Friday, April 17, 2009

At DAS

That's the Disney Animation Studio, if you're not versed in animation acronyms ...

Walking in the tiled entrance of the hat building, I ran into the directors of Princess and the Frog. After I got up off the floor, they told me the picture is deep in crunch time, 75% complete, testing well, and that this was the first time in a long while they had actually gone to lunch outside the building.

Oh. And one of the more important things? Mr. Lasseter thinks it's swell.

Upstairs, I talked to a P & F animator who said:

"We're just a little behind our footage quota. I've been working six day weeks, eleven hour days, but I haven't seen my footage drop off, I've kept up the regular pace ...

Higher up, on the third floor, I fell into conversation with a group of story artists, one of whom wanted to number of board artists who were employed at DreamWorks Animation these days. His own estimate was eighty; I did a little research after the fact and found the board crew at DWA totals around fifty.

One of the story guys said that Disney Animation seems to have "a way smaller development slate than DreamWorks." I replied that this only holds true if you don't count the Pixar output, and I didn't see how you could not count it since it both studios were part of the Disney empire, and DreamWorks Animation is a stand-alone company.

The response was along the lines of "Well, when you put it that way, I see your point."

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Finally, some real news about this film.

Meg said...

And what about Rapunzel?
Today Glen Keane is still working on Rapunzel or not?

Steve Hulett said...

Rapunzel is still in story work, also in production.

Didn't check about Mr. Keane.

Anonymous said...

According to the Blue Sky Disney blog, Keane is no longer the director and his previous co-director Dean Wellins also left the project. Keane is supposedly still listed as executive producer.

http://blueskydisney.blogspot.com/2008/10/shuffle.html

Anonymous said...

Has the voice cast of Rapunzel been officially announced?

Anonymous said...

Not in its current form. There were unofficial rumors years ago (before Lasseter took over) that Rapunzel was going to be voiced by Brittany Murphy, but I think that's no longer the case.

g said...

As far as I know, Glen is the Animation Director. (ie, handles dailies with the animators, answers to the director)

Sheriff Buzz said...

Britney Murphy? I remember for a while it was Reese Witherspoon, but she isn't connected anymore.

Moved on over to Pixar and the Bow and the Bear, I guess.

I hope their still planning on a classic telling and no "Shrek-like" story with modern references.

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