Zero to Hero
In honor of Disney Hercules' 19th anniversary, Oh My Disney released a video showing the development of the famous "Zero to Hero" music number. The video depicts live models performing in front of a storyboard of the scene played side by side against the finished product.
The videos are nearly identical, right down to the hairstyles of the muses and even the animated drawings didn't change much from storyboard to silver screen. Oh My Disney also interviewed the film's directors Ron Clements and John Musker about the development of the musical number.
"We were emulating MTV in its heyday and this number was always meant to be this big music video. When we were trying to visualize this I was on a plane, and I was listening to the track and I was watching an NBA highlight reel and hearing the song in my headset and thought, ‘oh we should really do a video where we intercut the great sports exploits of Hercules intercut with a dance number,'" Musker said.
Musker also added that the video was edited shot-for-shot to give a full idea of what the directors were going for with the number. "It was the most elaborate video shoot we’ve ever done and I think has ever been done for animation," Ron Clements said.