Is Disney still gonna make new hand-drawn animated movies?

According to Cartoon Brew, John Musket and Ron Clements really really wanted to make their upcoming animated film Moana using the 2D-3D techniques from Paperman. Which would have been AWESOME.

... uunfortunately the technology just isn't there yet so they have to rely on 3D cgi instead.

So they don't have the technology to make a movie look like it was made in the 1990's.

This reminds me of a possibly anecdotal story I heard about how NASA spent thousands of dollars trying to develop a pen that could write in zero gravity (because I guess pens don't work in zero gravity), while the Russian space program just used pencils.

edited 11th Sep '14 11:56:08 PM by Surenity

Not possibly anecdotal; it's completely made-up. Russians used wax pencils (wax core wrapped in paper you could peel back) and NASA used felt-tipped pens. Sharpening graphite pencils produces too much tiny debris you really don't want drifting into the electronics.

The thing is that handdrawn is expensive due to the hours of work which are required for it. Don't forget that Disney hasn't really produced a real hand-inked movie since Sleeping Beauty, after that they used Xerographie to lower the costs considerably. Don't forget that the computer animation was a big factor in the Disney Renaissance, because the CAP System made those gigantic sets, scales and new camera angle possible. I am glad that Paperman exists, because if they can develop the technology further, it might "free the CGI"...because my main issue with CGI is that it apparently stifles the creativity of the animators. Most CGI movies look way too similar to each other (though to Disney and Pixar's credit they do try to give each movie it's own look).

So they don't have the technology to make a movie look like it was made in the 1990's.

This is so laughably nonsensical, I don't know where to start with it.

I personally do not see traditional animation coming back, with the biggest reasoning is that there is no motivation for Disney to do so. At the end of the day, people need to watch their films. Like Swanpride said, it is really, really expensive to make. And even if they did decide today to create a traditionally animated project, it would not be released for 5 years in the least.

Five years is a little bit much...four years is the usual production time needed for a good animated feature nowadays.

That is my point Swanpride. If you look at the confirmed projects WDAS is doing, none of them are traditionally animated, and the last one that is confirmed (Moana) won't be released until 2018. So if they literally greenlit a hand drawn project today, it can and probably won't be released for 5 years. The furute releases of WDAS are packed for years, there could be countless delays, and a bunch of other issues. And a film can be in production for 4 years, and in post production for a year before being released.

Well, one never knows what is going on behind the scenes...just because there is no project announced does not mean that they don't have anything in the works. It's most likely wishful thinking, but the fact that they are now trying to combine the two styles (and even Dream Works is experimenting in this direction) gives me hope.

They're only doing it to quell traditional animation fans, I would wager.

It's going to take a lot for me to think that Disney actually wants things to look like 2D drawings.

I think it is less a matter of making it 2D and more a matter of stretching the limits of CGI animation. What all the movies they made until now are lacking is a truly "out of the box" moments of "pink elephants on parade" quality. Not dancing plates which take over the whole screen, no scary trees, no moving paintings, nothing which is really out there, because all the energy goes into making a garbage bag look realistic.

I think in an oddly hypocritical sense, Disney wants their CGI films to look like they're routed in 2D principles. All their visual designs begin on paper or in digital 2D, but they MOVE more realistically and pretty lack-luster.

It's a difficult balance trying to keep moving forward, while still trying to attract those stubborn, gullible humans to see their films based on nostalgia, which, to me, makes no sense at all! It's either one or the other!! You cannot do both!

edited 12th Sep '14 12:17:23 PM by kyun

The point is that animation is an art form, and currently the CGI (with a few exceptions) is pretty much taking out the art and instead tries to go for "realistic". I am very glad that Disney tries to go in the other direction and looks for means to make CGI look stylized instead of realistic.

Er, making things look realistic is also art. Art you may not enjoy, but still art. Let's not needlessly bash CGI here.

