Via BoingBoing, we have this great video of self-referential Disney animation:



The BB thread offers some theories on why these designs might have repeated over time, ranging from the technical to the cultural. Any ideas?

Labels: Disney

I'm getting really excited to see Up! I finally watched Wall-E a few days ago and was struck yet again by how brilliant Pixar can be. They so rarely disappoint, knowing exactly how to paint a scene to render it most affecting. I'm expecting the dog with the talking collar in the new Up trailer above to affect my laugh-hard-wet-pants centre quite a bit when the film hits theatres on May 29th.

Click on over to Yahoo Movies for links to the HD versions of the trailer.

Labels: Disney, John Lasseter, Pixar, Up, Wall-E

We've written before about copyright, as well as its ethical and cultural implications.

For those you don't know exactly what it's all about and who don't want to read a law book, Eric Faden created A Fair(y) Use Tale, a short film (with a little legally acquired help from Disney) explaining what copyright, fair use and the public domain are.



Large media corporations are often quick on the trigger when it comes to proactively defending their property. The recent kerfuffle between Fox and Warner Brothers over the Watchmen movie, is but one example of copyright going wrong and helping no one, except for some lawyers and a large corporation. It certainly did not benefit the creators, or the audience. The distinct possibility of no one being able to watch Watchmen existed. This is why many creators fight the modern idea of copyright. As Cory Doctorow said, if copyright kills culture, then copyright has no reason for being. While corporations don't seem to see this, many creators do and are trying to do something about it.

Musicians are often the artists we hear the most about when the media covers copyright issues, but animators are also involved since many of them use music for their films. One of the animators doing her part in trying to make copyright more useful for everyone is Nina Paley; by distributing Sita Sings the Blues, under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. You can find out more about why she's doing it on her website and in this interview.




The interview is quite long, if you wish you can also view highlights of it here.

If you want more animated goodness, the Internet Archive also has over 1400 animated films freely available for download, from Lego Brick Films to vintage cartoons from the 30s and 40s.

Labels: copyfight, copyright, Creative Commons, Disney, legal, Nina Paley, Watchmen

For the first time in a long time, I saw a Disney film and missed the publicity hype preceding it. Except for some of the recent commentary scanned on Cartoon Brew (a testament to my level of Busy; this blog is a pleasure in life that you need to take your time to read), I managed not to see any web banners, marquee posters, or newspaper, radio or television ads.

At a much earlier time, I read of the changes to the stewardship of the Bolt in the wake of restructuring changes at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. I knew from the Brewmasters' reports that the film had changed markedly from its original vision, but I hadn't really thought about it lately.

But time had passed, and Bolt was not really on my mind as the studio was gearing up for the film. I managed to side-step the Disney hype machine this one time. So I'm writing this based entirely on my impressions of what I saw in the cinema on Wednesday.

Bolt is a winner.

There are tons of laughs in the film, but you don't feel like you're having your buttons pushed, and the dialogue is really snappy, but not in the way I find a lot of mainstream animation features tend to do it - lots of pop culture references, "aren't we clever" one-offs that get dated quickly. The lines are truly clever and fit the characters' perfectly.

Also, it's no secret that I'm not a fan of stunt-casting. The celebrity voice talent do their job well and don't get in my way of enjoying the film. They make their characters more believable and serve characters, not the other way around.

I did see the trailer for this film just this morning, and I must say I'm glad I went into without any preconceptions. As a result, the opening scene was more thrilling and taut than I think it would have been if I knew what was coming.

This is a fairly conventional Disney family feature, but I don't mean that in a bad way. Yes, it's safe. But it doesn't draw away from the fact that the film is engaging, the timing and pacing are dead-on, and the character animation is above-average. I can't help but wonder how much further the character animation could have been pushed if it were hand-drawn. Like Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda, there is a point where the animation style changes and I wonder, why does all digital animation that touts the CG label feel it has to be hyper-realistic? However, I don't really spend much time on it because I thought that the animation I was watching was well-done.

Speaking of techniques, I did watch this film in 3D (as well as trailers for Blue Sky's next Ice Age instalment, and Pixar's Up), and as much as I get annoyed by reading reviews that solely focus on a new technique or "gimmick" I liked the use of 3D in the film (as well as the trailers) because they all finally got something right. Unlike Beowulf, I never felt like the whole point of making Bolt was so we could watch it in 3D. Instead of setting up shots so that the viewer would get the feeling of things being moved toward them, the enhancement was used to convey a feeling of depth. There was very little effort made to break the fourth wall. Instead, the screen was the boundary for the actors on a stage.

The next Disney feature regardless of technique better be good, because a lot of viewers will be disappointed if it doesn't entertain as much as Bolt.

Labels: 3D, Bolt, CGI, Disney, features, reviews, stereoscopy

ADAPT 2008 started today in Montreal. The conference for digital artists has proved a success right from the start and drawn talent from the media and gaming industry. This year's keynote speaker is Andrea Deja.

Here's an interview with Andrea Deja by Emru from last year's visit to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for the Once Upon A Time Walt Disney exhibit. So you can guess when he discusses the film he can't name it's The Princess and the Frog.

ADAPT continues until Friday, with special presentations from Walt Disney Studios, Animation Mentor, Syd Mead and more.

Labels: ADAPT, Andreas Deja, Disney

Film festival venues can be overwhelming and conference venues can be overwhelming, but when you combine them... well, the experience hovers somewhat above the horizon. That said, here are some tidbits:

1. Much discussion, several panels, and two full days of screenings of stereoscopic (3D) films, commercials, sports events, games and scientific visualizations on the first day of the conference. 3D is the agenda for 21st-century digital releases. I took in the two-hour screening of 3D clips and then heard fine artist and installation/performance artist Catherine Owens speak about collaborating with Bono on the 3D film of U2's concert in Buenos Aires. She spoke convincingly about "experimental" exploration and commitment to "idea" in relationship to her personal art, as well as in relationship to her directorial debut of the film U2 3D.

2. The Computer Animation Festival is programmed into seven two-hour screenings that most often repeat the commercials, trailers, and synopses of film titles submitted. For example, Rhythm and Hues showcased effects scenes of the polar bears in "The Golden Compass" and that is screened alongside the commercial from Bridgestone Tires many have seen of the squirrel running onto the highway to retrieve a nut as a car swerves to miss killing him. The festival is screening two impressive studio shorts worth mentioning here: Pixar Studios' Presto and Disney Studios' Glago's Guest. If you've seen WALL-E you've seen Presto before the feature screens.

3) A wonderful Tribute To Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas happened today with Tom Sito moderating a panel that included Frank Thomas' son, Theodore Thomas, documentary filmmaker, as well as a group of celebrity animators who had worked with the two of them in a mentor relationship. All of them delightfully shared their experiences with Frank and Ollie and were very well received. More on this later.

A closing note in case you don't want to wait: you may go online to read about all the sessions at SIGGRAPH 08 and can listen to them on DVD. All panels and discussions have been recorded are available for purchase.

I have constantly forgotten the number one rule for attending film festivals and conferences: find a place to sit, eat well and if you do this, thinking might follow! That said, I will return to report more soon, in spite of the L.A. smog my allergies are swimming in...

Labels: 3D, CGI, Disney, events, festivals, Los Angeles, Pixar, SIGGRAPH

Christmas has come early over at Disneyanimation.com! The official website of the Walt Disney Animation Studios is previewing their new projects in a variety of ways: including some new artwork highlighting the visual development of the upcoming 2-D animated feature, The Princess and the Frog.

More images after the jump:







Click over to Disneyanimation.com and explore the site fully to view more development work from The Princess and the Frog as well as info and images from the films Bolt, Rapunzel, King of the Elves and a variety of upcoming shorts.

Labels: Bolt, Disney, shorts, The Princess and the Frog

I'm not ashamed to admit some movies have made me cry, and one film that's guaranteed to get me at least a little misty no matter how often I've seen it is Grave of the Fireflies. Directed by Isao Takahata—who people tend to forget co-founded Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki—Grave of the Fireflies is an adaptation of Akiyuki Nosaka's memoir of surviving the Allied firebombings of Kobe during World War II.

It's no great secret that Seita and Setsuko, the analogues to the author and his younger sister, eventually die; it's established right at the beginning of the movie, and the rest of the film acts as a flashback to explain what brought them to that point. It's a powerful story of familial love during the worst of ordeals, bringing with it a reminder that war affects more than just the soldiers on the battlefield.

Central Park Media released two versions of Grave of the Fireflies on DVD in 2002 and 2004 (they had the rights before the 1996 deal between Disney and Tokuma Shoten), but it's languished in out-of-print limbo for years. Just this Wednesday a new two-disc version of Grave of the Fireflies appeared in Japanese stores; at first blush, the only real difference is an essay by Nosaka, and (maybe) some more pre-production artwork.

Is this a precursor to a new Disney release in North America? I'd like to think so, but I'm not holding my breath. Disney's never seemed too sure what do with Takahata's movies; while they released the perhaps more accessible Pom Poko and My Neighbors the Yamadas three years ago, it was with minimal fanfare. The sombre Grave of the Fireflies might be trickier from their perspective, as would be Takahata's only remaining Ghibli film, the wistful Only Yesterday. A lot of lip service is given to the notion of animation that adults can watch, but there might be the fear that North America isn't ready for an animated film as powerful as Grave. Given that the U.S. and Canada are currently fighting wars on foreign soil, I'd say there isn't a better moment than right now.

Labels: anime, Disney, Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata, Japan, Studio Ghibli

According to Jim Hill, Tron director Steve Lisberger is out of the picture, barred from bringing his vision for a sequel to his 1981 live-action/CG animated hit to the big screen. Who's taking his place? A director named Joseph Kosinski, who has yet to direct a feature film. Don't let this disturb you too much, though. From the look of his work (evidenced above), we're going to be in for a real treat.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but doesn't his work remind of a young, CGI-loving Ridley Scott? That can't be a bad thing, where a Tron sequel is concerned.

