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Disney Does Digital, Ditches Drawings
May Kasahara writes "This is something which has been the talk amongst animators for the past couple of weeks: Walt Disney Feature Animation is in the process of halting all work on traditionally-animated features and going completely CG. Supposedly, all of their animators-- even staunch traditionalists such as Glenn Keane-- are being trained on 3D computer animation techniques. The last hand-drawn high-budget Disney feature scheduled for release is Home on the Range, which is due out next April. It appears that Disney is bowing to the supposed pressures of the market, even though the hand-drawn Lilo and Stitch was considered a success and the all-CG Dinosaur (done at Disney's now-defunct FX house The Secret Lab) was not. However, I believe there's another factor at work: Pixar's contract with Disney is set to expire soon, and the revered CG house has been making their own demands of Disney for the contract's renewal."
How was Pixar pushy? They got screwed over contract-wise for Toy Story, and Disney managed to make a CG for less than a traditional animated film.
For the next movie (Bugs life?) they got a bit pushier, yes. They asked for top billing alongside the Disney trademark, and Steve Jobs managed to make Pixar a household name. Anyone know about current relations? They seem to be a cash cow for both parties.
I will miss the old hand-drawn films. They have a certain nostalgia about them... the not-so-crispness lends a certain effect that is lost in computer-generated animation. CG is nice, but I don't think they should completely eradicate the old way.
The Present is the point at which time touches eternity. - C.S. Lewis
This is really just a sensible evolution, a transition to a newer way of making a polished product. Drawing by hand will still be around as an intermediate step for design and planning (storyboards and such).
Making a transition to "computer graphics" does not necessarily mean a move to "3D work." There's been tons of CG usage in Disney cartoons already (stampede in Lion King, flying through trees in Tarzan, etc.), and neither of those would be considered 3D animations (like Toy Story, Shrek, et. al.) ... hell, even South Park is animated completely by computer, and you can't seriously tell me that it looks in the least like it's 3D.
This is not going to be the end of a traditional 2D-look for cartoons, but I can see it as Disney just embracing the technology that's there, like they did with Snow White and the pseudo-3D frame photography that they used for that.
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To call Pixar pushy is to miss the point: right now they're getting screwed. Disney is getting 50% of their movies for doing nothing more than distributing. Pixar is investing years of labor and untold hours of computing time into making these as good as possible and Disney is pulling crap like not counting Toy Story 2 in the original 5 movie deal (Disney doesn't count sequels as new properties, even when they're immensely successful and have a veyr nice theatrical run).
Pixar deserves whatever they can get, and Disney deserves the same deal that Fox gets for distributing Lucas' work: 15% or lower.
That being said, I would also venture to guess that Pixar is looking to branch out into more adult fare as well. It's only time until a fully rendered CG film deals with adult themes (NOT porn...but that's a possibility too) instead of just catering to kiddie audiences. Finding Nemo was closer than anything else they've done, but my guess is that once Disney drops Pixar, they announce a PG-13 rated drama.
Quite honestly, Pixar doesn't need Disney at all. Pixar could easily get the capital necessary to build their own distribution house, especially considering that digital media are rapidly replacing film in theaters. If they did break off their relationship with Disney, it would provide Pixar the chance to offer some more serious fare, finally giving the US a studio to compete with some of the higher-budget anime of recent years (a la Ghost in the Shell or Final Fantasy).
On the other hand, the story writing and characters created by Pixar in the their last several movies could have easily been able to be done with traditional animation, assuming a good animation studio was behind it. The 3d CGI adds the right amount of sparkle to an already top-notch story, but the writing is so good, that the 3d is not necessary.
What Disney needs is to rethink their approach to their 'animated' features. Lilo and Stitch *was* funny and was a good movie, and beautiful to look at with the watercolor backgrounds. If it was done in 3d, it actually may have actually lost something in the final presenation. But the key improvement was the writing where they turned back to their past talent and got them to do their thing, and didn't muck about in making it family friendly. As such, it's a very witty movie. But when the management gets too deep in the details to make a movie more appealing to the very young crowd, it suffers drastically (such as Treasure Planet did).
