Disney copied...Disney!

[DannySketch]

Thought this may be of interest to some.

http://open.salon.com/blog/shaggylocks/2009/04/09/walt_disney_they_only_copied_from_the_very_best

[CGMonkey]

That is not surprising at all, those animations were made by lost masters of the art. I doubt anyone in the future of mankind will reach that amount of pencil drawn traditional animation knowledge and craftmanship as the nine old men of Disney did.

Everyone not in the industry might be very surprised how common this method of working is. This applies to films and games.

[A. Sobriquet]

What's "not surprising" is that this fundamentally unartistic practice would be championed as smart procedure by the likes of modern animators, whose works serve no other purpose than to fulfill the ambitions of their corporate overseers to funnel children into theaters, theme parks and gift shops.

Anybody who still cares about post-1950's Disney must poop lollipops and fart cotton candy.

[Dorkthrone]

What's "not surprising" is that this fundamentally unartistic practice would be championed as smart procedure by the likes of modern animators, whose works serve no other purpose than to fulfill the ambitions of their corporate overseers to funnel children into theaters, theme parks and gift shops.

Anybody who still cares about post-1950's Disney must poop lollipops and fart cotton candy.

Admittedly, there have been a few post-50's Disney movies....that have mostly been handled by Pixar.

Seriously, I'm not a fan of Disney, but Wall-E was made of awesome.

[Smarty]

ha i didnt expect it to be that close! send this link to chandra!

[HunterKiller_]

What's "not surprising" is that this fundamentally unartistic practice

What's 'unartistic' about it?
They came up with some good bits of acting and reused it.

It's not like they copy pasted. The characters were significantly different in each film and would had to have been redrawn from scratch.

Anyway, very interesting finding, hehe.

[A. Sobriquet]

It is no less artistic than you are, which makes it fine by you - and I feel no need to challenge your contentment :) I will not debate the point.

[German-s]

To place things into context, There wasn't a lot of faith in the animation unit from the suits during the mid-60s to mid 80s and the studio's budget and production times were cut. They had to make due with what they had and use the resources available. To make matters worse Walt had passed on during the production of The Jungle Book (mid or late 60s) and faith diminished further.

A lot of us might not remember as kids because we were introduced to Disney during the height of the Disney Renaissance but the animation studio was in a bad way until Little Mermaid. After the success of the Little Mermaid was interest in feature animation renewed by the masses.

I believe it was Woolie Reitherman who took over the animation wing during this time, one of the nine old men. He was also an army man, an accomplished fighter pilot. He went in with the intention of getting the job done and done as well as they could manage with what they had.

[Nrx]

A. Sobriquet please, please go back to Deviant art and come back when either,

A, you post art

or

B, youve lived in real world, have learnt how to interact with people, and have let your 'philosophical ideas' become grounded in reality rather than your imagination.


kthnxbye

[Collywobbles]

It is no less artistic than you are, which makes it fine by you - and I feel no need to challenge your contentment :) I will not debate the point.

If this isn't a poor attempt at humour, maybe you should check out the last page of HunterKiller's sketchbook. Not exactly less than artistic. (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=70502&page=13)

[dose]

Anybody who has some moral problem with this should try animating 15 feet in one week that meets a professional standard (not to mention this happens while you're overworked and likely underpaid). That's somewhere between 120 and 240 drawings, depending on whether you're animating on ones or twos.

Hell, just try doing 120 unrelated sketches in a week...

[nonie]

It is no less artistic than you are, which makes it fine by you - and I feel no need to challenge your contentment :) I will not debate the point.

Oh please. STFU.

[Qitsune]

Heck, I doubt a lot of junior animators of today would be able to trace as well as they did given the same source material and more time. I think it speaks well of their skill at reskinning the animations that very few ever noticed before. And speaking of being artsier than thou, René Magritte only had a handful of original ideas he remade over and over and over.... I still beleive he was very influencial to the artists coming after him with his clever and often ironic images.

[Cthogua]

To place things into context, There wasn't a lot of faith in the animation unit from the suits during the mid-60s to mid 80s and the studio's budget and production times were cut. They had to make due with what they had and use the resources available. To make matters worse Walt had passed on during the production of The Jungle Book and faith diminished further.

A lot of us might not remember as kids because we were introduced to Disney during the height of the Disney Renaissance but the animation studio was in a bad way until Little Mermaid. After the success of the Little Mermaid was interest in feature animation renewed by the masses.

I believe it was Woolie Reitherman who took over the animation wing during this time, one of the nine old men. He was also an army man, an accomplished fighter pilot. He went in with the intention of getting the job done and done as well as they could manage with what they had.

