Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

[TsWade2]

It's quite honestly a conflict of interest.
On one hand I can kinda agree with them because this is a studio that is built on making money now. And after all, it is a business. So their main goal is focused on money rather than the consumer's needs. The princess and the frog did horrible at the box office and that is understandable as it had many things going against it.
As for Pooh... Whose smart idea was it to pin this movie against the VERY last very climactic Hogwarts burning poster Harry Potter?
This is why I agree with Disneyprincess11 on the execs not wanting 2D.

On the other hand, they could go bankrupt and make 2D movies.
Although it is weird. Can anyone explain to me why the earlier Hand-drawn movies had a significantly lower budget than the later ones? Even when adjusting for inflation when compared to today.

This is no longer about whether or not the story doesn't lend itself because I can say that about many movies.

1. Little Mermaid - movie takes place under water so it's hard to animate without computers.
2. Beauty and the beast - movie has a beast, so it's hard to draw.
3. Aladdin - The magic carpet is hard to draw.
4. Lion King - Movie is filled with animals, scenery, and a lot of emotional drama that can't be expressed though hand-drawn.
5. Pocahontas - Colors of the win will be better in CGI
6. Hunchback - Notredame is too hard to do in hand-drawn.

Do you see a pattern here?
You can come up with many reasons why a movie wasn't hand drawn but this one reason is not sufficient.

Will 2D have a come back?
I don't think so.
Frozen would have been that movie that brought back 2D.
2D isn't about the story, it's about which movie will bring in the most money.
If Frozen was 2D then we'd see more 2D movies announced by now.

And honestly.. I don't think it'll ever have a comeback because it's just not in the studio's best interest to waste money on a format that people just simply aren't getting their asses to a movie theater to see.
Which is why it pains to say this... 2D will never have a comeback.
Maybe one day when computers have taken over the world that the only way for us to make entertainment is through hand-drawing images.

Honestly.. to me.. I could careless about what format it is in as long as the story and the magic is there.
I base my opinion on whether or not the movie is good rather than the medium.
I've seen some hand-drawn animation that had come out recently and didn't think much of them.
Like Earnst and Celestine. The movie was meh and my opinion had nothing to do with the fact that it was hand-drawn. I can say the same thing about the secret of Kells.

That is so utterly bullpoop! Hand drawn animation will find it's way to be famous again. You'll see! Just you wait!

(Sigh) Here I go again. I need to try not to visit this thread for a while, because it's getting under my skin.

[Warm Regards]

Although it is weird. Can anyone explain to me why the earlier Hand-drawn movies had a significantly lower budget than the later ones? Even when adjusting for inflation when compared to today.

I am curious as well. Maybe competition and demand makes animation pricey nowadays?

This is no longer about whether or not the story doesn't lend itself because I can say that about many movies.

1. Little Mermaid - movie takes place under water so it's hard to animate without computers.
2. Beauty and the beast - movie has a beast, so it's hard to draw.
3. Aladdin - The magic carpet is hard to draw.
4. Lion King - Movie is filled with animals, scenery, and a lot of emotional drama that can't be expressed though hand-drawn.
5. Pocahontas - Colors of the win will be better in CGI
6. Hunchback - Notredame is too hard to do in hand-drawn.

Do you see a pattern here?
You can come up with many reasons why a movie wasn't hand drawn but this one reason is not sufficient.

IIRC the magic carpet was a CG design on hand drawn frames.

As I suggested earlier the executives (not the story) need only one "element" to call an entire film worthy of CG. This might not be accurate, but I think most higher ups don't want to admit they want money. Especially in the arts, where there's this ideology that your vision is more important than the money. Executives say that CG can "enhance" that vision, but in secret they really think of it in monetary terms.

Quite frankly, technology has made us greedy. I imagine studios see a lot of comfort in the immediacy CG animation brings, to the point where they can literally start animating a film and release it that same year. Plus it means less pre-planning, as changes can happen faster. It's similar to why most live action films no longer use practical effects: it's hard work, yes, but more truthfully it's long work. Long work that higher ups feel is a waste when CG can make the idea "better" in less time. "Time is money" and all.

Plus 3D sales, I imagine that's a big motivator because it means it's easier to make a budget back.

[taei]

(Sigh) Here I go again. I need to try not to visit this thread for a while, because it's getting under my skin.

I don't think you said anything wrong... I know you're a huge fan of 2D animation, so its fine.
And when the day comes and 2D animation is back, I'll gladly celebrate with you.

[taei]

Plus 3D sales, I imagine that's a big motivator because it means it's easier to make a budget back.

technology has indeed made people very very lazy.

