Bolt

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 27th, 2007, 12:20 am

He's got an interesting rebuttal today (I knew he would)

Plus some cool stuff on the Rockateeer!

www.jimhillmedia.com

Why For Returns!

I liked how he said: "Life isn't always 'happily ever after', just ask Chris Sanders."

So true....

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 27th, 2007, 12:47 am

Also, I see where Disney's coming from, because of a fact that a lot of those posters don't seem to take into consideration:

True, Cars did well, for a single film. 200 million or so dollars domestic is certainly nothing to sneeze at. I'm sure DW would love for OTH to have done those numbers (although OTH did quite well for a movie that was competing in a Pixar summer) Anyways,what Jim is saying is that:

It doesn't matter that Cars did "O.K.", or "was a relative hit"...Disney did not spend 7 billion dollars on Pixar so they could churn out a series of "relative hits"!!! Lather, rinse, repeat!

The reason Disney spent such a collossal amount of money on this group was so they they could have a pretty much guaranteed string of BLOCKBUSTERS of the Finding Nemo caliber (which Cars had been rumored to be) Remember all those Motley Fool articles during the SaveDisney days of how insane Eisner was to balk at Jobs' terms and how having Pixar under your wing is pretty much a "Liscance to Print Money"?? I'm sure the Disney executives do too.

If Nemo, Bugs, TS2 or Monsters had done Cars' business....Disney. Would. Not. Have. Shelled. Out. All. That. Money. For. Pixar.
Period.

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 27th, 2007, 12:59 am

Why - because he's trying to return the company to its roots?

How is nixing a classical-princess-Alan Menken/fairy tale setting and changing it to a hip/jazz kind of film "returning the company to its roots"?

The only thing I see in that direction is (if it's true) making all the WDFA films 2d while Pixar's 3d. Which might or might not be a good idea, depending on the project (although hey, I thought it's only the stories that matter, not the format?) but if JL's doing this more for Pixar's own security than his concerns over Disney's future, then....I dunno.

Post by **Ben** » January 27th, 2007, 9:32 am

Ahhh, Rocketeer...my fave film of summer 1991.

As with Dick Tracy and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, I'd love to see BVHE give this film the Vista series treatment a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Those four films all have a little something in common which was the "event" status they were awarded in theaters, being Disney's first live-action releases that were given huge marketing and promotional pushes to rival what was being done with the animated films.

Though they weren't all box office hits, they're all great movies and SEs for all are way overdue, the same with their off-shoot Hollywood Pictures' Evita, which had a fantastic Criterion LaserDisc pressing but scant features on DVD.

On this new bit...why the heck is Jim linking to almost every word now? What's with the Supernanny quote especially!!?? Hollywood Boulevard??

And he gets Dave Stevens' name wrong later on. Dale!?

No, no, no need for that final email that was sent in though, and props to Jim for handling it well.

Post by **Meg** » January 27th, 2007, 10:52 am

I can't believe he's going on ANOTHER rant on how Cars under-performed! For goodness sake, it came out in June! Get over it! I don't care how much money it made - I liked it and that's all that matters to me. He doesn’t get that his readers are complaining about the fact that EVERY OTHER ARTICLE he writes is about Cars’ B.O returns – he thinks they’re disagreeing with him on how much money it made.

And I HATE how he uses that E-Mail - he makes it sound like everyone who disagrees with him is a complete jerk and total idiot. Yeah, make your readers feel like morons, Jim! Way to go!

There are plenty of intelligent arguements people have made against him in the comments section - why couldn't he have used one of those?!?

Don't worry. I'm sure soon he'll run a 39-part series on all the cartoons and 1980's sitcoms which have done a version of Oliver Twist.

LOL!

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 27th, 2007, 3:02 pm

Yeah that was funny Sulley!

Reminds me of that Simpsons ep when Homer bought the talking Astrolobe for 600$ and spent the night watching versions of ACC--"Mr. Magroo", "Urkel Christmas", "Star Trek"!!!!

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 27th, 2007, 3:46 pm

No, no, no need for that final email that was sent in though, and props to Jim for handling it well.

Yeah that was just SO wrong.

Some people....*shakes head*

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 27th, 2007, 4:58 pm

Question: Who's Chris Williams? Is he a Pixar guy or something? Is he definetely going to be the new director??

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397892/

Post by **Josh** » January 27th, 2007, 5:25 pm

Very interesting, Vi. If you don't mind my asking, where did you first learn of this IMDB change?

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 27th, 2007, 5:29 pm

I just happened to look AD up on IMDB (I go on IMDB somtimes) and went on the forum, which mentioned the change.

Funny how the description still says: "From the Creator of Lilo and Stitch."

Post by **Josh** » January 27th, 2007, 5:36 pm

Thanks for the info! I hope more on this news arrives soon.

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 27th, 2007, 5:47 pm

You're welcome!

Post by **Daniel** » January 27th, 2007, 5:57 pm

I think he had something to do with The Emperors New Groove. But don't quote me.

Post by **Meg** » January 27th, 2007, 8:55 pm

Heh, dont recognize the name either...Don't think he's from Pixar.

Post by **ShyViolet** » January 28th, 2007, 5:03 am

Yeah, you're right Dan! He worked on Groove with Mark Dindal, specifically on the story. He's quoted at the very end of this New York Times story about the new Disney shorts in production:

Correction Appended

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Disney
Goofy in “How to Install Your Home Theater.”
MOVIEGOERS who have become inured to pre-show car ads and trivia quizzes may soon get something old enough to seem new: cartoon shorts.

