Disney Taps Deep Into DNA In Unveiling Animation Slate
In announcing its animation slate for the next four-plus years yesterday at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, The Walt Disney Studios affirmed the new "director-driven" mandate since the acquisition of Pixar and rejuvenated leadership from John Lasseter and Ed Catmull.
The three-hour unveiling concentrated on 10 new theatrical features, highlighted by a newt, a Scottish princess and a band of elves, as well as four direct-to-DVD/Blu-ray 3D-animated titles with Tinker Bell. Fittingly, there was a full-size mock-up of the robot star from Pixar's WALL*E and free popcorn.
Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook kicked off the event, noting that it had been close to a decade since the studio last unveiled a long-range slate of movies. "2008 is a significant year for us," he added. "In the 80th year since the creation of Mickey Mouse, we're renewing our commitment to the art form of animation. It has always been and always will be the heart and soul of the company -- it's in our DNA."
Touting the upcoming films as "the most unique and diverse line-up in the company's history," Cook introduced Animation Studio President Catmull and Chief Creative Officer Lasseter. The pair entered to the appropriate strains of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me" and Catmull was the first to speak. "It's been two years since the merger... I'm really excited by the transformation at Disney and the continued creativity at Pixar," he said, adding "John's got a great presentation" before leaving the stage to Lasseter after his brief moment in the spotlight.
Dressed in his standard Hawaiian shirt ("What did you think I'd wear?"), Lasseter emceed the rest of the event solo. "I've been at Pixar just over 20 years, and I'm proud to be back at Disney -- what Walt did is why I'm in animation." He listed the three ingredients necessary to making a great -- and commercially successful -- animated feature:
"A compelling story -- one where you can't wait to see what happens next; memorable characters who live beyond the boundaries of the film; and a believable world where the audience doesn't think of anything else until the lights come up."
Lasseter introduced the upcoming films' creative teams (heavily weighted with first-time directors) to talk the audience through their projects and present concept art and film clips. First up was Pixar's WALL*E, the studio's entry in this summer's blockbuster demolition derby, due out June 27.
Andrew Stanton, the film's writer/director, currently occupied recording the film's closing credits song with Peter Gabriel, appeared onscreen to introduce a 30-minute excerpt from the film. Once again Pixar's amazing trompe l'oeil artistry was on display in its depiction of a crumbling and abandoned metropolis tended to by WALL*E, a dutiful sanitation robot. The studio's pitch-perfect characterizations and storytelling instincts were evident as well, with WALL*E coming fully to life as a clutzy, warm-hearted romantic hero strictly via his mechanical "body language" and Ben Burtt's sound design for his vocal effects. Stanton revealed his geek streak by gleefully announcing that the voice of an automated self-destruct countdown was provided by Sigourney Weaver, in a deliberate nod to her starring role in the ALIEN movies.
From there, Lasseter leapt to the last film in the pipeline: KING OF THE ELVES, due out from Disney at Christmas 2012. Longtime Disney animators Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker debut as directors, in a feature based on a short story by the movies' favorite dead sci-fi author, Phillip K Dick. The audience was treated to concept art of "a new elf mythology" -- a lost tribe of elves living in Mississippi who make a gas station owner their new monarch. They've managed to remain undiscovered by blending into the surrounding plant life "like a biological adaptation," according to Walker. "We're designing an entire world from the very small to the huge."
MONSTERS INC. director Pete Docter was on hand with producer Jonas Rivera and writer/co-director Bob Peterson to introduce UP, Pixar's first 3-D movie. (Lasseter announced that, "from here on, all Pixar movies will be produced in 3-D.") Docter marveled that UP is Pixar's tenth feature, and like THE INCREDIBLES, its hero "travels the globe, fights evil -- and eats dinner at 3:30 pm."
The three-hour unveiling concentrated on 10 new theatrical features, highlighted by a newt, a Scottish princess and a band of elves, as well as four direct-to-DVD/Blu-ray 3D-animated titles with Tinker Bell. Fittingly, there was a full-size mock-up of the robot star from Pixar's WALL*E and free popcorn.
Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook kicked off the event, noting that it had been close to a decade since the studio last unveiled a long-range slate of movies. "2008 is a significant year for us," he added. "In the 80th year since the creation of Mickey Mouse, we're renewing our commitment to the art form of animation. It has always been and always will be the heart and soul of the company -- it's in our DNA."
Touting the upcoming films as "the most unique and diverse line-up in the company's history," Cook introduced Animation Studio President Catmull and Chief Creative Officer Lasseter. The pair entered to the appropriate strains of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me" and Catmull was the first to speak. "It's been two years since the merger... I'm really excited by the transformation at Disney and the continued creativity at Pixar," he said, adding "John's got a great presentation" before leaving the stage to Lasseter after his brief moment in the spotlight.
Dressed in his standard Hawaiian shirt ("What did you think I'd wear?"), Lasseter emceed the rest of the event solo. "I've been at Pixar just over 20 years, and I'm proud to be back at Disney -- what Walt did is why I'm in animation." He listed the three ingredients necessary to making a great -- and commercially successful -- animated feature:
"A compelling story -- one where you can't wait to see what happens next; memorable characters who live beyond the boundaries of the film; and a believable world where the audience doesn't think of anything else until the lights come up."
Lasseter introduced the upcoming films' creative teams (heavily weighted with first-time directors) to talk the audience through their projects and present concept art and film clips. First up was Pixar's WALL*E, the studio's entry in this summer's blockbuster demolition derby, due out June 27.
Andrew Stanton, the film's writer/director, currently occupied recording the film's closing credits song with Peter Gabriel, appeared onscreen to introduce a 30-minute excerpt from the film. Once again Pixar's amazing trompe l'oeil artistry was on display in its depiction of a crumbling and abandoned metropolis tended to by WALL*E, a dutiful sanitation robot. The studio's pitch-perfect characterizations and storytelling instincts were evident as well, with WALL*E coming fully to life as a clutzy, warm-hearted romantic hero strictly via his mechanical "body language" and Ben Burtt's sound design for his vocal effects. Stanton revealed his geek streak by gleefully announcing that the voice of an automated self-destruct countdown was provided by Sigourney Weaver, in a deliberate nod to her starring role in the ALIEN movies.
From there, Lasseter leapt to the last film in the pipeline: KING OF THE ELVES, due out from Disney at Christmas 2012. Longtime Disney animators Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker debut as directors, in a feature based on a short story by the movies' favorite dead sci-fi author, Phillip K Dick. The audience was treated to concept art of "a new elf mythology" -- a lost tribe of elves living in Mississippi who make a gas station owner their new monarch. They've managed to remain undiscovered by blending into the surrounding plant life "like a biological adaptation," according to Walker. "We're designing an entire world from the very small to the huge."
MONSTERS INC. director Pete Docter was on hand with producer Jonas Rivera and writer/co-director Bob Peterson to introduce UP, Pixar's first 3-D movie. (Lasseter announced that, "from here on, all Pixar movies will be produced in 3-D.") Docter marveled that UP is Pixar's tenth feature, and like THE INCREDIBLES, its hero "travels the globe, fights evil -- and eats dinner at 3:30 pm."
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