Watch more of his award-winning commercials at these links:
Saab
Nike
X-Box

Via Ain't It Cool

Labels: Disney, Joseph Kosinski, Steve Lisberger, Tr2n, Tron

Disney isn't giving us a whole lot of insight into their upcoming film, The Princess and the Frog (directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, directors of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin) with this new trailer. But I don't care. This looks beautiful. Thank the lord for Ed Catmull, John Lasseter and the return of Disney's 2D animation division. 2009 can't come soon enough!

Watch the trailer in other formats: The Princess and the Frog

Labels: 2D, Alladin, Disney, Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, Little Mermaid, Pixar, The Princess and the Frog

I've been remiss in posting about a comic book project called Who Is Rocket Johnson? The anthology brings together numerous Disney artists and directors to help raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Besides looking great, it's for a great cause.

One copy sold on eBay for over 500 dollars, and the rest of the limited print run of 1000 copies were made available at the San Diego Comic Con for $20. If you still want to get your hands on a copy, get in contact with Stuart Ng in California or The Labyrinth in Toronto while quantities last!

Labels: auctions, comics, Disney, San Diego Comic Con

Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew and Harry McCracken of Harry-Go-Round have both commented on the San Diego Comic Con preview of footage from Up and Bolt. Take a look at this teaser for Up.

Original Video- More videos at TinyPic

Labels: CGI, Disney, features, Pixar, San Diego Comic Con

Animation World has a fantastic little interview with Aeon Flux animator, Peter Chung. In it, he speaks about his background working under Ralph Bakshi, storyboarding Transformers and finally arriving at his process for creating Aeon Flux. But what is he doing at the moment?

"One of the things that I'm working on now is an adaptation of Cyborg 009, which is a Japanese comic book character and an animation series from the '60s, which I grew up with...I've written a story and redesigned the characters."

Take a gander at what it might look like if the Cyborgs cram a Rally's 99¢ cheese-double-cheese, Chung-Style, right after the jump:





Via Animation World

Labels: Aeon Flux, Cyborg 009, Disney, Peter Chung, Ralph Bakshi

Ollie Johnston (pictured above at right, with longtime colleague, co-author and pal Frank Thomas), the last of Disney's fabled Nine Old Men, passed away yesterday, marking a symbolic end of an era.

I owe Frank and Ollie a lot. About 25 years ago, a few years after my first attempts at animating, I decided that just studying movement frame by frame wasn't going to cut it, and started reading about the process. The duo's Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life wasn't the first book on creating animation I borrowed from the library, but it had an impact that was, quite simply, life-changing.

Prior to reading the book I knew little about the actual history of animation in general, and next to nothing about the history of the Disney studio. I liked Disney movies—Kino Kid and I made a point of catching every new and re-released Disney film—but unlike the constantly rerun Warner Bros. productions, I couldn't tell you who directed what, or offer any analyses of the movies. The gorgeously produced Illusion of Life was a gift from the gods, offering the ultimate insiders' view of the studio's best decades, artistically and technologically, liberally sprinkled with concept, pre-production and final artwork. The final pages contained actual animation instruction, but in truth the whole book was a masterclass for anyone who cared to open their eyes.

I devoured The Illusion of Life. Twice. The first time was during an extended road trip that took us to Toronto and Saint Catharines in Ontario, then Ann Arbor, Michigan. The second time was just a few years later, after I'd started seriously immersing myself in animation publications and bought my own copy. Both times, I couldn't put it down.

I have to admit to more than a twinge of disappointment when I later learned about the 1941 Disney strike, and discovered that the divisions caused by the strike ran so deep that The Illusion of Life effectively elided the contributions of those who participated in it. But in the end, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were my first animation history teachers, and one of my earliest and most thorough animation teachers. Without them, and that book, my life would be very different—there would certainly be no Frames Per Second—and for that I offer my thanks to Ollie and belated thanks to Frank.

Labels: Disney, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston

Information revealed by a spokeswoman for Disney Japan on Thursday indicates a sea change is underway to Disney's approach to developing content for the Japanese market. Previously satisfied to rely on strong recognition of its classic animated characters, recent global hits and largely passive partnerships with local studios, Disney has reached out to several Japanese studios to both adapt current characters and jointly develop new content.

The anime aesthetic has been an elusive target for animation studios outside of Asia who seek to capture the older audiences and massively successful all-ages merchandizing abilities of Japanese content producers. The appearance of an enormous Western partner comes at an opportune time for the local anime industry, which has struggled to continue its breakneck pace of growth amid talent shortages, competition from other Asian countries and fears that the market for anime in Japan and abroad has topped out.

Disney has wasted no time lining up quality Japanese partners. Disney will work with Madhouse Studios to crate a new Lilo & Stitch series to air in Japan, which will be set on an island off Okinawa and will star a Japanese girl named Hanako as Stitch's sidekick. Fireball, a short feature produced with Jinni Animation is scheduled to air on Tokyo Metropolitan TV in April. A second short feature for television, Robodz, is in production with Toei Animation and will air in June. Although a partnership between Toei and Disney had been previously announced, Toei shares surged more than 3 percent in reaction to today's news.

Labels: anime, Disney, Jinni, Madhouse, Toei

Hake's Americana and Collectibles's latest auction features some interesting animation and comic-related articles. The current auction features almost 400 rare Disney art collectibles, including some rare Disney artwork, such as a Gustaf Tenggren sketch from The Old Mill and the first Donald Duck model sheet from the short, The Wise Little Hen. There are also Disney picture books and posters: check out the WWI poster of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Art in the lot ranges from Silly Symphonies to more recent features like The Lion King.

While acquiring the Disney artwork and memorabilia is enticing, I thought the Winsor McCay posters and miniatures, Fleischer posters, Jay Ward and Dr. Seuss items equally fascinating. If you didn't blow your budget during the holidays, you can go crazy now.

You have until the end of the month to keep your wallet under lock and key.

Labels: auctions, Disney, Dr. Seuss, Fleischer Studios, Jay Ward, Winsor McCay

Last year, the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art (also just known as Museum of Tokyo or MOT) held a notable exhibition, The Art of Disney. A beautiful catalogue was also published for the exhibit featuring works that were once thought lost. This summer, the DVD catalogue of the exhibit was released in Japan as well.

I decided I was going to see whatever exhibit was showing at the museum when I was in Tokyo, as I like to do in any new city I visit. It ended up the major exhibit was also animation-related this year: a retrospective of work by Art Director Kazuo Oga.

Kazuo Oga worked on a diverse animation projects such as Barefoot Gen, Dagger of Kamui and Wicked City before creating the background art for My Neighbor Totoro at Studio Ghibli. He went on to work on all of the subsequent features for the studio, and last year, directed his own film for the studio, Taneyamagahara no Yoru.

The lush scenery he creates with his brush is truly breathtaking, and the museum selection was as dense as an of the green forest background he is known for. The sheer number of pieces was more than I have seen for comparatively-sized art exhibitions of any type, and I have never seen its like for animation artwork, mostly from the Studio Ghibli archives. He captures the spirit of the countryside, but also of everyday Japan with a balance of love and accuracy.

Almost all of the art is unphotographable. Near the end of the exhibit, after a room of multiplane setups, there are a number of backgrounds that are blown up so that people can pose in front of them, but most people just step back in wonder to take a whole new look at the art. (I couldn't help posing with Totoro, though.)

Afterward, everyone was invited to fold an origami Totoro in an open room, with mini-backgrounds. Here's mine.

Like the Art of Disney catalogue, a catalogue has been published for this exhibit as well. A DVD is forthcoming for the end of the year. The exhibit has been extended until September 30. If you find yourself in Tokyo, you won't want to miss it.

Labels: anime, art, books, Disney, events, exhibitions, Japan, Studio Ghibli, Totoro

Just received a message from ASIFA-SF's Karl Cohen:

I just got an e-mail about the passing of Dave Hilberman from one of his sons. I've written him back asking if there will be an obit written by them or if they want help in this matter. Meanwhile if any of you wish to share memories of Dave with ASIFA-SF members, I'm happy to gather your comments and publish them in some form and/or to pass them on to his two sons that I'm in e-mail contact with. [Note: Karl's address is karlcohen at earthlink dot net.]

For those of you who are not familiar with Dave, he was a Disney animator in the late 30s. He was active with the strike and was hated by Walt after it ended. Walt considered him a ringleader and denounced him in public at a House investigation of unAmerican activities in 1947.

Thanks to loosing his job at Disney, Dave along with 2 other friends formed a company that made job training filmstrips during the war and several animated films including Hell Bent for Election to support Roosevelt in 1944 and Brotherhood of Man in 1946. By the time Brotherhood was complete Dave and Zack Schwartz had sold their interest in the company to the 3rd partner, Steve Bousustow. Steve went on to turn the company, now known as UPA, into a major animation studio after he obtained a distribution contract from Columbia in the late 1940s.

Meanwhile Dave and Zack were off to NYC where they became pioneers in TV advertising. Zack soon left Dave. Dave with Bill Pomerance as his partner formed Tempo and became a major player in producing animated TV commercials until right wing anti-communists denounced the two owners of the company. Tempo closed and Dave moved to England (and briefly Italy) for about a year.

I don't know much about his career after he returned to the US, but he did get work doing layouts and storyboards from Hanna-Barbera which he wasn't proud of (I recall his saying he hated doing rank TV shows, but I need to check my notes and letters from him for an exact quote) and he became SF State's first animation teacher in the late 1960s. He lived in Palo Alto in recent years and was interviewed a few times for books and documentaries that covered the Disney strike and blacklist. John Canemaker was one of the first scholars to write about him and he is a pivitol person in my writings about the early TV animation industry and in my chapeter of Forbidden Animation about the Disney Strike and the blacklisting of animators. Tom Sito interviewed him for Drawing the Line and Marc Elliot misquoted him in Disney, Hollywood's Dark Prince (I was told he was quite disturbed by Elliot and a British TV documentary twisting his statements around and putting an incorrect spin on his statements) In the 1980s he presented an ASIFA-SF event on his career at SF State. His wife Libby died recently (last.year or 2005). I believe he was in his early '90s when he died.