I mean, studios are willing to barely spend any money to convert a movie to 3D to earn money.
When in reality, a good 3D conversion job can turn out to be phenomenal. I mean, look at Jurassic Park. the 3D there was amazing and better than a lot of other movies.
Studious just don't want to spend the money.

As for animation.
I recently saw Mermaid and lion king in 3D and they were one of the best things that I have ever seen. Especially mermaid.
So 2D animated movies can definitely be converted to 3D.

[taei]

Kind of funny...

I'm studying for my Finance exam and this is what it says in my book:
A manager's main goal is to maximize stock price.

While on the other hand, my marketing book says:
A manager's main goal is to meet the consumer's needs.

Let's grow to be part of a dysfunctional workforce!

[TsWade2]

(Sigh) Here I go again. I need to try not to visit this thread for a while, because it's getting under my skin.

I don't think you said anything wrong... I know you're a huge fan of 2D animation, so its fine.
And when the day comes and 2D animation is back, I'll gladly celebrate with you.

Aww! Thank you.

[Sotiris]

Former Disney animator, Nik Ranieri explains why Disney didn't produce more 2D films after Winnie the Pooh.

Jamie [Lopez] has been trying to get [Hullabaloo] off the ground for a couple of years at least. He tried at Disney but Disney wasn't interested – well, Disney wasn't interested in anything that we had to say. I’m sure if he had brought it as a 3D project they would have been a little more interested. If you've seen any of the footage of that stuff, it’s just great. He combines the technology and uses it where it needs to be used but still has that hand-drawn look. We were on board to do something like that until circumstances at Disney… There were some legal problems with the film they were working on at the time and the whole project was dropped and that was the beginning of the end for 2D. Once that picture was done, the following two years… Everybody was in the dark. No one actually knew what to do. [...]

When I was at Disney the frustrating thing was every time I asked about 2D films I got the same response from Catmulls and Lasseters: 'Good story. All we need is a good story'. I remember I went to Catmull and said: 'You know, Ed, you don’t need a good story. What we need is a mediocre story that halfway through production becomes a great story. Because if you guys had a good story, you wouldn't do 2D with it, you’d throw it into the 3D ring. That’s what you’d do. It would go right to CG so don’t tell me that all we need is a good story because that’s not true'. The only way we’d get through it, like I said, is to get a story you’d go ‘Ah, that’s not so good. Yeah, you can have it’ and halfway through production it goes ‘Wow. Man, if I had known it was going to be this good, we would have done it in CG’. And we finish it, and it comes out and everyone thinks it’s great and all that. But that never happened.

Source: http://endcredits.podbean.com/e/nik_ranieri/

[Warm Regards]

When I was at Disney the frustrating thing was every time I asked about 2D films I got the same response from Catmulls and Lasseters: 'Good story. All we need is a good story'. I remember I went to Catmull and said: 'You know, Ed, you don’t need a good story. What we need is a mediocre story that halfway through production becomes a great story. Because if you guys had a good story, you wouldn't do 2D with it, you’d throw it into the 3D ring. That’s what you’d do. It would go right to CG so don’t tell me that all we need is a good story because that’s not true'. The only way we’d get through it, like I said, is to get a story you’d go ‘Ah, that’s not so good. Yeah, you can have it’ and halfway through production it goes ‘Wow. Man, if I had known it was going to be this good, we would have done it in CG’. And we finish it, and it comes out and everyone thinks it’s great and all that. But that never happened.

Source: http://endcredits.podbean.com/e/nik_ranieri/

Yes, ex-act-ly! These are my very sentiments on the issue. A good story will always find some reason to be CG.

Ug, feels good knowing I'm not crazy for jumping to that conclusion.

[disneyprincess11]

Ha! Even an ex-worker at Disney confirmed that this is the case!

And he is totally right. Lasseter and Catmulls will just find an excuse to do 3D like the setting, effects etc. And of course, they will immediately make great movies 3D: They want it to do well (which is actually smart) and it's the sad that they have given up 2D completely. And sadly: "‘Wow. Man, if I had known it was going to be this good, we would have done it in CG" is not true. Frozen went from 2D to 3D, once they fixed the story problems. So, this clearly happens all the time at Disney, which is why Moana is taking so long: Debating from 2D/3D/Hybrid because of "story reasons".

Lasseter and Catmullus can make all of the excuses as they want, but it's crystal clear that they want 2D to be gone. For now, anyway

[jazzflower92]

Ha! Even an ex-worker at Disney confirmed that this is the case!

And he is totally right. Lasseter and Catmulls will just find an excuse to do 3D like the setting, effects etc. And of course, they will immediately make great movies 3D: They want it to do well (which is actually smart) and it's the sad that they have given up 2D completely. And sadly: "‘Wow. Man, if I had known it was going to be this good, we would have done it in CG" is not true. Frozen went from 2D to 3D, once they fixed the story problems. So, this clearly happens all the time at Disney, which is why Moana is taking so long: Debating from 2D/3D/Hybrid because of "story reasons".

