Description

With the release of ''The Princess and The Frog", Disney has decided to re-hire many of their artists and give traditional animation a new lease on life.

Transcript

Why Disney Returned to Traditional Animation After venturing into the realm of the 3D, they said they were done with ink animation. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’re taking a look at Disney's return to creating traditional masterpieces. Up until 2004, Disney Studios had always produced their classics with the focus on hand drawn animation. However, since the early 90’s the process had undergone several major changes in order to maintain the appeal of their pen and paper cartoon features as well as reduce the amount of resources required for the process. In 1990, Disney released the rescuers down under. Their first film to use a system called CAPS. This system allowed artists to color and copy hand made drawings with the use of computers. This gave Disney’s top artist the freedom to become key character animators that could focus their energies on producing characters sketches that other artists would clean up and prepare for the computer. This method was perfected and enhanced in 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. This animation style allowed Disney to seamlessly incorporate CGI into moving shots that would otherwise have been nearly impossible with hand drawing backgrounds. In 1992, Aladdin represented another stepping stone for the company. In a first for Disney, they completely animated one of their characters in CGI, in addition to presenting even more visually impressive backgrounds. This use of technology would continue to evolve in scale with 1994 as the Lion King, as it was used to produce an entire stampede of wilder beast. All future films would continue to expand their use of CGI such as the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Mulan. However, the success Disney felt was undermined by several high profile flops. Films such as Treasure Planet were penned for abusing CGI among other things. Critics trash Disney for sacrificing the endearing qualities of their animation such as plot and characters to instead overused new technology. Due to this backlash, Disney opted to make several more cartoony film entries as demonstrated by 2004’s Home on the Range. This film was pronounced as the final traditional Disney cartoon ever to be produce theatrically following it’s failed stint at the box office. This resulted in Disney laying off most of their art department and acquiring Pixar Animation Studios in 2006. With Pixar, Disney produced such successful films as Wally and Up, the first film to be release in Disney digital 3D. After a five year break from traditional animation. The new leaders of the art department decided to bring Disney back to its hand drawn roots with the 2009 Broadway style musical, The Princess and the Frog. To achieve this creative rebirth, artists will again animate characters using ink art but is scanned into the computer from paper and the characters will not be influence by the CGI look that dominated their earlier efforts. Instead characters will retain a sculptural look as was crafted in the 1950’s. Disney is hoping that their focus on the classic traits from their past will revive the genre.