Raya and the Last Dragon Behind the Scenes Featurette Released

Disney’s latest animated feature Raya and the Last Dragon arrives on Friday, March 5th, and ahead of the film’s debut on Disney+’s Premier Access and in theaters where available, the studio has released a behind-the-scenes featurette with star Kelly Marie Tran taking viewers on a tour of her home recording booth. The short video reveals some of the challenges of recording the role of Raya from home as well as Tran’s excitement at being Disney’s first Southeast Asian princess.

“Recording from home has been really fun, but there’s been some hard things especially with internet that’s always freezing,” Tran says in the video. “It can be really frustrating when you’re in the middle of a really good take.”

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Raya and the Last Dragon was produced from over 450 individual homes, including those of the voice talent who, like Tran, recorded their roles from makeshift home recording booths. However, while bringing the film to life remotely had its challenges, producer Osnat Shurer previously told ComicBook.com that there were surprising positives to making the film from home.

“I felt, for me, it’s like a bit of a social study that I’ve been thinking a lot about because the entire production was done from over 450 homes and you know, we talked about the technological issues and breakthroughs we had to have and things like that,” Shurer said. “And I think there were some really interesting things that we discovered, for example, there’s only so long you can effectively and intelligently sit in front of this thing and function usefully. So, we have to break up our days differently. We finished the day by 6:30, for example, the directors and I on a movie in the last year of production, don’t go over 6:30 and eat with the family, but we did it because we knew that’s what we needed to do in this format. And a decent lunch break and a break in each section of the day. That’s something we all are kind of in love with. Hey, it turns out you can create a better work-life balance even if you’re directing or producing a major animated film and it’s something we want to carry forward.”

You can check out the official synopsis for Raya and the Last Dragon below.

“Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Raya and the Last Dragon takes us on an exciting, epic journey to the fantasy world of Kumandra, where Raya, a lone warrior, must track down the legendary last dragon to stop an evil force that has returned after 500 years to once again threaten her homeworld. The film features an outstanding voice cast, including Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Izaac Wang, Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong, Jona Xiao, Sandra Oh, Thalia Tran, Lucille Soong, Alan Tudyk, Gordon Ip, Dichen Lachman, Patti Harrison, Jon “Dumbfoundead” Park, Sung Kang, Sierra Katow, Ross Butler, François Chau, and Paul Yen. Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada are directing, with Paul Briggs and John Ripa co-directing. Osnat Shurer and Peter Del Vecho are the producers, and Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim wrote the screenplay. “

Raya and the Last Dragon arrives in theaters and Disney+ on March 5th.