Snow White: A fairytale reborn
Posted on Mar 25, 2025 by Admin
Snow White DOP Mandy Walker, AM, ASC, ACS sits down to discuss the process of going from animation to live action – and the honour of recreating Disney’s first animated feature
Words Katie Kasperson | Images Disney
Like many Disney movies that followed, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the stuff of fairytales. Released almost a century ago in 1937, the film borrows its plot from the Brothers Grimm’s eponymous story – one that involves an evil stepmother, a magic mirror and a poison apple.
An iconic animated film that kicked off the Disney Princess Line, Snow White was long overdue for a live-action remake – a retelling of the classic tale, with Rachel Zegler (West Side Story and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) stepping into the protagonist’s slippers. Following the likes of Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Mulan and The Little Mermaid, Snow White (2025) elevates the existing IP with a contemporary cast and updated visual effects. For DOP Mandy Walker, AM, ASC, ACS the key was to maintain the magic.
Striking a balance
Once Marc Webb signed on as Snow White’s director, the cast and remaining crew quickly came together. “During my interview,” recalls Walker, “Marc and I had a great discussion about the story and the possibilities of translating this iconic Disney animation to live action.” Co-written by Greta Gerwig and Erin Cressida Wilson, the script makes some key changes, replacing the prince with a love interest named Jonathan and strengthening Snow White’s character.
“Early on, we talked about being conscious that this is a fairytale – a story that should be beautiful, wondrous and a visual spectacle,” Walker continues. “The characters brought their own inspirations; when the Evil Queen takes over the kingdom, the light literally dims from the world and it becomes darker and cloudy.” While the film deals with some intense themes, it’s also a romance, striking a balance between misery and magic. “Many of the discussions with Marc and the other visual departments always deferred to retaining the wonderful elements of the original film,” explains Walker, “while consciously bringing it into a more modern vision that will be new to audiences.”
Rated PG and marketed as a family movie, Snow White largely appeals to kids. “I didn’t want to make the film too scary for the younger audience,” says Walker, “so when the film is dark and there are moments of fear, I went to a colourful, heightened look – something the original film did so well.” In contrast, the more cheerful moments come with a layer of warmth, and the dwarfs’ cottage glows with rich, golden light. “It changes when the emotion of the film does – when Snow White is threatened and handed the poison apple, the golden light disappears from the cottage and that world becomes sombre and cool,” Walker describes.
Let it glow
Having previously shot the live-action Mulan, Walker knew a Disney adaptation should be handled with care by sticking close to the source material, while also introducing a smidge of novelty. “The visual language of this movie drew its inspiration from the original animated version,” she shares. “The artwork in that film is absolutely stunning. The colour palette and the painterly aspect of the backgrounds were what I kept in mind the whole time.”
Walker also added her own touch, incorporating imagery ‘that evokes the beauty of natural landscapes with colour and atmosphere’. To drive home that fairytale feeling, Walker explains: “The camera, VFX, production design, costume design and makeup departments would all meet to discuss elements of texture, colour and objects that shine, reflect and glow,” such as mirrors and jewels. “We were able to test all our ideas and combinations of elements from each department to ensure it worked in sync.”
Despite some thematic similarities, shooting Snow White was almost nothing like Mulan. “Animation was not as direct of an influence on the visual language,” claims Walker. “In Mulan, I found references in the colour palettes of Chinese art as well as the traditional textures and details of the landscape. We centred the story of Mulan’s journey in a dramatic way,” she continues, while Snow White’s saga is much more whimsical.
Fairytale on film
Along that line, Walker needed kit that would emphasise the film’s storybook setting and overall charm. “As always,” she begins, “early in pre-production, I went to visit the lens guru Dan Sasaki at Panavision LA to discuss how I saw the visual language of the movie and test the best options of how to technically represent that.” Sasaki put together some classic anamorphic Primo lenses, which were “adapted to be sharp but to make the skin tones smooth and the imagery glow,” Walker describes. “We chose anamorphic because it evoked the fairytale-like, illustrative image with the edges slightly dropping off – something we enhanced with subtle vignettes that centre your eye on the action and have a sense of a frame.” Sasaki expanded the lenses to fit the ARRI LF’s sensor size to ‘take advantage of their characteristics’.
In order to amplify the contrast between Snow White and the Queen, Walker focused on camera movement, making it ‘dance with the characters’ in musical scenes; the Queen’s coverage was ‘more symmetrical, classical and austere’. Walker adds that ‘the lighting is more dramatic’ in the Queen’s scenes, while soft light illuminates Snow White and the enchanted forest.
A key challenge in bringing any animated tale to life is in handling the visual effects. There are singing animals, a mirror that moves and speaks, spontaneous smoke and lightning, plus seven partially computer-generated dwarfs. For Walker, who likes to ‘create the effects organically, in camera, as much as possible’, VFX was an essential part of the gig. “I am so lucky that before I even started, the team informed me how the process of creating the CG characters and animals would involve me and my work,” she enthuses. “I was involved from that time on, all the way through post, as I was consulting on the lighting of the CG environments and characters.”
To make everyone’s job a little easier, the crew used puppets as stand-ins for the CG animals and motion capture on the actors who played the seven dwarfs. By doing so, this created ‘physical lighting references’ as well as a more seamless post-production process. “My favourite scenes were the musical numbers in the cottage,” Walker admits. “It was challenging to work in a small environment and stay cognisant of seamlessly combining live-action and CG characters. It was fun and extensive, but it was also enlightening: a new world that involved my input both artistically and technically.”
Great expectations
In 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs made history as Walt Disney Animation Studios’ first feature-length animated film – and the first to be released in the US. It held the record for the highest-grossing animated film for 55 years; if adjusted for inflation, Snow White still carries that title. Given its long and mighty legacy, a remake comes with a certain responsibility – to preserve what made the original so successful while ensuring the story evolves with the times.
Going into the project, Walker was all too aware of this. “The main challenge for me was to be true to the timeless originality of Disney’s first princess and her eponymous film, but with a reimagining that only enhances the beauty and emotionality,” she says. “I was consciously paying tribute to the animated classic but embodying it in a modern way through camera and lighting.” For anyone who adores the original, Walker hopes her work delivers.
Snow White will be released in cinemas on 21 March
Find out about other Disney remakes in this article about Mufasa.
This story appears in the March 2025 issue of Definition