It's a technical achievement...the same way a camera is a technical achievement, which allows a more realistic "copy of reality" than a painting does. Naturally you can do something artful with a camera, too, and the same is true for CGI. But so far, I haven't seen a lot of art in the various CGI movies, with a few notable exceptions (The Incredibles for example has made some very interesting stylistic choices, as did Tangled, Wreck it Ralph and Rise of the Guardians). But just making something look "real" is for me not necessarily art...interesting angles, an unusual design and memorable arrangements are.

Hmmm. So, if someone makes a realistic painting, or draws a realistic portrait of someone, then it's art. But once you use a computer to do it, it's no longer art?

Seems arbitrary to me, but whatevs.

And really, I have yet to see a CGI movie that goes full-bore "realistic". They're all stylized in some way.

edited 12th Sep '14 2:25:42 PM by CorrTerek

Not necessarily....it is art if the result is particular remarkable in some way. Or to put it this way, I take a nice expressionist painting over a simple portrait any day, unless said portrait is particular remarkable in some way. (Like the ´Girl with the earring", I love that painting). Not saying that Traditional animation is always an art, but the medium allows more creative freedom. Disney's acid sequences are proof for it. Just look at the movies in which Mary Blair had a hand, they all have some artistic merit. The same way Photography is limited because it will never create something along the line of a Dali painting, CGI is limited until the day they are able to create something like "Destino" with it.

Destino uses computer animation. Not totally, no, but it does use it. Viewing it, I thought the whole thing was CGI. And I didn't exactly see much there that needed traditional animation in order to work.

There's also the point that CGI started seeing use because it allowed animators to transcend the limits of traditional animation. Some of the most beautiful scenes from classic Disney films were created with CGI.

edited 12th Sep '14 3:18:32 PM by CorrTerek

And really, I have yet to see a CGI movie that goes full-bore "realistic"

Final Fantasy The Spirits Within.

Okay, fair enough. And there they recognized their failure, so their follow-ups have all been more stylized.

I don't mind the use of CGI. Like I say, it is a really good tool. But what we are currently talking about is not a matter of technique but style. I don't think that anyone would complain if Disney really managed to develop the Paperman program to a level that it can be used for something which looks like traditionally animated movies. I don't care how much in Destino is CGI and how much is hand-drawn, the point is that it doesn't look like the standard CGI movie but like a hand-drawn movie (which, like I pointed out earlier, has been a thing of the past since the 1950s, nobody at Disney will ever sit down hand hand-draw a whole movie, they will always use the short-cut available). Take Stop-Motion for example. CGI has a much easier time to copy Stop-Motion than traditional Animation. Therefore it is impossible to tell how much in a stop-motion movie is stop-motion and how much is CGI (I am ready to bet that more or less everything in the Lego Movie was CGI). But it doesn't really matter, because the style is still very similar.

I am not denying that it is more impressive if everything is done by hand, but the end result counts for me. And the very idea that I will spend the next years staring at the same computer models in different movies frustrates me. Either the CGI movie industry finally starts to think out of their box, or they bring traditional animation back, I really don't care. But I really don't need to see everything in 3D, and currently I really crave a good old 2D animated movie in the classic style.

My problem with Disney isn't that they use CGI. It's that all their CGI looks the same.

More or less everyone's CGI looks the same...and that's exactly the problem I have with so called CGI Animation movies.

Tbh, I really doubt they will ever again. Why people think Disney would Idk. It doesn't seem like they are willing to go back to what they're best known for..or at least they were. Their last 2D films werent that great finacially and it all boggles down to the money. Perhaps if the frog movie and winnie the pooh made more of the greens, there could have been a possibility for more films hand drawn..

edited 13th Sep '14 7:52:55 AM by teddy

The problem with both movies was not that they were hand drawn, though, and both of them made money, just not as much money as the CGI successes did. I can see Disney starting some sort of pet project to remember people of the roots of the company.