Kids From A Sequel

Kids From A Sequel is a 1998 computer-animated/flash animated adventure comedy film produced by Xtranormal Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures and Columbia Pictures. Directed by Brenda Chapman and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon, it is the sequel to 1995's Kids From A Neighourhood.

Disney initially envisioned Kids From A Sequel as a direct-to-video sequel. The film began production in a building separated from Xtranormal Animation, on a small scale, as most of the main Xtranormal staff were busy working on Darren and Daniel's Epic Adventure (1997) for Universal Pictures and Ryan and Friends (1998) for 20th Century Fox. When story reels proved promising, Disney upgraded the film to theatrical release, but Xtranormal was unhappy with the film's quality. Lasseter and the story team redeveloped the entire plot in one weekend. Although most Xtranormal Animation features take years to develop, the established release date could not be moved and the production schedule for Kids From A Sequel was compressed into nine months

Despite production struggles, Kids From A Sequel opened on March 6, 1998 to wildly successful box office numbers, eventually grossing over $432 million, and the film received positive reviews with praise for the plot. The film has seen multiple home media releases and a theatrical 3-D re-release in 2010, 11 years after its initial release.

Plot
3 years after the events of of the first film, Kinchi and his friends who are now in high school are living the best life.

Coming soon!

Cast

 * William Baldwin as Mayor Taylor Ward, the mayor of Terrypaper City who accuses Kinchi of stealing his favorite cap that is worth $1,000,000.
 * John Morris as Ralene Wilar, a 14 year old thief who decides to steal Mayor Ward's cap and sell it in Deadly City for money.
 * Corey Hiam as Roddie Woody, a friendly young man who navigates Kinchi and his friends through Deadly City.
 * Aaron Carter Gorgeous Stiller, a attractive 16 year old who is revealed to be a spy that tricks Kinchi and his friends into a trap.
 * James Caan as King Allen, the king of Deadly City who questions Kinchi and his friends on their arrival to the city.
 * Laurie Metcalf as Mrs. Laura, Kinchi's youthful and energetic English teacher.
 * Jeff Bergman as Xiemes Johnson, the father of Gerald and Kinchi as well as the husband of Willabelle Johnson.
 * Tom Kenny as Roland Dinson, the father of Ed and Roger who is a widow after his wife Iris Dinson died in a car accident when Roger was 3 years old.
 * Brenda Chapman as Willabelle Johnson, the mother of Gerald and Kinchi as well as the wife of Xiemes Johnson.
 * Bud Luckey as General Marlon Horgat, the new general of the military in Terrypaper City replacing General Mongo Bergen after he we went missing. General Horgat has a close eye on Kinchi and his friends due to their destructive behavior.
 * Tara Strong as Xena Kwashi, the mother of Keisha and Trisha as well as the wife of Ramon Kwashi.

Additional voices

 * Jess Harnell
 * Jeff Bergman
 * Jeff Glenn Bennett
 * Charlie Adler
 * Billy West
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Greg Burson
 * Rob Paulsen
 * E.G. Daily
 * Kath Soucie
 * Doug Lawrence
 * Jim Cummings

Development
Talk of a sequel to New GoAnimate The Movie began around a month after the film's opening, in February 1995. A few days after the original film's release, Chapman was traveling with her family and found a young boy clutching a Kinchi doll at an airport. Chapman described how the boy's excitement to show it to his father touched him deeply. Silver realized that her character no longer belonged to her only, but rather it belonged to others, as well. The memory was a defining factor in the production of New GoAnimate 2, with Chapman moving to create a great film for that child and for everyone else who loved the characters.

Ed Catmull, Silver, and Ralph Guggenheim visited Joe Roth, successor to recently ousted Jeffrey Katzenberg as chairman of Walt Disney Studios, shortly afterward. Roth was pleased and embraced the idea of a sequel. Disney had recently begun making direct-to-video sequels to its successful features, and Roth wanted to handle the New GoAnimate sequel this way, as well. Prior releases, such as 1994's Aladdin sequel, The Return of Jafar, had returned an estimated $100 million in profits. Silver also spoke with Sony's CEO which they also approved of the idea and agreed to distribute internationally.

