Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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PatrickvD
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

Post by PatrickvD »

Yeah I think Disney+ is the reason they’re potentially going back to hand drawn. It’s cheaper than CGI.

I remember the Princess and the Frog was produced way under budget. But Disney kept that info under wraps because a modest profit wasn’t the plan. They needed for it to either smash or bomb. And it did neither. Either way, none of that matters for streaming, where they just need a pipeline of content.

Whatever it is, I’m curious. I hope it’s something new, but existing characters would be fun as well.
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Disney's Divinity
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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PatrickvD wrote: I remember the Princess and the Frog was produced way under budget. But Disney kept that info under wraps because a modest profit wasn’t the plan. They needed for it to either smash or bomb. And it did neither. Either way, none of that matters for streaming, where they just need a pipeline of content.
I can't remember the number right off of what the real budget turned out to be (Sotiris would), but I believe its intake ended up around 3X its budget if not more, from what I recall.

Anyway, it would be nice if hand-drawn animation's cheapness in comparison to 3D helped it make some semblance of a comeback in the streaming age. With the Tom & Jerry movie doing good business, too, recently, maybe that's giving them more incentive on top of wanting to make new stuff for older hand-drawn properties to interest people with. I think the problem with hand-drawn animation is that Disney trained people to view it as DTV content anyway--and streaming is just a new version of DTV, only better quality, so hand-drawn would be an asset as much as 3D there.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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D82 wrote:Is he talking about himself and the other few remaining 2D artists from his generation or about some of the CG animators?
I think he's talking about people working there with a 2D animation background who transitioned to CG such as Hyun-Min Lee and Alex Kupershmidt, but there's not a lot of them.
Disney's Divinity wrote:I can't remember the number right off of what the real budget turned out to be (Sotiris would), but I believe its intake ended up around 3X its budget if not more, from what I recall.
According to Matt Maners, an effects animator who worked on the film, the production budget was $70 million.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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Sotiris wrote:I think he's talking about people working there with a 2D animation background who transitioned to CG such as Hyun-Min Lee and Alex Kupershmidt, but there's not a lot of them.
I guess you're right. Yeah, even counting them, I suppose there still aren't many 2D artists currently at the studio, but couldn't they hire more if they needed to?
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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Floyd Norman talked about why CGI is the most used medium nowadays and why he prefers hand-drawn animation at the 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival. He also mentioned he's working on a secret Disney+ project that will be released this fall. Is he talking about the Mickey Mouse documentary or could it be something else?
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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To me this is either about one of two things: either they are just creating this Disney plus series as a fluff piece to just throw us a bone, Or they using it as more of a launch pad to tell the public, hey, we're bringing it back in a big way. And I honestly cant tell which is is yet.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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Kyle wrote:To me this is either about one of two things: either they are just creating this Disney plus series as a fluff piece to just throw us a bone, Or they using it as more of a launch pad to tell the public, hey, we're bringing it back in a big way. And I honestly cant tell which is is yet.
I think it's either to use hand drawn animation to enhance CGI/live action features or creating shorts or supplements. I don't know, I just don't understand how 10 people can create something like a full feature or a full series.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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Farerb wrote:I think it's either to use hand drawn animation to enhance CGI/live action features or creating shorts or supplements. I don't know, I just don't understand how 10 people can create something like a full feature or a full series.
That's why I haven't started celebrations yet about Disney making a new hand-drawn animated feature. People are reading what they want to from that indiewire article, but Disney has made no official announcement yet about producing a hand-drawn feature. We've seen for ten years the PR line of "we will make one when the story calls for it" amounting to nothing.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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D82 wrote:Floyd Norman talked about why CGI is the most used medium nowadays and why he prefers hand-drawn animation at the 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival. He also mentioned he's working on a secret Disney+ project that will be released this fall. Is he talking about the Mickey Mouse documentary or could it be something else?
He must be referring to Mickey: The Story of a Mouse given the film is expected to be released in the fall and Floyd Norman is part of the principal cast.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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^That's what I thought was more likely, but since that project has already been announced to the public, I didn't understand why he couldn't mention its name in the interview. Though, perhaps he's unaware of that or wasn't sure if he could openly talk about it yet or not.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

There is this article that explains why Disney prefer doing computer animated movies these days, but I'm not sure if I agree:

https://movieweb.com/disney-2d-animatio ... -stop-why/
Explained: Why Disney Stopped Making 2D-Animated Movies

CGI Animation is Cheaper and Faster to Produce Than Hand-Drawn Animation

While it may seem that 3D animation costs more, considering the technology required for it, the opposite is in fact true. According to Guru, 3D animation does involve more technology, but this technology is cheaper than paying animators to draw each frame of a film by hand.
I always assumed it was a myth that CGI was cheaper. And you always need a team of software engineers while making a movie, unless it is a smaller studio that allow itself to be limited by the already existing technology.
2D Animation Became an Excuse for Weaker Storytelling

John Lasseter, who pioneered 3D animation at Disney, said that the amount of work that was needed for the hand-drawn 2D animation somehow outweighed the content of the film. With animators throwing all their hard work into the hand-drawn 2D animation, this often led to the actual story of the film being neglected.

