DVDizzy Forum

Ed Catmull wrote:When The Princess and the Frog was released, we believed we had made a good film, the reviews confirmed that belief, and people who saw it loved it. However, we would soon learn that we had made a serious mistake—one that was only compounded by the fact that our movie opened nationwide just five days before James Cameron’s science fiction fantasy Avatar. This scheduling only encouraged moviegoers to take one look at a film with the word princess in the title and think: That’s for little girls only. To say that we are making a great film but not listen to the input of experienced colleagues within the company imperiled the quality we were so proud of. Quality meant that every aspect—not just the rendering and the storytelling but also the positioning and the marketing—needed to be done well, which meant being open to reasoned opinions, even when they contradicted our own. The movie had come in under budget, which is the rarest of achievements in the entertainment business. The quality of its animation rivaled the best ever done by the studio. The film was profitable, as we’d kept costs down, but it just didn’t make enough to convince anyone at the studio that we should pour more resources into hand-drawn films.

While we’d had high hopes that the film would prove that 2D could rise again, our narrow vision and poor decision-making made it seem like the opposite was true. While we thought then—and still think today—that hand-drawn animation is a wonderfully expressive medium, I realize now that I got carried away by my childhood memories of the Disney Animation I’d once so enjoyed. I’d liked the idea of celebrating, right out of the box, the art form that Walt Disney himself pioneered.

After The Princess and the Frog’s somewhat lackluster opening, I knew we had to rethink what we were doing. Around that time, Andrew Millstein pulled me aside and pointed out that our double-barreled approach—reviving 2D while also championing 3D—was confusing the people within the studio we fundamentally wanted to encourage to focus on the future. The issue with 2D was not the validity of the time-honored art form but that Disney’s directors needed and wanted to engage with the new. In the aftermath of the merger, many people had asked me whether we were going to have Disney do 2D and Pixar 3D. They were expecting Disney to do the old stuff and Pixar to do the new. In the wake of The Princess and the Frog, I realized how important it was to nip this toxic way of thinking in the bud. The truth was, Disney’s directors respected the studio’s heritage, but they wanted to build on it—and in order to do that, they had to be free to forge their own path.

estefan wrote:I don't think that's what he means at all. I think he's saying that maybe the next step for hand-drawn animation is to do something new with the medium (akin to Paperman or what Blue Sky is doing with Peanuts) and not simply tell the same old stories as before. I think once they come up with a revolutionary and new story that would be well suited for hand-drawn, that's when they will use the medium or the Paperman technique.

Ed Catmull in his new book Creativity Inc. talks about the aftermath of The Princess and the Frog's box office results and confirms that WDAS will no longer be producing 2D features.

unprincess wrote:why cant a studio do 2(or 3 or 4) types of animation? How does this "confuse" the people working there?
and who are these "Disney directors" that wanted to move on from 2d? ( well I think I have an idea of who they might be, but ...wont go into it now)

After The Princess and the Frog’s somewhat lackluster opening, I knew we had to rethink what we were doing. Around that time, Andrew Millstein pulled me aside and pointed out that our double-barreled approach—reviving 2D while also championing 3D—was confusing the people within the studio we fundamentally wanted to encourage to focus on the future. The issue with 2D was not the validity of the time-honored art form but that Disney’s directors needed and wanted to engage with the new. In the aftermath of the merger, many people had asked me whether we were going to have Disney do 2D and Pixar 3D. They were expecting Disney to do the old stuff and Pixar to do the new. In the wake of The Princess and the Frog, I realized how important it was to nip this toxic way of thinking in the bud. The truth was, Disney’s directors respected the studio’s heritage, but they wanted to build on it—and in order to do that, they had to be free to forge their own path.

estefan wrote:I think he's saying that maybe the next step for hand-drawn animation is to do something new with the medium (akin to Paperman or what Blue Sky is doing with Peanuts)

estefan wrote:I think once they come up with a revolutionary and new story that would be well suited for hand-drawn, that's when they will use the medium or the Paperman technique.

unprincess wrote:Why cant a studio do 2 (or 3 or 4) types of animation? How does this "confuse" the people working there?

unprincess wrote:And who are these "Disney directors" that wanted to move on from 2D?

ce1ticmoon wrote:It seems like they acknowledge that there are a bunch of factors that contributed to the "disappointing" box office returns, including bad scheduling and an alienating title, yet they still consciously decide to blame it on the medium.

ce1ticmoon wrote:Honestly, the only toxic way of thinking I see here is considering 2D to be "the old." As if the only way to move forward is to engage in CGI/3D filmmaking. There's so much room to do new things in both mediums. CGI isn't a successor to hand-drawn; it's just a newer alternative.

Disney's Divinity wrote:Frozen was a revolutionary story that was intended to be made as a 2D film until TP&TF "underperformed" (ie: would never have performed well enough in their eyes for the company not to extinguish 2D anyway, considering they were already deadset against it).

The only way I can guess 2D will be made by Disney again is if the 3D films start to flop repeatedly, too, proving that the flops of the 2000's had nothing to do with the medium. Even then, 3D will never be "killed" like 2D effectively has been at the studio.

estefan wrote:I think Frozen is great, but I wouldn't call it revolutionary. It still follows the template set by the 90s Disney musicals, even with its trope twisting. I think Disney needs to prove hand-drawn animation doesn't necessarily have to be relegated to musicals and fairy tales, which I think is what Catmull is getting at. It needs to be something special and unique to use hand-drawn animation, otherwise the general audience will think the medium can only tell that one type of story. Something akin to a Lilo & Stitch, which doesn't follow what we expect from Disney and hand-drawn animation.

estefan wrote:In regards to Peanuts, I've said this before, but I think that movie's eventual success will lead to more openness to trying different types of computer animation, specifically ones that seek to emulate hand-drawn animation. And I can see a director making the argument that using paper and Cintiq is actually cheaper to emulate Peanuts' look than computer. What executive wouldn't want to approve a cheaper way of emulating a hit movie's success?

Semaj wrote:

estefan wrote:In regards to Peanuts, I've said this before, but I think that movie's eventual success will lead to more openness to trying different types of computer animation, specifically ones that seek to emulate hand-drawn animation. And I can see a director making the argument that using paper and Cintiq is actually cheaper to emulate Peanuts' look than computer. What executive wouldn't want to approve a cheaper way of emulating a hit movie's success?

For me, that translates into a jobs issue.

A lot of talented artists and aspiring artists can't find work because too many studios have found a be-all, end-all in computer art.

TsWade2 wrote:Sotiris, why do you have to make this thread to make us hand drawn animation fans miserable?

disneyprincess11 wrote:

TsWade2 wrote:Sotiris, why do you have to make this thread to make us hand drawn animation fans miserable?

TsWade, not to be rude, but please don't do this.

Lady Cluck wrote:Keep preaching the truth TsWade2! No need to censor yourself, Disney should burn in hell for what they've put us through!

TsWade2 wrote:

Lady Cluck wrote:Keep preaching the truth TsWade2! No need to censor yourself, Disney should burn in hell for what they've put us through!

Agreed. Especially Bob Iger.