Another Hand-Drawn Animation Obituary
Apparently the release of Disney's Home on the Range -- which is the last hand-drawn feature in production at the studio -- has triggered a wave of gloomy articles like the one I covered in the last post. Yesterday, I found this -- "The End of 'Hand-Drawn' Animation" -- on MSNBC's site. It focuses less on what the decline in handdrawn animation means to individual animators, and more specifically on what has gone on at Disney:
"'Most animators that are in the business are pretty committed to digital now, and if not they are probably headed to the next hall, which is story boarding,' said one-time Disney animator, Mark Pudleiner, who worked on 'Range.' Disney has slashed its animation work force by about two-thirds since 1997, which created a lot of uncertainty at the company."
What saddens me is how Disney seems to think that its problems will be solved by focusing on computer animation. Have they completely forgotten that it's the stories, and not the choice of media, that matters? I don't think people went to Finding Nemo or Shrek because they were done with computers, but because they were fun, imaginative, and engaging. And look at Spongebob Squarepants (better yet, look at all the Spongebob merchandise everywhere you go) -- is that show a monstrous success because of its production values/style or its clever situations and colorful characters? I'm guessing the latter.
A former Disney animator sums it up:
"Peter de Seve, an animator and character designer who worked on 'Treasure Plane'... said that Disney was making creative decisions in a corporate manner, watering down the artistic process. 'There is such an aim for the bottom line and so much census-taking and poll-taking that the stories get diluted.'