After a hiatus, Walt Disney Studios is getting back into the business of producing short cartoons, starting with a Goofy vehicle next year. The studio has released a few shorts in recent years — “Destino,” “Lorenzo” and “The Little Match Girl” — but those were more artistic exercise than commercial endeavor. The new cartoons, by contrast, are an effort by a new leadership team from Pixar Animation Studios, now a Disney unit, to put the Burbank company back at the forefront of animation with a form it once pioneered.

“The impetus comes from John Lasseter, who takes the idea from Walt Disney and 100 years of film history,” said Don Hahn, producer of “The Lion King” and “The Little Match Girl,” in a recent interview at his studio office. “Shorts have always been a wellspring of techniques, ideas and young talent. It’s exactly what Walt did, because it’s a new studio now, with new talent coming up — as it should. I think the shorts program can really grow this studio as it grew Pixar, as it grew Walt’s studio.”

Although audiences today are more familiar with his feature films, Walt Disney’s reputation was originally built on shorts. In the 1930s “A Mickey Mouse Cartoon” appeared on theater marquees with the titles of the features, and Disney won 10 Oscars for cartoon shorts between 1932 and 1942. He used the “Silly Symphonies” to train his artists as they geared up to create “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” But after World War II Disney phased out short cartoons because of rising production costs and the minimal amount theater owners would pay for them.

Mr. Hahn said the new shorts would be screened in theaters along with Disney films. “You pay your 10 bucks to see a movie,” he said, “and you get a surprise you hadn’t counted on.” The new shorts will be done in traditional 2-D animation, computer graphics or a combination of the two media, depending on the story and the visual style.

This is not the first attempt at such a revival. Warner Brothers, for example, tried to bring back the classic Looney Tunes characters in new shorts in 2003, but they proved unsuccessful and most of them were never screened theatrically.

Chuck Williams, a veteran story artist who will produce the new films for Disney, said they do not have to become a profit center in order to perform a real commercial function.

“They allow you to develop new talent,” Mr. Williams said in an interview at the Disney studios. “Shorts are your farm team, where the new directors and art directors are going to come from. Instead of taking a chance on an $80 million feature with a first-time director, art director or head of story, you can spend a fraction of that on a short and see what they can do.”

It is not surprising that Mr. Lasseter is using short films to train and test the artists: he and his fellow Pixar animators spent almost 10 years making shorts, learning how to use computer graphics effectively before they made “Toy Story” and the string of hits that followed. Pixar continues to produce a cartoon short every year, and has won Oscars for the shorts “Tin Toy,” “Geri’s Game” and “For the Birds.”

Four new shorts are in development at Disney: “The Ballad of Nessie,” a stylized account of the origin of the Loch Ness monster; “Golgo’s Guest,” about a meeting between a Russian frontier guard and an extraterrestrial; “Prep and Landing,” in which two inept elves ready a house for Santa’s visit; and “How to Install Your Home Theater,” the return of Goofy’s popular “How to” shorts of the ’40s and ’50s, in which a deadpan narrator explains how to play a sport or execute a task, while Goofy attempts to demonstrate — with disastrous results. The new Goofy short is slated to go into production early next year.

The idea for “Home Theater” came from the experience Kevin Deters, one of its two directors, had buying a large-screen TV. “For years I’ve been saying to my wife, let’s get a nice, large TV, because I’ve been suffering with a 30-inch screen,” he said. “She finally acquiesced around the time of the Super Bowl. When we went shopping, we discovered the stores had ‘Delivery in Time for the Big Game!’ and similar promotions, some of which appear in the film.”

Over the years the studio has tried unsuccessfully to update the classic characters. Mr. Deters and his co-director, Stevie Wermers, for instance, unhappily recalled “Disco Mickey,” the 1979 album that suggested the trademark mouse could boogie like John Travolta. The cover featured Mickey in a white suit and open shirt, swinging his hips.

“You don’t want to put Goofy on a skateboard,” Mr. Deters said. “There’s no reason to attempt to make him hip and cool. Goofy isn’t cool. He’s the ultimate domesticated man, as the ‘How to’ shorts showed. I relate very well to him as the guy who’s sort of a schlub on his couch.”

“How to Install Your Home Theater” will be made with a fairly small crew: despite the triumph of computer animation, Disney still has a number of talented traditional animators who are eager to draw again.

“The Goofy short will be very funny, but we won’t have to spend a lot of money and time on it, which won’t diminish it one bit,” Mr. Hahn said. “Obviously there’s a financial component to these films. We have to make them responsibly. But the big investment is for the long haul. We’re saying we believe in new talent and new techniques, and they’ll pay dividends in 10 to 20 years, just as we’re reaping the benefits now from the investment we made 25 years ago, training John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton and Tim Burton and John Musker and Ron Clemmons.”

Disney also intends the new talent to reflect an increasingly diverse work force. For most of its 100-year history American animation has been the creation of male artists, a situation that is slowly changing.

“It’s kind of shocking to realize that once the Goofy short gets made, I’ll officially be the first woman director at Disney Feature Animation,” Ms. Wermers said. “Considering that probably more than 50 percent of the audience for the short will be female, because of moms taking the kids, there should be more female voices out there.”

Ms. Wermers is not alone in her sense that Mr. Lasseter and his fellow Pixar alumni are already having an impact.

“I feel Disney is a very different place than it was a year ago,” said Chris Williams, a story artist who is developing “Golgo’s Guest” and “Prep and Landing,” “and the shorts program is just part of that. It’s become a very exciting place to work.”

Correction: December 24, 2006