Note that the 1911 birthdate was the best I could figure on short notice; Hilberman may have been born in 1912.

Labels: Disney

Review by Terrence Briggs

Ratatouille is Pixar's best film since Toy Story.

It may lack the rapid-fire whimsy of Toy Story's dialogue, but it tells a more nuanced and imaginative story than Toy Story 2, with fewer softball cultural references. As in Iron Giant and The Incredibles, Brad Bird grounds the characters with largely believable dialogue, and goes through amazing pains to legitimize its many narrative conceits. It's drop-dead gorgeous, almost the equal of Finding Nemo, with more elaborately choreographed action.

Read the review

Labels: Disney, features, Pixar, reviews

Pixar has announced that their 2009 feature will be titled Up, making it the most concisely titled animated feature ever, at least until Shane Acker's 9 comes out. According to Variety, the movie will be about "a 70-year-old man who teams with a wilderness ranger to fight beasts and villains." That's just vague enough that I went straight to Up helmer Pete Docter and asked if he could provide even a little more detail at this early date. For instance, is the movie set in the past, present or future? "It's set in the present," he said, "But I'm not supposed to say much more than has already been printed—other than it's going to be really cool!" Hopefully he'll be more forthcoming before the movie's June 12, 2009 debut.

The Mouse goes to Bollywood: In an effort to crack the Indian market, Disney is teaming up with Yash Raj Films to co-produce Bollywood-style animated features, voiced by Bollywood stars. It's a step up from, say, pitching Mulan to Chinese audiences, but it'd be really cool if Disney set up an exchange program between the Indian studio and Feature Animation in the States. It's a small world, after all.

You know we're gleefully anticipating Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution, but gnash our teeth mightily while waiting for its September release date. Happily, we can get a taste when author Frederik L. Schodt chats with KQED's Michael Krasny next Tuesday, between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time. (If you miss it, you can download the archived podcast a bit later.) Oh, did I mention it's a call-in show? You can phone in with questions during the show at 415-863-2476 or 1-866-SF-FORUM (866-733-6786; toll free).

I had no idea there was such a thing as the Canadian Skills Competition, let alone that the thirteenth instalment happened last last week. And imagine my surprise at discovering that the "Olympic-style competitions that test the skills of young people at secondary and post-secondary levels in trade and technology areas" include animation! Specifically, there are two team events titled 3D Character Computer Animation and 2D Character Computer Animation. Congratulations to the winners, but of course I'm a little irked that animation is being considered a technology skill more than an artistic one.

I'm not a huge fan of '80s TV, and frankly the thought of another He-Man and the Masters of the Universe movie bewilders me. (The Transformers movie, less so. The smart money has long known to bet on robot smackdowns.) But it's now been confirmed that Warner will be making the Thundercats movie as a CGI feature. Okay, they've got a cool logo and all, but... why? I know, I know, there's a fan base. But... why?

Labels: anime, Canada, Disney, features, India, Osamu Tezuka, Pixar

We've been quiet about this year's upcoming charity auction, but it doesn't mean we haven't been working on it behind the scenes. Yesterday I tallied the votes that had come in, and you've once again chosen to donate the proceeds from this November's auction to cancer research. Now we're asking for just one more bit of vox populi from you. Head over to the auction page and vote to decide which organization will be the one we'll be writing the cheque out to when the dust settles.

While you're there, you might also want to see our list of auction items, which I've finally gotten around to updating somewhat. Two items of note are a Meet the Robinsons baseball cap, made specifically for the feature animation crew that worked on the film (it says so right on the back), and a gorgeous Art of Disney catalogue from the Tokyo exhibit of the same name. I was going to gingerly scan segments of the book, but Chris Turner did such a great job back in November I decided to just link to his page instead. If you read Japanese (or just like to look at cool images), you can also see more about the exhibit itself on the official page.

While there are some auction items I haven't gotten around to listing yet, there's always room for more. If you'd like to donate something, by all means let us know.

Labels: auctions, Disney

The Bonhams and Butterfields auction house is selling artwork from the estate of Carl Barks on Monday, June 4th. Public viewings will be held in Los Angeles from June 1 to June 3.

Lot items include art by Carl Barks, including his comic and animation artwork, pin up art and landscape paintings. Also featured is animation art from a number of different productions, including a Charlie Brown special, Shrek and classic Disney films. There is art by various artists for Carl Barks, as well as awards he received for his outstanding work.

If you're too far away, the items (nearly 200) up for auction are available for viewing and bidding online here (skip to Lot 1250).

Labels: auctions, Carl Barks, comics, Disney

Looks like a whole lotta nostalgia going on. Compilations for Sonic the Hedgehog, Darkwing Duck, The Tick and more join the listings this week, as well as the complete run of Hal Seeger's Batfink series, which should make longtime fan Dave Mackey happy. (Dave wrote about Batfink back in 1992, for our second print issue. Check out his page on the Batman-spoofing rodent here.)

New titles:

May:
5/14 - Secrets of Oscar-winning Animation: Behind the Scenes of 13 Classic Short Animations (paperback) (Book)

June:
6/12 - Naruto OVA + Naruto Vol. 1 manga (DVD)
6/26 - Rataoing (DVD)
6/26 - Van-Pires Transform Vol. 1: Mission Demolition (DVD)
6/26 - Van-Pires Transform Vol. 2: Deep Freeze (DVD)

July:
7/3 - Batfink: The Complete Series (CD)
7/10 - Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids (DVD)
7/10 - Stellaluna (DVD)
7/17 - Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (DVD)
7/24 - Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection, Vol. 6: Inspector Cartoons (DVD)

August:
8/7 - Charlie & Lola Vol. 5: But I Am an Alligator (DVD)
8/7 - Darkwing Duck Vol. 2 (DVD)
8/7 - Tick vs. Season Two (DVD)
8/14 - Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters for DVD (DVD)
8/14 - Baby Looney Tunes Vol. 4 (DVD)
8/14 - Baby Looney Tunes Vols. 1-4 (DVD)
8/14 - Loonatics Unleashed Complete Season 2 (DVD)
8/14 - Loonatics Unleashed Complete Seasons 1 & 2 (DVD)
8/14 - Pup Named Scooby-Doo, A: Vol. 7 (DVD)
8/28 - The Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 1 (DVD)

September:
9/1 - Opportunities in Cartooning and Animation Careers (paperback) (Book)

October:
10/24 - Yoshitaka Amano: The Collected Art of Vampire Hunter D (Book)

Date changes:

January 2008:
1/1 - Understanding Animation (paperback) (Book)

Indefinitely delayed:
Winx Club Season 2 Vol. 2: Battle for the Codex (DVD)

Labels: anime, Batfink, Disney, releases, upcoming releases

Meet the Robinsons is an inventive, engaging and fun film. It's enjoyable from start to finish and with luck could herald a new age in American animation. (That's not to say it's perfect or an instant classic, but it's got enough going right that the film gives us something different and special. In this day of copycat cookie-cutter films, that can't be overlooked.) This just-released Disney movie is a rare breed of Hollywood-produced animated films. It's not ironic, not moralistic, not a fairy tale on a grand scale; instead it's a pure story, well thought out and executed. It's the kind of movie that I left the theater liking and on the drive home found myself thinking back on and enjoying even more.

Read the review by Noell Wolfgram Evans

Labels: Disney, features, Meet the Robinsons, reviews

On Thursday, March 22nd, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will continue its free screenings of classic Disney features with Cinderella. One of my favourite touches in this film was the pumpkin carriage, which was inspired by the work of Beatrix Potter (one of the things I learned by attending the superlative exhibit, Once Upon a Time Walt Disney, to which these screenings are linked). If you can't make it for the film, Fantasia is showing on Friday, and I can't wait for Pinocchio on the weekend. See you there!

Don't feel for a feature film on Thursday? How about shorts?

Steamboat Willie, 1928, 8 min
Mickey's Orphans, 1931, 7 min
Mickey's Pal Pluto, 1933, 8 min
Mickey's Fire Brigade, 1935, 8 min
The Band Concert, 1936, 9 min
Donald and Pluto, 1936, 8 min
Thru the Mirror, 1936, 9 min
Clock Cleaners, 1937, 9 min
Don Donald, 1937, 8 min
Modern Inventions, 1937, 9 min

La Cinémathèque Québécoise will be screening these Mickey Mouse shorts (with appearances from the rest of the gang). These are all 35 mm prints.

Labels: Disney, exhibitions, features, Montreal, shorts

Just corrected a minor oversight: For people who'd rather not download our last two video podcasts but are still interested in the interviews, I've added two audio-only versions for your enjoyment, with the earlier one back-dated to when it was supposed to go up. You'll find the Bruno Girveau interview here and the Lella Smith interview here.

Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal

Much of the artwork seen at the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit comes courtesy of the Disney Animation Research Library, which is under the direction of Lella Smith, who was present for the exhibit's opening at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art.

Photo credit: Emru Townsend

Labels: Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Lella Smith, Montreal, podcast

Much of the artwork seen at the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit comes courtesy of the Disney Animation Research Library, which is under the direction of Lella Smith. In this video podcast you can listen to my interview with her while watching a slideshow of some of the Library's artwork that's on display at the exhibit.

Watch the video

Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal

Much of the artwork seen at the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit comes courtesy of the Disney Animation Research Library, which is under the direction of Lella Smith. In this video podcast you can listen to my interview with her while watching a slideshow of some of the Library's artwork that's on display at the exhibit.

Photo credit: Emru Townsend

Labels: Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Lella Smith, Montreal, podcast

Veteran Disney animator Andreas Deja was an unexpected guest at the press conference for the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. I sat down with him and talked about how he was inspired to become an animator, and how he feels about anime, CGI, and people referencing his animation the way he used to reference his predecessors.

