FILM 1728: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

TRIVIA: The first Dreamworks Animation film to win a Golden Globe award for Best Animated Film.

When Astrid says to Eret, "Don't you know anything." That is a reference to when Ygritte says to Jon Snow, "You know nothing, Jon Snow." Kit Harrington plays both Eret and Jon Snow from Game of Thrones.

The drawings on the wall in the Dragon stables in Berk were actual drawings done by the children of the crew who worked on the film.

Was the frontrunner for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Big Hero 6 (2014).

1. ILLUSTRATIONS BY TAYA STRIZHAKOVA

http://theinspirationgrid.com/digital-illustrations-by-taya-strizhakova/

2. ARYA STARK QUOTE RETRO POSTER - GAME OF THRONES SERIES

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3. KIT HARINGTON - GQ MAGAZINE - ILLUSTRATION - DIGITAL DOWNLOAD- INSTANT DOWNLOAD

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4. MOTHER OF DRAGONS T-SHIRT

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5. TYRION LANNISTER, GAME OF THRONES, ILLUSTRATED PHONE CASE

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FILM 1416: THE RELUCTANT DRAGON

TRIVIA: The Mickey Avenue/Dopey Drive signpost was built specifically for the movie, and was supposed to be removed afterward. It wasn't, and it still stands at the Disney studio.

Features How to Ride a Horse (1950), the first of the Goofy "How-to" cartoons. When narrator John McLeish was brought in to record the narration, he was asked to read it in a very straightforward manner, as if for a serious documentary about horse riding. He was shocked when he was told that the narration he recorded would be used in a Goofy cartoon.

In the sound effects department the workers are creating sound effects for a piece of film with the train Casey Junior. Casey would pop up in Disney's next film, Dumbo (1941). Likewise in the art department, the animators are making sketches for "Dumbo". Bambi also makes a minor appearance in this film, a year before Bambi (1942) was released.

Portions of this film had to be redone because of objections by the Hays Office. The dragon was originally drawn with a navel which had to removed before the film could be passed.

Most of the 'animators' shown in the film were actually actors hired to portray animators. And this film, showing the Disney animation studios as a happy, coherent family, was released at the worst possible moment, when half of the actual animators went out on strike. The strikers frequently picketed theaters showing the film, sometimes holding up a large cardboard sign depicting Walt Disney as a dragon, labeled 'The Reluctant Disney.'

In the "Baby Weems" sequence, Mount Rushmore is seen with only George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The faces were still under construction until October 1941 and this movie was released before it was finished, which is why Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson are missing.

Film 958: How To Train Your Dragon

Trivia: David Tennant, who narrated the 'How To Train Your...' Audio Books, also narrates some features on the film's website and voices a cameo role, though his character is not identified within the film.

When Hiccup reads the Dragon Manual, the writings in it are actually in plain English cryptographed into runes. With a small effort, you can read what Hiccup is saying, e.g. "Speed Unknown".

The appearance and personality of Toothless was inspired by cats, dogs, and horses. The face also bears some resemblance to the giant salamander, largest amphibian in the world.

In the book of 'How to Train Your Dragon', Hiccup doesn't have a love interest. Furthermore, Toothless the dragon in the book is about the size of the Terrible Terror breed, and he is also green and red, not black. Toothless also got his name because when Hiccup first found him he had no teeth. He grew one tooth, only to lose it shortly later. The producers decided, with the approval of author Cressida Cowell, that it would be more cinematic to make Toothless large enough to be ridden as a flying mount. As such, Toothless was completely redesigned as a rare Night Fury, a highly intelligent breed of dragon evolved for speed and stealth. His personal name in the film derives from Hiccup's observation about how his teeth are normally retracted into his jaws so they don't interfere with his fire breathing, which is typically projected as an explosive pulse.

The sounds of Toothless (the Night Fury) are a combination of various sounds, including the voice of Supervising Sound Designer Randy Thom, elephant seals, elephants, horses, tigers, and even domestic cats. The elephant seal sounds used were recordings of elephant seal pups at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, CA, a marine mammal hospital that rescues, rehabilitates and releases sick and injured seals, sea lions, whales, and dolphins.

The sounds the Terrible Terrors make, including growling, are actually based upon a purebred Chihuahua named Paco from Cottage Grove, Oregon. Nia Hansen, a sound designer at Skywalker Sound, contacted his owners after seeing a video of Paco on YouTube, and Paco was paid $100 for his voice work.

The hammer used by Stoick bears a strong resemblance to the Marvel comics version of the hammer Mjolnir wielded by Marvel's Thor. The traditional mythological hammer of Thor looks much different.

Film 928: Sleeping Beauty

Trivia: Art direction for this movie was inspired by European medieval painting and architecture.

HIDDEN MICKEY: When the fairies discuss how to help the king and queen, Merryweather makes cookies in the shape of Mickey Mouse.

For the first time on a Disney animated feature, one man, Eyvind Earle, was in charge of the color styling, background design, and the overall look of the film, even painting the great majority of the production backgrounds for this film. Earle's modernistic approach to design and painting resulted provided this film a bold, unique art style, even though his colleagues did not care for his production methods and art style while the film was in production. The elaborate background paintings usually took seven to ten days to paint. By contrast, a typical animation background takes one workday to complete.

Much of the musical score is based on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "Sleeping Beauty". The musical score throughout the film was recorded by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. The ominous piece of music to which Maleficent hypnotizes Aurora into pricking her finger is called "Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat." In Tchaikovsky's ballet, it is used for a comic number in which two cats snarl at and try to scratch each other. Various movements from The Sleeping Beauty ballet underwent some reworking for the Disney film. The opening song (Hail to the Princess Aurora) is actually the ballet's second movement, after the overture. Also, the theme playing when the three fairies clean the cottage is based on "The Silver Fairy" movement, which, in its original form, is barely a minute long.

The third Disney film to undergo a painstaking computer restoration, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1987 and 1993, and Pinocchio in 1992.

Second only to Dumbo (who didn't speak at all), this Disney title character has only about 18 lines of actual dialogue throughout the entire film in which she only appears in the film for 18 minutes and which is actually about the three fairies who protect her, not about the Sleeping Beauty herself. Rose/Aurora is only featured in the film in very few scenes and hardly says anything. Her first line is spoken 19 minutes into the film, and her last is delivered after she learns of her betrothal 39 minutes into the film. However, she does sing two songs during this time frame.

Princess Aurora's long, thin, willowy body shape was inspired by that of Audrey Hepburn.

In the traditional Italian version of this fairy tale, the Sleeping Beauty is named Princess Aurora. In the German version, she is named Briar Rose. The film incorporates both names by having Princess Aurora use the name Briar Rose while undercover.

The prince is named after Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

The restoration process involved four painstaking steps. The first step was to scan the original negative into a computer and subject the entire print to a deflickering procedure, evening out all the worn images and creating a cohesive canvas upon which the restoration artists could work. This was then followed by roto-scoping to extract the principal characters, dust-busting to remove all traces of dust and scuffing, and then re-inserting the characters into their cleaned-up backgrounds. Then all 180,000 frames would be completely repainted by up to 40 people in a process that clocked up nearly 48,000 hours. Once complete, the final product is then scanned onto a new negative.

Animator Eric Cleworth based the dragon's head movements on those of a rattlesnake about to strike.