Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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TsWade2
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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DisneyAnimation88 wrote:
TsWade2 wrote:Yeah, I hear Tom Staggs is an nostalgic hater! :angry:
It's not about nostalgia, it's about having a CEO who has at least some creativity and has a vision to build the company from within rather than buy things from the outside. If you're a Disney shareholder I'm sure you would be delighted with Iger, if you're purely a Disney fan then I think it's hard to be entirely on board with the direction he has steered the company in. He has done good business deals but Disney is a company steeped in creativity and he has moved it in another direction away from that.

It ended badly for Michael Eisner but for a time it was amazing to see some of the things the company was doing. He had great creative instincts and was determined to improve the company by getting the very best out of all the assets at his disposal. It started to go wrong when Frank Wells died, we all know that, but I would love to see someone with Eisner's best qualities in charge of the company, someone with a clear vision to grow the company from within.

I don't hate Iger but he has limitations and I think he's reached the end of the line in terms of what he can bring to Disney. That's my opinion on this anyway.
Okay, fair point. But when the time comes, I suggest that either Roy P. Disney or Kathleen Kennedy be the next CEO of Disney so we can have hand drawn again, one way or another. Hit it, Blondie!

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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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I'd like to see the company run by someone who actually has more creativity in their fingertip than Iger does in his whole body. Heck, I'd like the company to be run by someone who cares about not only the business, but also its hardworking employees AND every single medium (hand-drawn, stop-motion, CGI AND live-action) the company has so they can all get a fair chance to shine under the sun and not just in TV, but in feature films too.

That's the ideal chairman I'd like to see running Disney.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by estefan »

I think Disney (and Iger, for that matter) is in this weird place where it overspends money. Under Iger's regime, they spent tens of billions of dollars buying Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel. Don't even ask me why they spent $250 million on a western based on a television show nobody has cared about for decades (I'm 100% positive Lone Ranger will be the biggest bomb of the year). Even their animated films cost a lot that it actually became a struggle for Wreck-It Ralph and Brave to make their money back, though their oddly stagnated overseas release dates definitely didn't help.

I don't think audiences are tired of the Disney animation style. Otherwise, why would a re-release of The Lion King make over $90 million in North America alone? I think they just chose the wrong hand-drawn projects to make. While Pixar, DreamWorks and other CG studios create their films for a modern audience, The Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh were done in a more classic style. It also didn't help by one being named "The Princess and the Frog" (which, when you think about it is false advertising, since Tiana is only a princess for about two minutes of screen-time) and another being based on a property sadly considered exclusively for toddlers. John Lasseter and the rest of the Disney crew need to apply a Pixar style of storytelling to a hand-drawn animated film and it would be successful. If Rich Moore doesn't get to work on a Ralph sequel, see if he can apply that same sensibility to a hand-drawn animated film. Moore was a huge asset to bringing animation to prime-time television again during the 90's, so it's not out of the question that he could do the same with a hand-drawn animated film.

And while, yes, most comments on Cartoon Brew are on the pessimistic side, I did see one suggestion that said that the medium needs an Iron Giant-like movie that doesn't resort to the old hand-drawn cliches and somebody like Brad Bird to direct it.

Of course, I'm also looking at things at a creative point of view. When you look at exclusively box-office figures, it's understandable why the MBAs and execs who sit at the high offices at Disney think that audiences don't care about hand-drawn films. Since 2000, Lilo & Stitch, The Simpsons Movie and The Princess and the Frog are the only hand-drawn films to make over $100 million domestically. On the films he didn't, there are clearly reasons why they didn't do better and I don't think they had to do with the medium. There's a reason audiences flocked to Lilo & Stitch and then ignored Treasure Planet a short number of months later and it has nothing to do with the medium. But most Hollywood movie executives think in these basic terms, unfortunately. After Cutthroat Island tanked, everybody just went "well, I guess nobody watches pirate movies anymore." Flash-forward eight years later and Pirates of the Carribean was a mega-success.

In the end, I'm still waiting for an official interview from John Lasseter. For somebody who runs two major animation studios who released two big films last year and earned Oscar nominations, as well as a driving force in the theme parks, he has been awfully quiet lately. Meanwhile, Bob Iger is everywhere. Something weird is going on at Mickey's house.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by disneyphilip »

Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

And I must say that I am APPALLED by almost everything I have read on this board. So much cursing and over-the-top negativity! It's sickening! :x

Besides, Bob Iger is an AWESOME CEO--all the bad, accusatory things that have been posted about him, Lassetter, Staggs, etc. are completely, totally and utterly FALSE!

