Hi,

Like we all need more things to worry about … don't know if you folks have seen this :

————————————————————————-

Walt Disney Studios halted production Friday of its long-troubled
animated project A Few Good Ghosts, raising questions about the fate of
the company's Orlando animation facility and its staff of 258 artists.

Disney animation chief David Stainton confirmed Friday that the movie
was being shut down and that “over the next six weeks we are going to
examine all our options going forward,” including shuttering the Florida
studio.

"By January, we hope we'll have a more concrete plan for the
studio,“ said Stainton, elaborating no further.

The decision to ax Ghosts – which is half computer generated, half
traditionally drawn – also reflects management's desire to streamline
its ranks and focus all of its production resources at its corporate
headquarters in Burbank, Calif.

The entertainment giant recently laid off 50 animators in Orlando,
closed its Paris animation studio and shuttered its animation unit in
Tokyo, laying off more than 100 employees. In all, Disney has slashed
more than 700 jobs in recent years, leaving the company with a total of
about 900 animation workers, including those in Orlando.

In an effort to rein in escalating production and labor costs, Disney
also has sliced animator salaries by as much as 30 percent to 50 percent.

Disney, which pioneered the art of hand-drawn animation, is trying to
creatively reinvigorate the high-profile unit at a time when audiences
seem to have shown a preference for cutting-edge 3-D computer-generated
movies over traditionally drawn cartoons.

Though Stainton has stressed that ”2-D is not dead,“ and that Disney is
not abandoning the medium, the studio's current release Brother Bear,
produced in Orlando, is only one of two remaining major 2-D movies in
Disney's lineup. The other is next year's planned release Home on The Range.

Mark Simon, who runs a small Orlando animation studio, A&S Animation,
said he received several calls Friday from Disney animators looking for
jobs.

”I know there are a lot of people out there looking for work,“ Simon
said, noting that it was his understanding that the halting of work on A
Few Good Ghosts would affect the entire Orlando animation unit.

The project, which went into production this summer, would have been the
fourth feature that was produced exclusively at the Orlando studio, the
others being Brother Bear, Lilo & Stitch and Mulan.

There is no other project in production or development in Orlando, where
in 1989, 70 artists were assigned to an animation showcase attraction at
Disney-MGM studios.

For years, the artists produced mainly short films, or ”featurettes,“ as
Disney calls them, including Roller Coaster Rabbit, and helped on
full-length films, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Later, the
operation became known as Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, growing
to more than 400 animators in the late 1990s.

Stainton, who was in Orlando on Friday morning to announce to the crew
that production of A Few Good Ghosts was being shut down, sent an e-mail
to the troops at Disney Studios in California explaining the decision.
”The fundamental idea is not strong enough or universally appealing
enough to support the kind of performance our movies must have today.“

The story is about two star-crossed lovers who are reunited by a family
of ghosts who inhabit the bodies of folk-art dolls.

”The entire studio was working on it,“ A&S Animation's Simon said. ”It's
a shame. This is probably the most talented animation unit in all of
Disney."

Tim Barker of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Claudia
Eller is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune publishing
newspaper.

Seen it? I lived it.

I am one of those folks.. There may be something at the Orlando Studio come January, but we aren't holding our breaths. I could probably go back to the Burbank Studio (8 years there and 1.5 here in Orlando), but my family and I are trying to avoid going back to Los Angeles.

I am hoping to find a decent Houdini opportunity because I am sick of Maya and tons of proprietary stuff. And as we all know Houdini is so much more fun!

-Craig

Hey Sorry to hear,

Not good. I am looking at graduating this summer. So the last thing I need is more competition in the job market. Muchless from Disney Pros. I don't have the money to go to grad school right now otherwise I defantly would. Good Luck to all of the people at Disney.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

Has anyone heard more info about this??? I hope they don't close the Orlando Studio.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

Well, since I work there, I guess I can comment.

The official word on what is happening at the Orlando Studio will be made on January 12th. In all honesty, no one here is holding their breath and practically everyone has already interviewed with every major studio out there and is getting ready to move, or has decided to leave the film industry.

After a run of films from “Fantasia 2000” to “Treasure Planet”, I just moved out to Orlando a year and a half ago to be closer to family and to work at a more intimate studio that was capable of making a great original film like “Lilo & Stitch”. It's a sad day.

I won't comment on the logic of closing the small studio that made the cheapest and most succesfull films in the Disney roster of the last decade…

-Craig

Well, since I work there, I guess I can comment.

The official word on what is happening at the Orlando Studio will be made on January 12th. In all honesty, no one here is holding their breath and practically everyone has already interviewed with every major studio out there and is getting ready to move, or has decided to leave the film industry.

After a run of films from “Fantasia 2000” to “Treasure Planet”, I just moved out to Orlando a year and a half ago to be closer to family and to work at a more intimate studio that was capable of making a great original film like “Lilo & Stitch”. It's a sad day.

I won't comment on the logic of closing the small studio that made the cheapest and most succesfull films in the Disney roster of the last decade…

-Craig

Well, since I work there, I guess I can comment.

The official word on what is happening at the Orlando Studio will be made on January 12th. In all honesty, no one here is holding their breath and practically everyone has already interviewed with every major studio out there and is getting ready to move, or has decided to leave the film industry.

After a run of films from “Fantasia 2000” to “Treasure Planet”, I just moved out to Orlando a year and a half ago to be closer to family and to work at a more intimate studio that was capable of making a great original film like “Lilo & Stitch”. It's a sad day.

