Brave

Brenda Chapman was the first woman to direct a Pixar feature, and in October 2010 she was removed after creative disagreements with John Lasseter, with Mark Andrews taking over. Chapman called the news devastating, and later said her vision still came through in the finished film. The project had been announced in April 2008 as "The Bear and the Bow". Merida’s hair is the visible technical investment. Animators hand placed 1,500 curves, which interpolated to roughly 111,000 at final render, and one frame took 20 to 30 seconds to simulate. When the weight of curly hair refused to behave, the team settled on a gravity coefficient closer to the Moon’s than the Earth’s so the curls would not drift as though submerged. The structure turns in the second half: about midway through its 93 minutes the film stops being a story about rebellion and becomes a two hander between a girl and a bear who cannot speak, leaving the dialogue load on one side. For the score, Patrick Doyle studied Gaelic psalm singing in the Hebrides. Who it is for: viewers drawn to mother and daughter stories and Highland landscape. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the clan warfare the trailers implied, since there is no battle and the climax is a single bear fight ended by a conversation.