Hand-Drawn Animation Dead at Disney

[Sotiris]

From scuttlebutt I hear, Disney and others have small interest in hand-drawn features because the grosses aren't there.

I'm told that even Mr. Lasseter, who championed it a few years ago, is cooler now.

Smaller grosses will do that to people.

Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... lings.html

While wandering the halls of the hat building yesterday, I chanced on one of the traditional animators working there. He said:

"We're developing a bunch of different projects to show John Lasseter. It's a complicated process. We pitch to a development group, they tell us which ones they like, then tell us that people who're pitching need to develop three pitches for John, since he likes artists showing him three things. And when we do pitch, it's made clear to us that the stories aren't necessarily for a hand-drawn project. When we've brought it up with John Lasseter, he's shied away from committing to a hand-drawn feature..."

This is a turn-around from a few years ago, when the idea was to have hand-drawn features created in Burbank, and the CG features produced at Emeryville.

My thought is: John Lasseter is a smart man. He likes hand-drawn but he recognizes they way the wind is blowing. The Princess and the Frog grossed $300 million globally; Tangled grossed twice that. When the gap is so wide, it's an easy corporate decision to say: "We're going with CGI."

Ron Clements and John Musker are developing a hand-drawn feature that, if what I've been shown holds up, will look one hell of a lot different from Show White. The scuttlebutt I've heard indicates that Mr. Lasseter isn't as keen on greenlighting hand-drawn epics as he was a few years ago. But who inside Diz Co. could blame him? More than overseeing hand-drawn animation, John Lasseter wants to win. And he's probably made the judgment that creating hand-drawn features isn't a winning corporate strategy.

Even so, I was disheartened to read this from Mr. Kousac down below:

"Thankfully, no "hand drawn" cartoons are in the work at Disney for the foreseeable future. Looking forward to seeing the Disney artists take hold of their new digital tools."

Sorry, Mr. Kousac. You can be as glad as you like Disney hasn't got any hand-drawn features on its "to do" list. But I think the world is a little bit diminished if the curtain now rings down on big, hand-drawn features. They had a lilting, personalized quality to them, and they are missed.

Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... isney.html

[Sotiris]

This only confirms what we were very aware all this time. Hand-drawn animation is not deemed profitable by any Hollywood studio anymore. Hand-drawn features have become more scarce than stop-motion animated ones which have always been a niche market.

The problem with the lack of profitability of hand-drawn animation has more to do with budget than audience distaste for the medium. Hollywood animated features have become so expensive that in order to bring in a decent profit they must hit blockbuster numbers. Pixar and DreamWorks films cost on average $150-200 million, Blue Sky and SPA films cost about $80-100 million while Illumination films cost around $70 million but that's only because they outsource all animation to France.

But with the rise of expense for CG movies, the price of hand-drawn animation has fallen significantly. Winnie the Pooh was made with just $30 million without any compromises to quality and with almost no outsourcing. Hand-drawn features can be profitable when they have a small budget.

Regarding the hybrid 'Paperman' technique, they are currently performing tests in various styles and John Kahrs is assisting in advancing it and "taking it to the next level" in order to be potentially used on Clements & Musker's next film. However, there is apprehension from executives about using it on a feature, not only because the technique is a bit more expensive but also because they fear it looks too much like hand-drawn animation and won't appeal to audiences. So, use of the technique is not set in stone yet.

[Christopher_TCUIH]

[ProfessorRatigan]

Because we all know Princess and the Frog's low-numbers had NOTHING to do with racism or the fact that the film itself is poorly structured and messy because of politically-correct meddling on behalf of the studio execs... Wasn't the film also released the same time as AVATAR? And Winnie the Pooh, wasn't that put up against the final installment of Harry Fucking Potter? And Disney has the nerve to blame the medium? Fuck them. Seriously. I think Lasseter has been horrible and I can't wait til he gets the boot. We need a new renaissance and new blood at the studio.

[SWillie!]

I'm choosing to look at the bright side of this: every so often, a team of artists will, I'm sure get to work on a hand-drawn feature. It will be more of a treat when it does happen, and will undoubtedly be something to look forward to.

In the meantime, can we please not go off on hand-drawn fanboy rants this time around? We've heard it all before.

[SWillie!]

Fuck them. Seriously. I think Lasseter has been horrible and I can't wait til he gets the boot.

This is an extremely biased, uneducated opinion.