Just because they're not doing something that you personally want does not give you the right to act like a big, spoiled cry-baby!

I hope that I can inject some much-needed logic and reason into this questionable forum and hope that it'll become a more stable environment, unlike WDWMagic, MiceChat, LaughingPlace.com, etc.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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DisneyJedi wrote:... And Roy pretty much represents Cinderella's dearly departed father, hand-drawn represents Cinderella and Iger represents the stepmother (revealing his true and selfish self upon Roy's death) in all this.
That is not true and you know that!
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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TsWade2 wrote:Yeah, I hear Tom Staggs is an nostalgic hater!
No, he is not! That's the kind of attitude that's going to have to change around here! :angry:
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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DisneyEra wrote:Disney cares now only about 1 thing: Profit & $$$! And they will eliminate anything "2D animated features & long time animators" that will prevent them from this. Pixar is ontop of Mt. Olympus annoucing sequeals to Nemo & talking about a sequeal to Brave, while WDAS is laying off animators & pulling leaked images of Frozen from around the web! Greed & Selfishness triumphs all!
Sounds like someone is still stuck in the Eisner era... :roll:

Because despite what your minds think, even though things aren't "perfect", this is a FAR better Disney era than the latter half of Eisner's tenure.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by SWillie! »

Disneyphilip- please stop double, triple, and quadruple posting. It's against forum rules and isn't necessary.

Estefan- great post, agreed with everything. Im definitely on board with Iger's acquisitions, but if that's all he's going to bring to the table, then they need someone with a clear creative vision to step in. The more time that passes, the less fond I am of him.

I'd definitely like to see what Lasseter has to say on the subject these days. You're right, he's been very quiet lately.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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I've received complaints about this thread so I need to remind everyone about forum rules and etiquette.

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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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disneyphilip wrote:
DisneyEra wrote:Disney cares now only about 1 thing: Profit & $$$! And they will eliminate anything "2D animated features & long time animators" that will prevent them from this. Pixar is ontop of Mt. Olympus annoucing sequeals to Nemo & talking about a sequeal to Brave, while WDAS is laying off animators & pulling leaked images of Frozen from around the web! Greed & Selfishness triumphs all!
Sounds like someone is still stuck in the Eisner era... :roll:

Because despite what your minds think, even though things aren't "perfect", this is a FAR better Disney era than the latter half of Eisner's tenure.
On the surface maybe, but behind closed doors, that's another story. Firing long time animators, judging films based on boxoffice results, buying up franchise properties & abandoning 2D animated films do to lack of profit.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by disneyphilip »

SWillie! wrote:Estefan- great post, agreed with everything. Im definitely on board with Iger's acquisitions, but if that's all he's going to bring to the table, then they need someone with a clear creative vision to step in. The more time that passes, the less fond I am of him.
Patience is a virtue. Do not expect to receive things right away.

Acting like a spoiled child for not getting something you want immediately is not healthy and is not a good reason to hate someone.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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disneyphilip wrote:
SWillie! wrote:Estefan- great post, agreed with everything. Im definitely on board with Iger's acquisitions, but if that's all he's going to bring to the table, then they need someone with a clear creative vision to step in. The more time that passes, the less fond I am of him.
Patience is a virtue. Do not expect to receive things right away.

Acting like a spoiled child for not getting something you want immediately is not healthy and is not a good reason to hate someone.
I've never done anything of the sort. Calm down.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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I know that politics and cliques are present in every workplace and always have existed at the studio to some degree but it's particularly saddening that this rift and hostility continues to this day. I had hoped there would be much more respect for one another and a greater sense of community.

Q: But Steve, how do people get assigned (marginalized) to be part of the hand-drawn staff? Especially animators like Nik Ranieri, Brian Ferguson, Ruben Aquino, and James Lopez who have experience doing CG animation on features? Those guys have dual skills to do both CG and hand-drawn.

Steve Hulett: Easy. You've been there as an animator since the early nineties. That (mostly) makes you part of the hand-drawn tribe. I've been informed that there is a tilt against veteran hand-drawn animators by some of newer CG staff. How true this is, I dunno. (But studio employees are territorial; it's always been that way.)

Some of the old guard have made the jump to CG, others not. Various hand-drawn animators have told me they have done CG work, but prefer hand-drawn. An artist who HAS made the jump told me that you have to want to work in CG and pursue it. The artist doesn't think a lot of the veterans have done this.
Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... -door.html
Steve Hulett wrote:It's not just an issue of young vs. old. There's this iron reality known as studio politics. It's always there, to a greater or lesser degree. It's about people fighting over turf. [...]

