I’ve been hearing rumors that 2-D Hand Drawn Animated Features are not completely dead at the Walt Disney Company. However, don’t get your hopes up. Computer generated animated features is the route the Disney company has chosen to take. And it looks to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
To many it feels like the current management at the mouse house is throwing away 75 years of spectacular animation history with this move. To be sure the carnage that has been wrought at Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA) has been extensive. Many talented animators were let go without even so much as a thank you and almost all the ties with the past have been severed.
DREAM ON SILLY DREAMER is a new documentary that marks the sad, final chapter the hand-drawn animation that was the cornerstone of Walt Disney Feature Animation. Using guerilla-style film making techniques, the film’s director began interviewing coworkers and colleagues the day after they were told they were to be fired. Audiences will listen in utter disbelief to the finest artists and animators in the business, as they desperately try to make sense of their unbelievable situation and their inevitable fate.
As I understand it the producers are looking for places to showcase this documentary. If you have any leads, please drop them a line.