Pixar, Disney Draw New Animation Vision

BURBANK (Hollywood Reporter) – Pixar Animation Studios' Ed Catmull and John Lasseter visited Walt Disney Feature Animation on Wednesday to begin to familiarize themselves with the animation unit that they will oversee as president and chief creative officer, respectively, once the Walt Disney Co.'s purchase of Pixar is complete. A new era at WDFA, which has been buffeted by executive turnover and constantly changing creative mandates, began almost immediately as the unit's president, David Stainton, resigned his post. "David has stepped down as president of Walt Disney Feature Animation and is excited about exploring new opportunities within Walt Disney Studios," a Disney spokeswoman said. It is expected that Stainton will move to another division within the Disney organization. While Pixar, headquartered in Emeryville, Calif., and Disney, which houses its animators in Burbank, are planning to maintain separate animation units, Catmull and Lasseter are about to become frequent visitors to Burbank. One Pixar executive familiar with their initial trip insisted that their presence shouldn't "negatively affect either animation studio's culture." Exactly how the Disney-Pixar marriage will play out quickly became a subject of discussion by Hollywood animators and Wall Street analysts.

• "Will the Pixar people have the same magic if they work for Disney? Will the Disney animation people fit into the Pixar culture? Will (Disney CEO) Bob Iger and (Pixar CEO) Steve Jobs live in peace and harmony?" McAlpine Associates analyst Dennis McAlpine asked. "The remaining questions mostly relate to people and will not be answered for some time."
• Animation cognoscenti like historian Jerry Beck, who has strong ties with Pixar and Disney, argue that Disney might have purchased Pixar for $7.4 billion, but WFDA's creative leadership will now be driven by Pixar. "Wherever Pixar is, that's where the main animation hub will be," Beck said. "(Disney's) Burbank (studio) may become a satellite annex of feature animation. Pixar is Disney's legacy."

Lasseter and his story team are all byproducts of CalArts' character animation program. Founded by Roy E. Disney in 1973, the program was taught by such legendary Disney animators as Theodore Hee, Ken O'Connor and Jules Engel, who oversaw key sequences of the first generation of Disney films, like 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." With Lasseter taking over the creative reigns at WDFA, he could give the unit the makeover it has been trying to achieve in order to recapture its glory days as it has struggled to adapt to the new age of computer animation. Within the animation community, there are some doubts that even Lasseter can return Disney animation to its former glory. As animators discussed the latest developments on sites like CartoonBrew.com, Darin Bendall wrote, "The problem is that this is a company who has become so bland that their very name has entered everyday English as a word meaning something along the lines of 'to sanitize something to the point that it sucks.' I just can't see how that won't happen here." Others were more optimistic. "The thought of John Lasseter coming back home to Disney at this time of loss and creative confusion is nothing short of a miracle," wrote another poster, identifying himself only as "an old-school Disney feature artist."