Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

[blackcauldron85]

While trying to find anything new about Hullabaloo news. I came across this: https://m.facebook.com/traditionalanima ... 7&__tn__=C (Don Bluth, 2D Dragon's Lair, Kickstarter!!!)

p.s.- any new news on Hullabaloo??

And Sotiris, thanks for posting about Tito Luvdeer-- that looks cute, and representing an LGBT relationship and adoption? I'm going to see if I can find it in my budget to contribute.
http://onanimation.com/2015/10/22/tito-luvdeer-patreon/

[Disney's Divinity]

I love Nippy13's artwork, but I'm not crazy about those designs (what is with the hair???). The two love interests don't look good together at all, with one being all goofy-looking and the other more serious. Of course, the same could be said for, say, Flynn/Rapunzel, for example, but I don't like them either.

I swear I've seen an animated gay love story in the form of a short before (that I liked). Not in the vein of Disney fairytales, but it's out there.

[unprincess]

p.s.- any new news on Hullabaloo??

I think they are still working on the 3 shorts. You also remind me I really need to change my sig since the Kickstarter campaign is long over.

The Tito project looks cute, Ill see if I can contribute...

[ce1ticmoon]

While trying to find anything new about Hullabaloo news. I came across this: https://m.facebook.com/traditionalanima ... 7&__tn__=C (Don Bluth, 2D Dragon's Lair, Kickstarter!!!)

I just found out about this as well... I've never been the biggest fan of Don Bluth (for the most part, even his good films have always felt like they needed a little more work), but this would be a welcome return if this film were to get funded.

I'll definitely be contributing to this one. I'm thinking his name value alone should be enough to get the film funded, like past Kickstarters of big name directors like Bill Plympton and Masaaki Yuasa. I'm not sure which tier I'm going to go for yet though... I wish the Blu-ray was for a a lower tier, since $125 is a little steep for me.

[Kyle]

While trying to find anything new about Hullabaloo news. I came across this: https://m.facebook.com/traditionalanima ... 7&__tn__=C (Don Bluth, 2D Dragon's Lair, Kickstarter!!!)

I just found out about this as well... I've never been the biggest fan of Don Bluth (for the most part, even his good films have always felt like they needed a little more work), but this would be a welcome return if this film were to get funded.

I'll definitely be contributing to this one. I'm thinking his name value alone should be enough to get the film funded, like past Kickstarters of big name directors like Bill Plympton and Masaaki Yuasa. I'm not sure which tier I'm going to go for yet though... I wish the Blu-ray was for a a lower tier, since $125 is a little steep for me.

Yeah, that's a weird tier to put the blu ray at considering no blu ray is going to be that much on its own. Might as well wait til it gets released without your money. (unless its signed or something? still...)

[ce1ticmoon]

Yeah, that's a weird tier to put the blu ray at considering no blu ray is going to be that much on its own. Might as well wait til it gets released without your money. (unless its signed or something? still...)

Upon taking a closer look, it appears that the Blu-ray is not for the movie but for the game. That makes sense now that I've looked at the Kickstarter page a little more closely. I kinda just assumed the Kickstarter was to fund the movie itself and didn't read closely through everything, but this Kickstarter's purpose seems to be merely to fund a teaser short film that they will use to present to investors. They're looking to have a budget of $70 million for the actual film. That actually makes a lot more sense now that I actually think about it.

Honestly, even if the Kickstarter is successful, I'm not sure if they'd be able to secure the funding for the feature film itself. Bluth is a big name, but he has kinda faded out of public consciousness over the last 15 years, and I can't see many investors investing in a traditional animation project in a landscape that is so dominated by CGI. Hopefully they will be able to show it to people who have a passion for animation and are willing to take a chance. (If it happens, of course.)

I think I'll actually wait 'til the end of the campaign and donate a lower tier donation if it seems like it will be a close call.

[blackcauldron85]

Steve Hulett (he's in charge of the Animation Guild, also former Disney employee [& his dad, too]) has this to say about the KickStarter for Dragon's Lair:

Kick-Starting Hand-Drawn Animation
http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... ation.html

[unprincess]

I forgot to comment on Dragons Lair. Id love to see them succeed, but I agree with Hurlett, its going to be an uphill battle. I wonder if they should consider alternate distribution, like a movie(or maybe series) one could only see on Netflix or Amazon, or Cartoon Network Adult Swim.

[Sotiris]

I'm not crazy about those designs (what is with the hair???). The two love interests don't look good together at all, with one being all goofy-looking and the other more serious.

I agree. I would preferred if the hero looked less cartoony too but at least the animation is pretty decent, judging from those pencil tests.

I swear I've seen an animated gay love story in the form of a short before (that I liked). Not in the vein of Disney fairytales, but it's out there.

I never heard of that. A cursory Google search didn't yield much results. Here are all the (non-anime) animated shorts I could find that include a gay romance. Is it one of these?