Fortunately, I don't think Dreamworks is giving up their feature animation department. Sure, Sinbad didn't do so well, but they have had a few good shots with that and with The Road to El Diablo. (If anything, Dreamworks fault lies in too much 2D/3D overlap). WB has disbanded it's feature animation department (The new LT movie is not much as aniamted as it is live), and FOX killed it's line after Titan AE failed. It's a shame that people think that 3d is the only way that people will appreicate an animated movie. The only reason that every Pixar movie has worked is that every Pixar movie has great writing behind it, not just a bunch of render farms.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
See, that makes sense, but they already did that with Lilo & Stich, I believe. All the DVD special features stuff was all them on the Macs and tablets, anyway.
I'd like a article from competent people rather than USA Today, who clearly don't have a clue what the hell they're talking about. Are they abandoning 2D or hand-drawing? USA Today makes it sound like 2D in general is getting thrown out, which is idiotic any way you slice it.
3D animation is a great medium, but unless Disney can develop some kind of style for it, they're screwed. They're throwing out their 2D style, which is absolutely unique, and jumping into 3D which they're not going to be able to brand anywhere near as easily.
Not that using computers is a problem, but doing things in 2D gives you stylistic options you don't get doing 3D. You have to make an actual 3D model when you're doing CG, with 2D you can bend space-time and make it look good. With CG you're stuck with basically a puppet show, albeit a much more elaborate puppet show, but you have to go at it like a physical place or else it looks ridiculous.
Lilo and Stitch wasn't a success becuse it was hand-drawn, it was a success because the story was interesting, the characters were fun, and the movie well-made. And Dinosaur wasn't a flop because it was a CG film, it was a flop because it sucked.
CG lets you do cool stuff that's not readily feasible by hand, but it's no substitute for a good story. The marketplace isn't pressuring Disney to abandon hand-drawing, it's pressuring Disney to make good films. They've just made a decision that they're better off producing them via CG instead of hand animation. Right now, though, Disney's good animated films are all coming from Pixar - who happen to be an all-CG shop.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
What Pixar has brought to its animation is a respect for its audience, high quality animation, and artistic integrity. And they have consistantly done something that other studios seem to do only by accident: create characters a wide spectrum of audiences can actually CARE about.
I'm happy Pixar is out there because their stories aren't cynical. They reflect an integrity that comes from imbuing their characters with a fundamental humanity we all can relate to. It's good for children. It's good for everyone.
I'm hoping they push up the rating scale and make more complex stories as well. If Pixar starts to write stories about ambiguous characters they can truly re-invent American animation.
It's a bit ironic that as Disney switches from the cell shaded look to the 3D, many video games are switching from the 3D look to cell shaded.
"After the deal was inked and signed, Steve looked up the records and found out that Disney ROUTINELY does movies for way more than that."
Jobs investigated Disney's demands AFTER the deal was made? What kind of businessman is he?
Disney's 2D department is in limbo because recent scripts were weak. Their animators are still great!
Cynical businessmen have looted the Disney legacy, with classy projects such as "Peter Pan 2", "Hunchback 2", "Cinderella 2", "Aladdin: The Series" etc.
Disney dug its own grave, believing in their homemade "sure" formula for success. The formula is deader than dead. The audience didn't want to be fooled any longer and chose the better films: Those made by Pixar, where you can still see the spark and joy of the people creating these films.
If you're looking for what modern Disney could be, look for the films of Miyazaki. It's still a mystery to me why the old films from the back catalog of Ghibli is still being ignored by Europeans and Americans.
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The fact is that Pixar knows how to tell a great story. The CG is meaningless without that. There are lots of CG movies and TV shows flooding the market these days, but Pixar is still able to make a name for themselves because it's about the story first and the technology second.