In celebration of World Princess Week, Disney and ad agency Fallon teamed up with director Alex Prager of production house Arts & Sciences to launch this four-minute film–”Once a Princess, Always a Princess: A Disney Short”–that honors timeless storytelling, physical craft, and the power of childhood imagination.
The story follows two young girls in neighboring apartment towers who build an imaginative world together during play, showing how Disney Princess stories give kids a shared language to connect and form lifelong friendships.
To bring the four-minute story to life, the team treated the project like a feature film, anchoring every visual decision on screen to physical craft:
–“Bigature” Castles: Rather than relying on graphics or tiny models, master artisans built full-scale “bigatures” (handcrafted castle structures as tall as a person inspired by Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid) to create real depth, scale, and forced perspective on set.
–Matte Painting: The sky and background environments were hand-painted onto physical backdrops before being rendered into digital spaces, using classic Disney matte painting techniques.
–A 56-Piece Live Orchestra: The film features a custom film score recorded live by a 56-piece orchestra, a rarity in modern commercial production.
–8 Puppets (and a Table Full of Performers): Bringing characters like Flounder, Sebastian, and others to life required a massive crew of puppeteers in green suits operating custom mechanical hero puppets (with up to 20 performers working simultaneously on a single table scene).
–Made-from-Scratch Wardrobe: Every bespoke Princess gown started as a pencil sketch and was stitched entirely from scratch by a team of master sewists and costumers led by Vin Burnham, treating each piece like couture costumes rather than commercial wardrobe.
–Oscar-Winning Team: The four-minute film came to life with the help of several Oscar-winning collaborators, including editor Paul Rogers.
–Practical Magic: From floating carpets to drifting clouds, every effect was physically rigged on set, complete with crew members off-camera operating leaf blowers and holding props by hand. For the underwater sequences, the team used classic Hollywood “dry-for-wet” stagecraft. Shot on a blue-lit soundstage with oversized physical kelp and coral builds, drifting fabrics, and wire rigs that allowed performers to float like true swimmers, the world was created without a single drop of real or digital water.
Director Prager said, “Practical filmmaking is at the core of everything I do. When they are practical and in-camera, it feels more visceral because the sense of gravity and tactile nature reflect how we perceive emotion as something very physical. Every effect we used was physically rigged, from floating carpets to drifting clouds. I brought the idea of using practical filmmaking techniques to Disney from our very first conversations because of their history, I wanted to go back to their roots; they have always been at the forefront of new technology and finding new ways to tell stories without taking away what made them beloved in the first place.”
Beyond the physical craft, there’s a heartwarming real-life connection you can feel on screen: lead young actresses Thea Evans and Ivy Jukes met at an audition years ago and are real-life pen pals, bringing genuine chemistry to the film.
Leslie Shaffer, chief creative officer at Fallon, said, “Disney Princesses give kids a shared language that instantly, and sometimes permanently, connects them. Creative Directors Kelsey O’Briant and Tanner Uselmann understand deeply how kids’ imaginations and friendships work and beautifully captured and protected both. It’s what makes this work emotionally lethal, it taps into something real we all have experienced but might have forgotten. To tell this story, we wanted every frame to feel like genuine movie magic: built by hand, played by a live orchestra, and crafted with feature-film care.”
Joanna Balikian, SVP, brand management, The Walt Disney Company, said, “The enduring strength of Disney Princesses lies in its ability to evolve with each new generation while remaining rooted in stories that inspire courage, compassion, and possibility. That’s what makes these characters so meaningful to fans around the world. This year’s World Princess Week celebrates this legacy.”
