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Will be traditional 2D or CGI?

Supposedly, it will be some sort of a 2D/CG hybrid.

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Exciting! I hate that it's going to be making the "festival rounds" though... usually that means it'll be forever until we get to see it in front of a movie, if at all. It'd be nice if they put it in front of Ralph.

I've updated the first post.

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Sotiris you really brought your A-Game with this article! Very nice

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When it comes to brains, I got the lion-share,
but when it comes to bruth strength, I'm afraid I'm at the shallow end of the gene pool

Thank you! I'm glad you like it!

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This information has got me very intrigued as to how this new style of animation might look so thanks for providing it all Sotiris. The short sounds interesting and seems to have a lot of people very excited. It's also nice to see Disney at the forefront of the creation of a new style of animation and being innovative. With the hype this new style seems to be generating within the animation industry, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it for myself.

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We're not going to Guam, are we?

I reserve judgment until I see it. Sometimes "innovative" just means "never been done in the U.S. before" - and may not be new at all.

I try not to get overhyped.

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SO, I was lucky enough to see Paperman twice this week at Inspire Days at the studio.

Now, I don't want to give too much away yet, but know this: Paperman is a game-changer.

All of these nonsense arguments on here about "is 2d dead? the future of Disney? No! CG can be great! But I love hand-drawn! Blah blah! Blah!" will cease to exist after everyone sees this, because like someone said, "what if the future of hand-drawn and CG animation were the SAME THING?"

As someone else said, Paperman has beaten hand-drawn animation at it's own game. Even those artists who are extremely biased against CG and have only ever wanted to do hand-drawn animation will not be able to resist wanting to explore this. In a sense, Paperman will probably be the final nail in the coffin for hand-drawn animation in the traditional sense at Disney. BUT before everybody freaks out, it also means that it is definitely NOT the end of hand-drawn animation at Disney.

Someone at Inspire Days said "if your mind isn't blown by Paperman, you simply don't know or understand what you're looking at." And that is very true. The Anonymous #1 quote that Sotiris Posted from the TAG Blog is one of those people. It would most certainly not work better as a traditional hand drawn short.

As an animator myself, who has always dreamed of doing hand-drawn animation at Disney, but who has also had to accept the fact that I need to learn CG if I ever want a job... I was watching Paperman thinking, "This is what I want to do with my life."

So, a little about the short itself... Without giving too much away, the short is about a 1940s (50s?) romance in New York City. It's mostly in black and white, and feels like a B&W photograph from that time period. The character designs are fantastic (Glen Keane worked on them along with others), and the art direction reminded several people of 101 Dalmatians. Having already seen sketches and screenshots before watching the short, I said "wow, this looks really great - looks straight up hand-drawn to me." And then when they screened it, and things started moving... my jaw hit the floor and I went "OH MY GOD WHAT AM I WATCHING."

By the end of both screenings I was tearing up, half because of the artistry and innovation that is so apparent, and half because the story, music, and visuals all come together and simply make a great short, regardless of how it was made.

I assume they will be developing the technique further and working towards using it for a feature. I certainly hope they do. There's rumors that Ron and John's new film will possibly be using this technique, and if so I wouldn't be surprised at all. As directors who love hand-drawn animation, it is only natural for them to want to do this.

Hopefully it will be shown in front of Wreck-It-Ralph (they couldn't really give us a straight answer at this point), so everyone can see it. It would be a disaster if this went to "shorts hell" that so many of Disney's shorts seem destined for. I doubt it will, just because everyone at the studio is so excited about it and they know how big this is.

I kind of wish they would put it out on blu-ray by itself. I would pay a lot of money to own this, because I know it is and will be a very important piece of Disney and animation history. I also hope they do some kind of book to go along with it.

All in all, Paperman is really something special and you should all be looking forward to seeing it. It makes me more excited for Disney's future than I have been in a long time.

Thanks for sharing!! Now you have me excited!

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Thanks for providing us with all this info. I really appreciate it. Finally, we know what the short is about.

Could you please answer a few questions? I understand that the non-disclosure agreement does not apply to "Paperman" so you're free to talk about it a little more.

I assume the main characters are humans and not animals, right? Regarding the character designs, are they more naturalistic-looking ala "classic" Disney or more caricatured?

Also, in what aspect did 101 Dalmatians' art direction feel reminiscent?

Regarding the CG/2D hybrid, could you elaborate a little more? Can you give some examples? Is it similar to something else out there even in the slightest? Like the Deep Canvas technique or like the animation of the folk art characters in "My Peoples"? Is a 2D texture technique applied on the CG? Are some elements in CG and some in 2D or does the whole thing looks homogeneous? Could you explain a little bit?

