldberg wanted
Hugh Laurie to play Wiggins. Russell Means was cast as Chief Powhatan, though he initially expressed displeasure with the script in that Native Americans addressed each other using proper names rather than the traditional "my father" or "my friend".
Indigenous Canadian actor
Gordon Tootoosis was also cast as the tribal
medicine man Kekata. Throughout most of the production, the cast members performed their dialogue in separate recording sessions.
Design and animation served as one of the many inspirations for the look of the title character. Renowned for his animation of
Ariel in
The Little Mermaid (1989), supervising animator Glen Keane was immediately tapped to draw the titular Native American princess. Following the demands of Jeffrey Katzenberg to make the title character "the most idealized and finest woman ever made", Keane first sought his inspirations for his depictions of Pocahontas from Shirley 'Little Dove' Custalow-McGowan and Devi White Dove, women he had met during the research trip to Virginia. Keane recalled meeting the women:So I turned around and there's this beautiful Indian woman walking up; a Native American. She said 'Are you Glen Keane? The animator that's going to do Pocahontas?' I said 'Well, yeah.' And then from behind another tree another woman came up and she said, 'Well, my name is Shirley Little Dove, and this is my sister Devi White Dove, and we are descended from Pocahontas.' And as they stood there, I mean I took a picture of both of them, and between their faces was Pocahontas' face in my mind – I could see her. Other inspirations were
Natalie Belcon,
Naomi Campbell, Jamie Pillow, supermodel
Kate Moss, Charmaine Craig,
Christy Turlington, Dyna Taylor, and her own voice actress Irene Bedard. For almost three years, Taylor herself sat for four three-hour modeling sessions in which she was videotaped so the animators could draw poses of her from different angles. Keane also looked to a 1620 depiction of Pocahontas from a history book, though he would state the depiction was "not exactly a candidate for
Peoples 'Most Beautiful' issue [so] I made a few adjustments to add an Asian feeling to her face." Due to the complexity of the color schemes, shapes, and expressions in the animation, a total of 55 animators worked on the animation of Pocahontas's character alone, including
Mark Henn and
Pres Romanillos. After working at
Sullivan-Bluth Studios for over fourteen years,
John Pomeroy, who notoriously resigned alongside
Don Bluth during work on
The Fox and the Hound (1981) in 1979, returned to Disney and worked on the film. Pomeroy noted that initially John Smith was portrayed as well-groomed before the animators tried designs where the character was "sloppier", bearded, and carried daggers and knives. Pomeroy grew more satisfied with the character's design the more simple it became. Initially assigned as a supervising animator on
The Lion King,
Nik Ranieri did character designs and test animation for
Timon, but moved over to
Pocahontas growing frustrated with an indecisive vision from the directors. There, he was assigned to animate Redfeather until Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered that the animals be mute. Finding feathers difficult for Redfeather to gesture with, he was again assigned to animate Meeko using a
Little Golden Books animal book illustrated by
Alice and Martin Provensen as reference. Duncan Marjoribanks utilized geometric shapes to create Ratcliffe. In early drafts of the character, he had a body similar to a pear, but to make him appear more arrogant, the animator increased the force of gravity on his chest so that he seemed more pompous and physically threatening.
