Will Finn On Loving Disney - Even Back In The 1970s

To have been a Disney fan during the 1970’s was truly to believe in magic, sappy as that sounds. In high school my peers mocked me for going to things like the re-release of Dumbo and 101 Dalmations. These were old cartoons that had lost their relevance to the general audience stoked on 1970s hits like The Godfather and Blazing Saddles. During my time at art school, the instructors warned me not to bother…

T Dan Hofstedt reveals The Secret of Animation

T. Dan Hofstedt - animation supremo

My old friend and former kumrad at Disney animation, T Dan Hofsted, recently posted at Facebook a reply to a student asking how to become an animator. T Dan is one of the best animators I know, a veteran of countless Disney hits including The Lion King, Pocahontas, Hercules and Mulan, so he ought to know a thing or two about how to make it as an animator. Here is what he wrote:

Brigitte's Garden at Disney MGM Studios

The best thing about working on an animated film is, as everyone knows, the project itself. It's going to be awesome, you're going to do your greatest work ever, and on opening night you will stun the world with animation excellence. But then, as the years pass, a funny things happens. You tend forget about the film itself (with a few honourable exceptions), and what you end up remembering, often with great fondness, is the people you worked with.

Bean Bonkers and Life as a Human Resource

Every business has its bean counters.  In the bean business, they have them in spades.  A team of bean counters determines exactly how many beans to place each can to yield the maximum profit for the company.  If a worker at the cannery should strive to create a better can of beans by adding more beans or being more selective of the beans to be canned, that employee would, after a few formal warnings, be canned themselves.

Beans are not art.  Art is not beans.  But sometime way back, the two were crossbred to create an abominable freak worthy of Dr. Moreau; the animation production.  In this business, there are people who try to create art and people who try to count beans.  Together, they fail miserably in their individual tasks, but produce a bi-product called the animated cartoon; neither art nor beans.

Walt Disney Crossing Buena Vista Street Barefoot.

As a CalArts student in the early '80's, I had the opportunity to meet many people who worked for Walt Disney himself.  Today being the anniversary of Walt's death in 1966, I thought I would share a story that Elmer Plummer, my life drawing instructor, told me, recalling the last time he saw Walt.... 

We all knew Walt was in the hospital, but we didn't know how bad it was. Well, I was coming down the hallway and saw him standing there - barefoot.

He said, ‘How are you, Elmer?’

‘Oh, I’m all right.’ I said. “Where are your shoes?”

Appreciating Diane Disney

Sad news.  Diane Disney, Walt's daughter, died today at the age of 79.  

I had the opportunity to meet Diane in 1984, as a Cal Arts student.  The school had just completed a new student apartment complex, and was having an open house for the trustees.  As a rule, if there was free wine and food to be had, we were there - we being fellow students Tim Hauser, Kevin Lima, and myself.  Tim has the greatest knowledge of all things Disney of anyone I know, and he was quick to point out the presence of the big players - Card Walker, Donn B. Tatum, Roy Disney, and his cousin Diane.

Tony Benedict's "The Last Cartoonery"

If you grew up loving Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, or The Pink Panther, you may find this new documentary very interesting.  Legendary animation writer Tony Benedict has a pet project about his days with Hanna-Barbera and DePatie Freling, called The Last Cartoonery. He is going the Kickstarter route for funding, and talked to FLIP about the project and the good old days.

Joe Barbera and Tony Benedict with Yogi Bear storyboard.
Photo from Benedict's The Last Cartoonery site.

FLIP:  The Last Cartoonery - Who is doing this?

Tony: The Last Cartoonery is being done by me as producer, writer, animator and director. Music by Alan Bernhoft.

FLIP: Is there much film footage from your Hanna Barbera days?  Are you looking for material (film, photos, artwork, stories) for the film?

Tony: In the glory days of early Hanna–Barbera, fellow cartoon guy Jerry Eisenberg and I shot a lot of film and still photos around the studio. We also drew lots of gags and caricatures. Lots of photo and film restoration. We have designed caricatures of Bill and Joe to animate along with caricatures of other studio folk. We are animating gags created nearly sixty years ago. It's a labor of love. No one will get rich off this film but among animation fans I feel it will be well received.

Mickey Mouse stars in Escape From Tomorrow - but Disney is not pleased...

Mickey - as you have never seen him before.

Escape From Tomorrow is a micro budget indie horror flick filmed without permission, using hand held cameras and mobile phones, inside the Disney parks. It stars Mickey in his first ever blood soaked horror role. The real horror, you might think, will be the litigation that will surely result as armies of Disney lawyers descend on the film-makers. But you would be wrong.

My Awesome 21st Century Upgrade to Disneyland's Peter Pan Ride

I've had this idea for about eighteen years now.  I have no way of making it happen, but I do have an outlet to share the idea with you Imagineers out there, boldly assuming you haven't already considered this and abandoned it for some reason.   Here goes.....

