DVDizzy Forum

2Disney4Ever wrote:Or course with the kind of reputation people today have for reviving older beloved franchises and how they go about doing it, that can either turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing (glares at Disney for wanting their DuckTales reboot to be CGI and for putting today's Mickey Mouse cartoons in the hands of cheap hacks who don't know what good 2D drawing looks like ).

Q: Thanks so much for actually meeting up with me because I know you’re super busy.

Dale Baer: Not really.

Q: Well, the last email you sent me [said] you’ve got two or three meetings a day.

Dale Baer: Yeah, there’re meetings but there’re nothing. It’s not like I’m trying to get a bunch of work done in-between because there isn’t anything to do right now.

Q: No? You’re on some downtime?

Dale Baer: Yeah, pretty much. It’s been downtime for a long time.

Q: Aren’t you doing some tests or something?

Dale Baer: No. We were.

Q: Meetings?

Dale Baer: Not even meetings in the animation-end of things. It’s just meetings I have on the outside with people like you. So, there you go.

Dale Baer wrote:[After The Princess and the Frog], some of us were thinking we’re going to have to go on Rapunzel, which became Tangled, so a lot us thought “OK, I guess we’re going back to CG”. So, we all started doing tests on it. But the whole atmosphere of the CG people sort of changed. They became a bit more protective of their little “area” and they really didn’t like us being there. So, we were getting the message before we got into it too deep and finally Winnie the Pooh showed up so we all jumped ship and went over to Winnie the Pooh. But after that things changed. They went more CG. They wanted to use us more in the development-end of things. But I was finding a little resistance there. They asked us to do motion tests on characters to see how the characters could move. So, we would do that. But then it got to the point where nobody was asking us to do anything. We would go in and ask “Is there anything you want us to do?” and they’d say “No, not right now”. So, I went to another gentleman by the name of Bill Schwab who is in character development and started picking up some stuff from him. But it becomes that piecemeal. You’re not really finding a niche there anymore. You’re not finding a lot of collaboration that much anymore which is kind of sad. One of the successful films they did was Tangled because Glen Keane came in and did draw-overs over almost every single shot and pushed the characters, pushed their dialogue, pushed their poses. They even brought in people to sculpt the characters so you could get a more artistic-looking design to it (straights against curves).

Once we started on Moana here they asked us for our input. “We really want your input”, they told us, to me and Mark Henn, and we went “Sure, no problem”. So, we went back and we started doing tests for everything and they were kind of skeptical of our critiques for it and then they were hesitant on asking for help on other areas of it and then when we would go to dailies... Now dailies is a place you go to speak up but on Moana we started going to dailies and speaking up and all of a sudden I’m called in – and I know the other guys were called in at various times – and told not to speak, not to say anything because it was the [CG] animators’ time with the directors. We were told we could speak if we want to go to rounds but the directors aren’t there so we’re up against the other animators and I don’t think they would have agreed with some of our thoughts. So, I started doing drawings instead. I would go back, I’d see something, I’d go back and find the scene and I’d do a printout and I’d do a draw-over and I’d put it on the animator’s desk. But then I was called in and told “You’re bombarding the animators with drawings and they don’t like it”. So, a lot of us just stopped going to dailies, we stopped really involving ourselves. I would find more satisfaction doing character development stuff with Bill Schwab and doing character poses and ideas of how this character could move, what kind of expression is this character going to have, what kind of costumes is it going to have but then things started to die down. I know there’s a lot of reworking on the story and stuff like that but it just doesn’t feel like you have a place there like you used to, when you had a character that you owned, and you had a crew and you could go through and really feel involved in this picture. Now, it’s not like that anymore. It’s like there’s a separation there. I don’t know what it is exactly but I know there are a lot of things the directors are missing when they see a CG test. I know John Musker would always say “We’re 2D guys and we’re not seeing this, and we’re not seeing that”. I think at one point I even offered to do a class on just what it is I think John’s missing but that hasn’t happened and I don’t know if it will. [...] There're some things they can't do yet like hair [in CG tests] and that sometimes is what sells the scene (or a piece of fabric on them or a grass skirt on them). You're trying to set a mood sometimes with certain things and if you can't do it... That's got to frustrate John and Ron a little bit because they're used to seeing ideas on paper right off the bat. You may not have all the eye blinks or all the dialogue but you got the main body language working for you.

[...] I hope [2D animation] comes back to life. Right now, I haven't even seen any [2D] shorts coming out of [the studio] either. We were doing quite a few there for a while and all of a sudden it just stopped.

unprincess wrote:As Ive stated before, I always felt that part of the anti-2d nature of the current studio had as much to do with the CGI animators coming in and wanting to own the place

Tristy wrote:You know that comment about 2D animation being just "more vaudeville" makes me a little sad that that's how it's viewed and makes me wish more and more people nowadays would see this. It's not a Disney production, but it is just a reminder of how not only 2D animation, but family entertainment in general used to be:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE9KpobX9J8[/youtube]

2Disney4Ever wrote:The way 2D artists are being treated by today's management makes me sick. Remind me again why I should still give the Disney studio and their CG movies praise when this is what's going on behind-the-scenes?

