DVDizzy Forum

Avaitor wrote:Amid Amidi is a massive dick. That is not news.

Steve Hulett wrote:I've watched the slow fade of Disney hand-drawn animation for a dozen years now. The writing began to etch itself on the wall when the Pixar movies consistently outgrossed the Disney hand-drawn features in the late nineties. Outside of Tarzan and the under-appreciated Emperor's New Groove, Disney's other animated offerings were not huge crowd pleasers. Disney animators got nervous.

And the Animation Guild got busy offering training classes in computer animation. By the turn of the century, the guild was training hundreds of animators and assistants in classrooms in various Disney buildings. At the same time, division head Tom Schumacher held multiple meetings at the hat building, assuring a shrinking number of traditional artists that "You're jobs are safe." That turned out to be at variance with the truth.

There were two waves of layoffs before the hand-drawn crew was gone. It took John Lasseter and his (brief?) enthusiasm for traditional animation to bring part of the old crew back from the wilderness. Sadly, the grosses from The Princess and the Frog (not to mention Winnie the Pooh) weren't high enough to keep his enthusiasm and support intact. A year and a half ago, surviving hand-drawn animation staffers were moved down to the first floor into smaller, darker offices. Animators were told that the company would keep them on for another couple of years, but after that, who knew?

So now nine traditional artists have been handed their walking papers, and others have been informed that wages will be lowered (again), with no long-term assurances positions will be there indefinitely. Walking around the hat building after the layoffs had been announced, I heard lots of speculation about why the downsizing occurred now:

"Wreck-It Ralph didn't perform well enough overseas, so Lasseter decided he couldn't carry the traditional animators anymore." ... "Iger is telling all the corporate divisions they need to cut back. We're not exempt." ... "The hand-drawn features haven't made money like CG has, so hand-drawn is over. Disney wants to maximize profits." ...

The last of the old-line animators have projects they're working on. When those end, I presume that more positions we'll be cut. Not a happy prospect, but Disney isn't concerned about happy. It wants to release high-profit pictures. It wants the stock price to go up. CGI, by the company's reckoning, offers the straightest and most lucrative route to that ultimate goal.

Steve Hulett wrote:There was a push to do more hand-drawn features when Lasseter and Catmull arrived, but the studio (Iger) didn't want to go all in.

The underperformance of Princess and Winnie the Pooh ... and over-performance of Tangled determined the studio's course. CG is the wave Disney will now ride.

Animators have told me that John Lasseter's enthusiasm for hand-drawn pictures has waned. (He can read box office returns as well as anybody. And he wants to ride winners, not losers.)

John and Ron are working on a CG-hand-drawn feature that looks computer generated. There's a (partial) hand-drawn short in production, but WDAS is not interested in carrying its hand-drawn staff. (They were told last year that their time at the studio was finite.) Added to which, Iger told different divisions to cut back so animation is laying off staff it considers fungible.

enigmawing wrote:The "celebrate" comment was obviously sarcasm.

DisneyJedi wrote:You know, I wish they would realize that the animation medium was NOT the one at fault for a movie being "bad" or underperforming. I mean, honestly, did Princess or Pooh not do Lion King numbers because they sucked?

No! It's because someone at Disney was an idiot for pitting them against Avatar, Harry Potter or whatever. Therefore, management has no one to blame for PatF's moderate financial performance and Pooh's underperformance but themselves. If anything, it's someone in charge of release dates who should be let go, NOT the animators!

Steve Hulett wrote:There was a push to do more hand-drawn features when Lasseter and Catmull arrived, but the studio (Iger) didn't want to go all in.

John and Ron are working on a CG-hand-drawn feature that looks computer generated. There's a (partial) hand-drawn short in production, but WDAS is not interested in carrying its hand-drawn staff. (They were told last year that their time at the studio was finite.)

DisneyAnimation88 wrote:

Steve Hulett wrote:There was a push to do more hand-drawn features when Lasseter and Catmull arrived, but the studio (Iger) didn't want to go all in.

Says it all about Iger, the man has no creativity, no appreciation of the heritage of the company he is in charge of and no faith in those who do have those things.

It's sad it's reached the point it has but it isn't a surprise.

Looking forward to Iger being gone, hopefully his successor won't be Tom Staggs or Jay Rasulo.

TsWade2 wrote:

DisneyAnimation88 wrote: Says it all about Iger, the man has no creativity, no appreciation of the heritage of the company he is in charge of and no faith in those who do have those things.

It's sad it's reached the point it has but it isn't a surprise.

Looking forward to Iger being gone, hopefully his successor won't be Tom Staggs or Jay Rasulo.

Yeah, I hear Tom Staggs is an nostalgic hater!

TheValentineBros wrote:I guess you never learned my lesson that you should calm down and not to go apeshit on hand-drawn animation and put overused reaction videos.

DisneyAnimation88 wrote:

Steve Hulett wrote:There was a push to do more hand-drawn features when Lasseter and Catmull arrived, but the studio (Iger) didn't want to go all in.

Says it all about Iger, the man has no creativity, no appreciation of the heritage of the company he is in charge of and no faith in those who do have those things.

It's sad it's reached the point it has but it isn't a surprise.

Looking forward to Iger being gone, hopefully his successor won't be Tom Staggs or Jay Rasulo.

TsWade2 wrote:Yeah, I hear Tom Staggs is an nostalgic hater!