In between the downpours of rain, I dashed into Walt Disney Animation's hat building and visited three floors. On floor #1, layout artists have been at work on Winnie the Pooh/ for the past month and a half. (Somehow I wasn't paying attention previously.) Upstairs one of the leads on the picture said:
"We've got fifty feet of animation in the story reel, and the animators are starting to roll on footage. They haven't handed out a lot of scenes yet." ...
A couple of story artists informed me that 60% of Rapunzel has now been moved out of story and into production. They told me: "We have another screening of the picture next week. The last one went pretty well. John L's been giving his notes, and we're most of the way there. By next week 70%, will be cleared for production ..."
Elsewhere on Disney development front, several artists are working on Snow Queen, and "The feature former known as Joe Jump" continues in work.
Then there is the television blockbuster Prep and Landing:
Me: So what's going on with P and L, you doing a sequel?
Story Artist: Yeah. ABC had really good numbers with it, more than they projected. For sure we're doing a sequel.
Me: I think it was one of the great television specials, really funny. You should do three featurettes. Make it a feature.
Story artist: Don't think we haven't thought of that.
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23 comments:
Prep and Landing was indeed wonderful (although I couldn't help thinking of Rudolph whenever the bad weather was mentioned). I hope we get to see more of Wayne and Lanny, and especially Santa - he was, beyond doubt, the most awesome Santa I've seen on-screen in recent years. It was kind of nice to see the Big Guy treated with reverence; he was totally the Santa I believed in when I was a kid. Nice work, WDA. Thanks for the Christmas present.
YES, more Prep and Landing!!! Great characters, great story and the best made for TV 3D animation I've ever seen.
Can you tell us anything more about the Snow Queen? Is it still going to be a hand-drawn feature? Any updates at all?
Dont call it Rapunzel! Call it "Dude Where's My Tower" or "AVATOWER" or "Flynn Rider of the Lost Ark" or "Rapunzel: First Blood Part II"
We gotta trick them boys into going to the movie!!
There is a long-standing rule in our house: no Christmas specials between New Year's and Thanksgiving. "Prep and Landing" is now the sole exception. We watched it again last night - I completely agree with Kendra!
New strategy for success at Disney animation. Skip the features and simply produce television specials.
Does anybody know if they are going to use vendors again for the Pooh feature , like they did on TPatF?
Also, are they going to hire animators and cleanup people back?
Wow, only 60% in production so far on Rapunzel? They're kinda pushing it, aren't they?
And is there any truth to Disney changing Rapunzel's title? I've read that in a couple of comments on this blog, so I'm not sure if I missed it. It does seem like they might have turned off the boy audience with putting "Princess" in the title of their last film.
To the first anon, Rudolph is owned by someone other than Disney. Unfortunately the character is not free for the taking. That's why he's not in Prep.
The legend of a glowing nose reindeer was put out there as part of a disinformation campaign. It provides plausible deniability and leads kids off the trail of Prep and Landing.
A reindeer with a headlight? In his nose? And you believed it. I think our counter-intelligence elves did their job here.
As for me, I wasn't here.
I AM a myth. Tell anyone I exist, and YOU won't exist.
Its no secret that "Rapunzel" is a working title.
http://progresscityusa.com/2009/12/18/thats-odd/
What they are going to name it, I have no idea, but its highly, HIGHLY unlikely it'll just be "Rapunzel," especially how much marketing has blamed the title "Princess and the Frog" as the reason it didnt do fantastically.
I think it should be kept simple as "Rapunzel," but what do I know. I dont have a marketing degree.
Does anyone know what ever happened with the short Disney was supposed to be doing, "The Ballad of Nessie??" I've been really excited about that one ever since they announced it like a year and a half ago, but there hasn't been the SLIGHTEST update yet. It's still on their website, so I would assume it hasn't been officially "cancelled"... but it would still be nice to hear an update on that.
Rudolph kicks ass. Don't diss the ever-popular red-nosed ruminant. His special pulls in stellar ratings year after year after year. Prep and Landing, good as it was, will never have that kind of long-term success.
If Disney MUST buy characters and IF it were smart, it'd sell the muppets and use the money to buy the reindeer. Rudolph is eternal. He NEVER goes out of style. Besides, it'd be cool to see what WDA could do with him - although it would be essential to preserve his original character design a la the aforementioned Xmas special. It's very appealing, and impossible to improve upon. (It helps that he doesn't really look much like a real reindeer - at least not from the neck up. From the neck up he's pure American White-tailed deer - i.e. Bambi.) Unfortunately, in the weak follow-up specials, he was redesigned and he looked like a mouse - and NOT as in Mickey. Feh.
I've heard "Nessie" was completed after "Frog" wrapped, and is to be released with "Pooh".
Rudolph is eternal. He NEVER goes out of style.
Is this some kind of joke or something?
Venison is good. Especially with a cherry on top.
Okay good. Whew. Cant tell on these blogs sometimes.
Actually, Rudolph is eternally popular...once a year, anyway.
And speaking of muppets, frog legs are good too. But you have to remove the dead guy's hand first.
Does anybody know if they are going to use vendors again for the Pooh feature , like they did on TPatF?
Also, are they going to hire animators and cleanup people back?
Yes, they will be using vendors again. And no, they will not at the moment (meaning, things could change very quickly when they are expecting 15 feet per week of everyone) be hiring back any animators. But they will bring back some clean-up folk, just a few though. This film is much tighter budget-wise than Frog.
And yes, Snow Queen is still 2D.
"And yes, Snow Queen is still 2D"
But will be retitled Snow Story because we all know why PatF sucked was because of the name...;)
My fiancé and I really enjoyed PandL but thought the pacing was way too fast. It would have flowed better as an hour long special and just slowed it down a notch. Just our 2 cents.
agreed.
the first act was solid then act 2 and 3 felt like they suffered from time restraints.
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