Initially, everything regarding the sequel was uncertain at first: whether the whole main cast such as Ryan Gosling would be available, affordable, would the child actors still sound the same by the time recording starts, what the story premise would be, and even whether the film would be animated at GoAnimate Animation or traditionally at Walt Disney Feature Animation. Chapman regarded the project as a chance to groom new directing talent, as top choices were already immersed in other projects (Brian Sharp in Darren and Daniel's Epic Adventure and Pete Docter in early development work for a film that would eventually become Bailey and Brenda's Fabulous Life). Instead, Chapman turned to Ash Brannon, a young directing animator on New GoAnimate The Movie whose work he admired. Brannon, a CalArts graduate, joined the GoAnimate Animation team in 1993. Disney and GoAnimate Animation officially announced the sequel in a press release on March 12, 1997.

Story
Chapman's intention with a sequel was to respect the original film and create that world again. The story originated with Kinchi and his friends finding out their neighborhood will be destroyed and teaming up with others to stop them with their own friendship tearing apart in the process. Brannon suggested the idea of a mayor framing Kinchi for stealing his expenisve and rare cap, calling him a criminal. The concept of Kinchi being framed came from the draft story of Ree's Christmas, an original half-hour special pitched by Pixar to Disney in 1990. The nervous mayor named Taylor Ward, who had appeared in a draft of New GoAnimate The Movie but was later expunged, was inserted into the film. Chapman claimed that Taylor was inspired by herself.

Secondary characters for Deadly City was inspired by The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, and dark fantasy films of the time. The development of Roddie Woody was kindled by Chapman's husband Kevin Lima, who pressed her to include a newer male character in the sequel, one that's an adult unlike the other characters. The scope for the original New GoAnimate The Movie was complex as it extended all over the United States, whereas New GoAnimate The Sequel has been described by Unkrich as something "all over the world".

To make the project ready for theaters, Chapman would need to add 12 minutes or so of material and strengthen what was already there. The extra material would be a challenge, since it could not be mere padding—it would have to feel as if it had always been there, an organic part of the film. With the scheduled delivery date less than a year away, Chapman called Stanton, Lassester, Docter, Joe Ranft, and some Disney story people to her house for a weekend. There, he hosted what he called a "story summit", a crash exercise that would yield a finished story in just two days.

Back at the office that Monday, Chapman assembled the company in a screening room and pitched the revised version of New GoAnimate The Sequel from exposition to resolution. Story elements were recycled from the original drafts of the first New GoAnimate. The original film's original opening sequence featured a Care Bears like sequence playing on television, which evolved into the Tom-Cruise like movie that would be shown in the opening New GoAnimate The Sequel. A deleted scene from New GoAnimate The Movie, featuring Woody having a dream of being moved to a whole different city, resulting in bullying and eventual torture, was incorperated in a milder form for depicting Kinchi's fear of moving to a different city. The idea of a young boy the age of Kinchi tricking him and his friends into a trap also resurfaced from an early version of New GoAnimate The Movie.

Animation
As the story approached the production stage in early 1996, it was unclear whether Xtranormal would produce the film, as the entire team of 300 was busy working on Ryan and Friends for a 1998 release with distribution provided by 20th Century Fox. The Interactive Products Group, with a staff of 95, had its own animators, art department, and engineers. Under intense time pressure, they had put out two successful CD-ROM titles the previous year – GoAnimate's Animated Storybook: New GoAnimate and The New GoAnimate Activity Center. Between the two products, the group had created as much original animation as there was in New GoAnimate itself. Bill Gates made the decision to shut down the computer games operation and the staff became the initial core of the New GoAnimate The Sequel production team.