I won't comment on the logic of closing the small studio that made the cheapest and most succesfull films in the Disney roster of the last decade…

-Craig

Hi Craig,

I'm truly sorry to hear this, it is in fact a sad day. I have heard from so many sources, inside and outside the company, that Disney is in for some serious hard times. For the sake of all the great artists there, I hope the information is wrong …

Good luck Craig.


–Mark

Hey,

Yes defantly Good Luck to you Craig I hope you find a job with Houdini with your family and not have to move. That might be difficult though. I am really sorry to hear it. I guess Disney won't be visiting our university this year. A few of our guys did an internship there too. I also met some people at Siggraph that worked at Disney doing Houdini at the Houdini Conference. He helped me get a ride to the SideFx's show. Nice Fellow.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

Yup - ditto Craig. If the worst happens, try to keep in touch in the forum regardless of what package you end up working on…

Cheers,

J.C.

Just got this off of 3D Buzz and the plot thickens. What on Earth is going on over there.

http://news.com.com/2100-1026_3-5112210.html?tag=nefd_top [news.com.com]

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

P.S. I am modeling on my project more now.

FYI:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/orl-asecstudio10011004jan10,1,4891187.story?coll=orl-dp-weekend-2-main [orlandosentinel.com]


–Mark


Disney will close local animation operation
Nearly 260 artists in Orlando will be out of work after their film was canceled.
By Todd Pack and Richard Verrier
Sentinel Staff Writers

January 10, 2004

Walt Disney Studios is expected to tell the nearly 260 artists at its Orlando feature-animation studio on Monday that it will close the facility.

Nearly all of the employees, whose credits include Brother Bear and Lilo & Stitch, are expected to lose their jobs, although some would relocate to Burbank, Calif., sources familiar with the matter said Friday. The sources asked not to be identified because the layoffs had not been made official.

Disney officials would not comment.

The company is expected to make the announcement at a staff meeting Monday.

“We're not expecting any glorious news that we're still employed,” said layout artist Craig Grasso, a 10-year veteran of Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida.

Grasso said he was saddened by the facility's expected closing.

“This is something that I've always wanted to do,” he said of working at the studios.

“Once it's gone, it's gone.”

Disney's feature-animation facility in Orlando had grown during the past 15 years from a showcase at Disney-MGM Studios theme park into a key production center.

But under pressure to reduce overhead and consolidate production, Disney already has shuttered animation studios in Paris and Tokyo.

In all, the studio has cut more than 700 jobs in recent years – including 50 animators in Orlando last year – and trimmed animators' salaries as much as 50 percent. The most recent cuts would leave Disney's animation division with a core staff of 600 to 700.

The Orlando facility's future has been in doubt since Disney abruptly halted work on its only remaining project in November.

Soon after Disney said it was shutting down A Few Good Ghosts – about star-crossed lovers reunited by a family of ghosts who inhabit the bodies of folk-art dolls – recruiters from DreamWorks and other major animation and special effects-studios descended on Orlando.

Disney artists said Friday that the studios are looking for artists who could help create cartoons using computers rather than old-fashioned pencils and paint.

The company's Orlando facility used computers to create certain scenes, but most of the work was done by hand – from designing the film to creating the characters. On average, a feature-length cartoon requires about 1 million drawings.

Disney pioneered the hand-drawn feature, but audiences in recent years have shown a preference for computer-generated cartoons.

Finding Nemo, released by Disney but made by the computer-animation studio Pixar, earned the most money of any movie released in 2003, collecting $339.7 million.

By comparison, Brother Bear, which made limited use of 3-D animation, has grossed $83.3 million to date. The film, which cost about $100 million to make and faced stiff competition over the holidays, may not generate much profit for Disney. It was the company's first animated feature created entirely in Orlando, from the concept to the screen.

Disney has only one major hand-drawn feature on its schedule, though two are in development. Home on the Range, due out April 2, is a Western about barnyard animals trying to save the family farm.

Disney's next major animated release will be this fall's The Incredibles, a Pixar cartoon about a family of superheroes forced to hang up their tights and live in the suburbs.

And although Disney animation chief David Stainton has said “2-D is not dead,” the studio's first major animated feature after Pixar's will be the computer-created Chicken Little.

Despite the attention 3-D animation is getting, a cartoon's success depends less on technology and more on characters and story, said Harry Knowles, owner of the influential movie Web site Ain't It Cool News.

Sony's 2001 feature Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was widely praised for realistic 3-D animation but earned only about $32 million at the box office because the story, about soul-sucking aliens, left audiences cold, he said.

And although it relied heavily on low-tech hand-drawn animation, the Orlando-made Lilo & Stitch was a box-office smash, Knowles said. Lilo made nearly $146 million in theaters two years ago.

“The directors who worked on it in Orlando . . . did a great job,” Knowles said.

Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida is housed at Disney-MGM Studios and is featured in the park's Magic of Disney Animation. The attraction, which was recently updated, is expected to remain open.

On Friday, few visitors seemed to notice the empty drawing tables and desks, although several wondered where the artists were. One woman told her companion, “This is the best job, if they don't come in before 11.”

When asked where the artists were, a guide said they simply weren't in.

Roger Moore of the Sentinel staff contributed to this story. Todd Pack can be reached at 407-420-5407 or tpack@orlandosentinel.com. Richard Verrier can be reached at richard.verrier@latimes.com or 1-800-528-4637, Ext. 77936.
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