Thursday, October 26, 2006

At Disney

Going through Disney Feature Animation's hat building yesterday morning, I ran into one of the Mouse House's A-list animators who told me that he'd been to a story presentation of "Frog Princess" (Disney's next hand-drawn feature) the day before and it had been "fantastic."

"Then the picture's greenlit?" I asked. "They're going to make it?" (I'm nothing if not redundant.)

"Of course they're going to make it," he said.

So there it is. A year or year and a half from now, people will be wielding pencils or styluses and creating the first Disney hand-drawn animated film since "Home on the Range." (Unless the above information is wrong.)

The Disney/Secret Lab Agreement

Although the new Disney Feature/TSL contract was negotiated to a successful conclusion a couple of weeks ago, final language for the Memorandum of Agreement is still being reviewed. Which means a ratification vote on the new contract won't be happening before the end-date of the old one. (Since a new agreement has been reached, no break in the agreement will occur.)

We're still shooting for a ratification vote sooner rather than later. Just as soon as the Memorandum gets finalized and sent to all the Disney employees that it covers. On a related note, the TAG contract -- ratified last Spring -- is finally being mailed out to members after a review by the Allinace of Motion Picture and Television Producrs that took longer than a rhino's gestation.

14 comments:

Matt Williames said...

thank goodness!! It's a heck of a time to have seen the hibernation of hand drawn and now the beginning of a new era where, i believe, our only limits will be our imaginations! This is truly wonderful news!

Marcos Gp said...

I was lucky enough last Summer to go inside DFA building and there was a lot of pre-production and character development of the Frog precess hanging over the walls, the visuals really look fantastic... a little bit of miyasaki kind of style.... If Disney would have the artistic and story freedom and One director vision that Pixar have, in a few years Disney will be back on the state of the art wave front...

Hugs

Anonymous said...

Disney is a great company. But we have to go through some painful times first, before we can enjoy the full return of 2D at Disney's.

...and with John L as the final creative thumbs up i believe you will see a strong resemblance to Miyasaki films.

keep drawing!

Anonymous said...

…’full return of 2D at Disney’???
– Let’s all hope they wont outsource most or some of their 2D production as ‘talk’ say, so not just the main animators, but also clean-up crew etc. can find their way back in town as well.

Anonymous said...

’Outsourcing!’ – Gosh, hopefully it will all be done in house, and none of that like ’Curious George’ where employees wont get medical and benefits. Hopefully not all that freelance stuff’ -

Anonymous said...

Let's hope it doesn't look like Miyazaki. We've already got Miyazaki; I'd rather see them pioneer a different style. I haven't yet seen any "Americanime" that looks like anything other than what it is - a half-baked attempt to borrow from a currently trendy style.

Anonymous said...

This are great news indeed !!
I hope they are not going to mess it up, because this could be a new renaissance of traditional animation. Not that i don't like 3D, I do, not as much as traditional, but I do ;o))
If this movie is gonna fail, I'm quite sure the voices that were yellin "2D is dead" will be even louder.
And I'm not saying anything new here, when I say: "In the end the story makes the film work, and not the medium" !!!!!!
-Vic-

Anonymous said...

I will believe it when I see it playing in theaters.

Rusty

Anonymous said...

Word!

I was stold by a Disney Animation lacky that "Toy Story 3" was definitely happening as well...and look what happened to that one.

But, I have the feeling this project will be done.

Anonymous said...

TS3 is being done at Pixar.

For 2D to work at Disney's again they will have to reinvent the process a bit. i do not expect the company to go about it, all the way through to final line the same way it did in the past.

Outsourcing is not a bad thing. There are many great artist all over the world. Wouldn't you love to work on a Disney 2D film from your beach house? Also I do know about another studio besides Universal where the artists working on Curious G, who were outsourcing did have full benefits.

2 sense

Anonymous said...

Love to see tradition back in the mouse house, with all the line up of artist.

Of my 57 years, the word outsourcing
makes my blood boil.

I think everybody can take part in the making of this feature in the comfort of there homes. And when completed we all can view it on YouTube in the comfort of the same chair that you worked on it from.

Oh and I didn't make any money on the making of this feature.

Anonymous said...

Outsourcing is always bad. - Maybe not for the higher ranked people, but as for the individual and for the whole feature itself. Making a good 2D movie involves an atmosphere, which can only be obtained with the crew under one roof. ‘Funny’ how the clean-up crew always has been thought of as someone not as necessary. Just because a side studio taking care of maybe the cleanup and some animated scenes etc. has a prominent person in charge, doesn’t bring much ‘feeling’ to the overall ‘freelancers’. Let’s not forget that even the ‘small’ inbetweener on low level is a part of the big picture. It is all connected. If you want to bring back 2D at Disney – bring it back in all it means.

Anonymous said...

Seems like nothing is changing at Disney – As usual, hyping up the idea of 2D, but in reality just the usual thing. Cutting expenses and making it sound so wonderful.
In reality nothing is new, everyone sticks to the usual procedure -

Anonymous said...

Just wanted to say I enjoyed seeing this featured on your blog. Very interesting. It's neat to see old Disney ephemera in the spotlight.

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