Visualizing a richly imaginative place such as Atlantis gave the filmmakers and artistic supervisors one of their most challenging and rewarding assignments. Under the direction of art director Dave Goetz (who had previously worked with Hahn, Trousdale and Wise on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") and with a production design team that included comic book / graphic artist Mike Mignola, a fresh and original look for the lost empire began to take shape.
Wise explains, "We basically started with what we knew we didn't want. We didn't want aquamen or fish people with gills swimming around and living in a big dome underwater. We knew Atlantis was meant to be the mother civilization and so we started looking at architecture from many ancient civilizations to conceptualize what it might look like. We took lots of different cultures — a little Chinese influence, some South American, a bit of Middle Eastern, etc — and created a visual synthesis. We wanted audiences to accept that Atlantis was the place which influenced all other cultures."
"Our effort in creating a look for Atlantis was to consciously steer away from the common conception of a city with Greek columns under the sea somewhere," adds Goetz. "Kirk and Gary were really clear about where they wanted to go with this. They were attracted to Mike Mignola's bold and graphic style. It involved lots of black shadows and silhouettes, shallow overlapping layers, as well as angular shapes for the characters. Artistically, we also liked the look of the World War I era posters and felt that their big black shadow patterns were compatible with Mignola's designs. We came up with the term 'posterization' to describe the dark silhouette and flat color area approach we wanted for the film. The combination of Mignola's style with what we do at Disney was sometimes referred to as 'Disnola."'
"Another major design element for this film was the industrial technological look of 1914," adds Goetz. "We wanted the vehicles and props to have that clunky, overbuilt feel of iron plates and rivets. Everything was meant to be a little bit awkward by today's standards. They're not aerodynamic or pretty to look at. We purposely stayed away from the Victorian look with its filigree, velvet and brass."
"The city of Atlantis itself ended up having a Southeast Asian or Indian influence to it. It is very moist and tropical and has a distressed paradise sense about it. There are a lot of stone ruins that are overgrown with plants and vines."
For Mike Mignola, who has been working as a comic book artist/writer for over 16 years, the collaborative experience proved to be eye opening. He recalls, "I usually spend all my time squirreled away in a room not talking to anybody. So to suddenly be thrust into a world where people are in meetings was like going back to high school. It was exciting and kind of fun. Visiting the Studio for the first time was a surreal experience. I was so flattered that these guys even knew who I was let alone would let me monkey with their film. I asked if I could work on the look of the city and the Atlanteans, because that was kind of untapped territory. They let me carve out a niche for myself.
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