Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don Bluth's Garage Band

animationobsessive.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 28 posts

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#11

Post by sdwr »

mrighele wrote: post #8
drewcoo wrote: post #4

Bluth's "garage band" was re-learning skills that had been off-shored. That's a piece of cont4ext that's sort of missing. Anyone interested in what happened when Disney's off-shored Italian animation team revolted should check out Allegro non troppo - a sendup of Fantasia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_non_troppo

Is there a longer story somewhere about this decline ? This piece is not really clear about the reasons _why_ younger talent wasn't being trained on those techniques. If you read the story it seems that everybody was looking forward at people learning and helping them doing so... so why was it not being done at Disney ? The link only mentions issues with the union, but it doesn't seem to me reasonable to think that i…

Organizations can calcify. Experienced people become incumbents, using their knowledge as a competitive advantage. New people don't respect the existing structure. It's half growing pains, half power struggle.

A healthy organization takes these competing forces and integrates them. An unhealthy one (maybe one used to an overbearing, God-like leader?) clamps down, suppresses dissent, and lets the pressure build until something breaks.

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#12

Post by Aloha »

yterdy wrote: post #9

>As Bluth remembered, older technical tricks like the “shadows or the reflections or the double passes through the camera” were “evaporating before our very eyes.”1 The problem was bigger than that, too. Bluth and many of the other young trainees didn’t know how to make a movie, and they weren’t sure how to learn. According to Bluth’s colleague Gary Goldman, “We didn’t even know what questions to ask.” >“We were lear…

A lot of them are not hoarding knowledge intentionally - they'll tell you the big pieces but leave out the connective glue - because its muscle memory.

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#13

Post by InTheArena »

Isamu wrote: post #7

This helps to answer some of the questions surrounding the decline of Disney animation after Walt died. In some ways you could blame the decline on him because he built an organization that depended too much on his judgment and guidance. The fact that so many core competencies were lost over the years is mostly on him. But then he started CalArts too.

It's a dirty, dark secret, but Walt and Disney were considering shutting down the animation studio near the end. It was simply unprofitable and expensive. Disney goes through massive cycles where they have boom and bust periods - that survives to this day.

The leadership of the animation studio was a real issue here - they had no idea about how to mentor the next generation - it wasn't until Ollie and Frank explicitly worked to engage with the next generation after Bluth left Disney with the Illusion of Life that disney got serious about continuing animation.

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#14

Post by InTheArena »

drewcoo wrote: post #5
leejoramo wrote: post #3

I was a child in the 1970s and loved Disney animation. Even at the time I could tell there was a decline the level of sophistation of the new films, although I still enjoyed them So many interesting angles to this story, that directly apply to software development: * document your Processes * investing in training. * creating space for people to follow thier passion .

> I could tell there was a decline the level of sophistation of the new films Cost has a lot to do with that. Compare 101 Dalmatians ('61) with Snow White ('37) and the newer one looks cheaper because it's cheaply made - copy machine tech instead of artists for part of the process.

As much hate as the Xerography process gets, this really wasn't true. The character designs for 101 Dalmatians were incredibly expensive, and they blamed the spots on the dogs. Part of the reason Bluth left was that cost control controls were put into place because of how expensive Dalmatians was.

The real problem is that Disney movies boom or bust. The insane successes (Snow White, Dumbo) were offset by busts (Cinderella, Bambi). Ironically, even though we remember these are huge successes now, Bambi was released in the middle of WW2 when the international market was cut off, and Cinderella was a box office bomb.

Disney still has this problem, which is why the death spiral of a Disney CEO is always when they start greenlighting sequel after sequel.

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#15

Post by InTheArena »

drewcoo wrote: post #4

Bluth's "garage band" was re-learning skills that had been off-shored. That's a piece of cont4ext that's sort of missing. Anyone interested in what happened when Disney's off-shored Italian animation team revolted should check out Allegro non troppo - a sendup of Fantasia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_non_troppo

Disney was a incredibly unionized shop. The 9 old men where still at Disney (though some had moved to different roles at Disney) at this point, the ink & paint was still at Disney.

You can argue that Disney was stretched way too far during this period due to Disney's grandiose dreams in Florida.

The difference was that Ollie and Frank hadn't bothered to write The Illusion of Life or tried to pass on their skills yet.

If you want to write evils of anti-union Disney, go a few decades earlier to the late 30s and early 40s and the strike.

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#16

Post by ahefner »

InTheArena wrote: post #15
drewcoo wrote: post #4

Bluth's "garage band" was re-learning skills that had been off-shored. That's a piece of cont4ext that's sort of missing. Anyone interested in what happened when Disney's off-shored Italian animation team revolted should check out Allegro non troppo - a sendup of Fantasia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_non_troppo

Disney was a incredibly unionized shop. The 9 old men where still at Disney (though some had moved to different roles at Disney) at this point, the ink & paint was still at Disney. You can argue that Disney was stretched way too far during this period due to Disney's grandiose dreams in Florida. The difference was that Ollie and Frank hadn't bothered to write The Illusion of Life or tried to pass on their skills yet.…

"were". Not "where".

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#17

Post by allturtles »

InTheArena wrote: post #14
drewcoo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could tell there was a decline the level of sophistation of the new films Cost has a lot to do with that. Compare 101 Dalmatians ('61) with Snow White ('37) and the newer one looks cheaper because it's cheaply made - copy machine tech instead of artists for part of the process.

As much hate as the Xerography process gets, this really wasn't true. The character designs for 101 Dalmatians were incredibly expensive, and they blamed the spots on the dogs. Part of the reason Bluth left was that cost control controls were put into place because of how expensive Dalmatians was. The real problem is that Disney movies boom or bust. The insane successes (Snow White, Dumbo) were offset by busts (Cinde…

> Cinderella was a box office bomb.

Is that really so? Wikipedia says it was the 5th highest grossing film of 1950. [0] Quoting the same: "Walt Disney Studios' animated film Cinderella debuts. The film is the most successful the studio has made since Dumbo, and saves the studio from four million dollars in debt."

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_in_film.

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#18

Post by graton »

allturtles wrote: post #17
InTheArena wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much hate as the Xerography process gets, this really wasn't true. The character designs for 101 Dalmatians were incredibly expensive, and they blamed the spots on the dogs. Part of the reason Bluth left was that cost control controls were put into place because of how expensive Dalmatians was. The real problem is that Disney movies boom or bust. The insane successes (Snow White, Dumbo) were offset by busts (Cinde…

> Cinderella was a box office bomb. Is that really so? Wikipedia says it was the 5th highest grossing film of 1950. [0] Quoting the same: "Walt Disney Studios' animated film Cinderella debuts. The film is the most successful the studio has made since Dumbo, and saves the studio from four million dollars in debt." [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_in_film .

And a different site says that Cinderella was the #1 film of 1950.

https://www.the-numbers.com/market/1950/top-grossing-movies

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#19

Post by [deleted] »

Isamu wrote: post #7

This helps to answer some of the questions surrounding the decline of Disney animation after Walt died. In some ways you could blame the decline on him because he built an organization that depended too much on his judgment and guidance. The fact that so many core competencies were lost over the years is mostly on him. But then he started CalArts too.

[deleted]

Re: Don Bluth's Garage Band

#20

Post by basil-rash »

> In Canada, Icon Creative Studio is trying to unionize. This comes at a time of huge union wins in North American animation, including the new one at DreamWorks.

This is the same DreamWorks animation guild that just had its entire TV staff laid off in flavor of overseas vendor studios? Odd. Plus the piece itself seemed rather anti-union. The whole reason this guy split off was because of bullshit union restrictions.

Post reply on HN