>management doesnt have that big a hand with filmmaking.
>marketing and distribution are the only things they really
>share, and all that shit is after the fact. im guessing
>you're talking about the actual creative stuff. i know
>lasster is teh head of both studios now, but even a guy as
>bright as him cant just lift disney out of patterns tehyve
>spent decades developing.

You'd be surprised how much of a hand management had (has?) in animated filmmaking at Disney. There's a documentary called "Dream On Silly Dreamer". Buy it or rent the DVD, and watch not just the feature, but the bonus interviews. After "The Lion King" made a mint, Disney Animation management got _very_ top heavy and took over aspects of story development that they shouldn't have, hoping to make each picture as commercial and marketable as possible.

>
>>Some of the folks at Disney are veterans trained by the
>>masters who worked on all of Walt's films. Some of the
>>Walt-era people are still milling about.
>
>i worked at disney studios last summer, and there are a lot of
>lifers there (people who have worked there there whole life).
>dick cook, was the chairman of the studio the past several
>years before getting fired last year, actually worked at the
>parks as his first job. in general, the company like to boast
>that they have very little turnover.
>
>but doesnt this argue with your original point? pixar
>obviously use a very technical, advanced software suite that
>they develop in house to accomplish a level of filmmaking that
>is unmatched (i would say the only thing close is
>dreamworks).

DreamWorks? I actually think the folks at Sony Animation are better animators and technicians than the DreamWorks folks, who seem incapable of animating convincing humanoids.

And it's not just about the technical skill. I'm specifically talking about having all of that experience to know how to put a picture together, storycraft, what works and what doesn't, the core values of storytelling that Walt Disney adhered to and Pixar adopted; Lasseter of course having come up through Disney in the early 1980s).


>
>what i mean is, if disney employees are trained in this
>classical filmmkaing, how can they compete with pixar, a firm
>that got started for real in 86 when jobs bought it from lucas
>and was built for the sole purpose of making great animated
>films.

I'm not specifically talking about the specific technical process of character animation. I'm talking about the essentials of filmmaking. Even so, computer animation adheres to many of the same principles as classical animation, and the way Pixar's Marionette software is set up, you don't need to be a computer genius to operate it. An awful lot of their staff are ex-Disney people.

>
>disney have traditionaly been all about the hand drawn,
>classical animation. i think theyre most advanced animation
>technically ahs been bolt, which i didnt see but heard was
>outstanding.
>
>>Shoot, they even get paid more than Pixar. And they have
>union
>>benefits.
>
>why do you think this? im pretty sure they dont.
>

Actually, why Pixar is non-union is a head scratcher. They're the only major studio in the American animated feature industry that isn't.

>
>>Maybe it's their inability to diversify. They tried in the
>>early 2000s; didn't go too well for them.
>
>do you mean diversify in terms of the disney corporation? or
>just the studio?

Just the animation studio. This isn't a post about the live action studio, the parks, the toys, ABC, ESPN, and all of that.

>
>>Maybe it's that they're also-rans and latecomers to CGI, and
>>their hand-drawn tradition is considered "outdated".
>
>yup, handdrawn can be beautiful (a la the triplets of
>belleville), but for the most part, that shit sours compared
>to the animation of pixar.

Not even the staff at Pixar would say such a thing.

>
>>Maybe, just maybe, the Pixar folks really are more talented?
>>But who taught them _how_ to make animated movies?
>
>art school? filmmaking school? the best and most highly
>sought after 3D computer programmers int he world?

No. The Disney staff. When they made "Toy Story", they made it under the management of Disney Animation and with a few Disney story people/editors/etc. working at/with Pixar on the film.

>
>>Personally, I think it's the stupid Sorceror's Apprentice
>hat
>>on the Animation building.
>>
>>http://www.latinoreview.com/images/user/DisneyAnimationBuilding.JPG
>>
>>I think it's a lightning rod for uncreative ideas.
>
>not that it's necessarily germaine, but their office is kept
>across the street from the main studio so they they can be
>isolated from the business and liev action production of the
>rest of disney. we weren't even allwoed in there when i
>worked there.
>
>rick

They're not isolated from the bureaucracy though.

They're kept across the street though because that was the only room left. They ran the animation staff out of the animation buildings on the main lot when Eisner came in, and moved them to warehouses in Glendale.