[PatrickvD]

[qindarka]

Because we all know Princess and the Frog's low-numbers had NOTHING to do with racism or the fact that the film itself is poorly structured and messy because of politically-correct meddling on behalf of the studio execs... Wasn't the film also released the same time as AVATAR? And Winnie the Pooh, wasn't that put up against the final installment of Harry Fucking Potter? And Disney has the nerve to blame the medium? Fuck them. Seriously. I think Lasseter has been horrible and I can't wait til he gets the boot. We need a new renaissance and new blood at the studio.

What instances of meddling were there for TPATF? Or are you just speculating?

[pap64]

I would have made a snarky "Let the fan crapstorm begin in three... two... one..." comment, but I see people have already started.

But in all seriousness, I have come to accept this and learned to "let go" so to speak. All I want Disney is to create high quality movies, regarding of the medium chosen to tell the story, cause at the end of the day, what kept us coming back just how great these movies were.

I know that we as Disney fans must wax nostalgic about the hand drawn features because that was how all of Disney got started. But it is time to face the music and just hope that the movies that they produce now retain the storytelling sensitivities of the classics.

[Marce82]

Hey,

Just a note: Sotiris... I am afraid to burst your bubble. The cleanup for Winnie the Pooh WAS outsourced. And for the Princess and the Frog as well. Most of it was done in Canada (I happen to know clean-up artists that worked on them).

[Marky_198]

The Princess and the Frog grossed $300 million globally; Tangled grossed twice that. When the gap is so wide, it's an easy corporate decision to say: "We're going with CGI."

Tangled would have grossed 4 times that if it was hand drawn.

The story works, the characters looked good on paper, but the CGI characters is what bothered moste people on this film.

They should think of that. There's more to the success of a film than that.

Also, I think there is a whole new type of animation that Disney has never done yet. I'm talking about the Rapunzel in the swing style, the moving painting, the original Snowwhite filmposter style. A combination of 2d characters with 3d backgrounds in a realistic, painterly style.

Tangled is just very cartoony and plasticky. The same old, boring, slapstick, fart-joke, charlie chaplin style, witch plastic looking dolls as characters. Why are they so scared to go into a different direction?

[PatrickvD]

The Princess and the Frog grossed $300 million globally; Tangled grossed twice that. When the gap is so wide, it's an easy corporate decision to say: "We're going with CGI."

Tangled would have grossed 4 times that if it was hand drawn.

And you base this on what? That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while.

Also, I think there is a whole new type of animation that Disney has never done yet. I'm talking about the Rapunzel in the swing style, the moving painting, the original Snowwhite filmposter style. A combination of 2d characters with 3d backgrounds in a realistic, painterly style.

You mean extreme kitsch? Because that's what it is.

Seriously, why does Fragonard keep coming up amongst these hand drawn fascists? I love hand drawn animation but I'd much rather look back and cherish the films that have been made than push for this nonsense.

Tangled is just very cartoony and plasticky.

This. Seriously.



If you think she resembles plastic in any way you need to have your eyes examined. Also, cartoony?? CALL THE POLICE! We can't have a cartoon look like cartoon! Quick, get Robert Zemeckis on the case, he knows to to get that cartoony look squeezed out of her!

[qindarka]

The Princess and the Frog grossed $300 million globally; Tangled grossed twice that. When the gap is so wide, it's an easy corporate decision to say: "We're going with CGI."

Tangled would have grossed 4 times that if it was hand drawn.

The story works, the characters looked good on paper, but the CGI characters is what bothered moste people on this film.

They should think of that. There's more to the success of a film than that.

Also, I think there is a whole new type of animation that Disney has never done yet. I'm talking about the Rapunzel in the swing style, the moving painting, the original Snowwhite filmposter style. A combination of 2d characters with 3d backgrounds in a realistic, painterly style.

Tangled is just very cartoony and plasticky. The same old, boring, slapstick, fart-joke, charlie chaplin style, witch plastic looking dolls as characters. Why are they so scared to go into a different direction?

Do you seriously think Tangled would have made more than 2 billion if it was hand-drawn? Seriously, for all people claim that it's the story, not the medium that determines box-office grosses, I truly believe that the general public would prefer to watch CG animation.

And no, it wasn't the CGI that bothered 'most' people. It was actually the most widely praised aspect of the film.

Yes, and I'd also love it if people stopped bringing up Fragonard. We always like to assume that what we didn't get is automatically better.

[Christopher_TCUIH]

You know, I'm finally warming up to Tangled . I can admit I was being a snob to this film as well as others like Bolt, Chicken Little etc because I wanted CG to be a Pixar/Dreamworks thing. At the end of the day, I love animation. I'll be a happy customer as long as the movies remain entertaining. That's what movies are really all about .

[Kraken Guard]

Perhaps I'll be bombarded with potatoes, but CGI is -- To me -- Not true animation.

