Disney

Disney? Partnering with YouTube?

2 Comments / Disney /

 Via: Animation Magazine

As was announced yesterday (although I can’t find the press release because, well, their a wee bit behind on updating their website) Disney has agreed to partner with YouTube to create custom content for the streaming website. This is interesting on a couple of fronts but mainly because it seems to run counter to what the company as a whole has been saying in regards to the internet.

The main media outlets have discussed the deal and what it will cover but what about the details, the nitty gritty. There’s a lot of talk about “interactive content”, “family-friendly videos”, “user-generated” and so forth but at the end of the day, what does that get you?

This is where animators need to pay attention because it’s easy to get swept up in the rush to interact with your customers. There’s no right way to do it, but there are plenty of false leads out there.

For Disney, sure, this interactive partnership is a great idea, but unfortunately its likely to be dead in the water if it can’t get other divisions of the company behind it. Case in point, the film studio. If the company is trying to engage fans, they would be much better off to allow fans to use the original source material but as we all know, Disney videos get yanked from YouTube barely after they make it up.

This seems to send a mixed message. On the one hand the company is attempting to engage with consumers but on the other, its trying to push them away. This is the unfortunate result of a large conglomerate having different parts moving in different directions.

Animators need to look at such behaviour and be able to do so in an objective manner. Which direction would you choose? Is it better to trust your fans or lock up your content? Plenty of you out there are extremely reluctant to put your films on YouTube. That’s grand, but unless you’re Bill Plympton, you’re only hurting yourself in the end.

As for the Disney/YouTube deal, expect to see a bit of content come out but it will be hamstrung by the former’s corporate guys from ever using some of the more valuable material. Expect the entire thing to die a quiet death in a few years (or not).

All in all, it seems YouTube is the big winner here. Having a name like Disney attached is sure to give them the leverage they need to strike more deals. Keep an eye on them.

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Four Reasons to Demolish The Disney Vault

Animation, Disney /

 Via: The Orlando Sentinel

 The “Disney Vault” is the term used by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment for its policy of putting home video releases of Walt Disney Animation Studio‘s animated features on moratorium. Each Disney film is available for purchase for a limited time, after which it is put “in the vault” and not made available in stores for several years until it is once again released.

So says Wikipedia.

We all know about the Vault. It’s pretty much been around as long as I’ve been alive, although the Wikipedia article feels it goes all the way back to when Snow White was re-released.

The thing is, in the 21st century, is the Vault even relevant? Here’s a few reasons why it isn’t.

1. DVDs outlive VHS tapes

Yes, back in the day, you bought movies on real tapes that you had to rewind if you wanted to watch again. What everyone seems to have overlooked since the advent of DVDs is that tapes wore out and lost quality the more they were played. DVDs can be played “forever” without any degradation. The end result? The second-hand market for DVDs is much stronger than for tapes and sll those copies of Vault films that are lying around in empty nests have a habit of making it onto eBay.

2. The Vault Doesn’t Make The Films Any More Valuable

Think about it. If you lock a film away for a number of years, does that make it any more valuable? Of course not! Less people can watch it an appreciate it. Right? So if you had to make a decision, would you try and keep a film locked up as much as possible or try and get as many people to see it as possible? Exactly! You’d want the latter so you could sell more merchandise!

3. If You Broadcast The Films On TV, Doesn’t That Make The Vault Moot?

For this one, we have to assume that the studio isn’t attempting to stop people from seeing the films, just from “owning” them. Why? They broadcast the vaulted films almost constantly. You couldn’t find Aladdin on DVD for love nor money but you could easily throw on [shiver] ABC Family and see it being broadcast. The same goes for Snow White, which was supposedly in the Vault until recently but was broadcast last Christmas! Now if that doesn’t send confusing signals, I don’t know what does.

4. The Obvious Reason

Legality aside, the commercial reasons for locking up content are becoming increasingly irrelevant. If I can’t find something in the shop (or online through legal avenues), what is stopping me from wandering over to the bittorrents. My conscience? Oh sure, Disney would like to believe that Jiminy Cricket is sitting on your shoulder telling you no to “pirate” that copy of Pinocchio, but the reality is that he’s just not there for a lot of folks.

