How to Hook Up Your Animated Short at Disney
When John Lasseter and Ed Catmull instituted the new shorts program at Walt Disney Animation Studios, they not only wanted it to emulate Pixar's successful program, but also to reinvigorate the Disney legacy characters in 2D.
"The shorts program to me at both studios is very, very important," emphasizes Lasseter, chief creative officer of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. "One: to develop talent. It's not just directors, but directing animators, technical directors and all these things. So it gives young people the chance to be a supervisor in a small setting and to try people out at different things. This is where talent development is really great. And it's great creatively to have these shorts because sometimes there are little ideas that aren't meant to be for features, but you just want to see them. And, at Disney, we have the added heritage of all these fantastic characters. It's so much fun to go back and try things with them."
Hence, launching with How to Hook Up Your Home Theater, starring Goofy in a very contemporary situation: buying a big-screen, HD TV, and then trying to set it up himself -- with all of the wiring and remotes -- in time for the big football game.
Written and helmed by longtime story partners Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers (Walt Disney Animation Studio's first female director), How to Hook Up Your Home Theater wonderfully captures the spirit of the How to Goofy shorts from the '40s and '50s directed by Jack Kinney and animated by John Sibley -- but obviously with a contemporary spin.
"They were looking for story people to pitch ideas and also ways of bringing back classic characters," Deters recalls. "I had just purchased a new big-screen TV for the Super Bowl and Goofy was a natural. You look at those cartoons and think, 'I may be a dumb guy, but at least I'm not as dumb as him.' I pitched the idea to Stevie, and we brainstormed and developed a structure. John immediately recognized the great marriage of Disney and something you could relate to today. Great animation, as they know how to do here. One thing we discovered quickly was [that they had just come out] with The Complete Goofy on DVD, so that was a godsend. You recognized that everyone had a warm, fuzzy nostalgia for what they remember and that the Goofy shorts were really all over the map. So what we did was pick our favorites and acknowledge a little bit from different eras."
Wermers adds that they put it up on reels for a couple of months and boarded it, and they were off and running. "It's so broad that you can go to town and not feel restricted. Goofy is so pliable."
Lasseter agrees: "Getting back into hand-drawn animation with Goofy -- that was really a key thing: trying things out with the process and thinking about how we did it. There's a lot of development. I'm very proud of what Kevin and Stevie have done with How to Hook Up Your Home Theater because he's exactly in the style of the How to shorts, but it's subject matter that's totally relevant for today's audience, and that juxtaposition is so entertaining."
It begins with the pitch, of course. But unlike the old Gong Show days at Disney, Lasseter and Catmull prefer the more artist-friendly approach they've perfected at Pixar, in which you pitch a portfolio of three ideas, meeting initially with the Disney story trust, which consists of top directors and story artists. You have several minutes for the presentation, which usually contains visuals. And the story trust provides notes and constructively discusses them with you, and you can come back and pitch a second and third time. "The way this system works is that the directors have to be [true] to their vision but be able to sort through a lot of notes," explains Chuck Williams, director of the shorts program. "It's very frank and constructive. And what's cool is that, if I'm pitching later, I can come watch how you pitch and see how they work with you."
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Haha, sohludn't you be charging for that kind of knowledge?!
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