Playing around with Cooliris for the first time (definite recommend if you’re into eye candy), guess what popped up when I searched for “disney animation”? A picture of me and my first job on an animated feature Pocahontas. That’s me crouching down in the middle.
To have this kind of control over animating 3D characters! Not sure how practical it would be in the short term, but the prospects for future development are certainly encouraging. An entire new subset of animation could exist - hand-drawn in 3D!
Chris Sanders is now the director on the next film I’m working on, How to Train Your Dragon. Dean DeBlois is coming on as a writer as well. Have to admit, I always liked Lilo and Stitch, so this is pretty exciting.
Look who made the Fall Movie Preview in People magazine this week! That’s my scene there and let me tell you - it took quite awhile to get all 6 of them in there for a group hug!
Disney Animation Reveals Brand New Site
Sporting the retro Mickey and a slick and simple interface, Walt Disney Animation Studios unleashed their brand new site yesterday (at least, it looks brand new to me - I’ve never seen it before!).
I love how wonderfully simple the site is - no extraneous garbage and no ads. A clear well-designed site like this not only is easier and more enjoyable to navigate but also speaks of a conscious effort to communicate effectively with their intended audience (in this case, anyone looking for information on what Disney Animation is all about). Hopefully this is a reflection of their new direction—something perhaps we can expect from the stories they plan on telling.
There’s plenty of information on submitting reels, studio life, and future projects. Unfortunately there isn’t any information on taking tours:
We are very busy making our next films, and cannot accommodate tours at this time.
I hope this doesn’t offend anybody who’s worked there the past 10 years…but it sure is nice to have Disney Animation back again.
Mid-century Textbook Takes a Tour of Disney’s
Jerry over at CartoonBrew has posted a neat look at the Disney studios in 1948. It’s a children’s textbook so there really isn’t that much insight into the studio. Nevertheless, it’s always great too see how the process of animation was described throughout the years (that is, before the Internet). Choice quote:
Many people would like to see how motion pictures are made. If they all visited the studios, the studio workers could not do their work. That is why the studios have high fences around them.
You know, to keep the workers working.
Oddly enough, I never thought of myself as a “studio worker” before. In fact, the constant use of the word “workers” doesn’t make the greatest job in the world sound all that exciting, does it?
(via cartoon brew)
Computer Animation a Dead End?!
I don’t read much of Michael Barrier’s blog, but I was completely floored by this comment:
What’s clear from WALL•E and Kung Fu Panda , as never before, is that computer animation is a dead end, a form of puppetry even more limited than stop motion.
This is the kind of statement that makes me think I’m wasting my time “blogging” about animation. How could anyone in their right mind say something like this? The animation in those two films is far from being a form of dead puppetry. I can’t even form the right words to respond intelligently to it. Strangely enough I can’t link to the original post to read any comments, but I’m not sure it would be worth it.
But what I was really surprised to read today was this comment from Michael Sporn:
Splinecast Interview with Doug Sweetland
Just finished listening to this and I thought it was great that they brought up his freshman “CG” film Everything That Comes Around (I think that’s the name).
If there was thing I remember about Doug from CalArts it was that film. It’s pretty much the only story I have to tell when someone brings up his name.
I was an upperclassman who, because of my devotion to traditional hand-drawn animation, rarely stepped inside the computer lab. Well, one day I had to go in there to do some editing and I was stopped dead in my tracks by that film. It was just looping incessantly over and over on one of the Amiga computers. I was with there with some of my friends and we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The timing was impeccable, the spacing elegant. As I recall it was just some guy flipping a yo-yo but it was miles beyond what anyone else was doing with the computer at that time. Super-appealing. We couldn’t figure out if it was drawn, if it was scanned it, whatever.
When we asked around who did that, someone simply answered, “Oh, that’s Doug Sweetland. He’s really good.”
And they were right. Woody coming out of the box in Toy Story 2, Buzz on the bed meeting Woody for the first time in Toy Story, and now Presto.
Hopefully someone has a copy of this short film and can post it.
I also liked his explanation of CalArts as a school filled with “drawing” kids. Having been one of those kids singled out in high school because I drew all the time (mainly Disney characters on my grocery-bag book covers), I could totally relate.
Disney Story Class at Comic-Con
If I was going to the San Diego Comic-Con next week, I’d definitely have to sit in on this one:
The Disney Animation Story Process—Nathan Greno (head of story, Bolt), Don Hall (head of story, The Princess and the Frog), Mark Kennedy (head of story, Rapunzel), Joe Mateo (story artist, Bolt), Michael LaBash (story artist, Bolt), Paul Briggs (story artist, The Princess and the Frog), and Josie Trinidad (story artist, The Princess and the Frog) offer an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look into the story process at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Coming together exclusively at Comic-Con, these story team leaders will take you from first concept to final story approval as they discuss the art of storyboarding, re-create story pitches, and share boarding styles from their upcoming animated features. Don’t miss this revealing and humorous panel and your chance to get a sneak peek at Disney’s next animated feature, Bolt!
A couple of familiar names in there!
(via Write It So)
