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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."
Walt Disney would have loved this move to full CG! He likely would not have liked Pixar's pushy behaviour, however. Apparently Walt loved the results of drawing cartoons, but complained about the long hours at his desk, until he gave up drawing altogether to supervise his own studio. He also loved new inventions, as he was the first person to make a cartoon with sound (Steamboat Willie (1928)). Therefore, I would have to say that Walt would have loved the idea of making machines draw for him!
3D is not all.
I personally consider that "The Emperor's new groove" though classsically designed is much better than some more technologically advanced movie.
Now, if they want to privilegiate the marketing and the buzzwords to the storytelling, it's their business.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
It would be interesting to see "normal" animations generated with computers, instead of the now-so-common 3D things like Finding Nemo.
I would suppose digital equipment would offer lots of possibilities for texturing in general, and cinematic effects such as lense focus, motion
blur and a lot of more complex things.
Well, if 3D feature animations sell, then those we shall have, it seems. And I do have to admit that Finding Nemo does have a similar look to it as some "traditional" animation titles, being "less" three-dimensional..
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Can CG do high quality artistic caliber 2d drawings ?
When I am watching a movie i almost don't care if it's 2d or 3d as long as it's good.
Of course, that doesn't mean that they should abandon the 3D animation arena to Dreamworks and Pixar. Developing talent and capabilities in the 3D arena are clearly needed (and could be melded into existing 2D techniques ala the ballroom scene in "Beauty and the Beast"). Still concluding that 2D is dead seems a bit premature to me.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
I think this is more than a little unfair. In the early days, Disney's films were highly original, because they had to basically invent the process upon which modern animation studios basically get a free ride. They had to deal with far more fundamental questions than Pixar does today, such as: Could you hold an audience's attention for 75+ minutes with a cartoon? Could you make an audience do anything but laugh with a cartoon? Could you, for example, make them cry? These are hard problems to solve, and nobody had tried it before.
As for originality, I'm not sure that Pixar's five (so far) films are a good sample. Shrek isn't an original story either, but it did extremely well at the box office. Besides, A Bug's Life isn't exactly the most original plot ever written.
Disney's problem, as I see it, is that they got complacent. They've decided that they're going to release two animated features a year, and that's too much creativity for their team, so they basically started turning their direct-to-video "cheapquels" into theatrical releases (Jungle Book 2 and Return to Never Land being two recent examples) and assumed that people would turn up to see them. If there's one thing that Disney has a long history of, it's producing filler material.
Nobody knows what kind of movie will work and what will not. The history of cinema is littered with highly original flops as well as highly derivative flops. However, there are certain things which are known not to work, and trying to sell a film on brand name alone is one of them.
Now to Pixar. They have a young, fresh team with lots of new ideas, and enough money in the bank to sit on a film until it's ready to be made. The big question is: How long can they sustain this? Only time will tell.
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Disney's been heading into the CG arena for quite a few years now. While cels are still hand drawn they all end up scanned into a computer and colored and composited digitally. Drawing directly on the computer instead of scanning cels simply cuts out a rather pricey step in the animation process. They also get to leverage the computer's innate ability to do really tedious jobs quickly.
If they made some software that would take something drawn on a tablet and convert it into NURBS and let the animator define relationships easily they could save a lot of time animating. They could adopt interpolation techniques used in 3D animation to flat 2D animation. It also isn't terribly difficult to adapt 3D animation to look like cel drawings. Disney's been doing that for years, ever since the antilope scene in Kimb^H^H^H^HLion King. The milling crowds in the Hunchback of Notre Dame were animated using a similar technique.
Regardless of how Disney makes their films I just want them to hire some decent writers. Their movies aren't flops because of the animation techniques, they flops because they're crappy movies. I had really high hopes for Atlantis. It looked like it might be an interesting flick from the previews. Titan AE despite its suckiness was a much better animated action flick. Emperor's New Groove however was pretty funny and is one of if not the best animated disney flick made in the past several years. Treasure Planet was as boring and uninspired as Atlantis. Hercules however was pretty funny and kept my interest. Lilo & Stitch so didn't live up to my expectations. It needed way more Stitch hilarity and less whining about being a family.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The contract Pixar signed with Disney basically said this:
Make 5 movies for us. We (Disney) will own all the franchise rights. Once your 5 movies are up, we'll let you out of the contract.
Pixar makes Toy Story. Disney makes millions. Pixar makes A Bugs Life. Disney makes millions. Pixar makes Toy Story 2, originally for direct to video, but its so good, Disney decides to put it in theatres.
Pixar asks, will Toy Story 2 count toward our 5 picture obligation? Disney says, hell no - it's not a new franchise. You still owe us three new films. Pixar makes Finding Nemo, Disney makes millions, etc.
At this point Pixar is asking, why are we busting our butts for the mouse and letting them rake in all the money? Disney has had it good... way too good.
This is just normal negotiations, now that Pixar is in a better position. Disney needs that cash flow (since they're doing a lousy job at generating decent stories in-house), but Pixar also benefits from the awesome distribution and promotion arm that Disney wields. I figure Disney will sign Pixar, but will shortly try and cut them loose if and when their own in-house 3d department makes good.
Too bad for Disney (I think laying off most of Feature Animation was a mistake), but that's what happens when the accountants and lawyers are running the asylum...