I propose an entirely new Peter Pan ride, where you are sprinkled with pixie dust, think happy thoughts, then fly, actually fly, like Peter, Wendy, and the boys over London to Neverland.  You would not be in a fake boat riding on a clanky overhead rail.  You would be completely untethered.  What's the secret?  

FLIP goes to Disneyland Paris!

Last week I went to Disneyland. I took two nieces, aged seven and four years old respectively, for cover, just in case anyone wondered what a 45 year old man was doing voluntarily spending 3 days in an amusement park. They loved it - and so did I.

The park is 20 years old this year - which reminded me that it was around 25 years ago that I bought shares in Euro Disney, as it was called then. I was convinced, aged 20, that this would be the best investment of my life. What could possibly go wrong? Disney Parks are a money machine, right? 25 years later - I would surely be rich.

Animation Sweatbox - reinforcing cultural stereotypes

Animation dailies - how it used to be

Once upon a time animation "sweatbox" was actually a sweaty room below stairs at the Disney lot with a hot moviola to review the previous day's animation. Later, as technology improved, you got to see your shots projected on to a screen, and then publicly dissected by the director in front of your colleagues.

Today the moviola is long gone, but animation dailies are still with us, and some studios still call it sweatbox in homage to the old Disney tradition.

Disney Layoffs, The Day After: Now What?

Yesterday, I read the news about the Disney layoffs on Facebook.  With so many industry friends, industry news hits there hours before blog writers can compose an article (in my case, many hours). Facebook is live feed.  And just like watching live feed of O.J. Simpson's white Ford Bronco cruising down the 405, we don't really know the whole story, but the speculation is fantastic.

The Orthodox Sweatbox Paradox

In the early days of Disney Studios, the cramped room where Walt critiqued his crew's pencil tests was aptly dubbed "The Sweatbox" by the animators under scrutiny.  While the industry has changed radically since Walt's day, the Sweatbox survives; if not as a noun - a designated room, then as a verb - the act of critiquing.  Every animator's got sweatbox stories to share at industry parties.  I've been on both sides of that Moviola, as animator and director, the sweat-ee and sweat-or.

Slipping a Mickey

Was I drugged?  Did I really see that, or was that a weird dream?  Someone took the iconic Mickey Mouse and made a far out looking short - with Disney's backing!  Huh?  Whu?

Sacre merde!  Un nouvelle conception de Mickey!  Voyez-le ici.

Unless your internet has been down, you have probably at least heard about the new Mickey short released on the internet.  The blogosphere has been buzzing about it.  The wondrous part of the internet is its ability to capture one's knee-jerk reaction as public record.  My own knee-jerk reaction was smile, smile, wince, smile, lose interest, and that's not Mickey.  There.  Public record.  You can nod in agreement or gnash your teeth.  

It's Official - 2D Animation at Disney is Dead

The Princess and the Frog - Disney's last 2D feature

According to an article in yesterday's Guardian, 2D animation is officially dead at Disney, the studio which took the medium to its greatest-ever heights. At the annual shareholder meeting in Phoenix Arizona, CEO Bob Iger said:

Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design

The Noble Approach - Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design

Animation designer and director Tod Polson has been working for over a year on a new book about the life and art of legendary designer Maurice Noble, who had a 60 year career in the animation business and was responsible for the look of some of the most famous Looney Tunes shorts, including What's Opera Doc?, Duck Dodgers and the Road Runner series. FLIP caught up with Tod at the Animation Workshop in Denmark and asked him a few questions about his new project.

"Walt's Dead - You Missed It"

Those were the words of Ward Kimball, spoken in 1980 to a small theater full of Cal Arts students.  He might as well have been preaching atheism in a cathedral.  Students were not only hurt, but outraged that this "nine old man", this apostle of Walt, could deny their dreams of Walt's Second Coming.  They were, after all, the new generation being groomed to restore and continue the Walt Disney legacy.

Thirty two years later, that generation is still dreaming.  In the Fantasy Disney Studio in their minds, Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, and seven other guys become the new nine old men, and John Lasseter becomes Walt, bringing back old school animation for good,  and the artists move back into the old animation building, with the old desks, and marry ink and paint girls, and have lunch at Alphonse's and martinis at the Pago Pago.  Sigh.

When Glen Keane announced last week that he was leaving the studio, a chorus of shrieks rang out.  How could he do that?   The blablogs were on fire with comments on his announcement - barking up opinions as if Glen actually owed them an explanation for what was, in fact, a personal decision.

I don't know Glen, personally.  But I know he's done the best character animation of his generation and has nothing to prove.  He gave thirty six years to a studio that, during his tenure, grew, as if on steroids, into a pumped-up, corporate soulcrusher.  They'll go on making animated films (or not), but its homey, midwestern roots are gone, save for some very nice people working there, dreaming, dreaming, of the Fantasy Disney Studio in their minds.

"Walt's dead. You missed it."

-Steve