Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

[TsWade2]

I found this article might got me thinking. http://www.retrojunk.com/article/show/4 ... -at-disney

[Sotiris]

Even Studio Ghibli may abandon 2D animation in favor of CG.

Q: Your background has always been in hand-drawn animation, as far as I am aware, do you have any interest in animating with computer graphics any more than Ghibli does at the moment, or experimenting with 3D? Or are you happy to stay with the hand-drawn style?

Kitaro Kosaka: Well, I'd like to preserve the analogue and hand-drawn techniques as much as possible. But, if there are no animators left, we can’t carry on like that. If that happens, we might find ourselves moving into CG. To tell the truth, Studio Ghibli hasn’t invested much in the retraining of staff, so... I am not really sure about our future development. We might go towards 3D, towards CG... with Miyazaki’s involvement, we were able to maintain hand-drawn animation, which is very costly. But I think this will be a big problem for us to solve.

Source: http://www.uk-anime.net/articles/An_int ... o_Kosaka/2


Ghibli's even producing a CG anime series called "Ronia the Robber's Daughter" directed by Goro Miyazaki.

Q: You have left Studio Ghibli to make “Ronia,” and in doing so, you are using computer graphics to create a likeness of the touch of hand-drawn anime. What do you have to say about that?

Goro Miyazaki: When Takahata and Miyazaki were creating TV anime series 40 years ago, the art was still evolving, and it involved a variety of trial and error. But the methodology of hand-drawn animated films has been established and is now fully mature. If I were to create hand-drawn TV anime series now, I would only be following a path carved out by Hayao Miyazaki and others as a latecomer. Well, I wouldn’t like that. Expression by computer graphics remains incomplete, so both the workers and myself believe that there still remains something that we could do. It is generally believed that hand-drawn anime is superior to computer graphics when it comes to expressing emotions, but anime artists who use computer graphics maintain a sound ambition to believe that they could achieve something if they tried. They are, I believe, young of heart.

Source: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/opin ... 1502180014

[Tangled]

But...aren't there loads of traditional animators in Japan? I mean, lots of 2D anime these days is primarily done on computers, but hand-drawn isn't a dying or unpopular art form for either television or film over there, at least nowhere near the level that it is here in the west.

Then again, Ghibli just has an extremely high standard for animators, and it's just super hard and expensive to find 2D animators with the experience that they're looking for, which is probably the case. Plus, I assume that a lot of hand-drawn anime is probably outsourced to other countries for animation.

[TsWade2]

Even Studio Ghibli may abandon 2D animation in favor of CG.

Oy vey!

[Disney's Divinity]

Time to re-title the thread--"Is Hand-Drawn Animation Dead Everywhere?Hand-Drawn Animation Is Dead." Looks like it's no longer a Disney-only thing.

[PatrickvD]

Can we hold a ceremony and close this thread?

[unprincess]

if this thread ever closes, I think it should be replaced with an "animation news" thread...and leave it in this section(Disney Discussion)...the general section is pretty dead.

and the situation in Japan is really sad...losing 2d anime style animation would be as much of a great loss as the end of Disney classical style animation is over here.

[Warm Regards]

Man, that's a bummer about Studio Ghibli.

Someone on tumblr found this Lion King fan-made animation, maybe it can ease the pain?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kGEz1zDGgY[/youtube]

[Sotiris]

Someone on tumblr found this Lion King fan-made animation.

Wow, that's so impressive. It looks like it came straight out of the film! Thanks for sharing.

[unprincess]

Holy carp!
thats fan made?!?

[Warm Regards]

Holy carp!
thats fan made?!?

Yep! From the animator's YouTube:

I used a fragment of the song "The Madness of King Scar" from The Lion King musical and did an animated version as a tribute.

Inspirational people are all around us, it's so exciting.

[unprincess]

I especially love the way Scar nibbles at the bone in the beginning, theres so much character in those few seconds...

there was one comment that said the guy should work for Disney and i felt like replying-I doubt Disney would have any work for him these days.

[sunhuntin]

wow, that was incredible!!!! when i saw it, i thought it was the scene where simba confronts scar, straight from the film.

[PatrickvD]

That's... bizarre.

How the hell can a fan do this on... I'm assuming, no budget? While we were fed shit like Cinderella 2 for over a decade?!?!?

Depressing thought right there.

[Kyle]

Ha, looks like I was beaten to posting this.

It is impressive. Kinda looks to me like he pulled a number of key frames directly from the movie though, just altered the color palette to work with the rest. Not there isn't a lot of new animation as well, its just after seeing the original a million times you recognize certain poses/expressions.

[Old Fish Tale]

Holy cow, that was awesome!

[Warm Regards]

Part 1 of a new Glen Keane interview.

http://www.skwigly.co.uk/glen-keane-interview/

Q: I heard you say recently that you feel hand-drawn animation is currently still in the Byzantine era, so what do you think we have to do to move on to the Renaissance, and who do you think is leading that charge?

Glen Keane: Well, first of all I think you have to think of yourself differently. We tend to believe the business world’s view of our art form. But that’s really putting the cart before the horse – letting the tail wag the dog. This is an art form where we are the artists, we are the ones that are making it – don’t let somebody else define who you are, what you do and what is possible with this art form. It has to come from the mind of the artist. What would I be talking to you about if this was 500 years ago? I mean, we would talk about building Cathedrals or sculpture or painting frescos, but is this art form of making something move any less of a classical art form than those?

It’s just that so commercialised that we tend to forget that, so I really think it’s about us first. We have to think differently. On Tangled I remember we had done 40% of the animation in about nine months, we had two months left to do 60%. When talking to the crew I said “500 years ago we’d be talking about sculpture and architecture, but today this is our art form. We are born as artists today, and this is your important choice; Are you going to take a shortcut and just do something really formulaic, or are you going to take something really personal inside and put it out there on the screen?” When you have no time, and you are being really challenged, don’t take the shortcut. Do the thing that is really personal, be vulnerable, put yourself out there. That’s our art form. And at the end, you’ll be amazed. None of you will be the artists you are today; you’ll be better, you’ll be stronger, you’ll have grown.

And we got the animation done, and truly the very best stuff was done in those two months.

I have ideas of movies that I wanna see and do, and there’s a voice in my head that says “No way, there’s a reason that nobody’s doing that, it’s because nobody cares about it”. And I’m thinking “Yeah, but I do.” I think that people are going to connect to your art when you really put yourself out there and are personal, but it has to come from something that you’ve discovered in life, reflected back to the audience; They’re seeing it through your eyes.

[TsWade2]

Part 1 of a new Glen Keane interview.

Glen, you are an idi............JUST KIDDING! That's very well said.

[Kyle]

Not Disney but there's a hand drawn Cloudy with a chance of meatballs series in the works. Could be fun.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tv/tradition ... 04361.html

[estefan]

Yep, super excited for the Cloudy tv series, even if it seems like they're throwing continuity out of the way (then again, Disney did the same thing with their movie-to-tv series).

DHX Media uses Flash animation for their shows (they're the My Little Pony people), so I don't think this will be hand-drawn. Nonetheless, the transition from CG to 2D will be pretty seamless, since both Cloudy films already employ a UPA design mixed with Fleischer-esque animation.