<P> In 1968, writers Bill Raynor and Myles Wilder were hired to write the script, and completed their outline in October . They submitted their outline to the studio for review, but the project continued to languish in development . In 1975, producer Jerome Courtland re-discovered the project and hired writer Malcolm Marmorstein to write the script . For his script, Marmorstein revised the story from being in contemporary time into a period setting, and had the dragon changed from being wholly imaginary into a real one . In earlier drafts, Elliott was mostly invisible aside from one animated sequence, in which Dr. Terminus would chop up the dragon for his get - rich scheme . However, veteran Disney artist Ken Anderson felt the audience would "lose patience" with the idea and lobbied for Elliott to be seen more in his visible form during the film . In retrospect, Marmorstein conceded that "We tried a completely invisible dragon, but it was no fun . It was lacking . It's a visual medium, and you're making a film for kids ." He also named the dragon "Elliott" after actor Elliott Gould (who was a friend from his theater days), and named the town "Passamaquoddy" after the real Native American tribe in Maine . </P> <P> In October 1975, the songwriting duo of Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn were assigned to compose the musical score . The production was directed by British filmmaker Don Chaffey, who had made two smaller films for Disney in the early 1960s between directing larger fantasy adventures (Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years B.C.) for others . </P> <P> The lighthouse for the film was built on Point Buchon Trail located south of Los Osos, California, substituting for Maine . It was equipped with such a large beacon that Disney had to get special permission from the Coast Guard to operate it, since doing so during filming would have confused passing ships . Pacific Gas and Electric opened the Point Buchon Trail and allows hikers access to where filming took place (35 ° 14 ′ 49.08" N 120 ° 53 ′ 50.63" W ﻿ / ﻿ 35.2469667 ° N 120.8973972 ° W ﻿ / 35.2469667; - 120.8973972). </P> <P> The animators of the film opted to make Elliott look more like an oriental, rather than occidental, dragon because oriental dragons are usually associated with good . The film is the first involving animation in which none of the Nine Old Men--Disney's original team of animators--were involved . One technique used in the movie involved compositing with a yellowscreen that was originally used in Mary Poppins and similar to today's greenscreen compositing, whereby up to three scenes might be overlaid together--for example, a live foreground, a live background, and an animated middle ground containing Elliott . Ken Anderson, who created Elliott, explained that he thought it would be appropriate to make him "a little paunchy" and not always particularly graceful when it comes to flying . Don Hahn, who was an assistant director to Don Bluth on Pete's Dragon, gained some experience working with a combination of live - action and animation before later going on to work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit . </P>

Where is the lighthouse from pete's dragon located