Ever growing numbers of internet-native kids are growing up with the notion that all forms of entertainment come from the internet. If they’re led to believe by just about everyone that they can get whatever they want whenever they want it, why should they think they have to wait around for years for something to be “released from the Vault”.

The answer is, they won’t and Disney will be all the poorer for it.

Conclusion

Disney really ought to re-think the limited-release strategy that they’ve branded as the Disney Vault. In this day and age you can’t help but feel its self-defeating on a number of levels and besides, if people want to see the content, they will see it regardless.

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Is Disney Self-Censoring Old Mickey Mouse Cartoons for TV?

5 Comments / Animation, Disney /

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJu3u0l_Atk

I came across this post on the Ammoland.com website yesterday (I’m not a regular reader or anything, these things just come to my attention sometimes) which berates the fact that Disney appears to be self-censoring old Mickey Mouse cartoons. As you can naturally expect from a website like this, it concerns Mickey’s use of a gun in the classic short, Mickey’s Parrot (embedded above for convenience).

The gripe from the site itself is:

In this episode, a parrot belonging to an escaped killer wanders into Mickey’s basement. Mickey hears it talking and thinks that the parrot is the killer who is on the loose who he just heard about on the radio. Mickey then goes and grabs his double barreled shotgun off of the wall and prepares to defend himself.

Well, wouldn’t you know it… in the version they presented on the Disney Channel the other day, they had digitally removed the shotgun and replaced it with a broom. Yes, Mickey grabbed a broom off of the gun rack, shouldered it, and prepared to defend himself with his handy, dandy tactical… broom.

So, the question is, why? Why would Disney feel the need to edit out a gun in one of their cartoons? The post on Ammoland makes a heavy argument that they shouldn’t simply because it’s a false representations of guns and gun ownership. While this may be true, it still fails to account for why Disney censored their own cartoon.

Have we gotten to the point where companies will self-censor themselves to reduce the perceived problems of broadcasting their older material? I mean, we all know why Song of the South isn’t seen anymore but that is because of the very nature of the film itself, this is all to do with the a small aspect of a cartoon.

As the post itself says:

Disney cartoons from that era have featured firearms literally more times than I can count. They’ve depicted firearms in terms of being a legitimate means of self defense, as a means to take game animals, and they have shown firearms as the indispensable tool that they are for every cowboy and cowgirl of the old west. Several generations have now been brought up with Disney cartoons that have depicted firearms as an integral part of their plot, and now you are telling me that we as a society can no longer handle it?…

I mean c’mon, we’re dealing with Walt Disney here, the guy who believed that above all, his material should be suitable for anyone to watch. Heck the first and only Disney animated feature film to get a rating higher than G was Tangled, and that only came out last year! none of the animated features to come out of his studio have seen a rating higher than PG.

I can sort of see why the company would feel the need to edit a gun out of cartoon, but that still doesn’t justify it. The idea that as a society, we are somehow “better” now or more sensitive to these kinds of things now is a fallacy. Especially for the Disney company, who seem to engage in stunts like this on the one side, but register trademarks on the term “SEAL Team 6” on the other (though later withdrawn). That sends a mixed message to just about everybody.

Literally millions of kids have grown up with cartoons depicting guns, drinking, gambling, you name it, and yet we’re not a nation of gun-toting, alcoholic gamblers. That’s because kids learn pretty quickly that cartoons are not meant to replicate real life to the extent that they serve as a role model.

It safe to assume that Disney simply jumped the gun on this one (no pun intended). Self-censorship is ultimately self-defeating, especially if it degrades the quality of the original piece, which in this case, it does.

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Who Will Lead Us Now?

1 Comment / Animation, Disney /

You already know who this post is about, even before you’ve started reading it

That’s because Steve Jobs really was a leader.

I may not have bought any of his products, or even agreed or liked his way of doing things (too locked-down, too expensive) but that’s not to say I didn’t have a lot of respect for him.