Lasseter and Catmullus can make all of the excuses as they want, but it's crystal clear that they want 2D to be gone. For now, anyway

I am going to say this I really don't think they want it to be gone. In fact at this point I think some fans are getting obsessive with wanting 2D back.

[unprincess]

the problem isnt wether they want it to be gone or not, the problem is that they cant just flat out say the truth "we dont want it to be gone but we have to let it go(ha!) b/c it is not profitable." No one working at Disney is talking about the real reason the last 3 films have been cgi & the next 4 will be cgi as well. They want us to believe its an artstic desicion and not a financial one and the proof is substantial that its not.

and why is that a big deal? b/c it doesnt let the fans move on and accept Disney for what it has become(whether that fan decides to move on from Disney or accept the new CGI Disney.) It especially doesnt help when they keep teasing that "maybe" theyll do 2d again someday...if this...or if that. Becasue the ifs are very unlikely going to happen in any way that will convince them that they should go back to 2d.

[Sotiris]

Don Hahn talks about the future of 2D animation.

Q: Are you thinking now that you just want to stay in live-action or are you going to come back to animation to produce?

Don Hahn: Animation gets in your blood and you always love it. I probably won’t produce animation on a big studio level again because I feel I’ve done that before and I want to push out into some other areas. I have an absolute passion for hand-drawn animation and people may perceive that as a remark against computer graphics and it’s not at all. I feel like computer graphics animation is a modern miracle, so there’s nothing against that. But there’s something about painting and hand-made things, and stop-motion animation and drawing and sculpting that I love. There’s a humanity in that that I think is important to keep alive for the audience. So, if I get into other projects, they’ll probably be smaller movies that push the boundaries of what animation can do and are more handcrafted things.

Q: Do you see [2D animation] coming back? Tony and I have been preaching that it’s not really going to come back through Disney, through DreamWorks, through Pixar, through the big companies. It will come back in independent ways by groups of people that band together for their love – hopefully they have ability and talent too – and just put lot of passion to it just like way back when with Beauty and the Beast and even Snow White. Is that what you see?

Don Hahn: You guys are absolutely right. It won’t come back in any major way through the studios. And it’s not that the studios are ignorant. There’re smart people running those companies but they have to return investment for their shareholders and their shareholders are going to want to have those big CG movies. Where I think the most exciting work is being done in Europe and Japan right now and I think that will migrate easily to the U.S. pretty shortly here. I am on an advisory board for a studio called Cartoon Saloon in Ireland. I’m on their board because I feel at this point in my career is important for me to get behind people that I think are doing it and help them succeed. Their next film Song of the Sea is spectacular and their slate of films coming up are all hand-drawn and are all just breathtaking. I love stop-motion for the same reason. I think there’s some great work coming out of Japan and Asia. I’m not a Luddite in terms of technology. I love going to watch great CG movies but I just feel there’s something sexy about picking up a pencil and doing it. Because it’s a graphic medium and it’s a medium of caricature.

Source: http://taughtbyapro.com/episode-3-the-d ... interview/

[TsWade2]

I know this is a bit repetitive, but......https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FnpaWQJO0

[Kyle]

umm...why? He's on your side.

[Semaj]

Anyone among us interested in becoming a shareholder?

[TsWade2]

umm...why? He's on your side.

He is? My bad.

[DisneyEra]

The Walt Disney Company is staked!!! Look at ALL those franchises! From little girls to grown men $ from every age/gender.

[unprincess]

^ is that thing real? what is that, a stock certificate?

Wade, you really need to read through these articles carefully b4 you post, what he's saying is what we've been saying all along, 2d animation will not return through the studio system b/c their only interest is making money. I appreciate that he's telling the truth unlike Disney itself which keeps pushing on the myth that theyre still a handrawn producing studio that only cares about the art...

he loves hand drawn and stop motion and he is definitly on our side!

[DisneyEra]

^ is that thing real? what is that, a stock certificate?

Wade, you really need to read through these articles carefully b4 you post, what he's saying is what we've been saying all along, 2d animation will not return through the studio system b/c their only interest is making money. I appreciate that he's telling the truth unlike Disney itself which keeps pushing on the myth that theyre still a handrawn producing studio that only cares about the art...

he loves hand drawn and stop motion and he is definitly on our side!

It's very real. You can buy one personalized from the Disney Store for $50, but you must be a shareholder to get one

http://www.disneystore.com/collectibles ... /#longDesc

[unprincess]

it would be interesting to see these from past decades and see how the franchises and what characters Disney considers "worthy" have changed.