Wednesday, October 09, 2013

The Steve Hickner Interview -- Part II

Here's the second half of Mr. Hickner's audio podcast, and most of the interview in the video version (new camera equipment was a tad glitchy; new processes to learn):



TAG Interview with Steve Hickner

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Steve arrived at Disney Feature Animation while The Black Cauldron was in work, and plunged into work on the production. After that came The Great Mouse Detective, in the middle of which Michael Eisner, Frank Wells and Jeffrey Katzenberg arrived to remake the studio, top to bottom.

Peter Schneider was installed as head of Disney Feature Animation. During the production of live-action/animation hybrid Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Steve asked Mr. Schneider for two minutes of his time, which Peter granted. (Who can turn down a couple of minutes, right?)

Mr. Hickner told Peter he had heard a second animation unit for Roger Rabbit was opening, and he wanted to be part of it. Mr. Schneider made Steve no promises (he didn't even admit the unit was being formed), but a short while later Steve was an early assignee into Who Framed Roger Rsabbit's new-formed animation unit.

Which demonstrates that it pays not to be shy when there are new worlds to conquer.

1 comments:

Chris Sobieniak said...

Got around to listening to Steve talk about his time in the animation grind. What he does say about the present world of entertainment is sadly true. The public eye that once saw the silver screen is being replaced by a splintered, niche, patchy form of entertainment on 4 inch screens on any mobile device available, but it feel so artificial and fractured it's hard for me to really get into it at all unlikd how it felt to be shown Bambi when I was 4.

I feel sorry for today's in-the-box thinkers and their "disposable entertainment" needs.

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