‘Frozen 2’ Gives Anna and Elsa More Screen Time Together

Considering Anna (voice of Kristen Bell) and Elsa (voice of Idina Menzel) are the stars of Frozen, they don’t have many scenes together if you think about it. Their parents secluded Elsa and then Elsa Let It Go and secluded herself. The journey of Frozen was for the sisters to finally reunite for good. Frozen 2 begins there and gives them a lot more scenes together.

The filmmakers behind Frozen 2 gave reporters an early preview of the highly anticipated sequel in September. Here are some scenes you can look forward to with both Anna and Elsa that will make the sequel stand out. We’ll have more on Frozen 2 before the film opens November 22.

The ‘Frozen 2’ animators had to adjust to Anna and Elsa together 

A lot of the Frozen 2 animators had to adjust to moving both Anna and Elsa in the same scene. On the first Frozen, a lot of them only worked on the characters individually.

“One of the big things is that there’s a lot more scenes of Anna and Elsa together in this film compared to the first film,” Anna animation supervisor Hyun-Min Lee revealed. “They were very much separate and trying to get together and now they’re together and there’s a lot more interaction.”

‘Frozen 2’ will show off the subtle differences between Anna and Elsa

When Anna and Elsa are in the same scene together, the filmmakers can’t animate them exactly the same. They are distinct people and Lee demonstrated those subtle differences.

“This is a great example of seeing the differences between them,” Lee said. “They’re connecting as sisters but the subtleties of Elsa versus Anna, Anna is moving her whole body and using everything to try to connect and communicate with her sister.  When they’re doing even basic expressions, especially the angry ones, you can really see the differences of their personalities.”

Anna and Elsa play Charades together

In Frozen, Anna asked Elsa, “Do you want to build a snowman?” and Elsa said no. Now they get to play Charades together. 

“One of the animators, Chris Cordingley, made Anna just look like she’s giving it her all,” Lee said. “ She doesn’t care what she looks like.  She’s fully committed to having fun with her family in this game. We were hoping that like when the audience sees it, then they can just see more of that quirky, fun side her that adds to her warm loving personality.”

‘Frozen 2’ has scenes of all five characters

With Anna and Elsa reunited that means their surrogate family grows too. Olaf (voice of Josh Gad), Kristoff (voice of Jonathan Groff) and Sven are in many of the same scenes as Anna and Elsa too.

“There tended to be many more scenes in the film that had all of them in it,” animation head Becky Bresse said. “This was challenging as an added complexity as they all have to have motion but more importantly, emotion. Also, in the film, there are a lot of really long shots to animate. So, many of the longer shots were some of the more emotional moments as well.”