Listen to the interview

Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal

Veteran Disney animator Andreas Deja was an unexpected guest at the press conference for the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. I sat down with him and talked about how he was inspired to become an animator, and how he feels about anime, CGI, and people referencing his animation the way he used to reference his predecessors.

Links
Andreas Deja (Wikipedia)

Photo credit: Emru Townsend

Labels: Andreas Deja, Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal, podcast

First presented at the Grand Palais in Paris in fall 2006, the exhibition Once Upon a Time Walt Disney: The Sources of Inspiration for the Disney Studios makes its way to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where it will undoubtedly create quite a buzz. It is indeed a rare occasion when animation films—let alone Disney—get the limelight in a museum.

The exhibition's companion catalogue is a luxuriously illustrated book whose scholarly analyses invite us to re-examine the Disney aesthetic through its relations with European fine arts.

Read the review

Review by Marco de Blois

Labels: Disney, exhibitions, Montreal, reviews

Two days before the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit officially opened in Montreal, members of the press and other guests were invited to roam the museum during the morning press conference and the evening reception. Although the sheer amount of material is staggering, we hope this selection of photos will give you a taste of what's on display.

See the photos

Photos by Emru Townsend and Roy Patrick Disney

Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, Montreal

There is lots of programming today at the Festival of Films on Art (FIFA). There's something for everybody.

If you missed the documentary Il Etait Un Fois... Walt Disney when it aired late last year with English subtitles, it will be showing again today and Sunday in French at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where the exhibit of the same name has just started its North American run. The program begins at 2:00 p.m. (4:30 on Sunday) and is preceded by a documentary (with some animated sequences) on Kinder Surprise, a guilty pleasure of mine. (Note that today and tomorrow are also your last two chances to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the museum).

If you're all Disneyed out, at 4:30 p.m. there is a screening of Parnography, a documentary about Estonian animator Pritt Parn and his contemparies. It repeats later in the week.

The documentary airs with Drawing Lessons and Histoires Mysterieuses d'Aujourd'hui, a collection of six Japanese tales of horror and does not have the typical hallmarks of mainstream Japanese animation. Both sound utterly fascinating.

Labels: anime, Disney, documentaries, Estonia, events, exhibitions, features, festivals, FIFA, International Festival of Films on Art, Montreal, shorts

Matt Forsythe has posted in words and pictures over at Drawn! and Flickr about his experience at Tuesday's preview of Once Upon A Time Walt Disney, which opened today to the public. It's wonderful to read him write about his discovery of Mary Blair, one of my favourite Disney artists.

While I'm on the subject, Mark Mayerson posted a second fantastic commentary on a sequence of Pinocchio at the beginning of the week.

We'll be posting some more about the exhibit in the next little while as well. For now, don't forget to check out the video podcast with curator Bruno Girveau.

Labels: Disney, exhibitions, Montreal

Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, interviews

On March 8th, the exhibition Once Upon a Time Walt Disney opens at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Yesterday we did a tour of the exhibit, which presents the work of the Walt Disney Studio from 1928 (the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, Plane Crazy) through to 1967 (The Jungle Book), in its artistic context. Hundreds of production drawings, concept sketches, background paintings, character studies and film clips are presented side by side with classical artwork and contemporary media to show how Walt Disney and his artists drew from the world around them to create animated movies that are still astonishing to this day. In this podcast I interview the exhibit's curator, Bruno Girveau.

Links
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Shop
Once Upon a Time Walt Disney (hardcover)
Il était une fois Walt Disney (hardcover)

Labels: Bruno Girveau, Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal, podcast

On March 8th, the exhibition Once Upon a Time Walt Disney opens at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Yesterday we did a tour of the exhibit, which presents the work of the Walt Disney Studio from 1928 (the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, Plane Crazy) through to 1967 (The Jungle Book), in its artistic context. Hundreds of production drawings, concept sketches, background paintings, character studies and film clips are presented side by side with classical artwork and contemporary media to show how Walt Disney and his artists drew from the world around them to create animated movies that are still astonishing to this day. You can see a sampling of the exhibit in this video podcast, as well as my interview with curator Bruno Girveau.

Links
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Shop
Once Upon a Time Walt Disney (hardcover)
Il était une fois Walt Disney (hardcover)

Labels: Bruno Girveau, Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal, podcast

As fascinating as it may be to see the inspiration, pre-production and final images from various Disney animated features, the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibition wouldn't be complete without seeing the final products being discussed. To that end, the Cinémathèque Québécoise and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts are both screening Disney films to complement the exhibition, starting in March.

The Cinémathèque starts things off this Friday with a collection of Alice shorts, the series that Walt Disney worked on before the Disney studio we know was formed. These silent films mixed live action and animation—and when you think about it, that wasn't all that uncommon back then—and will be screened to live piano accompaniment. The other two programs will feature Mickey Mouse shorts and Silly Symphonies. All of the programs will repeat at least once between March 2 and April 5; you can see the schedule on the Cinémathèque's Cinéma d'animation page.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will be screening eight Disney features (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan) between March 8 and April 29. (They'll be showing all of the Disney movies until The Jungle Book through to the exhibition's end in June; the rest of the schedule will appear on the site in time.) There will be English and French screenings, and admission is free, though you do have to pick up a ticket; details are on the museum's Films at the Museum page.

Are you going to the screenings? And if so, which films are you looking forward to the most?

Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, Montreal

Disney fever will be sweeping Montreal shortly, what with the Il était une fois Walt Disney (Once Upon a Time Walt Disney) exhibition coming to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for a three and a half-month run. If you're in town between March 8 and June 24, why not enter our Once Upon a Time Walt Disney contest? We're giving away two double passes for the exhibition, and all you've got to do is click here to enter.

Labels: contest, Disney, events, exhibitions, Montreal

We'd heard the rumblings before, but now they've made it official and told the world: Disney is getting back into the hand-drawn feature animation game, with John Musker and Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Treasure Planet) returning to direct The Frog Princess. On the 3D side of things, the retooled American Dog (Chris Williams has replaced Chris Sanders as director) is slated for next year, while Pixar's Lee Unkrich makes his directorial debut with Toy Story 3 in 2009.

It looks like Disney is getting its production groove back, but we won't know for sure until we see how these three first films of the Disney/Pixar era play out on the big screen. We'll see in'08.

Labels: Disney, Pixar

Years ago I got a press kit from Disney that gushed about their upcoming slate of animated TV shows. The series that got all the love was Teamo Supremo, an obvious and ill-conceived attempt at aping The Powerpuff Girls.

Another show received scant mention, but its blurb was the only other thing I would remember from the press kit: a show called Kim Possible, about a teenage girl who went on world-saving adventures with her childhood friend Ron Stoppable.

The names alone made me laugh, and I waited patiently until the show materialized on the Family Channel up here. My patience was rewarded. I discovered a show that married action, wit, slapstick humour, appealing design and memorable characters; it walked the fine line between goofy and action/adventure and made it look easy. I was particularly impressed by how the creators fleshed out perhaps the best-realized female character Western television animation has seen in a long time. K.P. (as Ron calls her) is smart without being a genius, funny without being a smart-aleck, popular but insecure, and independent but embracing of her familial support system. She can be deep or she can be shallow, selfless or selfish. In short, she's a good person and a capable person, but her flaws aren't so outsized that they rob her of humanity.

So, yeah, I'm a fan. And I'm quite happy that Disney has taken the rare step of creating a new series almost two years after the original ended. The first episode airs this Saturday on the Disney Channel in the US (it isn't appearing on the Family Channel in Canada just yet), and it picks up where the first series left off, with Kim and Ron now a couple—and if you know anything about these characters, you realize the comic potential that implies. After having to endure the return of The Family Guy, it's encouraging to see that such a smart and funny series is also deemed worthy of resurrection.

Labels: Disney

There's a brand-new production company in Hollywood, and it's set up shop on the Disney lot. The big surprise? It's headed up by Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey—and the as yet unnamed company will be producing performance-capture–based movies. Disney technically owns the new company, but the three principals will produce their own films, likely with Zemeckis directing; it just so happens that Disney will be their sole client.

(One wonders, what would Walt think of all this? On the one hand, he wasn't too keen on slavishly replicating reality, but rather on using reality as a basis for drawn animation. On the other hand, he encouraged developing new technologies as a means of advancing what could be done in animation.)

While on an emotional level it seems just plain wrong for Disney to be doing motion-captured films, it's hard to deny the business sense behind it. Polar Express, Monster House and Happy Feet did very well at the box office, and Zemeckis and co.'s ImageMovers studio were free of their Sony obligations; the deal means that the Mouse has some of that mojo in the fold, and eliminates a major competitor at the same time. Played right, Disney would essentially be overseeing three different brands of animated features. Jim Hill speculates that Zemeckis and Disney/Pixar's John Lasseter would team up to produce animated adaptations of Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter of Mars books, which Disney recently optioned. If that's the case, and we do end up seeing some mixing and matching between the studios' talent, this could bode very well for Disney. As always, we'll just have to wait and see.

Labels: Disney

The Amazing Screw-On Head (DVD)
Where the animated version of Hellboy benefited by not using the original aesthetic of comic creator Mike Mignola, with a well thought-out, equally compelling design, the pilot episode for The Amazing Screw-On Head keeps Mignola's angular, shadowed look to good effect. While the animation is fairly good—not great, the smaller budget is apparent—the timing and story will keep you watching. Fans of the original comic will enjoy it, but some of the concessions to a new medium will be apparent. The voice acting keeps the entire show together, and it's pleasing that while the famous typically live-action actors get the billing, their work stands up with the trained voice actors and cannot be written off as an attempt at stunt casting. —Tamu Townsend

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (DVD)
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time is the latest direct-to-DVD sequel from the Walt Disney studio. It follows 2002's Cinderella II: Dreams Come True and the original Disney film, 1950's Cinderella. While I have not been a fan of Disney's sequels to its classic film roster, I will admit that this particular film was a pleasant surprise. —Noell Wolfgram Evans
Read the review

Escaflowne: The Movie (Anime Movie Classics) (DVD)
One of the nice things about the better anime productions is that they're not afraid to take chances, even at the risk of displeasing fans. This is exactly what Escaflowne: The Movie did. Most of the familiar characters are there, but with a twist. The overall tone is grimmer than the TV series: Upbeat Hitomi is now a depressed schoolgirl with no psychic abilities, Van is more aggressive and violent, the redesigned Escaflowne itself now gets its energy from the blood of its pilot (much like a semi-mechanical vampire). The production values are still top-notch, and some will prefer the new character designs by Nobuteru Yuki. The soundtrack by Yoko Kanno is also another high point of the film. —René Walling

Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (Anime Movie Classics) (DVD)
This three-episode OVA is a great watch for a Gundam fan, because it provides viewers with the one thing that is irresistible to any good-natured otaku: backstory. There are many things to like about Endless Waltz—new villains, new mecha, old rivalries—but the opportunity to learn of the backstory of the five lead Gundam pilots is probably the sweetest of them all. —Aaron H. Bynum
Read the review

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (Anime Movie Classics) (DVD)
Jin-Roh, haunted equally by Japanese post-WWII social history largely unfamiliar to most Westerners and by the fairy-tale images of wolves twisted into a grisly variation of the story of Little Red Riding Hood, may be the most dazzlingly noir anime ever made, if such melancholia can be considered dazzling. The film, by taking its dual themes of loss and despair very seriously, achieves a gut-wrenching emotional depth. —Amy Harlib
Read the review

The Last Unicorn, The: 25th Anniversary Edition (DVD)
The Last Unicorn has been a cult favorite among fantasy lovers since the publication of Peter S. Beagle's novel in 1968. The animated version released in 1982 spawned new generations of fans. Although it is an American film, Rankin-Bass contracted all their animation to Japanese companies (going all the way back to Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which was done in a warehouse on the outskirts of Tokyo). The Last Unicorn was done by a Japanese contract studio called Topcraft whose other claim to fame was that right after The Last Unicorn, they were hired by Tokuma Publishing to animate the film Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind under Hayao Miyazaki. (Topcraft disbanded afterward and most of the staff joined the newly formed Studio Ghibli to work on Miyazaki's next film, Castle in the Sky: Laputa, so I have always considered The Last Unicorn to be a "proto-Ghibli" film.)

Although a cult success in the US, The Last Unicorn became a mainstream hit in Germany where its annual showings on TV became a tradition much like the annual broadcast of The Wizard of Oz used to be in the US. Sadly, all the video releases in the US (both videotape and DVD) have been cropped and based an inferior print. Only the German Region 2 PAL DVD release was in the original widescreen format using a restored print. Now the 25th anniversary release of the film on DVD in America finally allows us to see the movie in its full glory for the first time since it played in theaters. In addition to the restored film the DVD also has a "making of" documentary including interviews with Peter S. Beagle, who wrote the screenplay based on his own novel.

But that brings up the one lingering controversy about the film. Despite the million copies of the film sold on home video since the mid-80s, Beagle has never been paid any of the royalties he was contractually owed. Read more here about the controversy and find out how buying the DVD through the link above helps Beagle. —Marc Hairston

Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (DVD)
There are many things that can be said about Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles: here are three. First, Louie Nichols' character still has some of the best lines whenever he is in a scene. Second, the battle scenes were compelling in the earlier incarnations of the Robotech series, but now they are entirely lacklustre. The poor 2D/3D integration makes these scenes disjointed and cold. It is a great example of things not being better simply because they are CG.

And the most frustrating, final point: Blame it on my old age, but I simply do not remember that many characters with double-D cups and scenes with gratuitous crotch shots in the earlier series. We know young men like stories in space, and they like pretty women, too, but there are plenty of female viewers who will be turned off. If this is the way the producers aim to rope in a new generation of viewers, I seriously hope it fails, so that fewer creators use the same model, pointing to this series as a precedent. If they improve the story, encouraging viewers to look in the Robotech back catalogue, I sincerely hope they meet their goals. —Tamu Townsend

Labels: anime, Disney, Hayao Miyazaki, releases, Robotech, Studio Ghibli, upcoming releases

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time is the latest direct-to-DVD sequel from the Walt Disney studio. It follows 2002's Cinderella II: Dreams Come True and the original Disney film, 1950's Cinderella. While I have not been a fan of Disney's sequels to its classic film roster, I will admit that this particular film was a pleasant surprise.

Read the review

Labels: Disney, reviews

Elevating a character from a supporting role to a starring one or taking a character from one medium to another can be a tricky proposition. There's no guarantee that what made the character popular in one incarnation (or at least popular enough to warrant more exposure) will translate to another. What usually happens is that either the character becomes homogenized or their traits are hyper-realized to a point that they no longer resemble their original self.

When the transfer goes right and all involved stay true to the character, exciting and entertaining things can happen. One example of this can be found in Disney's Ducktales—the late '80s television series that followed the adventures of Uncle Scrooge, Huey, Dewey and Louie. Ducktales Volume Two—a three-disc DVD set featuring nineteen episodes of the second season (plus the pilot—which was inexplicably omitted from the Volume One set) has just been released on DVD.

Read the review

Labels: Disney, reviews

Set the timer on your VCR/DVR, then tell your friends: The French documentary Walt Disney: Once Upon a Time, a companion to the similarly named museum exhibition that is nearing the end of its Paris run, is airing on CBC Newsworld across Canada on December 24 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT and again at 1:00 a.m. ET/PT. If we could, we'd already be lining up for the exhibition's arrival in Montreal on March 8; as it is, we'll content ourselves with devouring the hour-long special.

Labels: Disney, events

Labels: anime, Disney, Macross, releases, Robotech, upcoming releases

The Walt Disney Company has just added to its Walt Disney's Funny Factory DVD series. Now out are Walt Disney's Funny Factory with Goofy, Volume Three and Walt Disney's Funny Factory with Huey, Dewey and Louie, Volume Four. For the unfamiliar, these are collections of the disc's stars' short cartoons. (Mickey and Donald held center stage with Volumes Two and Three.) In many ways this series is a "Disney Treasures Lite" as nearly all of the shorts on each disc have previously appeared in that highly regarded series. They are repackaged here with none of the extreme care or extras as the Disney Treasures series.

Read the article

Labels: Disney, reviews

What's old is new again. The Walt Disney studio is reviving its old practice of creating shorts that will screen in theaters before movies—Disney movies, naturally. Each short will be hand-drawn, CG or (as many are these days) somewhere between the two. I'm happy to note that one of the earliest announced projects is a revival of the old Goofy "How to" shorts.

The idea for this project comes from John Lasseter, and the intent is to use the shorts as a training ground for animators and a testing ground for new ideas—basically, the same thing that Walt did so many decades ago.

If you think about it, though, this practice of shorts-as-proving grounds never really disappeared. (Heck, Pixar themselves have been practitioners since 1986's André and Wally B.) Independent animators and studios have refined their craft (and their reputations) through short films for quite some time. There's sort of a hierarchy to it, starting with the independent animator at the bottom, then independent studios, then commercials, then feature films. One uses shorts to get from a lower rung to a higher one, or, more indirectly, shorts open up the field to new ideas which are then gratefully used by bigger studios and more commercial productions.

What makes this new is that it's a major movie studio making this effort; Cartoon Network's UK program notwithstanding, no one has made a serious go at this sort of thing since Warner Bros. a few years back. (That little plan might have been derailed because of bad placement. If memory serves, the shorts were generally screened along with the kind of kids' films that parents either tried to avoid or, once in the theater, tried to ignore. Or, as in the case of Pullet Surprise and Cats Don't Dance, they were paired with films that Warner publicity largely ignored.) The problem is that shorts cost money to make, and in an environment where studios and theater owners want to maximize the number of times a movie can be repeated daily, shorts aren't exactly big earners. But what Lasseter recognizes, likely from his own experience, is that shorts, like any company's R&D, are really a long-term investment—and Disney, of all companies, can afford to experiment. Let's hope it sticks this time.

Labels: Disney

I read a lot of press releases—too many, I often think—and I learned a long time ago that public relations people understand, like animators and comedians, that timing is everything. When someone issues a press release late on a Friday, it's news they're hoping to either bury (for smaller companies) or at least soft-pedal (for larger companies). In this case, the Friday bombshell was that Disney is going to cut about 160 people, mostly animators, from its animation unit.

That jobs were cut is really not that surprising, when you think about it. In the summer, Disney announced they were reducing their theatrical output to a mere eight films a year, and that jobs were to be cut as a result of that. And before that, there was that whole Disney-Pixar deal; and no matter what idealists like to think, mergers like these always have layoffs. (Not to say "I told you so," but I did, back in January.)

What is shocking is the scale of it. One hundred and sixty people. Granted, that's a function of Disney's size—it's 20% of the animation unit, which is just one part of the Disney empire—but it's still an awful amount of talent to turn loose, especially on the heels of the people they've shed over the last few years. It's also telling that Pixar didn't lose a single person; it's hard to argue with over a decade of successive hits.

The cuts will come around the time Meet the Robinsons hits the big screen in March, which will also be the time that Disney slows its output from an animated feature every year to one every 18 months—the same frequency, it should be noted, that Pixar films have generally followed (until, that is, next year's Ratatouille, which comes a year after Cars.)

Although there will be metaphorical blood on the floor come March, this should have two long-term consequences worth keeping an eye out for: Disney will have created more of its own competition as more ex-Disney animators form their own studios, and (hopefully) the quality of Disney features will improve as they become less of a crank-'em-out factory.

Labels: Disney

Moon Phase Vol. 2 (DVD)
A quirky Japanese animated series with a little bit of comedy and a little bit of drama, Moon Phase is "cute" yet seems genuinely interested in offering the audience something a little bit different regarding its directorial style. Akiyuki Shinbou becomes more experimental as the series goes on, and increasingly plays with light, dark, shadow and point of view with great success. —Aaron H. Bynum

Robin Hood: Most Wanted Edition (DVD)
Disney's Robin Hood is the last film that Woolie Reitherman directed alone, and his solo efforts (from Sword in the Stone to Robin Hood) are all lacking narrative drive and strong drama. However, if you are a fan of great character animation, Reitherman's films give the animators ample opportunities to strut their stuff. A highlight is Ollie Johnston's work on Prince John and Sir Hiss. —Mark Mayerson

Speed Grapher Vol. 4 (DVD)
One of Funimations's best releases of 2006 continues its tale about the purpose of freedom in a culture that has lost all regard for independence. This DVD volume begins the second half of the anime series, which is important because this is where most programs begin to edge beyond predictability and work toward establishing something solid and memorable, whether in the story or the characters. —Aaron H. Bynum

Also new this week:

Asterix and the Vikings (DVD)
From Armen Boudjikanian's review: The basic premise of Astérix et les Vikings (Astérix and the Vikings) is supposedly the discovery of the meaning of fear; or to be more precise, what it feels like to be scared. A novel and promising concept that was also at the centre of Astérix et les Normans, the 1966 Goscinny and Uderzo comic book on which this new French/Danish animation is based on.

Labels: anime, Disney, releases, upcoming releases

Last month I pointed to Didier Ghez's blog postings about "Il était une fois Disney" ("Once Upon a Time Disney"), a fantastic exhibit of Disney artwork that starts its tour in Paris. I mentioned that we'd be following up with Didier's reports about the show until it made its way here in the spring, but Didier, busy fellow that he is, didn't have time to do more than post a bit about two people responsible for the show, curator Bruno Birveau and author Robin Allan. However, just yesterday he started to post a few images from the exhibit itself. We can't wait until we can see them for ourselves.

Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions

One exciting show, two cities. From September 16 to January 15, Les Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, described by Didier Ghez in his blog as "a museum in Paris that is almost as important as Le Louvre," will be hosting Il était une fois Walt Disney (Once Upon a Time Walt Disney), a collection of hundreds of works that show the links between European art and the Disney studio's productions from 1935 to 1967. By "links" I mean the centuries' worth of Western European art that Walt and Roy Disney specifically exposed their artists to, as well as the work that resulted from that inspiration. Most of the Disney art on display will have never been seen before; Didier also notes that the basis for the exhibition is Robin Allan's Walt Disney and Europe: European Influences on the Animated Feature Films of Walt Disney.

Didier will be at the inauguration of the event on September 14, so we'll be checking back with him then. While we'd love to head to France to check this out, we'll have to content ourselves with waiting for March 8, when the exhibition ends up in our backyard at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (curiously, with the "Walt" missing from the title) until June 24; the show may also progress to other cities after, but there's no definite word on that yet.

Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions

Many new DVDs come out this week; here are the ones fps contributors recommend.

Astro Boy Ultra Box Set Vol. 2
Contrary to popular misstatements, it's not the first anime ever made, nor is it the first televised anime. But for all intents and purposes, this is the series that started an industry on both sides of the Pacific. —Emru Townsend

Darkwing Duck Vol. 1
"Let's get dangerous!" Beyond a doubt, this series in season 1 was some of the most fun I had watching TV. It was a fantastic take-off on superheroes. —Jeff Boman

Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro Special Edition

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers... and More Inspiring Tales
Two words: Michael Sporn. Don't make me repeat myself. —Emru Townsend

The Tick vs. Season One (The Belated 10th Anniversary Edition)
One of the few animated spin-offs to retain its charm longer than the comic it was based on, The Tick launched thousands of heartfelt cries of "Spoon!" the world over. That may or may not be a good thing, but there you go. —Emru Townsend

As always, you can keep up with our extensive list of upcoming releases here.

Labels: anime, Disney

Didier Ghez has successfully undertaken the ambitious task of editing a series of collections of interviews with artists from the Walt Disney Studios. Three volumes of Walt's People are available and he is preparing the delivery of a fourth volume.

As if he wasn't busy enough, Didier has started a Disney History blog.

In his first entry, he recounted the impetus to begin blogging:

I discovered that a Mexican movie that I have never seen, by director Carlos Amador, includes a specially created animation sequence of the 3 Little Pigs animated by the Disney Studio for that specific movie and directed by Bill Justice and X. Atencio. This broke the camel's back: I had to share that one story and a few others with fellow Disney history buffs, if only to get one of you to tell me how to get ahold of this movie.

So please help him find this film (it's called Cri-Cri: El Grillito Cantor) to thank him! The first two days of entries already reveal the type of treasures that will be in store for readers, as he plans to post more about Disneyana and the progress of Walt's People.

Labels: Disney

Reports from Ankara Friday reveal that Turkish public TV network TRT has banned popular Walt Disney cartoon Winnie the Pooh from the air because Piglet is a pig. [link via littlegreenfootballs]

Labels: Disney

The American feature market has evolved to the point where the corporate public relations machine stresses the technical aspects of animation and the star power of its cast over anything else. There is a certain logic to that, as celebrities are more likely to attract attention when they do the publicity circuit for the movie. And, of course, impressive-sounding numbers make a great crutch for animation-ignorant writers to lean on. But there's a cost to this kind of lazy thinking.

Read the entire commentary

Labels: Disney

Let's get this out of the way: The Wild, produced by C.O.R.E. and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, bears as much resemblance to DreamWorks' Madagascar as Pixar's A Bug's Life did to DreamWorks/Pacific Data Images' Antz—there are surface similarities, but they're different films.

Read the entire review

Labels: Disney, reviews

At an A.G. Edwards conference yesterday, Disney chairman Dick Cook gushed that the Pixar-Disney integration is "happening better than we had ever dreamed it would." Most interesting was the news that the combined studios aims to make release two animated features a year—one from each studio. Dreamworks has long had the same goal, but this strikes me as a better idea because it's not that far off from what Disney and Pixar were doing separately before. It'll still require ramping up (including the forthcoming Cars, Pixar averages a film every 18 months; in the same period Disney's feature studios averaged slightly over one film a year, but they had a larger staff than they do now), but it's not as much of a stretch. And frankly, Dreamworks movies haven't done much for me for a long time. (Though I will admit I've yet to see either Shrek—but then, I've never had any urge to.)

Cook also made the unsurprising assertion that the deluge of animated films that starts this year will lead to a shakeout. But then, how could it not? Eager to cash in on the public's supposedly insatiable appetite for CGI films, various studios have popped up and offered minor variations on the same formula: sassy, talking critters and celebrity casting. At least this time the boom-and-bust cycle will be quicker (and less tumultuous) than the last one.

Labels: Disney, Pixar

Ever since the nominees were announced for this year's Best Animated Feature Film, various commentators have remarked that, considering that audiences are supposed to be flocking to 3D CGI, it's significant that none of the nominees use the technique.

It's true that it's significant. It's also significant that Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the nominee that pulled the most boxoffice dollars, is the most obviously old-fashioned of the three. So much for the "newer is better" theory.

But what's equally important is that none of the nominees were produced by Disney—the third time this has happened since the category made its debut in 2001. This despite the fact that Walt Disney himself won the first ever Oscar for an animated feature, a special award in recognition of the achievement of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This despite the fact that Beauty and the Beast was the first animated feature to be nominated for Best Picture.

It's obvious that Disney has been in a slide ever since 1995's Pocahontas; so obvious I don't even need to provide examples. If you're reading this, you most likely agree with me. So why do we—fans, writers, animators—continue to look to Disney as the bellwether of feature animation? It's not like they've earned that status recently.

Get away from the Oscars for a moment and look at what the average North American filmgoer watches and responds to. Sarcastic wink-to-the-audience films like Shrek, Madagascar and (to a lesser degree) Ice Age have done well; Wallace and Gromit are recognized and loved; and while Miyazaki still isn't quite a household name, his studio's influence runs deep in the filmmaking community, which in turn affects how films are made. We've already felt some of that influence in Pixar movies like Toy Story and A Bug's Life. Nods to Miyazaki have also popped up in TV shows like Batman Beyond, Samurai Jack and The Powerpuff Girls.

In fact, television and the home video markets are also responsible for a shift away from the Disney influence. TV shows like Rugrats, Teacher's Pet (yes, I know it's a Disney show) and Powerpuff Girls have spawned feature films that have done respectably at the boxoffice, each one sporting very different graphic sensibilities. And, most important in my book, today's kids and teenagers are growing up surrounded by anime, and that includes feature-length anime on DVD.

Disney has the advantage of being the only feature animation studio with a decades-long history and the only one tightly wedded to a worldwide media empire. But at the same time, it's no longer dictating the present or future of feature animation. Even John Lasseter's seizing of the reins won't change that—in fact, Pixar's history indicates a shift to director-driven features, something Disney has historically shied away from.

The animated feature market is going through some tremendous and exhilarating changes right now. Let's acknowledge that and stop giving Disney more credit than it's due.

Labels: Disney

To fully understand the ironic position Howl's Moving Castle finds itself in at this year's Academy Awards, you have to go back to the 2003 Academy Awards. That was only the second year of the new Best Animated Feature Award with five nominees. Along with the big names of the year, Disney's Lilo and Stitch and Treasure Planet, there was Dreamworks' Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and the upstart Blue Sky Studio's Ice Age. Most of the speculation had centered on whether the Academy members would go with the breath of fresh air from Disney and vote for Lilo and Stitch or reward the smaller outside studio and vote for Ice Age. But the winner turned out to be the relatively obscure fifth nominee from Japan, Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's film Spirited Away. All across the country there were literally millions of viewers turning to one another and saying "Huh? Spirited Away? Wasn't that the one about the horse?"

Their puzzlement was not hard to understand. While the other four had gotten wide national releases and hefty advertising, Spirited Away never went wider than a mere 151 theaters and was practically invisible to the average moviegoer. As explained here, Disney's distribution of Spirited Away was an attempt to appease Pixar and John Lasseter at a time when the contract negotiations between the two studios were coming up. But as there were no merchandizing tie-in incentives for Disney plus a deep sense of "not invented here" towards the film, it was not too surprising that the film was punted over to the art house circuit with the expectation that it would quietly die there. What they didn't expect was that it would turn up on over 100 critics' "top ten" lists at the end of the year. Still, you had to hand it to Disney. The DVD release was due out two weeks after the Awards, but they went to work the Monday morning after the ceremony booking it back into theaters. By Wednesday night they were running commercials for it in prime time on both broadcast and selected cable networks. And on Friday Spirited Away reopened in just under 800 theaters nationwide, pretty much the most they could get on such short notice. During its initial run on the arthouse circuit it had only made about $5 million, but during the two week re-release it managed to double that total. It wasn't blockbuster status, but given the Keystone Kops-style marketing Disney had done, it wasn't too bad either.

The Academy Award for Spirited Away solved another long-running problem for Disney; what to do with the rest of the Ghibli films they had the English-language rights to, but had never released? After the initial contract in 1996, they had released Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) on home video and, in those heady days they actually set about to do a theatrical release of Miyazaki's earlier Castle in the Sky (1986). They went so far as to fly Joe Hisaishi, the soundtrack composer, to the US to oversee an orchestral re-recording of the soundtrack. (The original soundtrack was performed by a small ensemble with Hisaishi on synthesizer, and Disney felt it would not stand up to the newer theatrical sound systems.) But after the disastrous theatrical release of Princess Mononoke, all the Ghibli film releases were put on indefinite hold. After decades of conditioning the public to believe that "cartoons were for kids" Disney was clueless about how to successfully market the Ghibli films in the US. But now with the Oscar, the marketing folks finally had a hook they understood: release everything with cover stickers that said "from the Academy Award winning creator of Spirited Away..." Okay, I'm being a bit cynical here, but I am grateful that this finally got Disney to release all the other films. Spirited Away hit the shelves along with a re-release of Kiki and (after five years on the shelf) Castle in the Sky. This was followed in the next two years by the dubbing and home video releases of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind (1984), Porco Rosso (1992), The Cat Returns (2002), along with Isao Takahata's films Pom Poko (1994) and My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999). Finally this March we will get a new dub of My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Whisper of the Heart (1995) coming with the home video release of Howl's Moving Castle. At long last, all the Miyazaki films and almost all the Ghibli films will be available in North America.

So when Howl's Moving Castle was released in Japan in November 2004 (climbing to one of the top five all time money makers), there was no question this time whether Disney was going to release it here or not. The question now was: had Disney finally learned their lesson and would they give Howl the treatment a Miyazaki film really deserved? While Spirited Away was a fantasy set in a Japanese bath house, unfamiliar territory for most Western viewers, Howl was a standard "European-style" fantasy story, based on a novel by British fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones, a book that had been in print in the US since 1986. The story centered on a young girl magically cursed into an old hag who goes looking for the shadowy wizard Howl who may be able to break the spell. Certainly selling that should be a snap for the company that gave us Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. Disney showed every intention of doing it right when they hired legendary actresses of the caliber of Jean Simmons and Lauren Bacall to voice the main characters. The Japanese press reported that Disney was planning on an 800+ screen release this time. Miyazaki fans like myself hoped for a little more. We understood that it wasn't realistic to expect a full wide release of 2500-3000 screens, but after Spirited Away's success and with a more "Disney-friendly" storyline, 1000 screens seemed reasonable. So we waited for the June release... and then...

...and like the rat that doesn't know any other way through the maze, Disney followed the Spirited Away release plan to the letter. Back to the art house circuit, Howl never got past 202 screens at its widest release (compare that to Wallace and Gromit and Corpse Bride, both of which maxed out at over 3200 screens). Yes, it got a half page feature on the front page of the Sunday New York Times' Arts and Entertainment section (complete with a huge color picture), but we wanted to see it getting attention in Oklahoma City too! This time Howl completely skipped some second tier markets such as Ft. Worth and Fresno, places that had gotten Spirited Away the first time through. It left most major markets after only two or three weeks and in the end it only pulled in $4.7 million, a bit shy of what Spirited Away did in its original release, and a paltry sum compared to the $190 million box office it did in Japan. Even then the inept marketing of Disney kept going. I remember sitting in a sold out showing of March of the Penguins last July and seeing the trailer for Howl. This was the ideal audience, nothing but parents and kids there, and I heard some "oohs" and "ahhs" coming from the audience during the trailer. It would have been perfect except for one detail: Howl had already closed in Dallas the week before.

So March 5th is going to be deja vu all over again. Once more millions of viewers across the country are going to watch the clip of Howl on the awards show and then turn to one another saying "Huh? Have you ever heard of this movie?" This time I doubt Miyazaki will win, I personally think Wallace and Gromit has it locked up. But I'm already wondering about the future. Now that John Lasseter, a long time friend (and an unabashed worshipper) of Miyazaki , is the head of all Disney animation, I'd like to think that any future Ghibli film will finally get the royal treatment from Disney. But will there be another Miyazaki film? His last three films, Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl, have each been hyped as "Miyazaki's final film." So we didn't take it too seriously, especially when Ghibli said last fall that Miyazaki's next feature film would be announced in January. But the announcement was that the next film, Tales from Earthsea, based on the Ursula LeGuin's books, would be done not by Hayao Miyazaki, but by his son, Goro Miyazaki. It is not clear at the moment if Hayao Miyazaki will ever do any more feature films, he may well stick to short films for the Ghibli Museum. So now that Disney animation finally has a leader who "gets it" and has the corporate political power to force Disney to do a decent wide release of a future Miyazaki film, it would be sad and ironic if there were no more Miyazaki films to come.

Labels: anime, Disney, Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli

Two stories over the Reuters newswire today shed some light on details from the Disney/Pixar deal. I find both encouraging.

The first reveals that in order for the deal to go through, the Pixar "brain trust" must agree to it and work at the combined company. That "brain trust" includes Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, whose new positions have already been spelled out, as well as Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton, Monsters, Inc. director Pete Docter, The Incredibles director Brad Bird, director/writer Bob Peterson, story artist Brenda Chapman, editor Lee Unkrich and sound designer Gary Rydstrom.

Also, the studio's name will remain Pixar. (Not that I expected it to change, but it's nice to see that it's spelled out in the contract.)

The second answers a question I forgot to bring up earlier: control of Toy Story 3 and all Pixar sequels reverts to Pixar. Thank goodness.

Labels: Disney, Pixar

Well, that's it. Weeks of speculation and rumour come to an end, as Pixar and Disney kiss and make up in a big way.

Part of me is saddened by the whole thing. I've always liked the idea that Pixar did so well as an autonomous entity (at least, as autonomous as an animation producer can be—see Mark Mayerson's commentary on the animation industry in the latest issue), beholden to none; I don't think The Incredibles would have been made the way it was anywhere but at Pixar.

But, credit where credit is due: the movie also wouldn't have had the play it did if it weren't for Disney's distribution. The two companies are really suited to each other, which is why the 1991 Disney-Pixar deal and its later renewal were generally hailed as positive news. It was a simple equation: Pixar made great animation and told good stories; Disney had a fantastic distribution system.

With this new deal, the equation has many more variables. Pixar and Disney are no longer at arm's length, and there are some boundaries that may be getting blurrier. The question is, how will Disney and Pixar affect each other?

First off, the new org chart looks promising, with the key executive/creative players—Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter—making logical, parallel transitions. Jobs is now Disney's 14th board member, and the largest individual shareholder; not quite in charge, but as close as you can get. Pixar prez Catmull is now president of both Pixar and Disney animation studios. Lasseter is chief creative officer (love that title) of the animation studios, and principal creative advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, which seems to fit with his hands-on executive/creative role at Pixar.

And let me say right now that I'm a huge fan of Steve Jobs, who deserves the title of The Comeback Kid like no other (and provides unparalleled encouragement to any parent whose kid spends too much time in the garage with his pals). I'm glad to see him wielding such power on the Disney board. He has a proven knack for doing things unconventionally yet successfully, and for creating products that lead to iconic pop-culture status and/or inspire feverish loyalty. In terms of sensing the future and exploiting it, he's probably the closest thing to Walt Disney himself that the board has ever seen. If anyone can give Disney the kick in the pants it needs, it's him.

But the crux of any merger or acquisition is how the new company deals with having two departments that do the same thing. This situation can be handled in one of three ways: closing one department (massive layoffs, with some reassignments); merging the two (some layoffs, one much bigger department); or having two parallel departments. All of these options can lead to culture clashes and resentment between departments without some truly masterful diplomacy.

In an ideal world, we'd see some combination of the second and third options: a vast animation talent pool that gets divided up into mostly autonomous sections depending on the projects currently in production—much like the Disney and Warner studios of old. Maybe we will see that in the future, but right now they're talking about two separate studios, separated by the physical distance between Glendale and Emeryville.

What does this new arrangement mean for the studios' output? Disney had committed themselves to producing only CG films, despite its long heritage (and considerable talent base) in traditional animation. With both studios under the same corporate roof, it seems redundant to have them both producing material in the same medium, using similar techniques for similar stories—especially when Pixar seems so much better at it. But after going through the trauma of converting to a CG-only studio, where can Disney animation go from here? Again, in an ideal world, Catmull and Lasseter would axe future projects like The Wild and Rapunzel Unbraided and start buying light tables again; but like any organism, the studio can only take so many shocks to its system in succession.

There are a lot of questions that will remain unanswered for the next few years, and all we can do is hold our collective breath. I have a lot of faith in Jobs, Catmull and Lasseter, who have shown admirable skill in balancing corporate and creative needs. But there are still so many ways this could go.

Labels: Disney, Pixar

From the joint press release:

Pixar President Ed Catmull will serve as President of the new Pixar and Disney animation studios, reporting to Iger and Dick Cook, Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. In addition, Pixar Executive Vice President John Lasseter will be Chief Creative Officer of the animation studios, as well as Principal Creative Advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he will provide his expertise in the design of new attractions for Disney theme parks around the world, reporting directly to Iger. Pixar Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs will be appointed to Disney's Board of Directors as a non-independent member. With the addition of Jobs, 11 of Disney's 14 directors will be independent. Both Disney and Pixar animation units will retain their current operations and locations.

Labels: Disney, Pixar

People are stirred up in the business and entertainment world about the events currently surrounding Pixar and Walt Disney, and for good reason. Whatever happens will have an impact in business and on popular culture.

Why do I sound so cautious? Because I think someone has to be.

I'm just as anxious as anyone, but the January 22nd article's headline in the Sunday Telegraph states, falsely: Jobs to Scoop $3.5bn as Pixar Board Approves Disney Takeover. In the first paragraph of the story, the journalist contradicts the headline by saying that Pixar's board of directors "is set to meet tomorrow," meaning January 23. (In the defense of the journalist but not the newspaper, it is typical for another individual to write headlines for an article.)

The article has been cited by many others online, including BoingBoing, the most popular blog on the Net (on a lazy Sunday like this, they'll get at least 275,000 visits) . In addition to the blog entry's reductionist view of why Disney's traditional animation unit shut down, the entry's title trumpets: Disney Swaps Stock for Pixar; Jobs is Largest Disney Stockholder.

Guess what. This is a likely scenario.

But it hasn't happened yet. Future tense was invented specifically for this type of occasion.

In the meantime, in the Australian News, where it actually is tomorrow, there is a reprint of a Financial Times article that doesn't speculate and reports the story about Disney's board meeting, also taking place tomorrow. That article notes:

They said a number of options regarding Pixar were being discussed, from a full takeover of the animation studio controlled by Steve Jobs to a smaller-scale deal involving Disney taking a stake in Pixar.

The emphasis is mine. It's only a few hours. Let's wait for tomorrow.

Labels: Disney, Pixar

The latest issue of fps hits the virtual stand now! The current issue's theme is digital animation; not so much the how, but the why. Shuzo John Shiota writes about how Japan's relatively recent embrace of digital production technologies comes at a crucial time in the anime industry; Charlie Bonifacio looks at how animation training is shifting to more technical instruction, rather than artistic; Armen Boudjikanian interviews Disney senior software engineer Gene Lee. And of course, we have our usual thought-provoking commentaries and insightful reviews, including the 2005 Year in Review.

Labels: Disney

I celebrated my newly-clean closet by actually watching the Gargoyles 10th Anniversay DVD I purchased...oh...9 months ago. Only had time to keep myelf awake listening to the commentary, though. fps readers know how much Greg Weisman and Keith David rave about the show, but I was hoping that co-producer Frank Paur would have more to offer about the overseas animation process. 100 minutes later, all I know is:

-Disney's Tokyo studios handled the animation for the 5-part pilot (yet we don't know how much footage came back from the "Additonal Production Facilities" listed in the credits.

-A shot in Part 3 with Demona hiding in the shadows of Xanatos' castle was a flub on the part of the animators. Frank admits that she was supposed to be completely obscured, but the aniamtors ran out to time to do the retake.

-There were arguments not only between Greg and Frank over the show, but between Frank and the Japanese animators. Context: unknown. Greg does reveal that the Japanese animators had something to prove to Disney. "Coming off of Ghost in the Shell and Akira," Frank notes, these animators jumped at the chance to do an action drama for the snuggly soft Disney studios. "This is manga to them."

-The animators loved how the gargoyles cloak themselves with their wings. It saved the trouble of animating them with their wings flapping about all of the time.

-The animators hated having the gargoyles run on all fours. Too complex.

-The gun (pea shooter) pointed at Goliath during Part 3's conclusion becomes a big honkin' automatic weapon at the beginning of Part 4. Greg caught me sleeping on that flub. Apparent was decided that "we need a bigger gun". (To which Frank replied, "the guntoter was really happy to see Goliath".)

-Elisa is "hot", acording to Greg. And Keith David. And all of the 10-year-old boys (and boys at heart) watching.

Labels: anime, Disney

Unlike, I suspect, many animation fans, I walked into Chicken Little with no opinion about the movie one way or another. I'd seen an extended clip at during the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival jury, and attended the Disney presentation at the conference itself where Mark Dindal and others spoke about the making of the movie at length. And of course I'd seen the trailer online and on TV. Everything I'd seen suggested that it was a good movie, but I've been burned by clips before. And Disney hasn't exactly earned my trust in the last few years.

But there's a lot at stake here for the company. Chicken Little, which they're calling their first fully computer-animated feature (technically true, though it kind of sweeps Dinosaur under the rug), is their one shot at justifying their claim that CGI now rules the roost (sorry) and their shuttering of the Florida and California studios.

So with all these conflicting bits of data, I had no real preconceptions as I sat in the cinema before the preview screening. I did allow myself to over-analyze a few things, like the noticeably extravagant prize drawing (an indifferent-looking tween got herself an Xbox 360), and the opening of the film itself, where a narrator rejects two potential openings as trite: the opening moments of The Lion King, and a truck in on an open fairy-tale book. Interesting, I thought. The corporate mantra has been that Disney is embracing its heritage as it moves into CGI, and here the film is explicitly turning its back on it. It seemed a little heavy-handed, as if they couldn't trust the movie to speak for itself.

But after that, I stopped watching for portentous signs of Disney's new groove and tried to get into the movie.

Believe me, they didn't make it easy. In the first fifteen minutes or so, I found Chicken Little's use of music to be too heavy-handed. When Chicken Little and his dad Buck drive home in more or less awkward silence after a school incident (they're both trying to get past Chicken Little's "sky is falling" faux pas from a year earlier), we're walloped on the head by maudlin piano music and too-loud lyrics that tell us how sad everyone is. I found myself missing Randy Newman's simple and evocative "I Will Go Sailing No More" from Toy Story pretty badly.

I also couldn't reconcile the character design (cartoony, symmetrical) with the stylized, asymmetrical mechanics and backgrounds. I can see how it would work on paper, but the crispness of CGI only reinforces the dissonance between symmetrical and asymmetrical designs, at least for me.

These were the two problems that I couldn't let go of throughout the film, though the use of music stopped being an irritant as the story progressed and it actually became a plot element. But overall, I've got to say that Chicken Little is pretty darned good. Storywise, it deviates from Disney's established formulas and gives us a few surprises. Most Disney movies from The Little Mermaid onward are driven by the "I want" motive of the protagonist (usually established in a song, and obtained after much hardship at the end). Fairly early on, Chicken Little actually gets what he wants (to save face and earn his father's affection), after some effort; what drives his actions after that is his fear of losing what he's finally gained.

I also found I had to reverse an earlier opinion on the film's emotional core. Chicken Little is one of those rare North American animated films that focuses on the relationship between fathers and sons, but I couldn't get into Little's dad's emotional distance at first—there were too many missed opportunities for subtle (and therefore more powerful) interplay. But later, when father and son realize that their initial reconciliation is paper-thin, it leads into more interesting territory—especially for Buck, who doesn't know how to express certain emotions and whose pleading for a return to their too-brief period normalcy feels especially desperate. When the two do really reconcile, he's still not quite sure of how far he can go, which becomes material for some good gags.

Chicken Little isn't quite a home run, but it is something that Disney hasn't had in a long time: an honest-to-God family movie that everyone can enjoy without apology. What irks me—infuriates me, really—is that Disney and the people who buy their line will point to Chicken Little and say, "See? CGI is where it's at."

The thing is, Chicken Little is a good CGI movie. It's cartoony in an assured way that's head and shoulders above Madagascar, while its compositions, use of colour and framing are certainly "cinematic,"—but in its own way, without being too showy. (No roller-coaster rides here.) But my feeling is that all this extra care was put into Chicken Little because of how much was at stake. In short, Disney was desperate enough to put a lot of care into the storytelling and visuals—the kind of care they should have been putting into most of their movies post-Lion King. Too bad they had to be desperate to get to that point.

Chicken Little
Walt Disney Pictures
81 minutes
Buy Chicken Little from Amazon.com or Amazon.com

Labels: Disney, reviews

Just got the news Joe Grant, the deservedly legendary animator, passed away a few days ago. Just a few days shy of his 97th birthday, he was still punching the clock every day at the Disney studio, just as he did back in the days of Snow White. Jim Hill has an excellent tribute on his site.

Labels: Disney

You've probably heard by now that Robert Iger has been tapped to succeed Michael Eisner as Disney CEO in September. The question is, does it matter?

Disney's problems are largely due to Eisner (or, perhaps maybe more accurately, by Eisner no longer being counterbalanced by Frank Wells and Jeffery Katzenberg), but the other factor to consider is that Disney's behaviour—acquisition and vertical-integration mania, media saturation, the perception of movies and television shows as 'content' to be exploited in every possible way, enslavement to the bottom line—isn't unique to Disney. Rather, it's how business is done in America today, an aspect of the MBA-is-king mentality. Will Iger reverse or even slow this trend? Probably not. There's a possibility that he'll realize that good (or preferably, great) content is an easier and more lucrative sell, but it's not like any of the other major media players make that their mantra, so I'm not holding my breath.

I would bet, however, that Iger realizes that Disney will need Pixar in the future, and extend an olive branch to Steve Jobs. So it's possible that there will be some intersection between Disney's needs and our own.

Labels: Disney

If you've been wary of buying print-on-demand (POD) books, it might be time for you to take the leap. Didier Ghez has recently announced that his book Walt's People: Volume 1 is available for sale in the Xlibris bookstore. Walt's People is a collection of interviews with people who worked for Walt Disney, from the pre-Steamboat Willie days through to the time of his death. I haven't read the book, but I feel confident about recommending it: I'm currently transcribing a Mel Shaw interview for Didier's second volume.

Labels: Disney