Yeah, this really has more to do with cultural acceptance of cartoons as serious media, and the financing available for animation at the time, then a failure of artistry. Feature length animation essentially died in the late 60s early 70s. For all their high ideals about the quality of their work Disney was still a ultimately a business attempting to make a profit off their product. If that meant re-using some bits of acting from older movies that would take nearly 30 years for anyone to even notice...I say by all means. Compared to nearly EVERYTHING ELSE that was being done in animation in the late 60's and 70's even Disney copying Disney was better than ATROCIOUS TV animation of the day. That shit makes even DragonballZ seem well animated.

[Cookiedough]

It's pretty interesting to see how they managed to present repetitive actions as fresh/ new. Very nicely done too. Those old wise men were awesome.

[DavePalumbo]

It is no less artistic than you are, which makes it fine by you - and I feel no need to challenge your contentment

wow, what a dick

man, it's been sooo long since I've watched any of the classic Disney movies, I forgot just how incredible that animation was! I need to revisit them, recycled ideas or not...

[Carnifex]

heh...i had caught most of these as a child already :)
as for great animation,i also highly recommend don bluth.

[kev ferrara]

man, it's been sooo long since I've watched any of the classic Disney movies, I forgot just how incredible that animation was!

Yeah, the grace of Snow White is spine tingling. And the humor of Jungle book is perfect. If those films ain't fine art, I don't know what is!

[George Abraham]

I forgot how hot snow white was. That still stands to be beaten if I'm not mistaken. Her little animated dancing routine is so life like I have a fuzzy in my bElley!

Eh, this type of stuff speeds up production and it works. Maybe it was the start of classic moments like when they make fun of the matrix or lord of the dance.

[George Abraham]

Actually farts smell nice because you are confident enough that it's your own. When entering the odd occurrence of fart confusion, realizing that you have enjoyed the fart of another, you might be changed forever.

[LosPescados]

The old men of Disney have set the basics of animation, and they did some awesome work WITHOUT all the high technology we now have!

[Serpian]

Bouguereau reused a lot of his poses in different paintings. As did Reubens. And probably many, many more...

Also, the Lion King was the best of the more modern Disney movies. But I also love that liney style they had at the time of the jungle book and robin hood.

[Jasonwclark]

Yeah a couple years ago I pulled a savage jack move on my Grandma to reacquire the old VHS collection. I've heard people hate on the Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood as sub par, not to mention what was said about some of the stuff that followed, but I've never understood it. They're all great to me.

I bought my girlfriend Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio for her birthday and loved both of them, so I know I'm still a total Disney sap at heart.

Snow White is do for a re-release, it hasn't been on Netflix or Blockbuster in years.

[Psychotime]

Wow.

Oh well.

[Bill]

heh...i had caught most of these as a child already :)
as for great animation,i also highly recommend don bluth.


Titan AE, Hell No. Secret of Nimh, Hell Yes.

Has anybody ever watched the youtubes of Glen Keane drawing? It's amazing. I'm sure the guy is somewhere making a great living, but it seems a shame that the animated features aren't around anymore for stuff like his to be on display.

[CCorsair]

On the last post the Guy talked about"Gulliver's Travels" from 1939 or 1940 and that it came out after Snow white yes but it wasn't Disney that was Fletcher Studio and at one time Disney and one of the people that worked for him had work for Fletcher.
Both film came out the same month but a Week a part If i remember right and Disney wow only due to a better lay of the Theaters at the tome and ads.

"Gulliver's Travels" f was much more Technically better and was liked more but was just a week late.. think of what would have happen if thing had gone the other way.. I picked up a restored DVD of Gulliver's Travels it is great and it came with a back ground of how it was made and what Fletcher did to get the look and feel .


I was told by one of the Anime artist at one convention the Fletcher was more studied than Disney but Walt was respected for making animation great as well but both were known for their very Different styles.

It is sad that they had to Cannibalize their own work but then again look at the Lion King it was ripped off from the work they did on the original animation the helped on for Japan's Jungle Emperor aka Kimba the white Lion here.. it was the first color anime and Katzenburg found in the Vault and took it for his own and even tore apart a scrip to write on it .

Disney animators worked hard but after Walt died some just didn't feel the love and happiness that was in the studio when he was alive some just took retirement and went on and it can be seen in the later years . whe it went all Corporate and Suites and was suitng day care people for having a Micky on the wall even if Disney him self put it there i could see it was not a happy place.

With the CG rise Disney found a new life but even now i wonder if there will just be lazy of do something from the heart as Walt did.

CC

"Only Time will tell what will come it is only in the minds eye where we will see the future of things to come."

Walt Disney San Gabriel Tribune two month before he died after being ask if we will make to the Moon and what he thought of things to come.

