Disney Cutting Animation Once Again

[Another Voice]

A new "rumor" that's just now going around.

Disney is planning to fire between 20% and 25% of the Disney Feature Animation staff. It's not known if Pixar will be affected (until now they've been considered a seperate staff).

More to follow.

 

[agnes!]

Oh dear, I sure hope this isn't true.

agnes!

 

[Another Voice]

Yup - it's true. Moving on the wires here

From "other sources", all the cuts are among animators and artists - the people that actually produce the movies. Marketing people, executive and management aren't being affected.

In other studio news, the "Touchstone Pictures" studio name will be re-purposed and release low budget "genre" movies aimed at a teenage auidence. Their first effort is going to be The Invisable, a teenage horror movie. Buzz is they are actively seeking more movies along the lines of Hostel and Saw.

 

[cristen]

A-holes.


Who are these middle managers going to manage in another year? If you keep cutting staff, then you do not need as many managers. But yet, they are all still there.

In other studio news, the "Touchstone Pictures" studio name will be re-purposed and release low budget "genre" movies aimed at a teenage auidence. Their first effort is going to be The Invisable, a teenage horror movie. Buzz is they are actively seeking more movies along the lines of Hostel and Saw.

IDIOTS!

 

[TheDogbots]

i would write in and complain and tell them they are dumb dumb heads... but doubt it would help those 160 workers...


I would guess this is a result of two things, that absurd notion that making less movies will produce more "quality" movies. (this of course means they need good scripts first...) We heard that from the company over the summer. Also the fact that Pixar is the animation power house, though i thought I had read something a while ago saying that Pixar people were put in charge of the whole of Disney Animation? If that is true, obviously they rather fire the non-pixar people first lol. It is sad, they really need a new creative base that is NOT working at the theme parks... The steady output of crappy movies and then one hit a year is not due to bad artists, its due to the bad management that stifles creation and greenlights only crap... rant off...

But don't worry with the money saved from these 160 artists, Igner can finally get that new sports car he has been eying up... plus they will hire 300 Indian animators to make great sequels like brother bear 18 and a 1/3 and Lilo and Twitch: Revenge of the boring thing that made Stich Glitch. All this and they will be able to create another couple hundred thousand dollars of profit margin, you know because it is not like they need to make anything good, they can just milk the Disney name for at least until their lifetimes are over.

 

[OKW Lover]

People please. Lets take a look at this instead of just doing a knee-jerk reaction.

There is a long history in the animation business of hire/lay-off cycles. This happens because alot of artists are needed only for the actual production phase of a feature. You don't need a lot of them sitting around while you work on the story line trying different ideas. You only need them when the entire production is set and its time to crank out those cells. Then its post production stuff like cutting and editing, foley effects and marketing.

Laying off artists only means that right now there isn't a big need for them.

 

[Another Voice]

What you described has been the model Disney has followed for about a decade now. Disney tries to hire people off the street for each different production; each production gets a new crew that's never worked together before. It's lead to disaster.

Pixar keeps their artists on full time. When they're not working on a feature they're working on a short or simply training to become better animators. The result is a company that destroyed Disney in the market place.

Unlike film editors or Foley artists - there aren't a lot of animators sitting around Hollywood waiting for a job. It's not a profession that you get good at "on the job" - it's a true art. It takes a decade to train a good animator; hiring kids out of school doesn't yield good results.

Far from a "knee jerk reaction", most people in the company see this is yet another blazing neon sign that Iger and the remaining management team simply doesn't get it. They are marketing types, people who know how to sell you something.

But they're not creators. They don't know how to make something. They don't know what is a good movies verses one that's merely marketable. They don't understand "Disney".

 

[Keyser]

What you described has been the model Disney has followed for about a decade now. Disney tries to hire people off the street for each different production; each production gets a new crew that's never worked together before. It's lead to disaster.

Pixar keeps their artists on full time. When they're not working on a feature they're working on a short or simply training to become better animators. The result is a company that destroyed Disney in the market place.

I'm with you on this.

Unlike film editors or Foley artists - there aren't a lot of animators sitting around Hollywood waiting for a job.

But I'd disagree here. I wouldn't say there are a lot of animators "sitting and waiting" (the folks I know seem to have no trouble staying employed), but animators at most companies do move around between companies, from job to job, a lot. Companies hire a bunch of folks for one production, release them afterward, etc. Look at most folks in CG animation and you'll see a resume of having worked on lots of jobs at a variety of companies.

The level of this varies from company to company, but Pixar has been the exception, not the rule.

I'm not saying that Disney releasing the animation staff is a good choice (in fact, I think it's pretty clear that the Pixar model is better), but it's actually in line with what has become the standard practice in this industry. To say that they won't be able to get any good or experienced people just because they are following this model just isn't accurate. I won't argue at all, though, if you say that they won't be growing a culture of excellence/creativity, and that such an approach is not the way for Disney to succeed.

In a "grasping at straws" attempt to see this as something good, I wonder if there's any way that this could be part of a larger plan to "Pixarize" DFA, by gradually removing the existing department.

 

[manning]

Does Jobs agree with whats going on and if not does he have the ability or desire to step in to try to put a stop to it??