It's interesting the trends of this industry. Last year, newly appointed President of Walt Disney Feature Animation; David Stainton, said in the company Newsletter that "... we were going to focus, for the moment, on CG. That doesn't mean that we will never do a 2-D movie again, but for right now, we needed to focus on CG, build our pipeline and commit ourselves to that 100 percent, but do it in a totally Disney way."
This would lead one to believe that once Disney had established itself as capable of dominating the Animation Industry without it's partnership with Pixar, that it would return to it's foundation of producing traditionally animated feature films.
This morning however the information given by assumed successor to the head of the Walt Disney Company; Bob Igor, would seem to contradict Mr. Stainton's. When asked by an employee of the company what the future of "classic" animation was now that the relationship with Pixar was dissolving would become, Mr. Igor gave a two-fold answer stating that Disney would continue to produce "Classic" Feature animated films but that they would all be CG. He went on to note Disney's upcoming films; American Dog, A Day with Wilbur Robinson (he mentioned this was going to be retitled), Rapunzel Unbraided and Chicken Little. He also said the company was in the process of moving away from the direct to video sequel productions and indicated the Disney ToonStudios outsourcing would be upping the ante on it's quality of animation on it's DTV releases.
In a Nutshell; No more Traditionally animated films in the forseeable future. If Mr. Igor continues on as the Head of this company pending the resignation of Michael Eisner, then it would seem that Disney Animation will continue to trend this way. As a side note, Mr. Igor also mentioned that the idea of "reanimating" all of Disney's classic library as 3D films had been proposed within the company. He himself seemed to think that was a bad idea and he gave no indication the company would seriously go that direction.
So there you have it folks. The NOW and the FUTURE belong to 3D. At least as far as Disney seems to be concerned.
That's the least bright thing I've heard since Harvey Human's hypothetical person chose Spider-Man as North America's offering in comparisons against Samurai warriors. Y'know, cause this continent didn't exist till 1962 ;)
Okay, folks, show of hands: Who is planning to follow Disney's lead? Who is using Disney as a model of how to run an animation studio and good creative direction?
'Cause personally, I'm not.
In this case what is meant by "CG"? Does it imply 3D moddeling?
Tis a sad moment for 2d animation, I weep upon it's grave.
Seriously tho, I for one really hate 3d animation and really dispise these large studio's that have had exeptionally amazing 2D animation go and spend a rediculous ammount of money to overhaul their studio's to 3D (ehem Dreamworks).
Personally what I think is going to happen with 3D is once the technology peaks and there are there becomes an overabundance of low quality 3D animations saturating the markets, the general public will become bored of the genre and flock back to 2D.
Lindsey Keess
Animator