Slashdot Mirror
Disney Shuts Down 2D Animation Studio
sofakingl writes "As mentioned in this Slashdot article, Disney has been planning to shut down their 2D animation studios. Just recently, Disney shut down their Florida studio, with some animators transferred to Disney's Burbank studio, and others being left out of a job. This has brought criticism from Roy Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney. And to top it off, Disney may be facing new competition from Legacy Animation, a new animation studio that was formed by ex-Disney animators."
It's good story, humour and characters that have led to success. Their hand animated flicks bombed because they were bad, not because they were 2D.
If Walt Disney were alive today, he likely wouldn't recognize the company that has his name. Roy Disney certainly doesn't think so...
The Disney of today is not a pure family-friendly company by any means. The "Disney brand name" is reserved for G-rated projects only, but companies such as Touchstone Entertainment and Miramax Pictures exist under the Disney company's ownership to publish PG to R-rated fare. Everything that goes out over The Disney Channel is family friendly, but you can't say the same about ABC.
And from that view of the world, it's easy to see why 2D animation is out the door. It's not a money-maker today.
The original Disney works are living on borrowed time right now. Mickey Mouse quietly celebrated his 75th birthday this year. Why didn't the Disney theme parks hold a big celebration for that event like they do for every other excuse to hold a big celebration? Because 75 years old used to be the retirement age for copyrights, until the Sonny Bono Copyright Extention Act made it 95 years. The company knows that they're not going to be able to get extentions forever, so they've already started to diversify while they still can...
When I heard about this first time I thought that Disney has probably the best 2D animators working for them, wich is a pitty, since their stories suck so much. But if all thouse people are fired and start working on their own, maybe they choose to animate good stories and we can see something more than boring musicals with no plot. The ones to lose more about that can be Pixar if they are forced to animate that crap.
DON'T PANIC
Frankly, I don't. Disney is making a big mistake, and this will most likely, while not bringing about an end to Disney, open up the market for many other animation studios such as the aforementioned Legacy Studios.
Indeed, Pixar succeeded because they knew how to make a good story, and good characters, and to use the medium. While I don't think that 3-D CG is inherently better (or worse), I do think that variety is important, and that using the appropiate medium for the appropiate story is crucial.
Toy Story, for instance, was wonderful, not just because of the lovable characters, but because the quirks of CG lend themselves to doing well at rendering plastic-y models. FF:TSW was wonderful because the CG animation let them paint a world that was at once real and surreal, and to pull off effects that would be damn near impossible otherwise (the Phantoms for instance...).
In short, it seems to me that Disney is shooting themselves in the foot by reducing the available avenues for them to express themselves through, and that this will open up for more creative studios to finally grab the market.
#define DRM chmod 000
It amazes me that animation is repeating the same mistakes computer games did. I remember when the big buzz word in games was 3D, and somehow this magicially made a better game. With the advancement of 3D, we saw the loss of such awesome games like old Lucasarts adventure games. They switched to 3D, and have never felt the same since. And the move to 3D killed Warcraft Adventures, since they saw a preview of Grim Fandango and decided a 2D animated adventure game wouldn't make it.
And even outside the adventure genre, the bad effects of 3D can be seen. Who here actually liked Mario 64 over say Super Mario World? Sonic Adventure is another good example. It went from avazing speed along a 2D course, to a game that had very little speed areas. Why? Well, 3D speed areas take a lot longer to make, and for little return since the character will be zooming through there at insane speeds.
3D has done wonders for computer games as well, but some of the most interesting games today are still very 2D, or trying to immitate it anyhow. Notice the big trend to do cell shading for example. Also look at Viewtiful Joe, one of the most creative games out recently, and it's a 2D game (well, 3D and shaded, but 2D playing field).
Hand drawn 2D animation still has a huge place out there. I remember the animated films for their content and look, and unfortunatly you loose a bit of that personal touch you feel from 2D films. And not only does this impact movies, but also their TV shows it seems. Gargoyles was an awesome show, and was a shame to see it stopped.
but this doesn't mean Disney's switching to polygons for everything, just that they're phasing out old techniques for doing animation. There will still be 2D animation, it'll just be done on a computer. I'll agree you lose some warmth when you go the all computer route (at least with current technology, see Saber Marionette J). On the other hand, with computers you can do animation that would normally be outside budget constraits (again, see Saber Marionette J).
Not that I'm not taking a cynical outlook to the whole thing. Once you get over the novelty of polygonal animation it just looks awful. Animators aren't really taking advantage the new tools (at least not in a way that's apparent to a non-animator). I want to see more intricate, detailed animation of a sort that wasn't possible before. Right now it seems like computers are being used mainly to cut costs and boost profits.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
We all know that the Florida studio was responsible for creating "Lilo and Stitch". As WDW moves forward with a retrofit of the screamingly-fun "Alien Encounter" ride to a more family-friendly "Meet Stitch" format, they ran into a small glitch.
With all the animators gone from the Florida studio, they ended up having to out-source the pre-show animation to some non-Disney company.
On the plus side, it gives Disney one more building to reuse for yet another cartoon-based stage show in the Studios theme park. Better get that created soon while they still have popular films that haven't been used yet. That's right, you can't have too many stage shows that all end before 5pm at a theme park open until 10pm to entertain the masses.
The reason Pixar is considered a threat to Disney is not because they have succeeded in 3D computerized animation where others (except Shrek) have not, but because they excel at the exact same things that the best Disney works did just as well: the storytelling. Toy Story 2 was supposed to go direct-to-video, but its story was so well done and compelling that Disney told Pixar to remake it as a feature.
The medium is not the problem here. It's the message. 2D vs 3D is not what Disney should be concerned with, but rather how to get back to telling a quality story instead of some rehashed dreck. If the story is good, then the audience will come and Disney can continue to build *original* park rides based on those stories.
Yes, Disney needs Pixar because Pixar "gets" what Walt did and will be terribly sorry if they can't come to terms with Pixar on the contract renewal. But Pixar also gets a benefit from the Disney association that they may not get with another studio distribution as the Disney name still carries a bit of class with it, so they may not want to play *too* hard to get. Being independent (like Lucasfilm) may allow you the freedom to create whatever you want and distribute it on your own terms, but it may not be the best solution for everybody.
And there was John Lasseter talking about that creative genius Miyazaki. Incidentally who uses 2D.
To concur with many authors on this thread, it's not about the 2d or the computers. In the same way that scripts and characters, not actors make good movies, so scripts and characters, not 3d and computers make good movies.
2D animation will probably keep popping in and out of style forever. The decision of Disney managers is whether to keep those in "out of style" arts around, or dump them when they don't need them and hire them back or contract them as needed.
Just when 2D people learn 3D, it will probably be 90% offshored, so they will dump 3D people also.
Job and career stability is the dying art, not 2D animation.
Table-ized A.I.