Production of The Care Bears Movie

Development
The Care Bears were created in 1981 by Those Characters from Cleveland (TCFC), a division of the Cleveland greeting card company American Greetings Corporation (AGC). That same year, the title characters made their debut on greeting cards by Elena Kucharik, while American Greetings began to develop a feature-length film using the characters. Kucharik, along with Linda Denham, Linda Edwards, Muriel Fahrion, Dave Polter, Tom Schneider, Ralph Shaffer, and Clark Wiley, created the original characters. in October 1981, Don Bluth announced to make the Care Bears as a full-length animated feature film. However after NIMH's poor promotion at the box office, the original version was split into Separate Television specials.

Early in their tenure, the Bears appeared as toys from the Kenner company, and starred in two syndicated television specials from a Canadian animation studio, Atkinson Film-Arts of Ottawa and the United Artists Cartoon Studios of Syracuse: The Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings (1983) and The Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine (1984). The Freeze Machine's broadcasting failure caused MGM/UA to cancel future production of it's cartoons (including Care Bears).

Production of the first feature took place at another Canadian outlet, Toronto's Nelvana studio. This came in a period in the company's history which Nelvana co-founder Michael Hirsh refers to as its "dark years". At the time, Nelvana had just finished production of its first full-length film, 1983's Rock & Rule, which was produced using almost all of its resources (for around US$8 million), and failed to find proper distribution. The film put them on the verge of closing down. Soon after, the Nelvana team began doing work on television shows like Inspector Gadget (from DIC Entertainment), 20 Minute Workout (from Orion Television), and Mr. Microchip. During this period, they also made syndicated specials based on American Greetings properties: Strawberry Shortcake, The Get Along Gang, and Herself the Elf. "In some instances," noted Harvey Levin, vice-president of marketing and entertainment communications at TCFC, "their capabilities [on the Strawberry Shortcake specials] surpassed Disney quality." Various companies vied to produce a Care Bears feature, and Nelvana was the first to do so; Hirsh sought to seize the opportunity after hearing of its development. DIC Entertainment also expressed interest. Thanks to the Strawberry Shortcake specials and their experience on Rock & Rule, Nelvana acquired the rights to the characters and gained a contract from American Greetings to create the script. To convince the production partnership of TCFC and Kenner Toys, Hirsh held a competition inspired by Pepsi-Cola's "Pepsi Challenge" commercials of the time, in which he tested clips from Nelvana and other vying studios and checked the "animation quality, music, sound effects, and colour" of each. He then asked the producers to decide on the best demo, and Nelvana scored highest. Hirsh later recalled the words of his partners: "We know you've rigged this against everybody else because you've chosen the clips. But we like the approach."

Producers and crew
The Care Bears Movie was one of the first films to be based directly on an established toy line. the film was financed by American Greetings, the owners of the Care Bears franchise; General Mills, the toys' distributor; and television syndicator LBS Communications. The Kenner company also took part in the production. Brought in under budget, The Care Bears Movie became Nelvana's second feature-length production, and was made over an eight-month period that lasted until February 1985. Michael Hirsh is quoted as saying in Daniel Stoffman's 2002 book, The Nelvana Story: "Nobody had ever made an animated movie for theatrical release for as little money and in as little time." In 2009 his partner, Clive A. Smith, told Canadian Business magazine: "I swear I grimaced at the thought of doing a Care Bears feature. But Michael [Hirsh] went out and actually brought that project in." Nelvana was responsible for the script, several special effects, including those for the "Care Bear Stare", and hired musicians and voice actors. With this project, Arna Selznick became the third of only four women ever to direct an animated feature; prior to this, she worked on several Nelvana productions, including Strawberry Shortcake and the Baby Without a Name. Nelvana's founders—Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert, and Clive A. Smith—participated as the main producers. The studio's roster included Charles Bonifacio, the director of animation, and supervising animator D. Brewster, who previously took part in the animation courses at Ontario's Sheridan College. Dale Schott, who served as a storyboard artist, remarked that "Nelvana had a lot to do with reviving the low-budget feature" with its efforts on The Care Bears Movie.

Four employees of the film's financiers served as executive producers: Louis Gioia Jr., president of Kenner's Marketing Services division; Jack Chojnacki, co-president of TCFC; Carole MacGillvray, who became president of General Mills' M.A.D. (Marketing and Design) division in February 1984; and Robert Unkel, LBS' senior vice-president of programming. A fifth producer, American Greetings staffer W. Ray Peterson, went uncredited. Three associate producers worked on the film: Paul Pressler, another employee at Kenner; John Bohach, who later became LBS' executive vice-president; and Harvey Levin. Lenora Hume, the director of photography on Rock & Rule was the supervising producer.

Animation
Along with Inspector Gadget, The Care Bears Movie was Nelvana's first foray into animation outsourcing. Production took place at Nelvana's facilities, Taiwan's Wang Film Productions (Cuckoo's Nest Studio), and the newly established Hanho Heung-Up and Mihahn studios in South Korea. Delaney and Friends, a Vancouver-based outlet, did uncredited work. Nelvana faced several problems with their Korean contractors, among them the language barrier between the Canadian crew and the overseas staff, and the unwieldy processes through which the film reels were shipped to the West. At one point, Loubert, Smith, and fellow staffer David Altman spent three days trying to persuade several unpaid animators to return important layout sketches. In exchange for the layouts, Nelvana gave them US$20,000 in Korean won. By then, the production was falling behind schedule, and an opening date was already set; Loubert sent half of the work to Taiwan (where Lenora Hume supervised), while the remainder stayed in Korea under Loubert's and Smith's watch.

Back in the Americas, Hirsh tried to promote the unfinished feature before its deadline; unable to get available footage, he instead managed to show potential marketers some Leica reels and a few moments of completed colour animation. According to him, it was the first time an animated "work in progress" was screened to exhibitors; this ploy has since been used by the Disney company, particularly in the case of Beauty and the Beast (at the 1991 New York Film Festival). "People loved the movie anyway," he said of this experiment. "I was told it was considered great salesmanship. It made [them] feel that they were part of the process because they were seeing unfinished work."