Clearly the animation landscape would be very different if Steve Jobs hadn’t taken a bit of a gamble back in the 1980s. Which is the reason for today’s post:

Who will lead us now?

Plenty of people are calling Steve a “visionary”. Yes, he had vision, but he was much more of a leader. He had the ability to envision things, but he also had a huge ability to get others to work towards that vision with passion and excitement.

That’s why Pixar is such a success. While Steve undoubtedly got a good pitch of sorts from Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, ultimately, he could see that the technology they were developing was irrelevant to the story potential that Lasseter offered the output. Steve guided them towards their first deal with Disney, and was instrumental in helping them re-negotiate it after the success of Toy Story.

Steve’s position on the board of the Walt Disney Company (and largest individual stock holder) ensured that that firm took a slightly different approach to online content than the other Hollywood studios. That’s no easy task.

As of right now, there is no one, clear individual who could be said to be a true leader within the animation community.

There are plenty of leaders such as Jeffrey Katzenberg and Fred Seibert and  Ed Catmull is probably the closest thing to Jobs in light of his determination to see Pixar make animation instead of hardware. Although they are all leaders in a different capacity than Steve.

We need a leader because they can see the way forward. They may not know for certain where they are taking us, but at least they’re willing to take a bet on it. That can’t be said for the vast majority of people, which is why leaders are so rare.

A new leader will emerge, that is a certainty.

Until then, we’ll continue to inhabit the aimless space that’s left behind.

RIP Steve

 

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It Wasn’t The 3-D That Pushed The Lion King To The Top

1 Comment / Animation, Disney /

Yes indeedy, hot on the heels of it’s fortnight at the top of the US box office (which doesn’t mean much by the way), Disney announced that they would be re-releasing a host of (randomly chosen?) films from the past 20 or so years in 3-D.

Filmophilia has a decent post that breaks down why it wasn’t the 3-D that helped it get there. I’ve already discussed the topic so there’s not much point rehashing it now.

Just go and read the Filmophilia link, it’s worth it.

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Character Sundays: Dick Daring from The Replacements

Animation, Disney, TV /

Today’s topic of discussion is Dick Daring, the pseudo Evel Knieval father from the Disney TV show, The Replacements. Of course there’s a reason for this decision, and that’s because today is creator Dan Santat’s birthday! Happy [redacted] Birthday Dan!

Daring resembles the typical cartoonish father figure in that he’s somewhat inept (buying daughter Riley a mule instead of a horse), partially clueless but forever loving towards his family. What makes him stand out though, is his job: being a daredevil.

This sets things up for plenty of jokes as Dick attempts some truly outrageous stunts over the course of the series that, naturally,for the most part fail.

What makes Dick an interesting character is that we can compare him to another cartoon father that is partially clueless but forever loving and that’s Homer Simpson. The big difference between the two though, is that Dick’s character never changed whereas Homer’s character gradually changed over the course of the series. To that end. Dick as a dimwitted character is much more believable than Homer is.

Dick Daring also embodies many of the traits of the so-called man-child. He’s a grown man but sometimes acts like he’s still a kid. There’s nothing wrong with that since Will Farrell made a career out of it, and it does put an interesting twist on the entire family setting as sometimes it’s the kids who appear more mature than him!

Although not an overly complex or conflicted character, Dick Daring does make the perfect addition to a great show. He balances out some of the seriousness with his wild and crazy ways, and he always has a foil in C.A.R.R. the family’s British super smart car.

As far as cartoon fathers go, Dick Daring is about as animated as you can get.

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So The Lion King Topped the Box Office Again

1 Comment / Animation, Disney, Film /

What does this prove? That a 17 year old movie is better than the current offerings? That it’s actually better in 3-D than we ever thought possible? Or is it that because it’s aimed at families, you know they’re selling more than two tickets at a time?

It’s hard to say. It would be nice to think that The Lion King succeeded because it is a really good movie that outshines whatever was offered this past weekend. However, the truth is probably not near as exciting.

First of all, at 17 years, The Lion King is bordering on nostalgia at this point. I was 10 when it came out and I’m 26 now (thanks to the ever-present international delay, the numbers don’t quite add up). So it is surely ripe for claiming a whole new generation of kids and re-capturing their parents.