[Elwell]

The seventies was not a high point for Disney animation. If you look at that clip, you'll see that most of the shots are from Robin Hood, which was their first animated feature produced entirely after Walt Disney's death. Its budget was low, and there was a lot of pressure on the producers to prove that feature animation was still a viable part of the company. Under those circumstances, it isn't surprising that there would be attempts to cut corners, play it safe, and also attempt to recapture the past. Whatever else can be said about Eisner and Katzenberg, they have to be given credit for revitalizing the feature animation department. The run from the Little Mermaid to, say, Tarzan certainly stands alongside what was done while Walt was alive.

[Arshes Nei]

I must be one of the few that really really loved Lilo and Stitch (the first one of course).

[CCThrom]

you'll see that most of the shots are from Robin Hood

That was the first thing I noticed about this... thanks for adding some explanation.

[Bill]

I must be one of the few that really really loved Lilo and Stitch (the first one of course).

I thought that the watercolor(ish?) backgrounds were beautifull. Armand Serrano and Marcello Vignali did some really beautifull development work for this also.

[karmiclychee]

"real programmers code in binary"

I seem to remember somewhere that the animation from Snow White was rotoscoped to some degree. Personally, I don't really care what tools or templates are used as long as, as someone else pointed out above, the effect is new and fresh.

I mean, shit, the older than old masters used camera obscura to trace/primitively rotoscope the paintings that we, as artists, prostrate before today.

I mean, there's always blatant plagiarism, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here. This seems more like an offshoot of the "is it creative and/or original and/or hardcore enough?" discussion.

[SMILEFACE]

a'+b'=c'

[Arshes Nei]

I thought that the watercolor(ish?) backgrounds were beautifull. Armand Serrano and Marcello Vignali did some really beautifull development work for this also.

Agreed. The watercolor backgrounds and character designs were wonderful. It was nice to see Disney break away from the Musical formula. It's not to say it was bad, because it did revive their animation department for a while, ie Little Mermaid. However, it became too much of a formula like some of the same animation shown in the OP XD

Plus the Stitch plushes are the cutest things ever XD I was receiving them as a gift from friends I didn't buy any in my collection below though I did get a few more after this photo was taken, like the Purple Stitch "You will love me"

http://www.anime.net/~arshesnei/photos/stitchcollection/stitchcollection10.jpg

Anyways, I digress. It's time to read the Animator's Survival Kit again.
http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/

[Sekino]

It was nice to see Disney break away from the Musical formula.

Hell yeah!

I was wondering if I was the only one wishing for less sing & dance Disney movies. I do love The Little Mermaid and thought the singing was appropriate since mermaids are supposed to sing. But ever since, they've been applying the same recipe to nearly every animated feature and it feels like the music (and the various pop stars involved) upstages the story and visuals.

I liked Lilo & Stitch (which also was cool because it did not feature 'princess-looking' characters) and Atlantis for that reason. I never understood why Atlantis was so poorly received. It had some flaws, but it didn't rely on pop-culture slapstick for a change, the writing was pretty good and the setting was interesting, IMO.

[Genome]

Wait, so if I do something well once, I'm not allowed to do it again? Well... looks like I'm crapping while doing a hand stand tonight.

[HunterKiller_]

I think copy / paste is just soooo lacking.

If you're referring to the Disney stuff, it's not 'copy pasted'.

If you really think it's 'sooo lacking', I dare you to take their footage and animate your own character over it. Maybe then you'll understand what a task it is, and what a even more tremendous task it would be to come up with something better.

[Arshes Nei]

Look at the latest Dragonball movie? Its that kind of blatant disrespect for the artform in general and the countless artists that put their lives into it ...not because they want huge profits...but because they want to create some really amazing things (if only given the chance).


I'm laughing here because DBZ is basically the Japanese version of He-Man with recycled animation. As was Sailor Moon and other anime during that time. Of course, if you read the manga, it wasn't 30 dragged out episodes of one fight.

They did as much recycling as Disney, if not more so.

There was no "love for the artform" Japanese had a cash cow. Same with a lot of other anime and you'd see the marketing is in a lot of cases much worse over there than the US. They exploited the hell out of their properties just like over here. I can't blame them, it was making money.

A starting animator in Japan gets about 500 a month.

Love for the art form would be looking at Miyazaki or Satoshi Kon's works. It reminds you what anime had the leg up on vs American cartoons, and that was storytelling. Read more about Miyazaki's studio and the troubled times he had gone through paying his employees who stuck around.

But like many forms of art, there are up and downturns.

Anime generally sacrifices a frame rate and the "Squash and stretch" mechanisms found in good US animation, for jerky movements but more details in the characters. That and a mix of storytelling. However, a majority of anime was made for teens and youngsters in Japan. Manga was made for everyone in mind, from salaryman and on. Anime's formulas worked because of the stories, and at times, like how Southpark takes advantage of its crude setup...just works.

