Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
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They laid off some of their veteran animators, and ughghghhg
I'm really depressed right now. What do you guys feel about this?
excuse me while i go lay down and feel depressed
Disney clearly care not for their traditions. I've never liked Disney as a company, and my liking of their work has steadily decreased from the higher levels it once was at over the last few years. A shame.
Disney is certainly going down hill, Paperman was the only thing they've released in the last couple years that I've really liked.
I'm not surprised. Not saying I approve of the decision (because I don't) but it was inevitable.
When The Princess and the Frog came out, I was yelling at everyone I could contact either virtually or corporeally to see it - not because I though it was a good film, but because I knew that if the film didn't do well then 2D animation in mainstream cinema would die. I saw it as Disney basically saying "OK, lets put this to bed. Lets make a 2D film, give it the same marketing as all our other top releases, base it on a classic fairytale, and if its not as big a hit as our usual summer films then we'll phase out 2D. If it IS a success, then we'll just keep umming and aahing over if we should get rid of 2D or not". Sometimes I think Disney made The Princess and the Frog so they could go "See! It didn't do well! No-one likes 2D! Can we start firing people now?"
My efforts were futile. Still - at least we have indie 2D animation companies. Its not the end of the world; its just a post-apocalyptic one...
So does this mean that there will be no more cartoon Disney films?
Sad, Max butcher. I actually liked Princess & Frog, and, at least anecdotally, girls were screaming everywhere I went for the DVD when it was released! I love traditional animation, which I call "real" animation. The talent required is much greater than CGI, which requiresd much more of its talent to be technical in nature. In traditional animation you're building everything from scratch. In cgi you have pre-modeled forms and textures, etc. And I also thought that the croip of cgi animaiton films were samey and very dull after the novelty wore off. I like some of the classics: Antz, Toy Story 1, Shrek, Ice Age, but every new cgi movie seems to me to be very dull, and dime-a-dozen homogeneous in its appearance.
I like some of the classics: Antz, Toy Story 1, Shrek, Ice Age, but every new cgi movie seems to me to be very dull
I hope that this is the viewpoint of an individual who has yet to see Wreak-it Ralph.
I tend to be more interested in cartoon films nowadays because of they're rather rare. After all "Good things are better when they're a Rarity"
GCI films are all around, but a cartoon really gets me interested. It would be nice to have a few more at least.
Though as far as television goes, cartoons seem to be the dominate type of animation. There are a few GCI shows, but they tend to be badly executed.
The talent required is much greater than CGI, which requiresd much more of its talent to be technical in nature. In traditional animation you're building everything from scratch. In cgi you have pre-modeled forms and textures, etc.
Having done CG animation and hand-drawn animation both pretty extensively, I really don't think there's anything true about this statement.
I like hand-drawn animation as much as the next guy, though. I think it hasn't proven to be the most marketable medium for cinema right now, probably in part because of how much the major distributors have pushed other animation mediums for the last decade or so.
Most people need not much research into me to find that my all time favorite film was Atlantis the Lost Empire... It was Disney's last animated film not animated/colored in the computer - yet also used some CGI for certain shots (such as the end shot, and those in the battle with the Leviathan) And, unlike some films that "use some" 3d, this movie still holds up... A few times, I'm only now realizing the generated parts vs the animated parts because they fit so well together.
I wish more films were made like this... However, having said that, Atlantis used largely the crews from Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast - those of which likely fired.
Overall, however, even though I feel like the only one: I still like Disney as a company. Nostalgia much? idk 
So does this mean that there will be no more cartoon Disney films?
Not necessarily, but since they've fired every major animator in their 2D Department - I doubt they'll make a feature length cartoon again. There might not even be any shorts again.
Oh, but 3D will survive; because that's all companies seem to think the public are into (in reality, The Princess and the Frog didn't do as well as Disney wanted because it just looked meh. Its not because it was 2D, or because everyone is racist - its just a not very memorable film and the marketing couldn't hide that. And Winnie the Pooh failed because Disney didn't market it. I didn't even know it existed until I saw it in a shop)
Last edited by Max Butcher (April 12, 2013 (01:14pm))
Winnie the Pooh failed because Disney didn't market it. I didn't even know it existed until I saw it in a shop)
I was aware of its existence, but I never actually saw any sort of trailer before seeing it on DVD.