Semaj wrote:He was lying when he called a "truce" not that long ago.

I'd block him, but then I'd still have to shift past responses to his autistic outbursts.

2Disney4Ever wrote:

Semaj wrote:He was lying when he called a "truce" not that long ago.

I'd block him, but then I'd still have to shift past responses to his autistic outbursts.

I wasn't lying when I wrote it.

I guess as long as Disney is the way that it is today, I'm always going to have conflict here. I don't know how I can even be part of a Disney group anymore if I'm against what they do now.

2Disney4Ever wrote:Remind me again why I should still give the Disney studio and their CG movies praise when this is what's going on behind-the-scenes?

2Disney4Ever wrote:Yeah well, maybe it isn't just me that's the problem here but also all of YOU. The way I see it, Disney isn't what it should be anymore because CGI CORRUPTED THEM, just as it's corrupted our culture and every member on this forum who dare believes that the stuff coming out of Disney today is good. THAT'S why I never get along with anyone here! Nobody here truly understands anymore what Disney animation is meant to be but me. Not even Disney themselves.

You still claim to love "Disney animation", but you're all clueless, brainwashed fools who have fallen for these CG movies and the whole 2D-killing agenda behind them, "Hook, Line, and SUCKER!". If you believe those movies are good, you're believing a LIE!

2Disney4Ever wrote:Yeah well, maybe it isn't just me that's the problem here but also all of YOU. The way I see it, Disney isn't what it should be anymore because CGI CORRUPTED THEM, just as it's corrupted our culture and every member on this forum who dare believes that the stuff coming out of Disney today is good. THAT'S why I never get along with anyone here! Nobody here truly understands anymore what Disney animation is meant to be but me. Not even Disney themselves.

You still claim to love "Disney animation", but you're all clueless, brainwashed fools who have fallen for these CG movies and the whole 2D-killing agenda behind them, "Hook, Line, and SUCKER!". If you believe those movies are good, you're believing a LIE!

MeerkatKombat wrote:

2Disney4Ever wrote:Yeah well, maybe it isn't just me that's the problem here but also all of YOU. The way I see it, Disney isn't what it should be anymore because CGI CORRUPTED THEM, just as it's corrupted our culture and every member on this forum who dare believes that the stuff coming out of Disney today is good. THAT'S why I never get along with anyone here! Nobody here truly understands anymore what Disney animation is meant to be but me. Not even Disney themselves.

You still claim to love "Disney animation", but you're all clueless, brainwashed fools who have fallen for these CG movies and the whole 2D-killing agenda behind them, "Hook, Line, and SUCKER!". If you believe those movies are good, you're believing a LIE!

It seems to me all this forum does is agitate you because we can't all agree with you 100%. The personal attacks are out of order.
If this forum causes you such strong feelings of anger and distress then I suggest taking yourself away from it for the good of your mental health. It's acting as a trigger for your dissatisfaction and anxieties and I really think you need to cut yourself off. All this forum seems to do is keep you in a cycle of dwelling on your negative feelings towards CGI and the Disney company of today. I assume you continue to post here because it gives you a sense of control that maybe you might eventually change Disney's mind.

I hope you can detach from this forum and find a hobby or interest that actually makes you happy and brings you pleasure. This is not it. This forum does not bring you pleasure so why keep fighting it and us? Life is too short to focus so intensely on something that makes you highly miserable.

Disney's Divinity wrote:I'm discriminating towards all movies, animated or live-action. If the movie looks awful, why would I want to support it? I did see Tangled in theaters once, and Frozen several times, BH6 and WIR not at all. And it turned out I didn't like Tangled or BH6 (when I finally saw it), so I'm happy I didn't support those two by buying the films (or seeing BH6 in theaters). Besides, they don't need my support, since they're being made because they rake in the money already. Not throwing away my coins to one of the richest corporations in the world, no thank you. *scampers off with purse clutched to chest*

Tristy wrote:You know that comment about 2D animation being just "more vaudeville" makes me a little sad that that's how it's viewed and makes me wish more and more people nowadays would see this. It's not a Disney production, but it is just a reminder of how not only 2D animation, but family entertainment in general used to be:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE9KpobX9J8[/youtube]

Agreed. A lot of the people here, even those who are very pro-2D and who may not be a fan of John Lasseter and Pixar, simply go and see some of Disney's CG films because they're interested in animation in general, whether it's Disney, Pixar, Studio Ghibli, Dreamworks or an independent French filmmaker. What's more, a lot of people are discerning about what they see and won't necessarily go rushing to see a particular film because it's made in a certain medium - it's all a matter of personal preference. Divinity put it well here, in my opinion: