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04-06-2004, 01:53 PM
Original Story: The end of a Disney animation era? (http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/06/media.disney.animation.reut/index.html)
The end of a Disney animation era?
'Home on the Range' may be last hand-drawn film
Tuesday, April 6, 2004 Posted: 1:12 PM EDT (1712 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- When Walt Disney Co's animated film "Home on the Range" debuted on Friday, it may have been the end of an era for hand-drawn cartoon features as the company that all but created the art form moves to computer images.
Disney's film studio is under pressure in its animation division, having cut back staff and ended a lucrative partnership with Pixar Animation Studios Inc., which established new computer-animated movies like the $850 million global box office hit "Finding Nemo."
"Range," a comedy about a wiseacre cow voiced by Roseanne Barr who tries to save her farm, is the last hand-painted cartoon on Disney's current film slate, studio chief Dick Cook said in a recent interview. Moreover, most of the industry is moving in the direction of computer animation.
"It is where things are going," Cook told Reuters.
Computer animation, often called 3-D, is more than drawing with a computer pen. In some ways it is like puppetry, since designers build a character that they then manipulate with commands that work like digital strings. They can add as many layers of complexity as they want, so that a character could be built with one smile or 100, for instance.
Mickey Mouse has already made the jump to computer graphics and has a computer-animated holiday video in the works. Still, the studio chief stands behind "Range," calling it a "kick" and arguing hand-drawn cartoons are not yet dead in Hollywood.
"I don't think it is the end of an era. I think hand-drawn animation will continue in one form or another," he said.
But statements like Cook's have been viewed by industry watchers as an attempt to downplay the importance of "Range" to Disney, in particular, and the phasing out of Disney-style animation in favor of computer-generated movies like "Nemo," DreamWorks' "Shrek" or Twentieth Century Fox's "Ice Age."
In fact, most of Disney's recent hand-drawn animated films, with the exception of 2002's "Lilo & Stitch," have been only moderately successful at best. Major 2002 flop "Treasure Planet" led the company to reduce its quarterly earnings.
"Range" is said by industry watchers to have cost Disney between $80 million and $100 million.
The movie debuts as Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner battles an investor rebellion, and it follows the announced end of a relationship between Disney and Pixar that has yielded five smash movies with more than $2.5 billion in ticket sales.
The demise of the Pixar deal has only boosted pressure on Disney's animators to crank out a hit.
"Most animators that are in the business are pretty committed to digital now, and if not they are probably headed to the next hall, which is story boarding," said one-time Disney animator Mark Pudleiner, who worked on "Range."
Cutting back
Disney has slashed its animation work force by about two-thirds since 1997, which created a lot of uncertainty at the company, said Peter de Seve, an animator and character designer who worked on "Treasure Planet" and led the team that designed characters for Fox's "Ice Age."
The studio closed its Florida-based animation unit in January. The closing played a role in Roy Disney's recent challenge to Eisner at the company's shareholders' meeting, held last month in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Disney, Walt Disney's nephew, was the one-time chair of the studio's animation department.
"The drain of talent over the past several years from the company's feature animation department in Orlando, Burbank, Paris and Tokyo has been absolutely gut-wrenching," Roy Disney said in a statement at the time.
Many of the fired animators have formed their own company, Legacy Animation Studios, and intend to specialize in traditional hand-drawn animation.
Pudleiner said that Disney was making creative decisions in a corporate manner, watering down the artistic process.
"There is such an aim for the bottom line and so much census-taking and poll-taking that the stories get diluted," he said.
But, he added, the word is that "Chicken Little" looks good.
The end of a Disney animation era?
'Home on the Range' may be last hand-drawn film
Tuesday, April 6, 2004 Posted: 1:12 PM EDT (1712 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- When Walt Disney Co's animated film "Home on the Range" debuted on Friday, it may have been the end of an era for hand-drawn cartoon features as the company that all but created the art form moves to computer images.
Disney's film studio is under pressure in its animation division, having cut back staff and ended a lucrative partnership with Pixar Animation Studios Inc., which established new computer-animated movies like the $850 million global box office hit "Finding Nemo."
"Range," a comedy about a wiseacre cow voiced by Roseanne Barr who tries to save her farm, is the last hand-painted cartoon on Disney's current film slate, studio chief Dick Cook said in a recent interview. Moreover, most of the industry is moving in the direction of computer animation.
"It is where things are going," Cook told Reuters.
Computer animation, often called 3-D, is more than drawing with a computer pen. In some ways it is like puppetry, since designers build a character that they then manipulate with commands that work like digital strings. They can add as many layers of complexity as they want, so that a character could be built with one smile or 100, for instance.
Mickey Mouse has already made the jump to computer graphics and has a computer-animated holiday video in the works. Still, the studio chief stands behind "Range," calling it a "kick" and arguing hand-drawn cartoons are not yet dead in Hollywood.
"I don't think it is the end of an era. I think hand-drawn animation will continue in one form or another," he said.
But statements like Cook's have been viewed by industry watchers as an attempt to downplay the importance of "Range" to Disney, in particular, and the phasing out of Disney-style animation in favor of computer-generated movies like "Nemo," DreamWorks' "Shrek" or Twentieth Century Fox's "Ice Age."
In fact, most of Disney's recent hand-drawn animated films, with the exception of 2002's "Lilo & Stitch," have been only moderately successful at best. Major 2002 flop "Treasure Planet" led the company to reduce its quarterly earnings.
"Range" is said by industry watchers to have cost Disney between $80 million and $100 million.
The movie debuts as Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner battles an investor rebellion, and it follows the announced end of a relationship between Disney and Pixar that has yielded five smash movies with more than $2.5 billion in ticket sales.
The demise of the Pixar deal has only boosted pressure on Disney's animators to crank out a hit.
"Most animators that are in the business are pretty committed to digital now, and if not they are probably headed to the next hall, which is story boarding," said one-time Disney animator Mark Pudleiner, who worked on "Range."
Cutting back
Disney has slashed its animation work force by about two-thirds since 1997, which created a lot of uncertainty at the company, said Peter de Seve, an animator and character designer who worked on "Treasure Planet" and led the team that designed characters for Fox's "Ice Age."
The studio closed its Florida-based animation unit in January. The closing played a role in Roy Disney's recent challenge to Eisner at the company's shareholders' meeting, held last month in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Disney, Walt Disney's nephew, was the one-time chair of the studio's animation department.
"The drain of talent over the past several years from the company's feature animation department in Orlando, Burbank, Paris and Tokyo has been absolutely gut-wrenching," Roy Disney said in a statement at the time.
Many of the fired animators have formed their own company, Legacy Animation Studios, and intend to specialize in traditional hand-drawn animation.
Pudleiner said that Disney was making creative decisions in a corporate manner, watering down the artistic process.
"There is such an aim for the bottom line and so much census-taking and poll-taking that the stories get diluted," he said.
But, he added, the word is that "Chicken Little" looks good.