FEEDBACK
Disney Animation
From David Pruiksma, a supervising animator on
such Disney features as Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas:
I am a 20 years-plus Disney Feature Animation veteran with the
scars to prove it. I "retired" at age 44 (two years ago)
because I just could not stand working in the industry as it has
become. I wanted to let you know that I have been reading your writings
on your page, and I have been really enjoying them! I think your
reviews and comments are very deep and insightful. I have really
felt the frustration of the industry and its apparent shunning of
its history. To me, it's as though everyone has forgotten what the
animated cartoon is really about.
I thank you very much for your insights.I share your feelings almost
exactly. Thank you for putting those thoughts so beautifully and
succinctly into words.
From Andrew Lee Hunn: I just checked out your Web site and
happened to read your commentary
on Treasure Planet. Though I appreciate your effort and
I’m always happy to see more writing about animation, I really
think you need to step back a little, as you’re reading far
too much into every little detail. I’ve seen this in other critics
of film lately, and particularly of animation. Treasure Planet
failed because of lousy timing (Two Towers and Harry Potter
hogged all the multiplexes) and because of TV ads that showcased
the thirty possibly-most-irritating-if-removed-from-their-context
seconds of the film. I almost didn’t go see it, solely based
on those stupid "Look at us, we’re cool" ads. Was
it the best film ever? Of course not. How many films are?
But I enjoyed it, even made a return trip to the theater. You,
and Roger
Ebert, and a few other people I can think of, need to stop watching
any film or TV for half a year. Go work in the garden or something.
Don’t read any criticism, either. You’ve become too jaded,
and can’t see the forest for the trees. I know it because I’m
a writer and it’s happened to me before. My own work becomes
meaningless if I obsess over it too much. I have to put it away
for some time and find something else to do. Hate to sound so critical
of you, but really. Stop nitpicking.
From Tom Klein, proprietor of www.animation-books.com:
I have to disagree with your
dismissal of Richard Williams’s Animator’s Survival Kit.
To my mind, especially considering how much I now study that book
and keep it handy as a practical guide (as do so many animators
in L.A. these days, both the employed and the swelling ranks of
unemployed!), it’s quite simply one of the best books ever written
about animation. I really don’t think that it somehow has a
flawed foundation, just because Williams was inspired by Jungle
Book. Immersed as Williams was in the graphic pop animation
that was so trendy in the sixties and seventies, seeing Milt Kahl’s
tiger could easily have served as an epiphany that led him to seek
out the Golden Age animators. His discussion of animation technique
in the book, with clearly illustrated examples, really is a milestone.
It’s the sort of shorthand info that allowed me to critique
and evaluate my own work in a way that I hadn’t before. It gave
me a fresh approach to things like inventing new walks. Much of
this was never substantively mentioned or taught at UCLA, where
I went, or even at Cal Arts, where many of my co-workers studied
animation. So I think maybe you’re investing too much in the
dangling of the Jungle Book carrot. Williams draws inspiration
from different Golden Age animators and traditions, not just the
Nine Old Men, even if he leans heavily on their work.
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