• Aquarium
• Arrival
• The Bravest Knight Who Ever Lived
• Candy Boy (French without subtitles)
• Cruise Patrol
• Dirty Paws
• Fish Tale
• The Ice Queen and Her Wife
• I Like Girls (Trailer)
• In a Heartbeat
• Prince Henry
• Proud Princess
• Rosaline
• Safe in My Hands
• Yulia

Honestly, even if the Kickstarter is successful, I'm not sure if they'd be able to secure the funding for the feature film itself. Bluth is a big name, but he has kinda faded out of public consciousness over the last 15 years, and I can't see many investors investing in a traditional animation project in a landscape that is so dominated by CGI.

While I would much preferred an original film instead of a Dragon's Lair movie, I think they went with that because it will be easier to pitch it than an original one. It's based on a pre-existing property, it has a cult following, there's the nostalgia factor, and it appeals to animation fans as well as gamers. Of course, it will still be really difficult to find investors for a $70 million 2D movie, but it will be somewhat easier than pitching an original idea.

[estefan]

I'm actually a little surprised they're putting the budget that high. Don Bluth made The Secret of NIMH independently and that was for only $7 million (or about $17 million in today's dollars). I think the best way to convince investors to jump aboard this is to show that you can make a hand-drawn film cheaper than a computer animated movie and still make it look fantastic. Even Laika doesn't spend $70 million per movie. And the upcoming Ratchet and Clank movie is reportedly budgeted at $25 million and the animation looks really good on that one.

[blackcauldron85]

Honestly, even if the Kickstarter is successful, I'm not sure if they'd be able to secure the funding for the feature film itself. Bluth is a big name, but he has kinda faded out of public consciousness over the last 15 years, and I can't see many investors investing in a traditional animation project in a landscape that is so dominated by CGI.

While I would much preferred an original film instead of a Dragon's Lair movie, I think they went with that because it will be easier to pitch it than an original one. It's based on a pre-existing property, it has a cult following, there's the nostalgia factor, and it appeals to animation fans as well as gamers. Of course, it will still be really difficult to find investors for a $70 million 2D movie, but it will be somewhat easier than pitching an original idea.

I'm pretty sure that Don Bluth had wanted to make a Dragon's Lair feature film back in the day, and there was a TV series based on the game, too. So I think, not only might it be an easier pitch, like you said, but it's a project near & dear to Don's heart.

[Disney's Divinity]

I never heard of that. A cursory Google search didn't yield much results. Here are all the animated shorts I could find that include an LGBT+ romance. Is it one of these?

Yes, it was the French one you posted. I saw it on the LOGO channel one weekend a while back when they had a marathon of short films. I believe it had subtitles when they played it? It was really sweet anyway.

[Sotiris]

It looks like there are already some investors who are interested in the Dragon's Lair movie but are waiting to see if there's an audience for it. So, being successful on Kickstarter is imperative for the project to move and for them to find more investors.

Bluth says the film would use traditional hand-drawn animation and cost about $70 million to make. The Kickstarter funds would be used to hire a screenwriter and produce a 10-minute teaser including one minute of completed animation along with storyboards and the like.

“We’ve got some funders who are kind of waiting in the wings to see what we’re going to do, and we wanted to see if there’s enough public out there that still remembers this game,” Bluth says. “Is there an audience out there to merit making a movie of this?”

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/story/entertai ... /74707966/

Q: I know 2D might be a little hard to shop around studios today, but what do you think the chances are some one to pick this up?

Don Bluth: All that is about finances. If we can prove one movie can make money, the studios will go running to table 4 for that sale. They’ll go where the money is. So, our job is to make a movie and that’s where you guys come in. If you give enough on Kickstarter that we can make our goal, I think the movie and the studio deal is pretty much a shoe-in.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/donbluthfilms/ ... 114011086/


Even though the movie is planned to be in 2D, new technologies will be heavily utilized.

When it comes time to actually make the movie, there will be a heavy focus on traditional hand-drawn animation. This doesn't mean computers will be completely absent, however. "When we were doing strictly traditional animation years ago, when computers weren't there, it was much harder," Bluth said. "Sometimes your pencil is so big, you can't draw a tiny little thing on a piece of paper."

That's where computers come in. If these technologies existed in the hey-day of Disney, Bluth knows those animators would have used them as well. "Nowadays it's the type of world where we can build a set and get a camera to move around the set, even in a 2D world," he said.

The ultimate goal is to make a movie that keeps the feel of the original arcade game. "If we go full CG, it will not deliver the look that people want," he said. "I love the feel of a pencil in hand and drawing on paper. That first rush of drawing the characters and bringing them to life, I think, is the key to the whole thing."

Source: http://www.idigitaltimes.com/don-bluth- ... val-491675

[Sotiris]

Ralph Bakshi who just released his new hand-drawn short film The Last Days of Coney Island on Vimeo, talks about 2D animation. He's also working on a feature, a sequel to Wizards.

