With Mulan, The Prince of Egypt and Kirikou and the Sorceress (above), animation experienced a corporate-driven renaissance. Courtesy of Les Armateurs.

The period immediately following saw a flood of feature film projects developed in France, hence the notion of the "Kirikou Effect." Although the film's strong sales have undoubtedly helped overcome skepticism and encouraged a range of different initiatives, the gestation period required for animated feature films suggests that in fact most of the films attributed to the Kirikou Effect were already in pre-production or even in production before Kirikou was released. Nonetheless, Corinne Jenart, from Cartoon (the European Association for animation film, part of the European Union's Media Program) stresses that Kirikou's success helped her organization to "sell" the industry on the idea for Cartoon Movie, an annual forum held near Berlin which has, year upon year, attracted an increasing number of producers and investors to look at projects seeking funding.

So we saw in the '90s, throughout the Western animation industry, an incredible resurgence of animated films -- 2D, 3D, or 2.5D, the fact is that a vast amount of resources was poured into the industry. The ultimate result? Well, due to a woeful lack of foresight and creative vision, we ended up with a public tired of the endless string of sequels and the industry's extreme reliance on marketing research and formulae. The incredible resurgence and renaissance of the '90s went sour and died before our very eyes.

And so, here we are, poised to enter another phase of animation's evolution. Thank God that the new folks in charge of Walt Disney Animation, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, were quick to realize what so many of us working at Disney during the demise of their 2D studios knew all along. Classical animation is what Disney does best and what the public really wants to see as well! And all the sequels of previous Disney classics were a big, bad, ugly mistake, regardless of how much money they may have generated in the short term. In the long term, the poorly produced Disney sequels served only to water down and hurt Disney's reputation as a studio that produces nothing but the very best in animated entertainment. The executives formerly in charge of Walt Disney Animation may have thought they were very clever about producing their string of direct-to-DVD sequel feature films, making piles of cash for their ravenous shareholders, but, ultimately, by focusing on what they could squeeze out of their product rather than what they could put into it, they brought on the tragic demise of what was the most talented studio of classical animation artists ever assembled.

Disney's upcoming The Princess and the Frog may very well kick-start a revival of classic animation. © Disney.

With Ron Musker and Ron Clements directing, and Peter Del Vecho and John Lasseter producing, and a hungry crew of classical animators just dying to ply their craft once again, it is highly likely that the Disney Studios are going to produce a gem of a film with The Princess and The Frog.

So what happens if this film is released to rave reviews and incredible box-office success? As proved by history again and again, the smell of money will travel quickly, the animation predators will smell blood, and suddenly every Tom, Dick and Harry in the animation business will be scrambling to make the next blockbuster 2D animated feature. At least that is a very distinct possibility. And I think it is the hope of a great many animation artists, young and relatively new to the business, who would give their eyeteeth for a chance to actually animate by hand, in the classical manner in which the vast majority of them were trained, before switching over to 3D animation.

This is something that still never ceases to amaze me. In the past ten or so years, working closely with hundreds of young animators who end up working either in 3D or with Flash, it is absolutely incredible to hear how, virtually without exception, they long to put pencil to paper, or, at very least, stylus to Cintiq.

Throughout the animation business worldwide, I meet young animators who have adapted to digital animation techniques not so much by choice, as out of necessity. The career possibilities for classical animators vanished almost overnight, and a lot of young artists feel like they missed the boat, and not all of them are too pleased with spending 12 hours a day chained to a computer monitor. Of course there are many who embrace the technology and come to love it for what it is, an incredible toolset capable of creating absolutely anything.

Will these young animators get their chance? I, for one, certainly hope so! But here is an even more important hope that I have, and the key to what could very well mark the beginning of a real new animation renaissance.

We all know that 2D and 3D techniques have been crossing paths constantly now for quite some time. 3D films are filled with 2D elements, and 2D films are filled with 3D elements. Our abilities as artists to create life with our bare hands, coupled with the incredible technology that has freed us from the severe limitations of hard art, puts us in a position to create animated films staggering in the depth of their visual language. Films that look and feel more alive, more exciting, and more absorbing than anything we have ever seen in the past. As vast armies of technically proficient artists with a solid background in classical animation are set free to be creative with their ideas and their digital tools, we should be seeing a true renaissance in the animation industry.