With the use of CGI, 3D animation makes animation easier so that the filmmakers can focus on all aspects of the film rather than expending all their energy on the animating process. Yet another reason for Disney to switch to 3-D animation.
So they spent so much time and effort on the actual animation process that the movie's story was somehow forgotten? I don't think I'm buying that.
3D Animated Films Are More Profitable

Can you really blame Disney for seizing a good opportunity to save and make money at the same time? 3D animated films cost less to make, and they make more money at the box office. Why do 3D animations draw more attention than their 2D counterparts? Some can chalk this up to the more refined look that 3D animation brings to the screen, some say that the 3D aspect makes the experience more immersive, and the list of reasons is long. While some are hopeful that Disney may return to its hand-drawn roots, this is highly unlikely at this point as 3D animation continues to dominate the market.
In Eisner's final years at Disney, computer animated movies was still relatively new, and Disney's movies in that period were for the most not too impressive, with some exceptions. But too many blamed it on the animation process. After Disney bought Pixar, only two hand drawn movies were made; the modest success The Prince and the Frog, and a Winnie the Pooh movie that practically went under the radar for many.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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People like Lasseter just don't like the idea of not being able to iterate the story as you go the way you can with CG. You really have to lock things down before you start animating hand drawn, or you'll end up throwing out a lot of stuff, that's where I imagine the expense would come from. And some directors have a clearer visions than others, it will really come down to how early they tend to lock things down. Some can only figure out what they want after they've seen it come together in motion, others know their story well enough they do full on story boards of the movie from start to finish. Its also why a lot of film makers aren't suited to direct animation in general, it takes more discipline.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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^ Musker and Clements said in a podcast that the main difference between CGI and Hand Drawn animation is that most of the work in CGI is in the "pre production" stages, building models and set, and then you play with everything like they're dolls, while in Hand Drawn animation, every frame has to be drawn during production, and sometimes when something is cut late in stage, it's a lot of work being thrown away.

Another thing they might have considered is that CGI has more "franchise" potential, what I mean is that if they want to do a sequel or a TV show, they already have the models ready to go, there is no such thing in Hand Drawn animation.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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Sounds like PR bull that people at Disney decided to put out because they're frightened the streaming era may soon flip the tables in the medium war. There is no universe where hand-drawn animation costs more than 3D. Every 3D film has a skyhigh budget. If Disney needs more content fast, hand-drawn animation is quicker to produce and cheaper... Them's the breaks.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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Kyle wrote:People like Lasseter just don't like the idea of not being able to iterate the story as you go the way you can with CG. You really have to lock things down before you start animating hand drawn, or you'll end up throwing out a lot of stuff, that's where I imagine the expense would come from. And some directors have a clearer visions than others, it will really come down to how early they tend to lock things down. Some can only figure out what they want after they've seen it come together in motion, others know their story well enough they do full on story boards of the movie from start to finish. Its also why a lot of film makers aren't suited to direct animation in general, it takes more discipline.
Using storyboards and sketches, hand drawn can be pretty fast too. Especially today with modern tools. Even The Great Mouse Detective was a quick production. Then there is the actual animation in CGI. Drawing key frames by hand on a tablet and then letting the 3D model mimic what is done my hand, it an opproached use to make the characters move more fluid. The difference is that effects animation like bouncing balls, rain, clouds and waves and so on can be made with software. Or all the leaves on a tree can be seen from different angles without needing to drawing it more than once. But other than that, I can't see what CGI does better.

I have probably quoted Andreas Deja more than once in this regard, but he said this about The Princess and the Frog:
"I always thought that maybe we should distinguish ourselves to go back to what 2D is good at, which is focusing on what the line can do rather than volume, which is a CG kind of thing. So we are doing less extravagant Treasure Planet kind of treatments. You have to create a world but [we're doing it more simply]. What we're trying to do with Princess and the Frog is hook up with things that the old guys did earlier".

Treasure Planet had a ton of CGI. But some stories works just as well or better as hand drawn. At least that's my opinion.
Farerb wrote:^ Musker and Clements said in a podcast that the main difference between CGI and Hand Drawn animation is that most of the work in CGI is in the "pre production" stages, building models and set, and then you play with everything like they're dolls, while in Hand Drawn animation, every frame has to be drawn during production, and sometimes when something is cut late in stage, it's a lot of work being thrown away.

