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.

Found.  An English translation of a French blog:

...devoted exclusively to artistic research of the Disney’s animation feature films.  Creating an animation feature film is an art.

So far the blog seems to focus mainly on concept sketches like the one above (Pedro’s story being my favorite from Saludos Amigos).  But there is the requisite post on Glen Keane and some great story sketches from Dumbo.

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?

Didier has the info on some new Disney Animation books coming out in the Fall.

While the Alice In Wonderland book doesn’t do that much for me (Yes, Mary Blair is wonderful), the Archive Series book on Story looks somewhat intriguing. I wasn’t too enthralled by Canemaker’s Paper Dreams book on storyboard art; hopefully this one is a bit more inspiring.

The cover alone is worth the price.

Besides at 200+ pages you can’t go wrong - especially when 101 Dalmatians is one of the featured films.  Finally we’ll have some real world editions of these.

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:

When I first saw Toy Story, I realized that the possibility of computer animation replacing traditional animation might actually exist. Nothing prior to that point led me to think that. What I didn’t expect was that I was watching the high point of the medium.

Sporn’s blog is one I frequently link to as I find it a great resource for animation inspiration, so I don’t quite know what to make of this either.  How can anyone possibly say that Toy Story was the high point of computer animation?!  What about this film?

Really? Toy Story tops Ratatouille?

Mayerson, another blog I enjoy reading, has an excellent commentary on both posts and tends to be the voice of sanity in all this blogging madness.

The link to Barrier’s post is dead and Mayerson has closed comments on his post, so feel free to add yours here.

Personally I never really thought Tytla was all that great - the devil in Fantasia didn’t do much for me, but Stromboli was pretty cool.  I appreciate the “strength” and “force” with which he animated, but I was never really a Tytla fan-boy.

Still, this clip is a rare find and an excellent gift to the world of character animation.

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.

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!

According to the director’s commentary on the Ratatouille Blu-ray disc, this dog (hidden in silhouette in the movie) is featured in the upcoming movie Up.  The scene is near the beginning when Remy is running through an apartment - the one where he gets chased by a dog.  Brad Bird mentions that it was a teaser for one of Pixar’s forthcoming films.

If there is any one thing I can point to as inciting my interest in character animation it would have to be the above special from 1981.  I remember clearly sitting in Ms. Guho’s Art Class at Hart High (c. 1988) when she turned down the lights and started this video.  I’m pretty sure I was the only one who sat enthralled for all 45 minutes or so, but when the lights came up I immediately knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

The high point, of course, was Glen flipping through his scene from The Fox and the Hound.  I asked my teacher if I could dub it (you know, with two VCR decks - old school style) and she was gracious enough to let me.  I must’ve watched this show 500 times over that summer.  It was also the reason why I decided to drop out of football 4 days into Hell Week.  Why get pummeled into the ground on a regular basis when I could be home still-framing through the classics and deciding which I liked better - top pegs or bottom pegs?

Thanks so much to whoever posted this.  It was on my long list of things to digitize and publish (I still have the tape), but unfortunately never seemed to get around to.