San Fransokyo architects built a new world for Disneys Big Hero 6

Oct. 24, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.

Before the directors of the new Walt Disney Animation movie Big Hero 6 settled on their story, they created the world in which its set: a jammed, vibrant place called San Fransokyo.

A mash-up of San Francisco and Tokyo set in the not-too-distant future, San Fransokyo is a dense, hilly city with cable cars and cherry blossoms, Victorian row houses and glittering neon billboards.

The filmmakers idea never stated in the film is that in a parallel universe after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the city split off and an influx of Japanese immigrants helped rebuild it.

San Fransokyo is a quintessential example of the craft of world building, the process of constructing a wholly imaginary universe for films, television, video games and other media, that involves creating the look of everything from buildings, vegetation and vehicles to the way light refracts and how people look, move and talk.

A version of production design on steroids, world building is enjoying increasing recognition as an art form thanks to the ambitious worlds created for such fantastical live action films as Avatar and the Harry Potter series, and video games like Grand Theft Auto and Halo.

Concept art for Big Hero 6 showcases San Fransokyo during the day. (Disney)

Though science fiction films as far back as Star Wars and Blade Runner depicted created worlds, ever-more sophisticated computer graphics programs, including one Disney developed in-house and is debuting with Big Hero 6, have enabled creators to bring more densely designed worlds to the screen.

Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams from a loose adaptation of a little-known Marvel Comic by Duncan Rouleau and Steven Seagle, Big Hero 6, which opens Nov. 7, follows a rebellious robotics prodigy named Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter) and a guileless, inflatable healthcare robot named Baymax (Scott Adsit) as theyre drawn together by a devastating event. Four other motley heroic characters Hiro meets in the science lab round out the team of 6 in Big Hero 6.

The film marks the first time another division of Disney has taken on a Marvel property since the media giant acquired the comic book company behind Captain America and The Avengers in 2009.

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San Fransokyo architects built a new world for Disneys Big Hero 6