Chris Buck served as the supervising animator for Percy, Wiggins, and Grandmother Willow. For Grandmother Willow, the face was traditionally animated by Buck, while the cowl and the trunk of the tree were digitally animated under the supervision of Steve Goldberg. Assisted by the effect animators, a 3D software program was employed for the bark to be individually manipulated and for the face to match with the computer-generated texture. The following supervising animators also included
Anthony DeRosa for Nakoma, Michael Cedeno for Kocoum, Ken Duncan for Thomas, T. Daniel Hofstedt for the settlers Lon and Ben, and
Dave Pruiksma for Flit. Glen Keane used charcoal to animate a scene in the Colors of the Wind sequence, with colors added later. While
Mulan (1998) was within its pre-production stages, 18 minutes were animated by 170 animators and artists at the
Disney-MGM Studios. Initially, Gabriel asked Michael Giaimo to create conceptual paintings for the film as they both shared in a style of shape-based and secondary art details. Giaimo, himself a former assistant animator and then a
CalArts teacher, accepted, working several months on a freelance basis. After Goldberg became the film's co-director, the two directors asked Giaimo to officially join the staff, in which he was promoted to being the film's art director. For Giaimo, he relied on color-saturated, elegant designs in a less-than-realistic format inspired by "prehistory Caribbean themes and creatures derived from Mexican and
African folk art." Giaimo also sought out inspiration for the visual design from the works produced by earlier Disney art designers such as
Richard Kelsey (who had done story sketches for his unproduced film
Hiawatha),
Eyvind Earle, who worked on
Sleeping Beauty (1959), and
Mary Blair.
Music Howard Ashman and
Alan Menken were planning to write songs for
Pocahontas once they were finished working on
Aladdin, but Ashman died in 1991. Following the death of his longtime collaborator, Menken wrote the remaining songs for
Aladdin with
Tim Rice at his home in London, which the New York-based composer found to be difficult. When
Aladdin was finished, Menken was expected to write songs for
Pocahontas with Rice. Kevin Bannerman, the studio's director of development, stated Rice "was always gallivanting around the world and it was difficult to get him and Alan together ... And so here was Stephen [Schwartz], who had written scores that we all loved and we were huge fans of, and he lived in the New York area." Disney immediately contacted
Stephen Schwartz, who, after working on
Working,
Rags, and
Children of Eden, had quit theater and was taking psychology courses at
New York University; he was hired to write the lyrics. This would mark the first time Menken had collaborated without Ashman for a Disney animated film. Menken commented that their work included moments of tension because Schwartz was also capable of writing music and Menken had experience with lyrics. Due to corporate interest in the film surrounding its theme of promoting understanding between different groups, and its inclusion of violence and threats of greater conflict, Schwartz became heavily involved in the storytelling. Bannerman estimated that he spent a week with one of the screenwriters and helped work out the overall themes of tolerance and cooperation. In June 1992, Schwartz researched Jamestown, Virginia where he absorbed the atmosphere and bought tapes of
Native American music and English
sea shanties, as well as other music from the early 17th century that helped inspire numbers in the film. Schwartz modeled his lyrical writing for people of other ethnicities on that of
Oscar Hammerstein II and
Sheldon Harnick. "
Colors of the Wind" was the first song to be written for the film. Gabriel, Goldberg, and Pentecost stated the song had defined the film's "heart and soul". Then, Menken wrote the melody with Schwartz listening at the piano and making suggestions. Schwartz would add lyrics before a session together where they were refined. "
Just Around the Riverbend", also composed by Menken and Schwartz, was devised by Schwartz's wife Carole, with the idea that Pocahontas would have a recurring dream that suggested something coming her way, paving the way for her
"I Want" song. The song almost did not make it into the completed film when Disney executives doubted whether her song would have the kind of impact they wanted at that point. Schwartz however stated he and Menken "believed in it very strongly. Indeed, at one point we wrote a different song for that spot, but Alan and I were never as happy with the second song and ultimately everybody at Disney came to feel that way, too." The filmmakers had planned for a song for when Pocahontas and Smith met in the glade, just before Kocoum attacks Smith. There were an estimated three to four songs at this point, including "Different Drummer", "In the Middle of the River", "First to Dance", which was deemed too silly as it took place before Kocoum's death, and "Powerful Magic", which was another attempt at a cheerful song. A love song, titled "
If I Never Knew You", had been finished by the animators, but following a
test screening where child and teen audiences were not interested in the song as it played, Menken suggested that the song be removed. It was, although its melody remained in the orchestral underscoring. The soundtrack was successful, reaching number-one on the
Billboard 200 charts during the week of July 22, 1995. It received a triple platinum certification. ==Release==