Sad. Disney Lets 9 Senior Animators Go.

[WaltD4Me]

Massive lay offs in Disney Animation Department today and apparently more to come. The article says 9 senior animators were let go. Just makes me sad.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/b...heir-hand-drawn-animation-division-81043.html

 

[BrizMarc]

I guess thats Disney signhing off and feature length animations for the future. I was always hoping they would do the occasional one like Princess and the frog mixed in with the computer animations. Sad sad

 

[WaltD4Me]

I agree, I hoped there would be new animated features from time to time too. Wasn't Rapunzel a mix of hand drawn and computer animation? Look how well that turned out. I had hoped John Lasseter would help keep hand drawn animation around. I guess not.

 

[lodgelady]

There is no Roy Disney to ride in and save the artists from the sharp-pencil corprorate guys this time. They finally won. So sad!

 

[NitroStitch]

That's such sad, depressing news. I recognize so many of those names and can think of specific characters by so many of them.

 

[OKW Lover]

I'm thinking the base cause of these layoffs is a lack of creativity in the animation business at Disney (not the Pixar division) which doesn't seem to be able to make a successful animated feature or short. The company needs to bring in some story people. We all know that it starts with a story and that animation is just a method of telling that story.

Pixar understood this when they did Toy Story. They knew that while the computer animation was an interesting technology, it was the story that made it successful.

 

[Enchantress01]

I'm thinking the base cause of these layoffs is a lack of creativity in the animation business at Disney (not the Pixar division) which doesn't seem to be able to make a successful animated feature or short. The company needs to bring in some story people. We all know that it starts with a story and that animation is just a method of telling that story.

Pixar understood this when they did Toy Story. They knew that while the computer animation was an interesting technology, it was the story that made it successful.

I agree with this. We talk about this a lot in our family. CGI (or cg-eyecandy as we call it) is wonderful, but it's such shame that the excitement and at times over use of it has caused the art of storytelling to be put on the back burner at times and talented animators are paying the price.

This article seemed interesting.

Hopefully, Disney will return to focusing on the story and the value of traditional animators in conveying it most effectively to the audience with some enhancements through cgi.