Princess in the Frog seemed alright when it was coming out, but I wasn't very interested in actually watching it very soon. I eventually did get to see it on DVD. I liked it, but it isn't that great when compared to all of the marvelous 90s Disney films. I'd say basically the same for Winnie the Pooh.
Ugh, gosh, that's horrible. I feel really sorry for those people. I suppose the only good thing about this is that those animators can go work for some company that actually cares about them. Like Studio Ghibli. Or they can go start their own animation companies and make good films without the restrictions of Disney.
Really I am sick of 3d animation. Because people constantly pump those out and most of them are bad. Not because the medium is bad, but because it seems to be the trend.
More and more Disney has been relying on companies that it has purchased to make it money, e.g. Pixar, Marvel, Lucas Film, etc. instead of making totally in house movies. I think it's going more and more the way of the other media giants, which is sad. It seems like we'll probably be seeing fewer and fewer explicitly Disney films in the future.
Winnie the Pooh was a fun film. I couldn't help but get the impression that Disney didn't care about it. They ruined a great opportunity by releasing it the same weekend as Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows Part 2. (At least that is what they did here in America if I recall correctly.)
It wouldn't have been that hard to find a better release date, would it? Putting your film up against the final chapter in a decade long franchise doesn't sound like the smartest move to me.
Really I am sick of 3d animation. Because people constantly pump those out and most of them are bad. Not because the medium is bad, but because it seems to be the trend.
This is a pretty accurate description of why I don't watch many brickfilms anymore...
Anyway, I have a few thoughts here- first and foremost that I do recall Winnie the Pooh being marketed (they used "Somewhere Only We Know" in the reasonably popular trailer). It probably didn't do great at the box office because... well, it was Winnie the Pooh. That's a hard sell for most people with the money to go see a film in theater. EDIT: As Walter mentioned, opening the same weekend as HP probably didn't help matters.
Personally it doesn't bother me much as a consumer that they're cutting the hand drawn crew- to be frank, I don't think I've seen anything hand drawn that Disney has done recently at all. From the human perspective obviously it's a shame that they lost their jobs, but the cuts make business sense and Disney doesn't seem to have been duplicitous about it. I mean, it's not like they just completed a feature film and were all laid off the day after; this doesn't strike me as exploitative, and I find it hard to believe they didn't have some indication that it would be coming. I do agree that it would be nice to see these people find their way into other circles and start making some decent 2D films, but I hardly think it's a tragedy that Disney cut what was probably becoming a large money sink.
I remember those good old Disney films. I wasn't too keen on the fairytale ones, but if I had to choose a favorite, it would be The Rescuers (1977) with Bob Newhart. But, those were the good Disney movies. It's gonna be sad to hear about the animators going, because they really made some good stuff here.
Atlantis the Lost Empire
Yeah, I remember something like that. I think I used to own that movie, but I just never got around to watching it.
I saw it as Disney basically saying "OK, lets put this to bed. Lets make a 2D film, give it the same marketing as all our other top releases, base it on a classic fairytale, and if its not as big a hit as our usual summer films then we'll phase out 2D. If it IS a success, then we'll just keep umming and aahing over if we should get rid of 2D or not". Sometimes I think Disney made The Princess and the Frog so they could go "See! It didn't do well! No-one likes 2D! Can we start firing people now?"
Well, The Princess and the Frog was, technically speaking, a box-office success, but just not to the extent of some of it's other films, especially in the Pixar department.
I think Disney on a whole needs to focus on story more than the petty 2D vs. 3D argument. I actually think that Disney has been doing a fairly decent job with its films as of recent (The Princess and the Frog was decent, Tangled was great, as was Brave; I haven't seen Wreck it Ralph yet, so I can't judge it). Of course, Disney will still make films that make us face-palm (I'm looking at you, Mars Needs Moms), but I think they've done a nice job of re-inventing themselves overall.
Disney pretty much just shot their grandfather. They would have never gotten this far without those people.
Really I am sick of 3d animation. Because people constantly pump those out and most of them are bad. Not because the medium is bad, but because it seems to be the trend.
Exactly my sentiments. The 3D movies I like were Antz, Toy Story, Shrek, and Ice Age 1. Oh, yeah, and Robots. After that, I think the studios assumed that any mediocre story will be great as a 3D movie.
Yeah. Also back then the technology was newer so the films that used it were kind of revolutionary. Thus spawning better films. Also less people were doing it.
Disney pretty much just shot their grandfather. They would have never gotten this far without those people.
PARADOX!! What if they went back in time and shot their grandfather?
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