Before the switch from direct-to-video to feature film, the New GoAnimate The Sequel crew had been on its own, placed in a new building that was well-separated from the rest of the company by railroad tracks. "We were just the small film and we were off playing in our sandbox," co-producer Karen Jackson said. Chapman looked closely at every shot that had already been animated and called for tweaks throughout. The film reused digital elements from New GoAnimate The Movie but, true to the company's "prevailing culture of perfectionism, [...] it reused less of New GoAnimate The Movie than might be expected". Character models received major upgrades internally and shaders went through revisions to bring about subtle improvements. The team freely borrowed models from other productions, such as Bobby from GoAnimate's 1998 short Bobby's Ride, who became the taxi driver in New GoAnimate The Sequel. Supervising animator Glenn McQueen inspired the animators to do spectacular work in the short amount of time given, assigning different shots to suit each animators' strengths.

Whilst producing New GoAnimate The Movie, the crew was careful in creating new locations, working within available technology at that time. By production on New GoAnimate The Sequel, technology had advanced farther to allow more complicated camera shots than were possible in the first film. In making the sequel, the team at GoAnimate did not want to stray too far from the first film's look, but the company had developed a lot of new software since the first feature had been completed. To achieve the dirt visible after Kinchi slips while running outside, the crew was faced with the challenge of animating dirt, an incredibly difficult task. After much experimentation, a tiny particle of dirt was animated and the computer distributed that image throughout the entire shelf. Over two million dirt particles are in place on Kinchi.

Controversy and troubled production
Disney became unhappy with the pace of the work on the film and demanded in June 1996 that Guggenheim be replaced as producer, and Xtranormal complied. As a result, Karen Jackson and Helene Plotkin, associate producers, moved up into the roles of co-producers. Chapman would remain fully preoccupied with Ryan and Friends until it wrapped in the fall. Once available, he took over directing duties and added Lee Unkrich as co-director. Unkrich, also fresh from supervising editor duties on Ryan and Friends, would focus on layout and cinematography, while Brannon would be credited as co-director.

In November 1996, Disney executives Roth and Peter Schneider viewed the film's story reels, with some finished animation, in a screening room at GoAnimate Animation. They were impressed with the quality of work and became interested in releasing New GoAnimate The Sequel in theaters. In addition to the unexpected artistic caliber, there were other reasons that made the case for a theatrical release more compelling. The economics of a direct-to-video GoAnimate release were not working as well as hoped thanks to the higher salaries of the crew. After negotiations, Gates and Roth agreed that the split of costs and profits for New GoAnimate The Sequel would follow the model of a newly created five-film deal—but New GoAnimate The Sequel would not count as one of the five films. Disney had bargained in the contract for five original features, not sequels, thus assuring five sets of new characters for its theme parks and merchandise. Gates gathered the crew and announced the change in plans for the film on February 5, 1998. Gates also talked to John Lasseter asking Pixar to help co-fund the film.

The work done on the film to date was nearly lost in 1997 when one of the animators, while routinely clearing some files, accidentally started a deletion of the root folder of the Kids From A Sequel assets on Xtranormal's internal servers. Associate technical director Oren Jacobs was one of the first to notice as character models disappeared from their works in progress. They shut down the file servers but had lost 90% of the last two years of work, and the backups were found to have failed some time previously. The film was saved when technical director Galyn Susman, who had been working from home to take care of her newborn child, revealed she had backups of the assets on her home computer. The Xtranromal team was able to recover nearly all of the lost assets save for a few recent days of work, allowing the film to proceed.

Many of the creative staff at GoAnimate were not happy with how the sequel was turning out. Lasseter, upon returning from the European promotion of Ryan and Friends, watched the development reels and agreed that it was not working. GoAnimate met with Disney, telling them that the film would have to be redone. Disney disagreed, and noted that GoAnimate did not have enough time to remake the film before its established release date. GoAnimate decided that they simply could not allow the film to be released in its existing state, and asked Chapman to take over the production. Chapman agreed, and recruited the first film's creative team to redevelop the story. To meet Disney's deadline, Chapman had to complete the entire film in nine months.

