"Laughing Place" Seems To Have a Lot of Facts Right

We don't generally link to sites detailing recent developments at specific studios, but since Rhett Wickham has a new, long column about John Lasseter and Disney, we thought we would. If only to call it to your attention, and comment on it a bit... Point the First: Wickham says that "Rapunzel" is going to be a CGI Feature. Weeks ago we briefly posted speculation that it would be hand-drawn. We were quickly informed by a CG supervisor at Disney that we were wrong, and so hurriedly took the post down. Point the Second: The Frog Princess appears to be the feature-length candidate for the hand-drawn treatment. I've heard for a while this was the one, but I've kept my beak shut because we're not in the habit of breaking inside stuff (mostly). Kevin and I are both plugged into the animation grape-vine, but neither of us think it's useful to blather away about all manner of gossip on the World Wide Web. (Of course, when the cat -- as it were -- is already out of the bag...) Point the Third: In reference to "the Union filing a grievance for 'change of business'." A few years back, The Animation Guild filed a large and expensive grievance on behalf of Disney artists who were displaced by CG technology. Kevin and I thought then and think now that the creative staff that was given its walking papers by Disney Feature Animation deserved better treatment than they got. (Certainly the animation staff at Disney Florida was treated better than its Burbank counterpart). However, after a nine-month arbitration hearing, the grievance was lost, much to our sorrow. But in the course of that grievance, we brought up as evidence that Disney was selling animation desks. We could never pin it down with absolute certainty, and it would probably have made no difference in the outcome in the final result if we had. It's interesting to see it mentioned in Wickham's long column.