The previously untold origins of Olaf, the innocent and insightful, summer-loving snowman who melted hearts in the Academy Award®-winning 2013 Disney animated feature, Frozen, and its acclaimed 2019 sequel, are revealed in the all-new Walt Disney Animation Studios animated short, Once Upon a Snowman. The film follows Olaf's first steps as he comes to life and searches for his identity in the snowy mountains outside Arendelle. Once Upon a Snowman is directed by Trent Correy (animation supervisor, "Olaf" in Frozen 2) and Dan Abraham (veteran story artist who boarded Olaf's "When I Am Older" musical sequence in Frozen 2). Olaf is voiced by award-winning actor Josh Gad. 

Entertainment Affair recently heard from Correy and Abraham—as well as head of animation Becky Bresee and creative consultant Peter Del Vecho (producer of Frozen and Frozen 2)—at a virtual press conference celebrating the short’s upcoming release on Disney+. Check out a few highlights and watch the full video of the event below.

Correy and Abraham on how Once Upon a Snowman came to be:
“I started in the [Walt Disney Animation Studios] training program in 2012, and actually my very first film at Disney was the first Frozen, where I get to meet Becky and Peter and later met Dan,” Correy explains. “I started as a crowd animator, and my very first character to animate was Olaf—and I was very lucky to get to animate Olaf for the rest of the show. And I very clearly remember seeing Chad Sellers’ animated shot [of Olaf] during ‘Let It Go’ while I was a trainee. Elsa just makes Olaf and it’s beautiful—but then she just walks away. She creates life and she walks away—and I thought there’s gotta be a story there.”

“I had a ball working on Frozen 2,” Abraham adds. “Working with Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck and Peter Del Vecho—I guess they liked what I had done and thought, ‘Oh, this guy has a handle on who Olaf is.’ And so Jennifer asked if I would partner with Trent and direct this great idea that he’d had all those years ago. So the two of us just kinda went arm-in-arm from there.”

Del Vecho on creating Once Upon a Snowman immediately after finishing work on Frozen 2:
“I’m sure Trent and Becky and Dan can attest—when you make these movies, you get to know these characters really well and it becomes a ‘family’,” Del Vecho explains. “And as hard as the movies are to finish, it’s also hard to step away. So I think the fact that Trent and Dan had this story ready to go, we could build on that enthusiasm of having just finished Frozen 2 and bring all that skill and momentum that we had as you finish a movie—bring that right into the short. And I think it was a nice way to continue to celebrate the finish of Frozen 2.”

Bresee on what drew her to the world of Frozen, and what she loved about working on this short:
“Well, when I started on the first Frozen, I was really in it for the fairy tale of it,” says Bresee. “I’ve always loved fairy tales and Disney art… but after a while, it started with to become a sister story, and then it spoke to me in a very different way because I have sisters—and more so, I have daughters and they’re my little Anna and Elsa. So I was more invested now, even more so than before. [And] what’s wonderful about Olaf is he’s a reflection of the love between these two sisters.”

The filmmakers on why we all love returning to the world of Olaf:
“Olaf has this overwhelming optimism and sincerity about him and that just never gets old,” Abraham admits. “It’s something that we all sort of aspire to and sometimes fall short—but Olaf is always there, charging ahead with this eternal optimism and sweetness that I think is a part of all of us, but maybe we wish we had more of.” Correy agrees: “I grew up on Disney movies in the 1990s. I loved Aladdin—by far my favorite movie, and Genie was my favorite character. And what I loved about Genie was that he could be hilarious and change shapes, but he could also be sincere. And from an animator’s point of view, Olaf is everyone’s favorite character to [work on] because he can be very emotional.” “And I think we can all relate to his innocence, as a child—that slightly naïve look at the world,” Del Vecho adds. “But in doing, he can really hit on some profound, emotional things. He can zero in on things that maybe as adults we miss.”

Once Upon a Snowman debuts exclusively on Disney+ Friday, October 23.