Another thing they might have considered is that CGI has more "franchise" potential, what I mean is that if they want to do a sequel or a TV show, they already have the models ready to go, there is no such thing in Hand Drawn animation.
There is no doubt that a lot of more work has to be done in pre-production during a CGI movie compared to more old school animation. But that doesn't come for free. Once it is finished, it does allow more possibilities regarding camera angles and zooming in and out and all that.
Disney's Divinity wrote:Sounds like PR bull that people at Disney decided to put out because they're frightened the streaming era may soon flip the tables in the medium war. There is no universe where hand-drawn animation costs more than 3D. Every 3D film has a skyhigh budget. If Disney needs more content fast, hand-drawn animation is quicker to produce and cheaper... Them's the breaks.
One only has to compare the budget of Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh, the two last hand drawn features from Disney. Their budget is smaller than the other films (in Princess and the Frog, the team travelled to New Orleans for inspiration, while the team working on Winnie the Pooh already had the environments and designs more or less ready, which contributed into making it a cheaper production).

As someone has mentioned; if hand drawn becomes mostly restricted to cheap streaming content, the audience may start associale it with something cheap. But Studio Ghibli shows us it doesn't have to be that way.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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Farerb wrote:Another thing they might have considered is that CGI has more "franchise" potential, what I mean is that if they want to do a sequel or a TV show, they already have the models ready to go, there is no such thing in Hand Drawn animation.
amusingly, if I remember right, the models in toy story were rebuilt from the ground up every movie. the technology changes so fast that they wouldnt just use the same models/rigs from the previous movie, they want to push things, and that means using different software, often requiring them to start from scratch to get a better result.

I think the real recycling comes in for things like shorts, theme park attractions, etc.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
2D Animation Became an Excuse for Weaker Storytelling
...With animators throwing all their hard work into the hand-drawn 2D animation, this often led to the actual story of the film being neglected.

With the use of CGI, 3D animation makes animation easier so that the filmmakers can focus on all aspects of the film rather than expending all their energy on the animating process.
But the Story department and Animation department are different things. The people making the story aren't the ones animating. And the filmmakers, if they're talking about the directors/producers, are focused on all aspects, not just the animation.

In general, a smooth-flowing production should have the story down-pat before animation starts, for the most part, right? No matter if hand-drawn or CGI.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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As far as I know the process goes like this:

Phase 1:
Discussions and brainstorming on what the movie will be about, including visual design, and then getting approval from the higher-ups. Takes about two years.

Phase 2:
Working on the story, script, storyboarding. Takes about 2-3 years.

Phase 3:
Animation, getting reaction, changes according to reaction. This is the part we saw in Into the Unknown. Takes about 1-2 years.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

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blackcauldron85 wrote:
Rumpelstiltskin wrote: In general, a smooth-flowing production should have the story down-pat before animation starts, for the most part, right? No matter if hand-drawn or CGI.
key words being "a smooth flowing production". Thing is, not every movie is so smooth flowing. a lot of movie productions are anything but. Sometimes they will think they know what direction they are going, but once they start trying to execute them, things fall apart and they have to completely rework something. Ideally you do that in the earlier phases, but sometimes it doesnt work that way.
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Re: Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

blackcauldron85 wrote:But the Story department and Animation department are different things. The people making the story aren't the ones animating. And the filmmakers, if they're talking about the directors/producers, are focused on all aspects, not just the animation.

In general, a smooth-flowing production should have the story down-pat before animation starts, for the most part, right? No matter if hand-drawn or CGI.
I can't see why hand-drawn and CGI shouldn't use the same approach in setting up the story. Pixar have said it usually takes at least four years to make a movie, and most of it is pre-production like turning an idea into a story that works. Don't remember reading anything that says how long the actual animation process take when doing a hand-drawn feature compared to CGI, so it should be interesting to know.
Kyle wrote:key words being "a smooth flowing production". Thing is, not every movie is so smooth flowing. a lot of movie productions are anything but. Sometimes they will think they know what direction they are going, but once they start trying to execute them, things fall apart and they have to completely rework something. Ideally you do that in the earlier phases, but sometimes it doesnt work that way.
Maybe it partly depends on how good the director is to visualize the scenes before the production starts. Some former Disney employees, like Ed Catmull and Glen Keane, are born with aphantasia which literally makes it impossible for them to imagine things in their mind.

(Would it really be that expensive to use a cheap CGI version of the environment and characters and use this to see how a scene works as footage? When James Cameron made Avatar he used a digital camera that showed him the scenes, but it was a very rough version. They are probably already doing this in CGI animated films, but it could also be used for hand-drawn.)
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