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Disney animated film returns to studio's hand-drawn roots

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By Sarah Cortina

Critics and audiences have been buzzing about Disney’s latest movie, "The Princess and the Frog," ever since the studio revealed it would be featuring its first-ever African-American princess. But the film is causing a stir among lovers of classic animation for another reason altogether — it’s the first Disney work since 2004 to be made with hand-drawn animation.

Producer Peter Del Vecho showed up in Tokyo recently with directors John Musker and Ron Clements to share their excitement over the project. They were joined by model Tsubasa Masuwaka and her husband Naoki Umeda, who came dressed as the film’s title characters, Tiana and Prince Naveen. In a “reenactment” of the movie, the couple shared a kiss on stage, before being enveloped in smoke and reappearing dressed as frogs. “Now, be sure and tell your fans that the only way you can return to being human is if they all go see the movie,” Musker joked.

Clements and Musker, who first teamed up to direct films like "Aladdin," "The Little Mermaid" and "The Great Mouse Detective," are both proud devotees of hand-drawn animation, trained by Walt Disney’s original "Nine Old Men." For Musker, traditional drawing has a “special vitality” that makes it seem “more alive than live-action.” So when producer John Lasseter approached the duo about returning to make another classic animation, they got on board immediately.

However, the directors soon learned that there was one major obstacle keeping them from getting the project off the ground. “Disney was serious when they stopped using hand-drawn animation,” Clements said. When the studio made the switch to CGI, executives dismantled the old animation studios, getting rid of all the pencils, paper and special backlit animation desks. As Clements explained, “We had to learn how to build a hand-drawn animation studio again from scratch.”

The next hurdle was getting the artists themselves, as many of the old animators had either left or moved to CGI. “I worried,” said Del Vecho. “Would I be able to get the people that had very successfully transitioned to computer animation to come back to hand-drawn?” The answer, it turned out, was a resounding yes. The directors even experienced a moment of real-life magic when one of the animators came forward to admit that he had secretly stashed away several of the old lightbox desks instead of disposing of them as ordered. “It was like a fairy tale,” Musker said, grinning. “These things could come to life again and help us create this movie.”

Though the drawing style and musical format of the film hark back to the classic Disney movies of the 1950s, the creators of "The Princess and the Frog" wanted to infuse the story with as modern a sensibility as possible. In a way, Musker revealed, the main character Tiana is a commentary on past Disney heroines. “We wanted to introduce a 21st-century princess,” he explained. “She’s the first princess that actually has a job — really, she has two jobs.” Tiana dreams of one day opening her own restaurant. In fact, the character is partly based on Leah Chase, a real-life New Orleans legend who worked her way from waitress to owner of one of the most renowned Creole restaurants in the country.

So, will Disney’s one-time gamble turn into a full-blown, hand-drawn animation Renaissance? Yes and no, the directors said. The next feature, scheduled to hit theaters over Christmas 2010, will be a digitally animated "Rapunzel," with a new hand-drawn "Winnie the Pooh" movie to follow. As for Clements and Musker, the duo said they’re already in talks with Lasseter about their next feature — which “will certainly be hand-drawn.” And what story will the pair tackle? Sadly, mum’s the word.

This story originally appeared in Metropolis magazine (www.metropolis.co.jp).

© Japan Today

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9 Comments
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isnt this the company that continually appropriates other countries and cultures stories, legends and myths for massive profit and then sues anyone who dares to question them??

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This is an excellent move on the part of Disney. I'm glad they realized their mistake, though I wish they would have never stopped in the first place. One just has to look at the success of Miyazaki's films to realize that hand-drawn is the way to go. Pixar and computer generated animation has its place too, but the traditional hand-drawn Disney animations are great.

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Because it's cheaper to get it drawn in Korea and China than use expensive US computers and designers.

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CGI in many aspects is getting to the point now of being a whole new medium in and of itself. If anything it is moving more towards live action then animation or anything else. You look at Avatar which was mostly CGI and motion capture but you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Cel-animation in contrast still offers a much broader range of topics, ideas, and imagination which you would have a very difficult time pulling off in a CGI format. Miyazaki is certainly a very good example of this. I have yet to see anything remotely close to his work as of yet in that format. All of the traditional animation masters are becoming fewer and fewer all the time. The risk of that knowledge being forgotten and not passed along to future generations is very real. My favorite animations of all time are still traditional and not CGI. I am happy Disney is at least trying to return to it's roots and keeping alive what has made them what they are today.

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Didn't they shut down the hand drawn studio in Disney a few years ago saying they were moving into CG animation ? Make up your mind Disney !!!!

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Don't mess with the Mouse.

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Once Disney bought Pixar, there was no need for Disney to continue pursuing CGI on it's own (they already owned the most successful CGI movie company). Thus, they could afford to put money back into the hand-drawn animation field. The first result of that is "The Frog and the Princess".

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Good movie. Check it out.

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Good! I've never really liked computer-generated animated films. Personally, I think that while they're well designed and the technology is incredible, they really seem to lack real feeling and soul somehow. Never been able to place it despite being a huge fan of emerging technologies.

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