Today I was at CTN's little outdoor expo on San Fernando Road in Burbank, and I ran into a (former) Disney animator who arrived at the Mouse House as a young, starry-eyed recruit in the early nineties, and left a year and a half ago. He's still fairly young, and he related:

"I made the switch from hand-drawn to CG a few years ago. I didn't have much time to learn Maya, but I managed what I could, and got tossed into production pretty fast. And I got my share of scenes, but the young CG animators resented that I could draw better than they could, and I got push back. After the picture finished, I decided the politics were too nasty, and I left."

I've talked to other artists who've told me much the same thing. There's a divide between many of the hand-drawn veterans and the CG artists; the CG artists have more leverage and clout than the animators who mainly draw (the studio is, after all, focused on CG animated features); a number of the paper-and-pencil veterans make no bones about the fact they prefer doing hand-drawn features.

So you've got different groups playing offense and defense. CG animators defending their perceived territory. Hand-drawn animators trying to protect their small patch of ground. And up above, studio management looking at grosses and making its decisions based on profits, losses and the current price of Disney stock.

[...] It's not simply a matter of who has what skills, or who has the most time in as an animator, layout artist, or designer. Age discrimination has only a little to do with it. Mostly it's about who's perceived by management to have the strongest chops. Those are the folks who have the most leverage with upper management. And those are the folks who will remain Walt Disney Animation Studio employees when the Chief Executive Officer of Diz Co. sends out orders to cull the herd.
Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... fense.html
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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Yeah, that sucks. Unfortunately, this is present all the way down to the college level. Not the same exact situations, but that clique mentality.

What I really want to know is where the young hand drawn animators fall in all this. As much as it sucks to lose most of the veterans, and to know that the rest are most likely on their way out in the next couple years, the future of hand drawn animation at the studio is going to depend on those younger artists. Do they get ostracized into the "hand-drawn" group who won't adapt and so are looked down on by the CG artists? I hope not.
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TsWade2
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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This is just not fair! I mean, why can't Disney do another hand drawn movie? I thought The Princess & the Frog is a great movie, but those dumb little boys don't want to see it because it's a princess movie. I'm excited for Frozen. I hope it's good as Tangled, but I want Disney to do another hand drawn movie. But nooooooooo! Bob Iger is a hand drawn killer. I would like to hear what John Lasseter have to say about that, unless if he isn't a coward! Now I'm going to have a terrible life without hand drawn! :cry:


By the way, I found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnfovseVSaQ
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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No offense, Wade, but that's just making me feel worse. No, not about hand-drawn's supposed "death". More about something I'd rather not really discuss here, lest we want to make things go off-topic. :(
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

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DisneyJedi wrote:No offense, Wade, but that's just making me feel worse. No, not about hand-drawn's supposed "death". More about something I'd rather not really discuss here, lest we want to make things go off-topic. :(
Non-taken.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by PatrickvD »

I'm fine with this 2nd death of hand drawn, because TPatF kind of felt like closure to me anyway. So here comes my way too long analysis and 2 cents on the matter...

The idea that people largely avoided that film because it was hand drawn will always seem laughable to me. As much as I enjoy The Princess and the Frog, it has serious pacing/story issues. Much more than any of the previous Musker/Clements films and I think most people agree on that. Even Hercules and Treasure Planet had a stronger flow and pacing.

I think there are MANY reasons why the film underperformed. But a Nostalgia Chick analysis once said it best; it was avoided in cinemas because in general, Hollywood and its audience, or rather, 'the media', is pretty racist (yes I went there). When a movie has an all-African American cast (or predominantly as this film) it is automatically labeled a 'black film'. The highest grossing Tyler Perry film (granted they suck but that's not the point) is sitting at around $90 million. There really wasn't anywhere to go with this film Box Office wise... I've always thought the $104 million was slightly above expectations, considering the issue of race. Just look at live action, how many African American movie stars put butts in the seat? Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson are the only ones that come to mind really. Eddie Murphy's days are over and his work was easy to sell to white people anyway because well, come on, his stuff was kind of racist. And women? Halle Berry is probably the biggest star, but she is considered Box Office poison and Whoopi Goldberg's status as movie star is long gone. There are many respected black actors yes, but they don't sell tickets. Zoe Saldana can't headline a movie and no matter how hard Meryl Streep campaigns for Viola Davis, she still isn't getting good roles. Why would a hand drawn animated film with a black Disney princess be treated as Box Office royalty, you know... as an 'event film' when African American characters and movies are struggling so much in live action? It's just not how Hollywood works. Just my gut feeling, because I know this is a touchy subject.

