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From now by June 15, Backpacker is celebrating all the things bear as a part of Bear Month 2025.
Animation is, generally, one of the simplest ways to be taught life’s hardest classes. Everybody remembers the primary time they noticed Simba attempting to nudge Mufasa awake after the stampede in The Lion King. Or the significance of feeling, actually feeling, your feelings as proven in Inside Out. Now, the brand new animated quick, Snow Bear, makes use of a polar bear within the melting Arctic to visualise each loneliness and ecological fragility in a method I’ve by no means skilled in movie.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Aaron Blaise wrote, animated, and directed Snow Bear, which is presently premiering and profitable awards all world wide. His résumé’s spectacular, with years of labor for Disney touchdown him animation credit on Magnificence and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and rather more. His newest solo enterprise, Snow Bear, earned endorsements from Polar Bears Worldwide and the Nationwide Parks Conservation Affiliation.
We sat down with Blaise days earlier than Snow Bear premieres at Tribeca Movie Pageant. Right here’s a snippet of our dialog. Responses have been edited for readability.
Backpacker: Inform me about your background within the open air.
AB: I grew up most of my life in South Florida, within the Everglades. I’ve at all times, at all times, at all times cherished nature. I’ve at all times been drawn to nature, no pun meant, and animals particularly. We lived on this single-wide trailer out within the swamp, and my dream was to see the world. I saved all of those Nationwide Geographic magazines beneath my mattress, and I might learn them at night time.
I might additionally exit and observe animals throughout the day. I used to be a creepy child. I used to be fascinated by biology, how animals labored, and their anatomy. I used to be a giant fan of John James Audubon, whilst somewhat child, so I by no means had the guts to kill something. But when I discovered one thing lifeless on the facet of the highway and it wasn’t too smushed, I wasn’t above taking it dwelling, drawing it, and learning the anatomy. Then I’d conceal the physique off within the bushes and let nature do its factor. [Later on,] I’d get the bones and research [them]. I may have both been a serial killer or an artist, so I turned an artist.
Backpacker: Quite a lot of the characters you animate are animals— younger Nala in The Lion King, this polar bear, and many others.—it’s arduous to think about what your profession would have been like with out that affect out of your upbringing.
AB: For a very long time [animation and drawing] was only a solution to earn cash so I may exit and discover. Very early on in my profession, I had the intention of changing into a nature artist. Disney was my stepping stone to earn cash, to go to Africa, which I did, and to get to Alaska, which I did a number of occasions over. It was one thing that was offering me with these adventures. It was throughout that point that I actually fell in love with animated filmmaking as nicely. I nonetheless have my love of attending to Africa. However I’ve additionally actually fallen in love with storytelling and creating these family-friendly movies.
Backpacker: You’ve talked about elsewhere that Baffin Island impressed the surroundings in Snow Bear. Have you ever gotten an opportunity to go to?
AB: It’s on my checklist. I need to go so dangerous. I’m such an advocate of getting out, researching, and doing all the correct issues earlier than you make your movie. On this case, I wasn’t in a position to get out and see polar bears within the wild. I’m doing it backward: In November, I’m going as much as Churchill, Manitoba, with Polar Bears Worldwide, and we’re going to chase polar bears within the wild.
Backpacker: Snow Bear additionally has a extra pressing name towards the melting Arctic. Are you going to proceed this sort of activism in your future work?
AB: I’m getting up in age. I’ve bought much less time forward of me than I do behind me, and I need issues to matter. I need to ensure I’m doing issues that I need to depart behind. I’ve had some huge life occasions: I used to be married for 20 years, and 18 years in the past, I misplaced my spouse, Karen, to breast most cancers. It threw me for a loop. I used to be heartbroken for a very long time, and I misplaced my mojo for animation, for Disney, all the things. I wanted to search out myself once more, and I needed to do one thing that may make her proud.
Backpacker: You may make ties between the lonely polar bears and the way you have been feeling emotionally. I’m curious if the method of writing, animating, directing all the things in Snow Bear helped you course of your personal grief.
AB: Completely. Now, granted, it’s been 18 years, so I’ve had a whole lot of time to scar over; that’s the best way I at all times put it, as a result of it by no means goes away. It’s so therapeutic to have the ability to put that into a movie, right into a story. There have been occasions I’d be crying as I’m animating. It’s extraordinarily therapeutic to have the ability to do this.
Backpacker: What impressed you to make use of polar bears for this message?
AB: I at all times needed to create my very own movie. The thought of this lonely polar bear residing within the Arctic, in search of a buddy, popped into my head. I’m very a lot an advocate for taking tales and bringing your self to it. The extra I thought of it, I began feeling a whole lot of parallels to my very own story about what my spouse and I went by as she was passing away. The ache and the loneliness—the melting snow bear [in the film] turned a metaphor for it.
That’s how this entire story developed. Initially, I by no means had an environmental intention behind it. It was actually simply me attempting to get throughout these feelings that I had.
It wasn’t till we began exhibiting Snow Bear to different folks that they mentioned, “I actually dig that environmental slant you’ve on it.” And I went, “Oh, wow. I suppose that’s there.”
As soon as I noticed that, I actually embraced it. I added melting permafrost within the background. Then we reached out to Polar Bears Worldwide. We confirmed the movie to them, and so they bought actually enthusiastic about it. That’s how our partnership got here collectively, to see if we may do some conservation in that method.
Backpacker: Do you are feeling like a particular kinship with polar bears?
AB: Now, completely. Much more so than after I completed the movie.
Backpacker: What do you suppose you and polar bears have in widespread?
AB: The factor that basically grabbed me was the isolation. There’s this character out on the planet alone, doing its factor. After shedding Karen, instantly after she was gone, [I felt] that excessive isolation. Polar bears clearly dwell that method day by day, however after they come collectively or discover a mate, it’s virtually like a celebration. In the best way they play, they grow to be like cubs once more. There’s one thing there that I discover a kinship to.
Backpacker: Is there the rest the movie’s viewers ought to know?
AB: I hope individuals get the environmental message that I’m attempting to get throughout. I don’t suppose we’re telling something to anyone that they don’t already know. Now we have a world that’s heating up. Now we have a world that wants assist. If it helps remind individuals, and it spurs them to suppose, I can’t ask for rather more than that. In the event that they act on it, that’s fantastic.
But in addition, I feel animated movies are checked out as simply child fodder. When all my colleagues and I make animated movies, whether or not it’s The Lion King or Magnificence and the Beast or Snow Bear, we’re making these movies for ourselves and to inform tales to all people. That is rather more than only a story a couple of melting snow bear. It’s bought much more depth to it. If another person goes by those self same issues [like loss or loneliness], I hope it helps them as nicely.
