Movies & TV Facts for Kids
Behind-the-scenes facts from film and TV
Elsa's braid in 'Frozen' (2013) has 420,000 individual strands of hair that all move independently. The animators had to write new software just to simulate how her hair would move during 'Let It Go.'
The chocolate river in the original 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' (1971) was made from 150,000 gallons of water mixed with chocolate and cream. Unfortunately, it started to smell awful after a few days under the studio lights.
The rubber Batman suit in Tim Burton's 1989 'Batman' film was so stiff that Michael Keaton could not turn his neck at all while wearing it. This is why Batman turns his entire body to look sideways in the movie.
The famous zero-gravity hallway fight scene in 'Inception' (2010) was filmed on a real rotating set, not with CGI. The set weighed 100 tons and took six weeks to build.
'Mary Poppins' (1964) was one of the first films to combine live-action actors with animated characters. The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Visual Effects.
'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (1937) was Disney's first full-length animated feature and the first animated film ever to win an honorary Academy Award. Walt Disney received one full-size Oscar and seven miniature ones — one for each dwarf.
Johnny Depp based his portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow partly on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, saying pirates of that era were like rock stars. He also studied the movement of cats to get the swaggering walk just right.
All three 'Lord of the Rings' films were shot back-to-back over 438 days in New Zealand, the longest continuous film shoot at the time. The cast and crew spent so long together that many became lifelong friends.
The makers of 'Finding Nemo' (2003) were so committed to accuracy that animators took scuba diving lessons to study how fish really move underwater. The film is so popular that it caused a worldwide shortage of clownfish in pet stores after it was released.
The sound of E.T.'s heartbeat in the 1982 film was created by sound designer Ben Burtt by recording a horse's heart and then slowing it down. It became one of the most recognizable sounds in movie history.