Gravity Falls: The Longest Summer

Gravity Falls: The Longest Summer is an American animated adventure science-fantasy comedy-drama film produced by Disney Television Animation and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Based on the Disney animated television series Gravity Falls, the film is directed by Joe Pitt and Aaron Springer and features the voices of the regular television cast of Jason Ritter, Kristen Schaal, series creator Alex Hirsch, Linda Cardellini, J.K. Simmons, Niki Yang, Carl Faruolo, Jackie Buscarino, T.J. Miller, Jessica DiCicco, Michael Rianda, Scott Menville, Thurop Van Orman, Kevin Michael Richardson, Keith Ferguson, Nathan Fillion, Kari Wahlgren, Stephen Root, Nick Offerman, Brad Abrell, Jennifer Coolidge, Gregg Turkington, Dave Wittenberg, Justin Roiland, John DiMaggio, Will Forte and Brian Bloom with the addition of Jennifer Love Hewitt, Patrick Dempsey, Keith David, Angela Lansbury, Idina Menzel, Jodi Benson, Paige O'Hara, Irene Berdard, Julie Andrews, Hayden Panettiere, Mandy Moore, Haley Joel Osment, Max Casella, Samuel E. Wright, D.B. Sweeney, Jason Alexander, etc.

The film began development originally as a made-for-television feature film, but after story reels and presentation succeeded, Disney decided for a mainstream theatrical release, giving the studio a compressed nine-month schedule.

Gravity Falls: The Longest Summer premiered at El Captain Theatre in Hollywood. It was well-received critically, with praise given to the story, humor, animation and voice acting, and earned more than $400 million worldwide at the box office. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Cast

 * Jason Ritter as Dipper, Tyrone, Numbers 3 and 4 and Paper Jam Dipper
 * Kristen Schaal as Mabel
 * Alex Hirsch as Stan, Soos, Old McGucket, Bill Cipher, gnomes, Quentin Trembley III Esquire
 * Noah Schnapp as Young Stan
 * Linda Cardellini as Wendy
 * J.K. Simmons as Ford
 * Raymond Ochoa as Young Ford
 * Jason Marsden as Teenage and Young Adult Ford
 * Niki Yang as Candy
 * Carl Faruolo as Grenda
 * T.J. Miller as Robbie
 * Jackie Buscarino as Pacifica
 * Jessica DiCicco as Tambry
 * Michael Rianda as Thompson and Lee
 * Scott Menville as Nate
 * Thurop Van Orman as Lil' Gideon
 * Kevin Michael Richardson as Sheriff Blubs
 * Keith Ferguson as Deputy Durland
 * Nathan Fillion as Preston
 * Kari Wahlgren as Shandra Jimenez and Priscilla
 * Stephen Root as Bud Gleeful
 * Nick Offerman as Agent Powers
 * Brad Abrell as Agent Trigger
 * Jennifer Coolidge as Lazy Susan
 * Gregg Turkington as Toby Determined
 * Dave Wittenberg as Time Baby
 * Justin Roiland as Blendin Blandin
 * John DiMaggio as Manly Dan
 * Will Forte as Tyler
 * Brian Bloom as Rumble McSkirmish
 * Conrad Vernon as Tate McGucket

Production
Impressed by the success of Gravity Falls, creator Alex Hirsch developed ideas for a feature film spin-off. One of the earlier ideas was to make a crossover with Disney's 1995 animated film Pocahontas where characters from Gravity Falls were included in his story which was seen through their point of view. It was abandoned fearing the same backlash the original film had met.

After story reels and presentation performed very well, Walt Disney Pictures decided to release the film with a theatrical release, instead of made-for-tv. This took one less year for production (most animated features take well over two years from finished story to final release). As a result, the animation crew had to revise the animation work for stereoscopic 3-D conversion. The studio cooperated well, giving the filmmakers a huge amount of creative control, and also increased the production budget to $70 million, giving the animators opportunities for more elaborated set pieces.

Animation
Despite being based on a Disney TV cartoon, the film was jointly produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, Disney Televsion Animation, Rough Draft Studios, Digital eMation and Yearim Productions Co. Ltd. Story development took place at both Disney Television Animation in Glendale and Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, with pre-production done at WDAS and production (including the animation layouts and character posing) done at DTVA. Walt Disney Animation Studios, Rough Draft Studios, Digital eMation and Yearim Productions Co. Ltd. worked together on animation with additional scenes animated by Rough Draft's sister studio in South Korea and clean-up work done at the main Burbank studio. Additional clean-up/animation was done by A.Film A/S, Hanho Heung-Up, HGN Produções, Hong Ying Animation, July Films, Neomis Animation, Plus One Animation, Sergio Pablos Animagic, Sunwoo Entertainment, Synergy Animation, Wang Film Productions and Yowza Animation. Digital ink and paint was done by Mercury Filmworks and Toon City Animation. Industrial Light & Magic assisted on the computer animation sequences and the stereoscopic 3D conversion.

Directors Joe Pitt and Aaron Springer and the animation team looked to films such as Inside Out and the Hayao Miyazaki films for inspiration to what they called "character staging". They also looked for ideas for a show-stopping musical sequence, in other Disney films such as Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and the Mickey Mouse cartoon Orphan's Benefit. They also watched several episodes from the series. John Aoshima, Rob Renzetti, Stephen Sandoval, Matt Braly, Zac Moncrief and Suni Hall each directed the animation for around a quarter of the film under Springer's supervision, with numerous animators working on other scenes.

Music
Hans Zimmer was hired to compose the score for the film. Zimmer felt that the score was the "plausible impossible" and had to "try and express the style of Gravity Falls without wearing the audience out". He used Brad Breeck's themes from the original series and also created themes for each character with Dipper's and Mabel's being the major focus. Zimmer also composed small themes for Soos, Wendy, Grunkle Stan, Grenda, Candy, Pacifica, Robbie and Gideon.