8 years after his first ‘Sofia’ series ended, Craig Gerber returns with a sequel that expands the young princess’ visual world, including more cinematic lighting and layered magical effects, while holding onto the warmth, humor and music that defined the original.
Sofia the First, the Annie and Daytime Emmy Award-winning series developed and executive produced by Craig Gerber, first premiered in 2012 with the animated television movie Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess, followed by the series premiere in January 2013. The 3DCG show from Disney Television Animation holds the record for the Top 3 cable TV telecasts for Girls ages 2-5 of all time and remains a global preschool franchise for The Walt Disney Company.
So, when Disney decided to bring Gerber and the royally groundbreaking princess series back with a new series, Sofia the First: Royal Magic, eight years after the original show’s final episode aired, the creator and executive producer knew that, amid all the updates, some winning components would need to remain the same.
“The core elements of Sofia the First were the spirit of Sofia herself and how she approached her adventures and her friends and the challenges that she overcame,” notes Gerber, creator behind Sofia The First: Royal Magic. “The show told stories with a lot of heart and a certain amount of humor. So, we wanted to make sure that we were true to Sofia, to the tone of the original, and had important life lessons that kids and their parents could appreciate together. And, of course, really good tunes you can't get out of your head. It wouldn't be Sofia without that.”
Sofia the First: Royal Magic premieres today, May 25 on Disney Jr. with the first eight episodes streaming on Disney+ tomorrow. The sequel series follows Sofia as she attends The Charmswell School for Royal Magic. There, she discovers she is the most magical princess in the realm and must learn to master her powers while making new royal friends.
Check out the trailer:
Joining the voice cast alongside Ariel Winter, who returns as Princess Sofia, are Nate Torrence as Pepper, Sofia’s pet puppy-unicorn; Mela Pietropaolo, Kai Harris and Aaliyah Magcasi as Layla, Zane and Camila, respectively, Sofia’s new school friends. Darcy Rose Byrnes and Jess Harnell also return as Princess Amber and Cedric. They join previously announced returning cast members Wayne Brady as Clover, Tim Gunn as Baileywick, Eric Stonestreet as Minimus, Sara Ramirez as Queen Miranda and Travis Willingham as King Roland.
Gerber serves as executive producer, with Krystal Banzon as co-executive producer and story editor, Kris Wimberly as supervising director, Craig Simpson as producer, and Francis Giglio as art director. The series is produced by Disney Television Animation.
“I was honored to come and play along with Craig,” says Wimberly. “I wanted to make sure I did my best to support his vision for the storytelling and preserve what I think was one of the best things about the original show: creating an animated place viewers would love to step into.”
One of the first conversations Wimberly recalls having with Gerber during development was about dappled lighting. That was, in Wimberly’s words, “a key phrase” when talking about the visuals of the show.
“The original Sofia had this wonderful storybook, 2-and-a-half-D look,” says Gerber. “At least, that’s what we called it. CG lighting for television wasn't quite as advanced as where the features were. So, to compensate for that, we toon shaded it and flattened everything out, and a lot of the backgrounds looked like watercolor paintings.”
He continues, “CG animation has come a long way. For this show, you can have more cinematic lighting. But one of the things that a lot of shows are saddled with are very basic lighting setups… like, the sun is out and it's bright. But I wanted to push the show further in everything–the music, the storytelling, and the lighting. I wanted to show the light coming through the trees rather than just it being a bright and sunny day no matter where the characters are standing. The dappled lighting was emblematic of an artistic ambition to create an immersive world, like the Disney princess movies have.”
And Wimberly was happy to sign onto an artistically ambitious TV project, even knowing the additional work it would involve.
“We wanted to capture that feeling of opening up a storybook and wishing you could step inside,” says Wimberly. “That feeling of wishing you could prop up a hammock under that tree while a bunny hops up to you and starts talking with a snide Brooklyn accent. It was my mission to take the baton and run with Craig’s vision while our art director, Francis Giglio, came up with the way to articulate this to the animation partner team, ICON. And from there, there's all of the extra special components, like the magical animals and the magic itself.”
Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of magic in this show, from levitating teacups and conjuring sparkling butterflies to shield charms and rainbow fireworks.
“The effect that we applied to the appearing and disappearing of people is so mystical and cool, and its layers and layers of very specific effect asks that we worked on with ICON,” notes Wimberly. “And so, when somebody comes on screen, it's not just the old '60s Star Trek effect where you see an outline of somebody and they fade up. This has an ambient flurry of magic. That was one of my favorite things to work on.”
Gerber’s personal favorite is the semi-transparent sparkling illusion magic featured in the show.
“I'm thinking specifically of the dragon illusion that we see in the second episode, which has some mystical smoke effects in there,” says Gerber. “Like Kris said, there are a lot of layers to it, and it's a credit to ICON and Francis, who really developed the look of the show from the backgrounds to the characters to the effects and made it all feel part of one universe.”
The most challenging part of the sequel series, however, was building new locations and environments.
“There's a holiday episode where we had to cover the entire school in snow, which I thought would be nearly impossible, but somehow we did it,” Gerber explains. “The reason I thought it would be impossible is because the new school Sofia goes to is literally the largest set I think we’ve built in any of my shows. In Elena of Avalor, there was a big city and a castle. But there were six different sets that would be photographed together in a wide shot. The school is one giant set, which includes the main building, the dance studio, the creature corral, and these cute little mini castles that are like clubhouses for the princes and princesses.”
It was like building a whole Hogwarts within the world of Sofia.
“There’s a playground, a courtyard, a lake,” adds Gerber. “It’s a big world we’ve built. But also, a rich one.”
The sets may be bigger, but the episodes are shorter than the original series, and creating equally heartfelt storylines in much less time was another big challenge in production.
“The original episodes were 22 minutes and we do have a few 22-minute episodes, like our pilot and some special episodes that involve princess appearances,” shares Gerber. “But most of them are 11 minutes, which means many of these stories had to be told much quicker than we’re used to. Creating a story that has the heart and humor and conveys the message in an easily understandable way in half the time while still feeling like you earned the ending is not easy.”
Luckily, there was no shortage of parents on the crew who could put their heads together to shape stories of empathy and resilience that could be told effectively, even in a nutshell.
“A lot of the themes were inspired by the experiences of the children of the writers that were on the show,” says Gerber. “The sleepover episode in the original Sofia, which seems to be a very popular one as I talk to kids who grew up with the show, was directly inspired by the experience of the child of the writer on that episode. And the situation is the same now. We have writers whose kids are having trouble focusing, learning to be responsible for themselves and others, and things like that. As writers, we’re always looking around us to find stories that speak to the current moment.”
Wimberly adds, “I have two kids myself. One is seven and one is five. And they've watched every piece of this show get assembled. They are just enamored with the show, and they recognize pieces of what they learn from me as a parent and from my wife. We have our little inside jokes and pet peeves about things that we will add in the show. One of those things is the catchphrase ‘I've got this.’”
There is a bit more comedy written into the show’s narrative as well, which has helped convey important messages in a short time frame.
“Someone in a Disney movie once said, ‘A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,’” says Gerber. “It’s one of just a few of the ways that we are trying to create a new experience for a new generation that brings the magic of the original series to life in a fresh and exhilarating way.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
