Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

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Kyle
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

Post by Kyle »

They probably are using them that way, just not as a separate studio, they're probably dissolving them and placing them on various D+ projects.
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Jules
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

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Kyle wrote:They probably are using them that way, just not as a separate studio, they're probably dissolving them and placing them on various D+ projects.
But how is that possible?

Do you mean they will hire ex-Blue Sky crew as freelancers? Or that they will absorb them into other studios like Pixar or WDAS?

In the case of the latter, won't the Blue Sky staff have to uproot themselves and potentially their families to travel to other side of the country? That's a major life event. Perhaps it's because I live in a tiny European country which you can cross by car in 30 minutes (with no traffic congestion), but it seems outrageous to me to have to sell my property, buy elsewhere and move myself and everything I own just to keep my job.

I know this happens in the USA - but it doesn't feel fair.
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estefan
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

Post by estefan »

Not everyone at Blue Sky is winding up at Disney, though. According to this article, some have been hired by Illumination and other artists and technicians are looking for jobs elsewhere. Even though Disney revealed they were going to find spots for the Blue Sky employees losing their jobs, I doubt there are 450 open positions.

Blue Sky was also one of the few computer animation studios on the East Coast. I believe the closest other ones now are Mikros Image in Quebec and Reel FX in Texas.

I want to know where the directors will go now, too. Chris Wedge co-founded the studio and I imagine this news is especially heartbreaking for him. There's also Carlos Saldanha, who also began his career at Blue Sky, way back when they were doing commercials and visual effects. Although he's now been working to transition to live-action filmmaking, having recently made a show for Netflix and last I heard, he's preparing to direct a live-action adaptation of "The Phantom Tollbooth" at Sony.
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Kyle
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

Post by Kyle »

Jules wrote:
Kyle wrote:They probably are using them that way, just not as a separate studio, they're probably dissolving them and placing them on various D+ projects.
But how is that possible?

Do you mean they will hire ex-Blue Sky crew as freelancers? Or that they will absorb them into other studios like Pixar or WDAS?

In the case of the latter, won't the Blue Sky staff have to uproot themselves and potentially their families to travel to other side of the country? That's a major life event. Perhaps it's because I live in a tiny European country which you can cross by car in 30 minutes (with no traffic congestion), but it seems outrageous to me to have to sell my property, buy elsewhere and move myself and everything I own just to keep my job.

I know this happens in the USA - but it doesn't feel fair.
animators at big studios move a lot from what I understand. Not all of them would be willing or able to, but a good number might.
Also, we are increasingly seeing remote work being used, especially since covid, maybe its possible they can animate from their home. Why would their physical presence even be needed? most things can be communicated through zoom and other software.
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Sotiris
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

Post by Sotiris »

Message from Blue Sky Studios co-founder Chris Wedge.

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Source: https://twitter.com/blueskystudios/stat ... 7729785863
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blackcauldron85
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

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Disney Gets An Ice-Cold Reaction After Trying To Promote ‘Ice Age’
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/disn ... 09237.html
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blackcauldron85
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

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Auditors Claim Disney Took Millions In Excess Tax Credits Right Before Terminating Blue Sky Studios
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/law/auditor ... 12292.html

Could this potentially owed $ be one reason why Disney shut down Blue Sky??
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Sotiris
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

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Blue Sky Studios has given us one last gift: Scrat finally getting the acorn.
In the final days of Blue Sky Studios, a small team of artists came together to do one final shot. This shot is a farewell, a send-off on our own terms.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuua5lVrdP0
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blackcauldron85
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

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An Oral History of Scrat Tales: The Death and Legacy of Blue Sky Studios
https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/sc ... l-history/
(via cartoonbrew.com)
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Disney's Divinity
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Re: Blue Sky Studios Shuts Down

Post by Disney's Divinity »

Aww @ Sotiris' post.

@blackcauldron85's post, this quote from that article:
Wedge: In my own optimistic naivete, I thought Disney was buying everything else in Hollywood, so this was just gonna happen. There’s no shortage of need for content, and that’s what we do. My naïve assumption was that they would just own 20th Century Fox and profit off of that brand. And for animation, it can be animation that isn’t the Disney brand. It can be Blue Sky and we can experiment more creatively. We can push into boundaries where there are little landmines here and there, but we’ll find our way through them.

Mike Knapp, Scrat Tales production designer: I think some people were more concerned than others. I tend to be an optimist. There was a hope that being under an umbrella of a company that understood animation as a medium would be great for us.

Anthony Nisi, Scrat Tales producer: I was more of that mind that Disney is an animation company. It was founded and built upon animation. Obviously, Blue Sky was not part of the plan when they purchased Fox, but I was always hopeful that they would see the value. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
They might've recognized the value of animation a couple of decades ago. They've already shuttered their own animation by this point though--hand-drawn animation, which WDAS was built on. I'm very cynical about companies, so none of this came as a surprise to me, especially a place like WDAS that had already kicked hand-drawn animation out for PIXAR.
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