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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.6 - SEPTEMBER 2000
| A Conversation With The New Don Bluth (continued from page 2) DB: You just start over. You go out and find young talent who are interested in doing animation, you bring them into the mix and train them. I mean, that's what Gary and I have done most of our careers anyway -- is train people. So, you train them, and then you take another shot at making a feature. Only this time, hopefully, you just don't throw the feature at the studio, you go out a little differently in your distribution process. Fox laid off three hundred or so of the three hundred-and-eighty people at the studio a full year before Titan was released.
LL: So you had about seventy people left, correct? DB: That's right, there's no way in the world they could have made a feature with seventy people. A year ago everyone should have known that it was over...with Fox it was over. It's very weird because all the people who make a picture put their hearts into their disks. They work really hard, and they think, "We're really going to make something really wonderful." They tried so hard. Then, the ruthless part of this is, the people who have control of the distribution - that's the ruthless part. LL: I used to tell my students, don't ever forget that it's a business. DB: Yes, but they will... LL: Where do you see yourself in a year? DB: Within a year, funded and building a feature again.
LL: What do you say to the Don Bluth and Gary Goldman fans out there? DB: I think animation [2D] is here to stay. I don't think it'll go out of fashion entirely. But the only way to stay in the feature animation business -- is to be sure that there's a market for it. The only place I know where you can support that market, is probably on the Net. The world will change within the next year and there will be a lot of things going on the Net. The best thing about animation to me is that it [both 2D and 3D] requires that you find the most exciting ideas and things going on inside of your own self and figure out a way to get those ideas out through an exit portal -- through the end of your pencil -- so that it makes some sort of statement, so that you're not just animating an assignment within a studio. Lots of times at a studio, a film is made by committee, and the committee endeavor is not very good. Although they say there were two directors on Titan, I'd say there were twenty. With that many people, you don't get the best artistic endeavor. Animation will not go away -- but you need to school yourself, educate yourself, and in educating yourself make sure you have something to say. LL: Thanks for your time Don. DB: You're welcome. Join Larry Lauria in his "Animation Tools and Techniques" discussion forum now! Larry Lauria is an animator/educator with 25 years in the industry. When not working on his current millennium animation project, 2KJ, Larry keeps himself busy working as a freelance animator and classical animation instructor. He can also be found designing animation curricula, or traveling around the world giving animation workshops and master classes. His Website "The Toon Institute" is part of the AWN family.
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