[HunterKiller_]

Anime generally sacrifices a frame rate and the "Squash and stretch" mechanisms found in good US animation, for jerky movements but more details in the characters

It's sacrificed all for the
:anime: epic fight scenes! :anime:

[donkeyslayer]

Anime generally sacrifices a frame rate and the "Squash and stretch" mechanisms found in good US animation, for jerky movements but more details in the characters.

good animation is good animation and bad animation is bad animation regardless of where the artist lived or the color of their skin.

[HunterKiller_]

good animation is good animation and bad animation is bad animation regardless of where the artist lived or the color of their skin.

She wasn't making an attack on any artists.
What she stated was just an observation of the differences between two styles.

[Collywobbles]

She wasn't making an attack on any artists.
What she stated was just an observation of the differences between two styles.

Yeah, originally that was what drew me to anime as a kid. It had so much more detail and was more like comics than what we had here. Also, I was so impressed by the sounds the characters made. If someone jumped out of a tree you could hear their expulsion of breath when they hit the ground. Or if they were surprised a character would swing his head around and make a noise. "Wha... haa!" I always found that really cool.

[Qitsune]

Somehow I find this way more disturbing than Disney reusing old animations

http://totallylookslike.wordpress.com/files/2009/04/meat-council-poster-totally-looks-like-ww2-nazi-propaganda.jpg

I mean, how did the artist come up with the idea of looking up nazi propaganda as ref in the first place?

[Justice Von Brandt]

http://totallylookslike.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/this-dog-from-101-dalmatians-totally-looks-like-jaque-from-lady-and-the-tramp.jpg

[tobbA]

http://www.basugasubakuhatsu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/cowboy%20bebop%20vs%20naruto.gif

...

[Sekino]

Well, no matter how many 'recycled' frames/designs/panels can be found out there, it doesn't change the fact that most animation studios are businesses and need money to survive (no matter if they are Japanese or American...). They also need to pump up a lot of work in a reasonable amount of time. A single successful animated film can't support a studio for long and it takes only so much time for a studio to vanish (someone already mentioned Don Bluth). They can't affort to play around and discover uncharted grounds all the time.

There are very few animation studios that get away with producing fresh, 100% original, brand new art just for the love and respect of the craft. One who comes to my mind is Yuriy Norshteyn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuriy_Norshteyn). His work is astounding and unique. He has been working on his full-feature film... since the 1980's. He pretty much works alone with his wife and a young student, I believe (though this person probably isn't 'young' anymore).

I am thankful for people like him, who only stick to the 'vision' and never compromise, no matter how much work and time it takes. It's awe-inspiring, gorgeous, romantic even. But it's not realistic to expect even most people to be able to pull it off.

[Elwell]

Somehow I find this way more disturbing than Disney reusing old animations

http://totallylookslike.wordpress.com/files/2009/04/meat-council-poster-totally-looks-like-ww2-nazi-propaganda.jpg

I mean, how did the artist come up with the idea of looking up nazi propaganda as ref in the first place?

I love that poster, I always use it when I teach as an example of how not to use reference.

[tobbA]

But wasn't the painter pretty smart though... ? I mean, if you're gonna copy propaganda, then you should copy from the best

[Muz]

Has anyone seen how they did the moving backgrounds in tarzan?

Its crazy and i still havent seen any commerical software that can do this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZA6nitNeYw

[Elwell]

But wasn't the painter pretty smart though... ?
No, he was a clueless idiot. If it was an ad for PETA, then he would have been smart.

[Not Pink]

Has anyone seen how they did the moving backgrounds in tarzan?

Its crazy and i still havent seen any commerical software that can do this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZA6nitNeYw


Granted, that's pretty effing cool, but why not just paint and texture the 3D models?

[Muz]

because you dont get the same painterly effect.

How do make blurry bursh strokes on a standard 3d model? It just doesnt have the same aesthetic look imo.

Its hard to see how different it is from a standard model at youtubes rez, so check it out properly in the movie :O.

[s.ketch]

If they were to mix the 2D with textured 3D models it would create that weird overly obvious 3D effect that you see when Family Guy or The Simpsons does it. It's a short cut, but doesn't give the same quality animated effect has a hand panted background. Also if they were to use the 3D models for the actual background, they would have to re-model everything to accommodate proper texture mapping. That would take more time and effort for little benefit. From what I saw, it was just rough geometry to replace the sketch/mass blocking stage of sketching.

And I thought Deep Canvas was a commercial program?

[Muz]

its a Proprietary program, meaning you cant buy it. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software