Return to Hand Drawn Animation

It sounds like 'the Hat' is still with hand drawn animation, just won’t be as soon as expected and not Snow Queen for now.

The leads at Disney were reportedly hoping Princess & Froggy to clear $300,000,000 internationally at the box office, not an unrealistic goal. At already over $250,000,000 it probably won’t be too far off (which would be competitive with Disney and Sony’s CGI releases over the past several years).

They’ve also noted the strong toy sales, which is great news. In fact, because The Princess and the Frog toys were such hot sell-out items, Mattel is now far more confident than Disney about future princess releases, encouraging merchants and investors that title changes (Tangled/Rapunzel) will do nothing to deter continued success.

Also, from what I’ve gathered, Snow Queen before its second shelving had the female vixen lead with a past of freezing her male suitors. An ‘average guy’ falls into her clutches and has to, allegorically, thaw her heart- a role reversal of the Beauty and the Beast theme. This no doubt would have been solid gold at the box office, as far as male attendance is concerned (of course, as long as the animation and everything were top-notch).

And speaking of Beauty and the Beast, an entirely new technology has been developed for the upcoming 3D release, that will give rounded dimensions to the art, rather than looking like flat multi-layers (as with the old ViewMaster picture discs). This will be the first traditionally-animated film to receive a fully-3D makeover. The film was selected because of computer technology originally used for the backgrounds, that would make it easier to convert into total-3D for this fresh, experimental stage in traditional-to-3D animation. The film's release has been pushed back to increase blu-ray sales beforehand.

Hand drawn animation is already immeasurably more expressive than computer/CGI. If this 3D release proves aesthetically sound, CGI may lose its only real edge over hand drawn, the total-3D aspect.

** Breaking News **

If anyone’s interested in what Ron n John are up to, check out this new 3-page interview just posted yesterday on Animation World Network: http://www.awn.com/...re-princess-and-frog.


Highlights-

Bill Desowitz: Now that you're back from the international press tour, what's the response been?

Ron Clements: I would say the response we've gotten everywhere has been just really gratifying. The people who saw the movie certainly seem to really like it and we've gotten a lot of letters.

John Musker: The other night we went to the NAACP Awards… just walking the press line, there were a number of African Americans who expressed really heart-felt and genuine gratitude for this movie and for the groundbreaking aspect of it with Tiana, and that was very rewarding.

RC: And we talked to animation students around the world.

JM: Yeah, there were a lot of students that turned out in Dublin at the IADT and they were very enthusiastic.

BD: What did they ask you?

JM: They still ask about the future of 2D and what were the biggest challenges in making the film. But certainly there seems to be a great love of 2D. I just spoke at Leonard Maltin's class and a graduate class at USC and they have a passion for 2D and want to come and work at Disney. Some of them can do CG but hand-drawn is really what they want to do.

DB: Even though the domestic box office didn't meet expectations, you've done well overseas. But I hope they're not blaming 2D again.

JM: Yeah, there was a question about that. And so far they are looking at how they marketed the movie and sort of do a little bit of Monday morning quarterbacking on that, but we're hoping to do another 2D film. We're developing some 2D ideas right now.

RC: The studio seems supportive.

BD: Well, fortunately you have John Lasseter and Ed Catmull in charge.

JM: Right, they both love 2D animation and if they didn't, I don't think we would've made the movie we just made, but I would say that even though it wasn't a slam dunk at the box office, the audience is definitely there for 2D.

BD: There are obviously some mitigating circumstances with the Avatar juggernaut and the Alvin Squeakquel.

JM: Yeah, both of those affected our film, but hand-drawn is such a big part of the legacy and we're hoping that it will continue. We're just in development now and we're looking at a whole range of ideas and we'd love to do another one and John is behind it, and we want the studio to be behind it.

BD: Is there more of a pronounced emphasis today on marketing to boys and girls?

JM: Yes, there is.

RC: Obviously when we did those other movies, there wasn't this big princess merchandising thing. Ironically, they didn't do a lot of merchandising at all for Little Mermaid. They made some dolls and other stuff, and actually sold out immediately. So, it wasn't before the DVD came out that they had the merchandise on the shelves, and definitely the merchandise followed the movie. I think there is a little sense that our movie was perceived more as a little girl's movie than it was intended to be. Certainly, more than little girls like the movie that have seen it, and so I think it appeals to a much broader range.

JM: But there was a challenge that marketing wasn't aware of in that the princess thing line that was created in 2001 is a double-edged sword. It skewed the audience a little younger and little more girl-oriented. Even with Princess in the title, it made it harder for young boys to see the movie because it made it seem too girly. In fact, at our first focus group screening at The Bridge, they asked this 13-year-old boy what the first was that he would tell people about this movie, and he said that it's not a girly movie. And I think maybe we should've taken that more to heart. I know in their marketing they tried to offset some of that, but I think it was harder than they realized. I think moving forward they realize they have to work harder to make sure that it appeals to all people.

BD: So, what kind of 2D ideas are you pitching John?

JM: There are some that are period and some that are contemporary and some that are musical and some that are not.

RC: I think we're probably not going to do a fairy tale. Even when we did The Little Mermaid, we actually turned down Beauty and the Beast. And Aladdin just seemed like it would be a fun Arabian adventure to do next, so I think we're looking at some different areas of storytelling.

BD: What are the challenges that appeal to you?

JM: Whatever we do will have legitimacy for 2D and not CG. There are different techniques with After Effects and stuff like that.

BD: Your film reminded us again that it's such a different aesthetic with so many artistic possibilities yet to explore.

JM: Right, I think that's what we want to exploit: what hand-drawn does particularly well.

RC: We always describe it as a different paint brush. In general, we look for strong stories and strong characters and interesting worlds that lend themselves to hand-drawn more. But this is getting harder and harder to do with an Avatar that lets you tell any kind of story in any kind of way.

Caption 1: Will Princess and the Frog spark the next Disney hand-drawn renaissance?

Caption 2: Tiana has been a groundbreaking Princess, but Disney has to figure out a better way to market hand-drawn animation to a broader audience.

Caption 3: Don't look for Clements & Musker to do another fairy tale movie next.


(This post was edited by Gareth708 on Mar 5, 2010, 7:37 PM)