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GASP!! So Disney is still doing hand drawn! WHEEEEEEEEEEE!

Thanks a lot for the information SWillie!. With all the hype surrounding this short it definitely does sound like a game-changer and it's good to see Disney pioneering an evolution in the medium of animation. I'm very excited to see this short and this new development in animation for myself; if it means that hand-drawn animation does have a future in some way then that can only a positive thing.

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We're not going to Guam, are we?

No problem! I'm excited to be able to pass on everyone's excitement. They did tell us to go out and tell the world about Paperman, so yes, we are free to discuss it. But I also don't want to spoil it for anyone.

The main characters are indeed humans. I would say the designs are a little more caricatured than not. You can definitely feel Glen's influence in the female character. I would say overall the two main characters are not quite so exaggerated as Rapunzel, and not quite so realistic as Flynn. They seem to land somewhere in-between. The girl is gorgeous and I want to marry her The minor secondary characters are more heavily caricatured.

I think I was reminded of Dalmatians in part because of the male character's design - he looks somewhat like Roger. But the art direction in general is reminiscent as well - very heavy on lighting and contrast. Bold shapes and fairly angular stuff going on. Also, there's the sense that it's something new for Disney, as was Dalmatians.

As for the technique, it's quite hard to explain without showing some examples. Before they did their "behind the scenes" panel, I literally didn't know how they had done it. But I'll try to explain.

I hate to dumb the concept down this far, because it really is more impressive than this will make it sound - but the most simple explanation of the concept is that it is CG animation, with hand-drawn animation done over top of it. BUT, that has been tried before, pretty unsuccessfully. There have been many different attempts of "toon-shading" (using CG software to give the animation a 2D look or texture), and that is not what this is.

They told us the story of when they pitched the project to Lasseter. They said that, going into the pitch, they had their proof of concept as to what it was going to look like, and were very excited to show him. Lasseter was under the impression that they were simply making a CG short going in. When they told him that it would be a sort of hybrid, he was hesitant, saying "people have tried this at Siggraph before, and nothing has interested me". They said "it hadn't occurred to us to be nervous up until then - but when he said that, we all kind of felt this new pressure." So they showed him the proof of concept, and John was immediately on board.

I certainly haven't seen anything that looks like this before. Possibly the closest thing might be what they were going for with My Peoples - this may be an evolution of that idea. Like I said, a screenshot of the film would look like it was hand-drawn. It has a lot to do with how they lit the scenes. They used flat lighting - for example, half of the guy's face would be a very light grey, while the other half is in shadow, a dark grey, without a smooth transition in-between the two as is normal in most CG. The drawings were left fairly sketchy - it still has that feeling of a "drawing" intact. Then when it starts moving, it still feels like hand-drawn animation, and yet there is a solidity and dimensionality that can't be achieved with hand-drawn.

They were able to do this because of a new software they developed during production. It's extremely hard to explain. Say there are ten frames of CG animation. The traditional artist then goes over frames 1 and 10, making the "key" drawings over top of the CG, adding things like outlines, strands of hair, pupils, folds in the cloth, etc... Then, because you are drawing on top of a CG model, the computer in-betweens those lines for every frame, understanding and following where the model is on a given frame. The artist then has to tweak those frames to fix any issues with the in-betweens.

The whole short uses this technique, so there is no back-and-forth or anything like that between CG and traditional.

I should also note that they told us that the short is in 3D, but we were only shown the 2D version. Apparently the 3D is just as mind-boggling as the rest of the short.

Wow, thanks for all these details SWillie! It truly seems that WDAS is once again pioneering in animation. Since the short was shot in 3D, they must be planning a theatrical release.

One last question, if you don't mind. You said that the guy looks like Roger, what does the girl look like?

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Fairly typical Glen Keane-esque girl... except shorter, shoulder length dark hair. There's nothing really that unique about her or anything... but she's just very pretty... think Glen Keane/Fred Moore/Chris Sanders girls all smushed into one super attractive woman lol

You lost me with Chris Sanders. I get the Keane/Moore association. I assume it means petite, feminine with expressive eyes, right? But where does Sanders' style fit in? His women are very different from Keane and Moore's.

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Yeah you're right haha... I don't know, I guess when I think "attractive female design", Sanders just automatically comes to mind for me. But yes, you're correct - Keane/Moore petite with VERY expressive eyes.

I guess that mean big eyes? So, we have another Ariel or Rapunzel?

Do you recall her (and the guy's) name? Are they mentioned in the short?

Is the short also silent in addition to being black & white?

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