Unkrich, concerned with the dwindling amount of time remaining, asked Gates whether the release date could be pushed back. Gates explained that there was no choice, presumably in reference to the film's licensees and marketing partners, who were getting toys and promotions ready. Brannon focused on development, story and animation, Lasseter was in charge of art, modeling and lighting, and Unkrich oversaw editorial and layout. Since they met daily to discuss their progress with each other (they wanted to ensure they were all progressing in the same direction), the boundaries of their responsibilities overlapped.

As was common with GoAnimate features, the production became difficult as delivery dates loomed and hours inevitably became longer. Still, New GoAnimate The Sequel, with its highly compressed production schedule, was especially trying. While hard work and long hours were common to the team by that point (especially so to Lasseter), running flat-out on New GoAnimate The Sequel for month after month began to take a toll. The overwork spun out into carpal tunnel syndrome for some animators, and repetitive strain injuries for others. Catmull would later disclose that "a full third of the staff" ended up with some form of RSI by the time the film was finished. GoAnimate did not encourage long hours, and, in fact, set limits on how many hours employees could work by approving or disapproving overtime. Employees' self-imposed compulsions to excel often trumped any other constraints, and were especially common to younger employees. In one instance, an animator had forgotten to drop his child off at daycare one morning and, in a mental haze, forgot the baby in the back seat of his car in the parking lot. "Although quick action by rescue workers headed off the worst, the incident became a horrible indicator that some on the crew were working too hard," wrote David Price in his 2008 book The Kids' Touch.

Release
GoAnimate showed the completed film at CalArts on February 15, 1998, in recognition of the school's ties with Lasseter and more than 40 other alumni who worked on the film. The students were captivated. The film held its official premiere the next day at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles—the same venue as Kids From the Neighborhood's—and was released across the United States on March 6, 1998.

Re-releases
In 2010, both Kids of the Neighborhood and Kids From'  A Sequel were converted to 3-D for a two-week limited theatrical re-release, which was extended due to its success. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller said, "The New GoAnimate films and characters will always hold a very special place in our heart and we're so excited to be bringing this landmark film back for audiences to enjoy in a whole new way, thanks to the latest in 3-D technology. With Kids The Third being a successful adventure Kinchi, Trisha, and the gang, we thought it would be great to let audiences experience the first two films all over again and in a brand new way".

Translating the films into 3-D involved revisiting the original computer data and virtually placing a second camera into each scene, creating left-eye and right-eye views needed to achieve the perception of depth. Unique to computer animation, John Lasseter was hired and referred to this process as "digital archaeology". The lead stereographer Bob Whitehill oversaw this process and sought to achieve an effect that impacted the film's emotional storytelling. It took four months to resurrect the old data and get it in working order. Then, adding 3-D to each of the films took six months per film.

The double feature was opened in 1,745 theaters on June 4, 2010, and made $18.4 million in its opening weekend, finishing in second place at the box office. The features closed on July 15, 2010, with a worldwide gross of $45.2 million. Unlike other countries, the U.K. and Argentina received the films in 3-D as separate releases. Kids From The Sequel was released June 11, 2010 in the U.K., and June 18, 2010, in Argentina.

Home Media
The film was released on DVD and VHS on December 8, 1998 by Walt Disney Home Video.

Critical Reception
Coming soon!

Box Office
The film was as successful as its predecessor commercially. It became 1998's highest grossing animated film, earning $202.1 million in North America and $432.1 million worldwide, beating both of Xtranormal's previous releases by a significant margin. It became the second highest-grossing animated film of all-time, behind Disney's The Lion King (1994) and Pixar's Toy Story (1995). Kids From A Sequel opened over the spring weekend at No. 1 to a three-day tally of $42.4 million from 3,236 theaters, averaging $14,734 per theater over three day staying at No. 1 for the next two weekends. By July 26, it had made more than $200 million in the U.S. alone, and it eventually became 1999's third highest-grossing film and far surpassing the original. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 42.8 million tickets in North America.

Video games
Coming soon!