The computer is an asset to hand-drawn animation, and there have been some wonderful things done with computer animation, but if you want to be cartoonist, you gotta stop worrying about clean lines or whether all the colors are gonna be exactly the same. I threw all the “rules” out the window. I wanted raw energy. I wanted to show animated characters that were human. I use the computer for the inking and the painting and the backgrounds, and it’s great. But I worked very hard to make it human. I don’t want to scare people away from my movie, but you wanted to know—all that went into the film had nothing to do with whether everyone would like it, but it was about me working at my true art form. It’s that simple.

Source: http://gothamist.com/2015/10/27/coney_island_bakshi.php

Sure, it’s all about the ’60s and done in old-fashioned cartoon animation, which I love, but because of the computer, it’s also slick. Now, Pixar and Disney have done some beautiful, awe-inspiring things with computer animation, but I was able to go against that and make old-school hand-drawn animation that we used to try to make slick, when there were no computers. It allowed me free reign. In other words, I don’t have to be slick now with hand-drawn animation; that’s ridiculous. The computers are slick enough, for everybody. So I was freed up to use different kinds of lines, and approaches to the backgrounds, color changes, and all of the things that used to bother us, and it worked. It wasn’t just done for the sake of doing it.

Source: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/interviews/i ... 20559.html

Bakshi laughs when asked if he animated the film “the old way,” with pencil on paper. “Of course I did it pencil on paper!” he says. “There is no other way to do cartooning. … To me it’s the heart of animation, and who doesn’t love hand-drawn animation, if it’s done right? It’s not old to me. To me, it’s what I’ve always done.”

Source: http://www.animationmagazine.net/featur ... k-at-work/

[DisneyLover27]

Hello Everyone

I am here to announce that Don Bluth and Gary Goldman are working on bring 2D Animation to the big screen and they both need your help, they are currently working on a new Film called, Dragon's Lair: The Movie, it will be based off of the game they created back in the 80's if you are willing to help support them that would be awesome, please spread the word and help get this film made.

Thank you


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/do ... -the-movie

[Sotiris]

Ralph Bakshi blasts Disney for letting their 2D animators go.

You know, I was shocked when all those old hand-drawn animators were let go from Disney. In my day, guys like that would be worth a billion dollars each, how good they were. If I had the kind of money that Disney and Pixar had, I’d keep those guys in a room animating shorts, even if the shorts barely broke even. How do you let guys like that go? In my day, if you let guys like that go, you were cheating yourself. I was lucky that when I came into town, the business was dead. All of the shorts guys were out of work, so they started pouring into my office. How do you replace great animators like that? You don’t.

[...] I’m not necessarily looking to get people who aren’t into animation to watch my movie. I want animators to see it, and to understand that hand-drawn animation isn’t dead.

Source: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/interviews/i ... 20559.html

[Sotiris]

The creators of Stripy, a new 2D-animated Fantasia-like short, cite Disney animation as a major influence to their work. Stripy is one of the shorts that qualified for this year's Oscars.

Passionate admirers of Walt Disney’s classic films, Iranian brothers Babak and Behnoud Nekooei crafted a stunning 2D animated piece called ‘Stripy’ which has garnered international recognition.

There are a lot of factors that act as inspiration for artistic creations, but perhaps the best kind of such factors is an artistic creation itself serving as a muse to give birth to another, even a completely different form of art. The Hungarian Dance No. 5 composed by the German composer and pianist Johannes Brahms is one such instance, having inspired the creation of a beautiful four-minute animated piece called ‘Stripy.’ [...]

'Stripy' is significant for its compelling ‘classical narrative’ driven by a classical music set in motion with modern characters in a modern setting. It is a work of contrast, of conflict, narrated in its most subtle way, following the tradition of Walt Disney's classic films.

“It was important to us to bring Stripy’s atmosphere as close to a classic Disney animation as possible,” said Behnoud Nekooei, Babak’s brother and co-director of Stripy. “We tried to focus the narrative on the idea we wanted to shape and use the minimum amount of colors to serve as a code, as the color red signified the inherent contrast in the story.”

Source: http://en.mehrnews.com/news/111548/Stri ... ated-piece

[DisneyFan09]

Ralph Bakshi blasts Disney for letting their 2D animators go.

Why shouldn't he? I'm glad someone finally has the nerve to blast Disney for it.

[Sotiris]

Here's a little Mickey Mouse animation done by Eric Goldberg, and Brian Ferguson among others.

Eric Goldberg started this film for fun. A bunch of us animators contributed. All the bits go attached end to end, beginning with Eric's own work. We were all in the dark about what the others had done, except for the single connecting drawing between each person's work. Together they make a long single scene with a bunch of different little stories to it.

Source: https://vimeo.com/84484120

[Kyle]

Wow, that was the best I've seen mickey animated in long time.