Hans Bacher’s Book and LITTLE MATCHGIRL

Hans Bacher (art director of MULAN) has posted on his blog some tantalizing page spreads from his forthcoming instructional book, DREAMWORLDS, which is a how-to book about animation production design. No details yet on how to purchase it, but the book should be out this winter and it looks to be a must-have.

Also worth noting, in the comments section of his blog, Bacher makes a brief comment about his work on the new Disney short THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL short, saying, “I am very unhappy about that short. it’s a disaster…” That opinion seems to be largely in line with the thoughts of the audience who saw the film at the Annecy animation festival a couple weeks ago. I could not find many people at the festival who had anything positive to say about the film.

MATCHGIRL also managed to generate some controversy at Annecy. The buzz from insiders was that Disney had already submitted MATCHGIRL to Annecy in 2005. It was rejected by the pre-selection committee last year, and it was “resubmitted” again this year, which is, of course, a big no-no in the festival world. If the audience reaction was anything to go by, Annecy organizers should have accepted the decision of the ’05 pre-selection committee and not pushed the film into official competition.