To me, the migration of 3D CGI out of 2D Hand-Drawn is a display of laziness. Yes, creating CGI animating is quite complicated on the computer, but characters created and animated through Hand-Drawn pictures brings out the life of a character far more then it would if Computer Generated.

To me, hand-drawn animating is much fairer in my eyes. There is more life to be seen in the characters that were hand-drawn. The characters of Tangled, or any other computer generated movie...

I'm sorry, there simply isn't anything appealing about them. Perhaps it was entertaining story-wise, but it just... It lacked appeal in appearance. I don't know. They just weren't... Alive in a way, compared to the hand-drawn characters.

And it SUCKS that if a 2D-Animated movie performs poorly at the box office, they blame it on the fact that it was hand-drawn and not CGI. There is more life -- And effort -- to be seen in hand-drawn characters then there is with computer generated characters.

I'm fine if they stick with doing one film with hand-drawn animating and another with CGI. But I find it very crubby of them to just ditch Hand-Drawn animating in favoritism for CGI. As I said: It's a display of laziness and effort.

[ajmrowland]

Because we all know Princess and the Frog's low-numbers had NOTHING to do with racism or the fact that the film itself is poorly structured and messy because of politically-correct meddling on behalf of the studio execs... Wasn't the film also released the same time as AVATAR? And Winnie the Pooh, wasn't that put up against the final installment of Harry Fucking Potter? And Disney has the nerve to blame the medium? Fuck them. Seriously. I think Lasseter has been horrible and I can't wait til he gets the boot. We need a new renaissance and new blood at the studio.

Never heard of most of that, but the marketing was too geared to hand drawn and nostalgia than anything and the film was released a few days before Avatar.

And I seem to have forgotten where tangled had Fart jokes or any potty humor.


I love CGI and think there's a lot of life in character animation in cgi, but Hand Drawn should never die.

[SWillie!]

Perhaps I'll be bombarded with potatoes, but CGI is -- To me -- Not true animation.

To me, the migration of 3D CGI out of 2D Hand-Drawn is a display of laziness. Yes, creating CGI animating is quite complicated on the computer...

All due respect, but I don't think you understand how computer animation is done. If you did, you would understand that this is no way related to "laziness." As someone who actively practices both techniques, it is impossible to say that one is more complicated or "true" than the other.

Tangled would have grossed 4 times that if it was hand drawn.

As others have said, this is such an incredibly ridiculous claim that I can't believe I'm putting the time in right now to respond. You can't possibly believe that not only does traditional animation not have a negative effect on box office returns, but that it actually has an overwhelmingly positive effect on returns. To claim that Tangled would have made AVATAR numbers is absolutely asinine. I wish people here would stop just flat out making stuff up for the purpose of backing up their ridiculous fandoms.

The story works, the characters looked good on paper, but the CGI characters is what bothered moste people on this film.

Again, a ridiculous claim. Outside of the handful of people on this forum, find me someone that had anything negative to say about the CG aspects of this movie. It did NOT "bother most people". The film is stunningly beautiful. It has been widely acclaimed throughout the industry for having the best CG human animation to date. The characters in the film have already proved that they are lasting favorites among fans and children alike.

If you seriously STILL hold a grudge against CG animation in 2012, then fine. But at least attempt to look at this objectively. You aren't even trying. You're blatantly blasting fanboy statistics and claims that have no grounding in reality. I'd love to have a nice, thought out debate with someone here about the merits of CG animation vs. traditional animation, but that unfortunately can never happen because of the immaturity level and blatant disregard for objectivity.

[Tristy]

Didn't we hear this kind of thing before the last few times? I'm still remaining cautiously optimistic that 2D animation will be making a comeback. I think even though CGI animated films are doing pretty well, people are in general getting tired of it and to be honest, while there have been some good CGI films (Tangled and Ratatouille), ...well, it's kind of become ridiculous. (Look at Hotel Transylvania for example.) Also considering how Cars 2 and ,to a certain extent, Brave did not go over well with critics, there might come a time when everyone does get tired of CG and long for 2D again.

It might sound like I'm bashing CG. I'm not. I just think there should be an even amount of animated films in both mediums like there used to be in the late 90s.

[Kyle]

Also, cartoony?? CALL THE POLICE! We can't have a cartoon look like cartoon! Quick, get Robert Zemeckis on the case, he knows to to get that cartoony look squeezed out of her!

[SWillie!]

(Look at Hotel Transylvania for example.)

Did you see Hotel Transylvania? It was actually pretty entertaining, and it did very well. It was refreshing to see something so cartoony.