...the author's gotten cold feet already and deleted from his blog as reported here:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/matt-williames-on-working-at-disney.html

"So I suppose I should start this post by explaining the unposted "Disney Experience" post I discussed a few months back. I wrote about 3 versions of the post and just never found the balance of honesty and tact that I wanted. I either said too much that was unnecessary, or not enough to give a true flavor of my experience at the studio. That being said I'll try to sum it up this way. I believe any studio should be at least these three things (but particularly Disney):

- A place with amazing films that challenge and inspire their artists.
- An environment of camaraderie (with the crew) where people are challenged and inspired to grow.
- An environment of active education and study.

Bluntly, Disney fails on all 3 counts. The thing I want to get clear is the thing I miss about Disney is the people... there are some wonderful/amazing people there whom I miss very much.
But that being said it is the general set up and direction of the studio that I take issue with.

On the first count "A place with amazing films that challenge and inspire their artists", this is fairly straight forward to me. Frog was an ill-conceived film and a lot of us knew it. The entire concept with the film was to go back to the past. That is suicide. And it obviously was at the box office. I believe there is too much talent at Disney to be waisted on such silliness.

The second point, "An environment of camaraderie (with the crew) where people are challenged and inspired to grow."
This is also fairly straight forward. This does tend to come down to the individual attitude of the crew member for which I am not necessarily attacking. I more take issue with the "Star animator" mentality that Disney is so good at pushing. If you don't know what I mean how often do you hear about Dale Oliver? Dale was Frank Thomas' assistant for a long time, and honestly he made Frank look VERY good without getting any credit himself. Find some of Franks original ruffs, they are nothing to marvel at. Look at what Dale did with them... amazing assistant work. But you never hear about him. Disney has the horribly destructive idea that there are a few "star" animators and everyone else is not as good and should be in a support role next to them. Translation? If they think you are not of star calibre then you get crap shots. Frankly, how dare they assume what you are capable of particularly when they have never given you a chance to show what you can do. This I think was one of the more difficult things to deal with at Disney.

And lastly "An environment of active education and study". Honestly to their credit there are several classes to take and things they "encourage" you to be apart of. But honestly when people around you are getting fired for not going fast enough then you don't exactly feel welcome to take the time necessary to invest in these classes. I could see being apart of these things if you were single and living at the studio, as many of the artists do, but refuse to sell my life and deprive my family of a father and husband for the sake of an ill-conceived film that will ultimately be forgotten someday.

This may sound harsh, but this was simply my experience at the studio and if you couldn't tell I was highly disappointed. Since I have been gone I have felt more artistically fulfilled then I ever did at Disney... I have seen way more of my family, worked
on far more personal films and in general just grown much faster as an artist. I only write this review of my time at the studio, not to bash them out of spite, but to speak up! So few people say what they really think, and that is partly why Disney continues down the road that they are on. Disney needs to hear from people that have been apart of their "family"... there is strength in numbers and frankly, people with much harsher (and truthful) things to say than I have just now. I sincerely hope Disney discovers the value of people and how they treat them along with finally making a film worth making.

Now onto other more inspiring things! I have always been scared of my sketchbook. I've always felt the pressure to make every page perfect. Why do I do this to myself. Something I have been rediscovering is that art isn't have perfection, it's about ho
nesty. It's about saying something and evoking that emotion in the viewer, or listener, or reader, or whatever. Blogs tend to be ego-centric and I hate that part about them. I share these pages from my sketchbook with you now not to get 100 comments telling me how "amazing I am" and how you "hope you can draw that well someday". I share them with you because they are my raw, unrefined feelings and I want to encourage others to not be overly concerned with gaining other peoples praise (as natural as that desire is). Could I draw these better if I layed down another sheet of paper and refined it? Will there be people who see these and immediate click to another blog? Sure... but that's not the point, the point is expressing your feelings about what you are drawing in an unadulterated way. So, I posted full pages of my sketchbooks... full of the good, the bad, and the ugly."

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=ZPE&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fhanddrawnnomadzone.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F06%2Fsketchbook-revival.html&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=