I called this whole thing four years ago. (with some digging I might be able to even find it in the forum). TPatF was always going to gross less than Tangled. While hand drawn versus CG may have something to do with it. I'm more than willing to bet that it's much more complex than that. France, Germany and the Benelux went nuts over Rapunzel and contributed greatly to its Box Office success, because the story was the last truly iconic fairytale. It was going to be a big hit regardless of what Disney was going to call it or how it was marketed or even what medium it was made in.

The moment news came out that Tangled was going to be CG after the hand drawn TPatF, I knew which one would be a bigger hit and that executives would attribute its success to the medium, rather than the subject matter of the individual films. And I also think we all knew immediately what that would mean for the future of hand drawn animation. Tangled was a hit on paper while TPatF wasn't. Especially not with its story problems in the final execution. There's a reason the story of Rapunzel had been cooking for so long at Disney. It was always a sure-fire hit. Frog had way too much baggage compared to Tangled.

We all knew there would be no more hand drawn animation anyway around two years ago. At least, I think I did. Winnie the Pooh made only $30 million worldwide. Not because it was bad, but because that was Disney's plan all along. They dumped Brother Bear and Home on the Range in the exact same way. It was given a limited release with little to no promotion. The last Tinkerbell film stands at $70 million or so from overseas alone and that has gone largely unnoticed. If Pooh had received the same release strategy as that film, it would have easily cleared at least $100 million worldwide. It's not that hard, because the brand name is strong enough. But I don't think that's what Disney wanted. Hell, I don't even think the movie was released in many countries. It was dumped as another 'hand drawn is dead' excuse. So the writing was on the wall two years ago. I mean, going up against Deathly Hallows 2? 'Counter programming' they call it. Sure. :lol:

As for Ralph's overseas underperformance (according to TAG blog). That's just weird. It grossed only about $20 million less than Brave. And while Ralph definitely failed in key markets like South Korea, France and Germany. Maybe, just maybe, it would be nice if the marketing department gets a kick in the ass for that. How do you mess up a tentpole Disney film (with great reviews) in Europe during freaking Christmas?!?!? It's WDAS' job to deliver a great film. They did. Marketing failed here. I saw more ads here in Holland for Rise of the Guardians, which was already dead on arrival in the US, than I did for Ralph. This is just Bolt all over again. People aren't going to see a movie they've never heard of.

So in the end, the reasons for hand drawn's failed resurrection will always be debatable, but it's okay to let it go. I would much rather see them experiment with new CGI techniques than do this whole hand drawn dance all over again just because they feel they owe it to the medium. I'd much rather enjoy the classic films than receive headaches from half-assed attempts to revive the whole thing.

So bring on Frozen. :)
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by REINIER »

I think that by turning your back on 2d as a company that started out with animation in general you lose credibility with the public. It's crappy storytelling that kills off these 2d as well as most stopmotion movies. Frankenweenie for instance, visually albeit nothing new it was a splendid movie.. In terms of storywork it worked much better as a short. It was wobbly to begin with and too freaking long!!! Winnie the Pooh (2011) was the sixth? entry in a row?!? Who needs that much Pooh? No pun intended :p Set up for disaster! Lasseter who claimed to love Dumbo has blown out 2d with his massive 3d trunk :p And Iger is focusing on Live action division and leaves animation to shareholders with pure dollarsigns in their eyes! Creative forces have all but run dry.. Keane left on his own accord, Deja soon followed and those that remained were sacked last turnaround. Why Disney? When your parks are filled with classic 2d movie characters? You have an obligation to the public! I long dreaded this moment and now that it is finally here and we can "look forward" to Cars 3/Toy Story 18 /Finding Marlin and Monsters Preschool I sincerely hope your ticket revenue will sink to an absolute low and that Disney Infinity will tank misserably! "Reach for the stars..".. And fail fail fail!
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney?

Post by DisneyJedi »

Why are you people being all "doom and gloom"?? They didn't get rid of ALL their hand-drawn animators! If hand-drawn WERE dead, they would have gotten rid of all of them and they wouldn't have bothered with making The Princess and the Frog altogether.

God, I sound like a broken record for repeatedly saying that, but you people are just being downright ignorant for realizing it.
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