the preview made me tear up a bit.

Its so heartbreaking seeing where the company’s animation is now compared to where it was then. I was born the year this revolution started and my childhood was filled with some of the greatest animated movies Disney has ever made.

Now the company itself seems lost and desperately in need of another renaissance like this one. The princess and the frog was nice but it did not have the impact or the beauty of a film like beauty and the beast or the lion king.

It’s hard not to be skeptical and wonder if this is just a feature length Disney promo.

But it’s even harder not to get drawn in by the history, nostalgia and curiosity of a defining decade in the life of such a great studio.

I don’t care one way or the other about the subject matter of the doc, but man, do I ever love seeing old footage of animation being made. Any kind of footage at all, of anyone. I just freaking love it and I don’t really know why. I will be seeing this movie.

One can only dream an era like that occurs again.

Don Hahn screened this film at the CTN Expo on Saturday night. It was well-done, and an excellent look at 1984-94 at the Mouse House.

Wow!!!!!!!

It will be interesting to see that period told through Don Hahn. He is a very creative Producer. I think he is the perfect in between to tell the story through. Don saw a lot of both sides of that era. The financial and the Creative.

This looks great. While Waking Sleeping Beauty probably won’t get a wide release, I’m sure it will be available on on-demand services.

I’m quite excited. This is the stuff I grew up with, the movies whose audio cues are ingrained in my mind. I assumed Disney naturally worked this way as a result. Now, particularly after seeing a downfall myself, I know that this isn’t the case at all. This isn’t just the story of Disney. This is the origins of my childhood and possibly my cartoon obsession to begin with. Now why can’t there be a date attached to this?

This inspired me to go to our friend Youtube and look up varying documentaries and specials. First there’s The Illusion of Life from 1981: The animation laurels to sit on were old, and the current animation was sinking into a low point: The Black Cauldron is in production. There is much spotlight on The Fox and the Hound, but the program was probably more about getting a word out of aging animators than anything else.

Then there’s Best of Disney: 50 Years of Magic. The Little Mermaid has come out at this point, the budget is high, the show is star-studded and the tone is triumphant, with much patting of the self on the back. Chernabog cowers before Michael Eisner. Little did they know that Eisner would give him reason to cower in the upcoming years.

Saw this at the Toronto Film Festival, Don Hahn and Pete Schneider took questions afterwards.

It’s far from a cheesy, varnished studio promo. It’s the story as told from the managers and producers and executives point of view, and doesn’t skimp on all the ambition, infighting, and jockeying for position that went on. It’s a well-made and fascinating film.

Mike Dobbs – The corporate infighting is definitely covered. Katzenberg is especially candid on what went wrong.

Smith – WSB reminds me of Star Wars in that this film is a good, self-contained story with a happy ending. But we know there is much more to follow. That is seen in The Sweatbox and Dream On, Silly Dreamer (Disney’s Empire Strikes Back period). I just don’t know if Disney is still in that dark period or has entered the Return of the Jedi phase.

In any case, Waking Sleeping Beauty is an exciting, emotional must see for animation fans and professionals.

I worked at the studio during some of the time covered in the documentary. It was a good time in some ways and a bad time in others. The bottom line was, nobody knew anything. The executive class at Disney then was full of bumbling incompetence as well as creative daring. For an artist, the atmosphere could be charged with creative electricity, then blast apart in mean-spirited one-upsmanship among the artists, which was actually ENCOURAGED by management. A lot of good work was thrown away, because Jeffrey or Roy couldn’t read a story sketch or evaluate a pencil test. When finished color work is thrown out, that’s an expensive mistake. Waiting for my “employee evaluation” was the most harrowing experience I’ve ever had. It made me feel as worthless as a piece of used toilet paper, especially when they handed the evaluation of my performance to me and it was missing the last page! It cut off right in the middle of a particularly critical paragraph, too. Another thing they put us through was “Baseball Trading”. You finish working on a picture, then they leave you in suspense about your next job, as a “sample reel” of your work supposedly circulated throughout the company to see if your “option” would be picked up. I can’t bear to see pictures of Peter Schneider or Tom Schumacher ever again, the lies they told us about the company’s bright future to get us to work faster and cheaper would fill a bookshelf. There is a heartrending scene in the trailer of my late friend, Joe Ranft, almost cheerfully throwing hundreds of his great story sketches into the trash. He had such a great attitude about story sketch, one of the most harrowing jobs in animation. I just can’t stand a lot of the memories of those years working on Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. At the time they were being made, they sure didn’t feel like immortal classics to a lot of the people working on them. It’s good for the Disney company that they found their audience. The best memories I have of working there were the wonderful drawing classes we had at noon each day, many taught by Walt Stanchfield. I never appreciated how valuable they were until I found out how much models want per hour to pose for a drawing class! Disney company picked up all those charges for us, the best thing they ever did for the artists over there, in hindsight. I hope you enjoy watching the documentary, I for one, will be content with my memories.

I saw this when Don Hahn and Peter Schneider came to the Toronto International Film Fest. It was super inspiring, but a heavy film. It’s a lot about the troubles going on at the studio underneath the public mask of Disney. A lot about Eisner, Katzenberg and Roy Disney. A must see. Katzenbeg and Eisner both said they were ok with the film. I wish another renaissance strikes soon.

This film will be shown at the Museum of Modern Art on Monday, March 15, at 7:30 P.M. with a live Q & A with Don Hahn, Patrick Pacheco and Peter Schneider.

I intend to go to that screening.

Disney animation hasn’t been good since the original 9 left the studio.