We’ve all heard about Disney animated films changing the lives of children, a lot of it through the music. As a kid, you may not entirely know what’s going on in a movie’s storyline, but they definitely can feel what’s happening through the character’s performances of these songs like “Let It Go” and “Beauty and the Beast.”

But about deaf children and adults? Can those with this disability feel and experience the same visceral thing that so many children and adults with hearing have?

That’s what Disney animator Hyrum Osmond asked over six years ago, and he, as the child of a deaf parent, wanted to find the answer.

In his asking, he found that while closed captions and new audible technologies have given deaf audiences a way to understand what’s happening on a screen, it hasn’t allowed for those audiences to enjoy films like Disney animated ones fully.

What does speak to a deaf person fully is speaking their language–ASL, or American Sign Language.

“It’s its own world,” he said to us in an interview. “Sign language is gorgeous and animation is gorgeous because it all involves elegant movement.” Filled with the desire to see both those highly visual and beautiful things together, Osmond began the process of translating key Disney Animation moments accessible to those who were deaf or hard of hearing.

Specifically, he chose Disney animated song sequences to translate into ASL. He took it a step further and instead of layering an ASL actor on top of the movie footage translating the song, he wanted to see the Disney characters themselves performing the ASL translation in the performances themselves.

To appropriately do those translations, Osmond partnered with Deaf West Theatre, the premier performing arts organization for the deaf, to provide the translations. Artistic director DJ Kurs also brought on Catalene Sacchetti to be the sign language reference choreographer on the project.

All together, the team worked in translating three songs from three animated films, chosen specifically to show a different range of emotions and animated performances: “The Next Right Thing” from Frozen 2, “Beyond” from Moana 2, and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Encanto.

Over the course of a few years, Osmond, Kurs, Sacchetti, a team of 20 Disney animators lead by Joel Reid, and a handful of deaf performers went through the process of watching and recording the animated songs, working with the deaf performers to appropriately translate them into ASL, and then animating the sequence.

Reid and his team ensured that the translations from the ASL performers would include all the nuance that comes with ASL, from the facial expressions and the hand gestures. Another reason why the newer movies were selected to be translated was because Disney still had the original digital animation files that allowed Reid and team to reanimate more easily than starting from scratch. Additionally, some camera angles needed to change to make the ASL more easily seen in the character’s hands, which only could have been done with existing digital files.

Working in partnerships with Sacchetti, Reid also had the challenge of animating the translations in the original dance choreography that existed in that sequence. “Sign language looks like an easy language to learn, but it’s not. It’s not like a conversation or a word-to-word translation. It’s like taking a story and making it a poem,” said Sacchetti. Added Kurs, “ASL is a three-dimensional, spatial language,” adds Kurs. “We do not translate words; we translate concepts and emotions through motion.”

When the final ‘motion and emotional’ products were shown to the creative team, including the deaf performers, they were floored. “As somebody who is a part of the deaf community, it means so much to have our language be validated by Disney,” said Kurs.

Added Osmond, “I hope this isn’t the last time we do something like this for the deaf or any disability community. For Disney to be able to see and understand in this way is nothing short of magical.”

Disney Animation’s Songs in Sign Language shorts are now available to stream exclusively on Disney+.

Our special thanks to Hyrum Osmond, DJ Kurs, Catalene Sacchetti, and the ASL interpreters for the interview!