Sting (at right) is featured
in THE SWEATBOX (2002)In all the delirium over the wonderful Disney-Pixar news this week, one burning question remains to be answered:Can Disney finally release THE SWEATBOX now?You’ve probably heard about THE SWEATBOX - some of us were lucky enough to see it at a film festival or during its Oscar-qualifying one week run in Los Angeles back in 2002. Filmmakers John-Paul Davidson and Trudie Styler were given unprecedented access to Disney Feature Animation to document the making, and ultimate meltdown, of the film KINGDOM OF THE SUN (which later evolved into THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE). Certain Disney execs did not come off looking too good in the final cut and the film - controled by Buena Vista - has been sitting on the shelf ever since. I know this won’t be Iger-Lasseter’s first priority, but we are hoping the film won’t be forgotten. It’s a great document of how mismanaged Disney animation was for the last half dozen years, and a permanent reminder of what happens when clueless Hollywood executives run amok over talented creatives.

Speaking of Pixar, as we’ve been doing all week long, Dan Caylor has posted a great 14-1/2 minute video clip on his site that features the following:

> an interview with Ralph Eggleston speaking about the genesis of his short FOR THE BIRDS

> an interview with Jan Pinkava speaking about the technical challenges of creating GERI’S GAME

> and WINTER, an amusing CalArts-era student film by MONSTERS INC. director Pete Docter

If that weren’t enough, there’s also an unintentionally hilarious interview with Polish animator Zbigniew Rybczynski and an early Norman McLaren film (with a swinging performance by Albert Ammons) tucked inbetween the Pixar segments.

Paul Briggs, a story artist at Disney Feature, shares on his blog the story of his first encounter with John Lasseter this week. An excerpt:

He chats with us for a while asking us where we’re from, where we went to school, what we’re working on right now. i was so nervous and wanted to joke around but kept answering everything like it was a pop quiz. what a great moment. they’re already behind schedule and don reminds john they’ve got a couple of more stops. we say bye and right before he walks away i turn to him and say with all honesty - “i’m glad you’re here.”

Paul also writes about the introduction of Catmull and Lasseter to the Disney artists, and he contrasts it with a David Stainton meeting at Disney Florida two years ago. His blog offers but a hint of the feelings of optimism and hopefulness that folks at Disney must be feeling right now. The good vibes certainly extend beyond Disney, and I’m sure many in the animation community, including myself, are now feeling very positive about this week’s developments. After decades of Katzenberg, Schneider, Schumacher and Stainton, it’s nothing short of a miracle that Disney is allowing an artist the caliber of Lasseter take charge of its studio. No doubt that this week will go down as a watershed moment in Disney and animation history.

Let the good times roll. According to the LA TIMES (reg. req’d or BugMeNot), TOY STORY 3 has been shelved. The announcement comes hardly as a surprise: Disney started the TOY STORY 3 unit primarily as a bargaining chip for these negotiations. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see, for once, an animated project that shouldn’t be made get dumped. Here’s the TIMES:

In remarks made during a Tuesday conference call with analysts, Iger and Pixar Chief Executive Steve Jobs implied what other sources confirmed Wednesday: that Disney’s 150-plus-person Pixar sequels unit - which is housed in a Glendale warehouse and is already at work on “Toy Story 3″ - will soon be no more.

“We feel very strongly that if the sequels are going to be made, we want the people who were involved in the original films involved in the sequels,” Jobs said.

Iger sounded the same note.

“It was really important to me that the people who made the films originally, who had the vision, who knew the characters and the essence of these films get a shot at making any films that were derivative,” the Disney chief said.

“While Disney might have been able to make them, Pixar making them is just so much different,” Iger added. “Not to take away from the talent of other people who might have been picked to make them.”

ASIFA-Hollywood’s Archive Blog has started posting images from Mary Blair’s long-out-of-print Golden Book of Little Verses and archivist Steve Worth promises to post more Blair artwork later this week. Worth has also posted an endorsement letter from June Foray about the goals of the ASIFA Archive.

Miayazki is the talk of several websites right now (due to his films being showcased this month on TCM), but another international filmmaker equally worthy of such praise is France’s Michel Ocelot. His features and shorts are rarely shown in the U.S., but next month Ocelot will be on hand at the Museum of Modern Art to introduce his latest feature Kirikou and The Wild Beasts. The screening is part of a MoMA series called Grand Illusions: The Best of Recent French Animation, which will be presented February 23-March 6, 2006.

This primer on contemporary French animation will showcase: a Ruritanian romance (Paul Grimault’s marvelous The King and the Mockingbird), a swashbuckling adventure (Jean-François Laguionie’s Island of Black Mor), an ecological parable (Jacques-Rémy Girerd’s Raining Cats and Frogs), an African folktale (Michel Ocelot’s Kirikou and the Sorceress), a dark Russian fable (Francis Nielsen’s The Dog, the General, and the Birds), and a film that defies all pigeonholing (Sylvain Chomet’s Triplets of Belleville).

Excellent films, historically significant and highly entertaining. Go.

Good stuff worth checking out.

Nate Pacheco: Talented artist and Flash technical guru who has worked on Renegade’s HI HI PUFFY AMI YUMI and ELMO AARDVARK Web cartoons, among many other things.

Brandon Scott: A student at Sheridan whose paintings have a distinctive sense of color and design.

Miles Thompson, of animation and painting fame, has started his own blog.

