I keep forgetting to mention the hall display near the entrance inside Disney's Hat Building ....
They've got thirty or forty feet of Wreck-It Ralph artwork and videos, also character designs from the movie. As evidenced from the poster above, the feature has some witty graphics. You know, "Donkey Kong" kind of stuff, all those low-rez, eight-bit visuals that dominated mall arcades and pizza joints in the 1970s and early 1980s, embedded in glowing cathode ray tubes.
Which the poster above emphasizes. (But it's a lot more than that.)
Disney's been hiring more crew to work on the feature, what with its compressed schedule and all, and the buzz around the shop is good. Everyone (at least, everyone I talk to) think it's a winner.
Best part for me is, the place has a lot of shows in development, lots of directors assigned to stuff, and projects are getting go-aheads for further work. At last. This is in contrast to a couple of years ago when development was a lot thinner.
It's going to be interesting to see whether it's Wreck-It Ralph or Brave that gets the loudest critical hossanahs (and biggest box-office) when they're released in summer and fall.
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Steve, what's a compressed schedule look like for a project such as Ralph, as apposed to a regular schedule. And then, with the obligatory follow up question of why was the schedule for Ralph compressed?
Also, when & where will Paperman appear?
Are Greno and Howard working on the same project or on separate ones?
My two cents: anything under a year between animation start and finished film is "compressed". Your mileage may vary.
Wow… with "his Rapunzel”, Keane saved Disney.
To Pac Man, a compressed schedule means there's a lot of over time for everybody. Really a lot of overtime, however, completely within the limits stipulated by the union. That means not more then 12 hours of work a day and normally not more then six days a week. Disney is very good at making sure it stays within those limits and pays for every bit of over time, in my experience at least. The studio usually decides on the release date and then the schedule is worked out to make those deadlines. Sometimes there are changes on the show that affect the schedule, the story is never worked out entirely until the very last moment.
Some occasional overtime is fine. However, if the crew is working more than 10 hours a day, or weekends, it only means one thing; that management is INEPT. The real solution is to hire more people. Chronic overtime results in inefficiency and a drop in quality.
Well, I wouldn't call management inept. They are working within given limitations while minimizing the production costs. Crunch times have become part of the normal feature making business and the unions understand and have agreed to them. The management is respectful of the union stipulations and relies on having these crunch times. Also, you can't double your animation team with quality animators just like that. No one is getting screwed here beyond of what they have already agreed to. The guild can always try to limit those crunch times but many members like to have them because Disney pays well for them.
Yes, indeed.
I think we can all agree that Disney's management is very ept.
The biggest reason for the compressed schedule was pulling King of the Elves from Aaron Blaise and Bob Walker. That created a hole in the release schedule that was filled by Wreck-It Ralph before Ralph was completely ready. However the alternative was to delay releasing Ralph which most likely would have meant mass layoffs since there was no work to do. So given the choice between mass layoffs or a compressed schedule with lots of overtime and hiring lots of artists to help cover the reduced development time I think everyone can agree that a compressed schedule is better.
It still seems like there are surprisingly few projects being worked on, especially from the studio which was once considered to be the king of animation.
When Disney was King of Animation it didn't have any competition. Pixar conquered it and took the crown, with Dreamworks vying for major principalities, not forgetting the uprisings from Blue Sky and Illumination.
8 is surprisingly few?
I doubt there are 8 features in active development. Perhaps projects being pitched but that doesn't mean they'll get picked up.
Well, doubt away.
Is Dean Wellins' movie still in development or has it been shelved?
Disney has had a tough go for far too long, the ship has to turn sooner than later. Tangled was beautiful and hopefully was a turning point even if the costs were too high to be a financial success it was a return to good filmmaking.
There are so many things in development right now its crazy. I know people really don't WANT to believe it, but things are looking damn good right now.
Tangled did turn a profit actually. I know that opens a can of worms and starts a giant debate, but meeting after meeting they discuss the financial success of Tangled and how it changed the direction of the studio. For me, seeing the confidence of the studio return, the deep development slate, and the willingness from the Disney corp to invest heavily in us again is proof enough for me that it's true. I think if it broke even and the management is lying that it turned a profit, we'd recognize it as lip service and move on. Like we did on Bolt.
Don't forget, not only did Tangled make 600mil worldwide, but it also made 100mil in DVD sales in 2011. (the-numbers.com). It also has a robust merchandise line.
Well, good for "Tangled" if it did well financially. Let's see if they can craft a good movie for a change. One that is unforgetable! I have hopes about WIR...
When I was at the Disney, management claimed they had close to a dozen productions in the pipeline, including Snow Queen and others...but now it seems most of those projects have puffed out of existence, while others came out which where not part of the list they presented. This was at one of those general studio meetings too...
d.
Too bad Tangled didn't sell much merchandise. Only 1/100th of what Cars 2 sold. I guess kids aren't into purple princesses much any more.
If Disney is not hiring it's old staff back they are in effect saying that they trust the decisions and the legacy of the films in development during the administration before John Lasseter.
When considering hiring they should dig a bit deeper from their own recent past and find some highly trained and talented artists.
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