February 10, 2010
"Behind the scenes" of Animation - Part 1
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Written by steet :

Recently, I've read a lot of news on many sites (especially animators sites), in order to know "what's coming". And I have found many "behind the scenes" (mostly Disney related) , that I thought were enough important to share :

- Shutdown of the Universal Animation Studios Universal has closed down their "Universal Animation Studios" facility since mid-2009. I'm not sure how to understand this news, because it seems they're still making CGI films though not indoors ("Despicable Me" is coming soon), but we DO know that they stopped making anymore Land Before Time sequels and series. So yes, we can safely assume that the facility behind the Balto, An American Tail or Land Before Time Direct-To-Video sequels is no more...Their last film is Curious George 2, which is finished since ages but has yet to be released in most countries. (including USA)
http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/state-of-industry-and-tag.html

Layoffs in Animation
- The trend since the 2000's for big animation companies, is to hire animators for one project when they're needed, and get rid of them when it's finished. For example, most of the staff behind The Princess & The Frog has been dismissed since last summer. (a few months BEFORE its release) During the last century, the animators would stay at a company as long as there were projects. That doesn't sound very respectful to their employees...And you have to wonder what happens when they switch from one company to the other. (what's the point in teaching, giving out secrets of animation making, if that's to "give" the employees to other companies?)

Snow Queen cancelled

- Disney's Snow Queen, which was going to be the next "big" 2D project, has been shelved. Likewise, their other CGI project ("King of Elves") has also been cancelled. Which makes us wonder : what's going on? Not only this means there won't be any other hand-drawn film before ages ( ), but their mid-term future is a blur, something that rarely happened before. (Of course, I'm not counting the Pixar projects - they're a different entity. Not counting the "Pooh" feature film either, because...well...you see what I mean.)

- Currently, it seems that Disney is blaming the not-fantastic box office of The Princess & The Frog on its name - they now think that adding "Princess" in the title wasn't a good thing (so what are they waiting to change the DVD cover, then??) Personally, if I were them, I would rather blame their "Disney Princesses" brand for giving a very bad image of fairy tales stories to anyone who's not a little girl... As a result, Rapunzel (their current CGI project slated for release this year) is very likely to have a name change before it gets released this fall. Apparently, the chosen name is "Tangled" (strange name for a Rapunzel fairy tale...) As always, that's a very short-term vision : it may do some favors to the film on its release, but will someone want to watch a Disney film named "Tangled" in decades, which doesn't give any hint on what the subject of the film is? I seriously doubt it.

Yes, that's not very joyful news - sorry! Stay tooned for more to come...

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Last comments


Tino200	August 18, 2012

Hey,I have your character right now!;He has camcorders and cameras.


Old account 20122	March 14, 2011

For me, I think CGI is better. 2D animation is just not my style.


Shonefob	August 16, 2010

Well its pretty straight forward what we all have to do. Open our own studio just like Walt Disney did you need a company that cares more about stories than money.


Xtremeba lto	March 08, 2010

NOOOOOOO! They can't close! I can't live without 2D movies. They're ALWAYS a lot better than the cruddy 3D ones everyone LOOOOOVES. CURSE TECHNOLOGY!

And I totally agree with Roxane.


Steet	March 07, 2010
	Webmaster
	AS leader

No, they outsourced the animation of the direct-to-video sequels to asian animation facilities, just like all the other major companies.


Sharpnos e	March 07, 2010

	[Warrior cats] #1 Firestar Fan

Universal just CAN'T do THAT!

I like the hand-drawn cartoon movies WAY more the CGI computer animation or clay-mation. Before Universal Studios quit, wasn't it the only "real" animation studio left in Amarica?


Twilight TheWolf	March 03, 2010

	Lone Wolf

Peole shouldn't give up on great movies like the Snow Queen, it's terrible. It's like you just were about you're masterpiece and you suddenly give up on it after working a year on it. I was really, and I mean REALLY looking forward to that film

. Quoting your message 'Not only this means there won't be any other hand-drawn film before ages' I can only say three words, THAT.IS.TERRIBALE! 2D animation is beautiful and much nicer that 3D animation, so, as you can tell, I am devastated. Really like who would cancel such a brillient film? But they could have run out of money and now that is a completly diffrent. I toataly understand that they would run out of money, and if that's the case then I hope they will contine you it in the future. (And sorry for spelling mistakes

)


Mrselfde struct	February 26, 2010

	head like a hole

Okay, prepare for a giant rant.

I think that this sucks. Really, it does. But, being an aspiring computer animator, it really peeves me off that you guys are making such a big deal out of this. It sucks, but that's life. Get over it. Whether you like it or not, 3D was made to make the 2D animators' lives easier -- have any of you even TRIED to animate before?! It's hard! It's even harder doing it in pencil, which was what most of the original 2D movies were done in!

Using 3D programs makes animating WAY easier -- or really, using any computer program (Flash, for example), makes it easier.

Yes, the 3D movies aren't always fantastic -- but frankly, they're just starting up! They've only been around for like...what, ten years or so? And think of it this way -- most of the plots for the 3D movies have been thought up from scratch, while many of the popular 2D movies (not all of them, don't get me wrong) had fairy tales to look to for plots. :/

In short, it sucks -- but it's nothing to be so upset over. :/ Sorry if what I've said offends anyone, but...yeh. xP


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Old account 9217	February 24, 2010

Oh, don't jump the gun just yet, WolfSWind501 and everyone else! If Kaisho, myself, and a few others have our way, there just might be a Balto 4. Kaisho, believe it or not, actually has connections to some of the people who worked on the previous three Balto films, and are currently attempting to coax them into working with us on a fan-made attempt at a fourth Balto movie. Current project members include myself, Balto_freak, Kaisho, Kiko The Freako, Swords Of The Wolves, Aniu Caelestis, and others.
We have a thread on the forums about the project with more info there.
/board/the-balto-project-t30025.html
There's still hope, everyone!