Secondly, the box office really does mean squat in the grand scheme of things. Saying that such and such a film is top of the box office is really only saying that it sold more tickets than the others. It is not a reliable indicator of tastes or indeed quality as The Smurfs so perfectly illustrated.

Naturally this will be trumpeted by various marketing departments as a sign of the Lion King’s strength and quality as a film. Yes, this might be true, however it is alarming that we are not seeing a re-issue of other films from the same period. While they obviously do not meet the same lofty status of The Lion King, they were certainly just as popular at the time and have not dated as badly as other films the same age.

Couldn’t all the effort that was put into 3-D-izing The Lion King have been better used to clean up and re-issue some other films?

The point is that the Disney Renaissance films were all spectacular when they were released and they are still spectacular now. Making them 3-D is not going to increase their appeal. I’m willing to hazard a guess a that most people simply wanted to see it on the big screen again and nothing more.

 

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Hispanically Speaking News: Guillermo del Toro Remaking The Disney Classics

Animation, Disney /

The first sentence says it all:

Del Toro is remaking “Haunted Mansion,” “Pinocchio” and “Beauty and the Beast”.

I for one, will be stopping my commentary here. There’s a hurricane approaching and no beer in the house. So having news like this on my mind is not the best way to start my Saturday.

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Fast Company Profiles Disney’s Rich Ross (and Misses the Point)

Disney /

Fast Company recently ran a profile on Rich Ross, the current head of the Walt Disney Studios (i.e. the division that actually makes the films). The article itself is well worth a read seeing as it’s slightly above the usual blind admiration that non-trade publications and outlets are infamous for.

The article points out some bleedingly obvious things, but still manages to miss the point of exactly why Ross is a TV guy running a movie studio.

The movie division has not been Disney’s most profitable arm for many years. Yet it remains the company’s big intellectual property “wave maker,” to use the phrase you hear a lot these days inside Disney’s executive suites.

Unfortuntaley, “making waves” is defined as finding a hit franchise (read: Pirates of the Caribbean) and running it into the ground. This is somewhat unfortunate as Tangled did quite well (considering) and while it was unproven, it was a solid film that was always going to do well.

This brand stewardship is the source of controversy surrounding Ross, Iger, and Disney in general these days. A lot of movie fans–ticket buyers, critics, and industry professionals included–hate seeing films reduced to such crass commercial terms. Hollywood still promotes itself as our manufacturer of dreams, relishing the cultural currency and aesthetic cachet that comes with the territory.

Arguably, this is true, except for the small matter that this has always been the case. Hollywood has never made a movie for the fun of it. Films are made for one reasons and one reason only: to make money.

Having said that, there is a fine line between making films for the audience and making films for the studio and it would appear that that line has been crossed this decade of the new Millennium. The old adage of Walt Disney seems to have been lost:

We don’t make movies to make money.
We make money to make more movies.

Notwithstanding the small fact that making more movies will make you more money, but I digress.

So how exactly has the Fast Company article missed the point when it comes to Ross’ promotion? Well, it muses over the fact that he is from a background in television but completely fails to opine that most studios in Hollywood are run by TV folks these days (yes, Bob Iger was at ABC prior to Michael Eisner’s departure).

For that, we need to visit a second article by Edward Jay Epstein in Adweek that chronicles how the vast majority of revenue for the big 6 comes not from the movies themselves but from TV rights to said films. Such an arrangement has (according to the article) assured that any movie put out by a studio has a solid ability to be sold or packaged for TV. The result is that a TV person familiar with the medium is best placed to run the show, as Epstein puts it:

They know a crucial reality: whatever hurts TV’s ability to sell ads, hurts their own bottom lines. Consequently, when new-age players such as Netflix, Apple, Google, or even Hulu (Hollywood owned) threaten to undercut the ad base of the traditional TV networks, they’re also threatening to gut Hollywood’s golden goose

Hence Ross’ promotion from Disney Networks to the hallowed movie studio.

 

 

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