Clarke Snyder has started a new blog, Inspiration Grab-bag, where he’s posting artwork that inspires him. So far, lots of terrific frame grabs from Disney’s PIGS IS PIGS and scans of Mel Crawford illustrations.

We asked yesterday evening for artists to send in their thoughts about the Disney/Pixar deal. Below are a select number of the responses we received. The feelings are mixed between excitement, cautious optimism and outright disappointment.

Perhaps the best comment of the day.
From former Disney animator and director Will Finn:

This is like seeing the orcs being driven out of Middle Earth. I am overjoyed.

From the legendary Floyd Norman:

Not too many guys can say they’ve worked for both Walt Disney and John Lasseter, so I can offer a unique perspective.

Different cultures at Disney and Pixar? Naw, it’s the same culture. Eisner’s managers simply choked all the creative life out of Disney. The Disney culture is finally returning to Disney. Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs and John Lasseter will be returning it shortly. This is good news for all of us who love animation, and the Disney legacy in particular.

From a ‘CalArts alumni’:

Can you believe that? An animator in charge of Feature animation? Am I dreaming? Is Walt smiling right now? An artist, who has made short films, and feature films, studied figure drawing, can draw and animate, used an Oxberry camera, went to Cal Arts, and loves the medium to death…is in charge of animation? Is there anything better that this? Pinch me I’m dreaming. I can’t sit still, I can’t wait any longer…give me more great stories and characters!All hail John Lasseter!

NY director/animator Michael Sporn:

Ever since the advent of PIXAR, animation has been in flux. The computer continues to readjust the medium. PIXAR, again, is the player and it can only help the artform (for at least a short while). Jobs will be lost and shifted and reprogrammed. Hopefully, the films will get better. Hopefully, 2D will show up somewhere on the horizon and that will grow as well (I have a vested interest in 2D).

At the very least, Disney now has someone who knows the problems and knows the different media we use. That can’t be bad.

Remember that Eisner and Katzenberg, revitalized animation before they brought it down to where it is now. It only took a few years for that part of the soap opera to happen. Before them, there was only Don Bluth and maybe Spielberg and a lot fewer jobs.

From an ‘old-school’ Disney Feature artist who has worked there since the 1980s:

After seeing John Lasseter attempt to introduce computer animated film techniques at Walt Disney Feature Animation in 1983 (the Where The Wild Things Are test) to no avail, and after living through the two-picture-a-year toon boom flood of the 90’s, and then watching in amazement the strange paradigm shift that forced some of the best 2D talent in the world out the door along with the award winning directorial team of Ron Clements and John Musker, has made my 23 year career with Walt Disney Feature Animation quite a ride. But the thought of John Lasseter coming back home to Disney at this time of loss and creative confusion is nothing short of a miracle. WOW…

(click on image for larger version)

The drawing above is from somebody who prefers to remain anonymous. He also writes:

As a former Disney Feature Animation artist, my initial reaction upon hearing the news was expressed in this little doodle. Just soaking it all in at the moment…I can’t really see a downside at this point, given that it seems as if the creative reins at Animation are being handed over to Pixar. I almost have to pinch myself: John Lasseter is now Creative Head of both Disney Animation AND Pixar Animation Studios (and Principle Creative Advisor to WDI )…wow !

Joe Campana

Amazing what a corporation will pay to purchase an outside company that will arrive to effectively implement a tried-and-true (then forgotten) production philosophy of concentrating on story, development of characters and letting the directors be the final word… So, what WILL become of the soon-to-be-laid-off (banes of the industry) “creative executives?” Hey, they’re so damn creative, maybe they’ll get together to start their own entertainment company. This is simply the best news to come from Disney in at least ten years - although Eisner’s recent departure is a close second.

Steve Segal

I used to work for John Lasseter at Pixar and I can tell you there is no greater supporter of animation, both computer and hand-drawn than Lasseter. I am a bit surprised at the buyout. I would have preferred Pixar stay small and keep doing what they do well. I am also concerned that he will spread himself too thin. But I am happy about Pixar having control over sequels of their own films. I would love to see Brad Bird do another Incredibles adventure. Toy Story 3 is in production at Disney without Lasseter’s involvement and the staff must feel uneasy right now (of course, they should have felt uneasy when they took the job). I look forward to some great improvements in Disney animation and some cool new ideas in the parks.

Darin Bendall

What bugs me the most is that this is just such a slap in the face to any idea of artistic integrity. Over the years, Disney has transmogrified from an animation studio into a global empire of consumerism whose main product these days is some kind of vague sense of ‘family-ness’ or something. They’ve forgotten their roots to such a degree that they thought the reason nobody wanted to see Pocohontas 2 is that it wasn’t, y’know, /computer pictures/. So shut the whole thing down. No wait, let’s just buy the best animation studio out there, and then WE will be the best again right?

The problem is that this is a company who has become so fucking bland that their very name has entered everyday English as a word meaning something along the lines of ‘to sanitize something to the point that it sucks.’ I just can’t see how that won’t happen here.

Any artists at Pixar, Disney or beyond with thoughts on what the sale means — for Disney, Pixar, the animation industry as a whole? Are artists at Pixar happy or disappointed with this deal? What about Disney artists? Email your thoughts over to amid at animationblast dot com. Your name will be kept anonymous if you want. I’ll post some of the more interesting ones on the Brew. Please keep your thoughts concise and to the point.

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