At Disney, a Comeback for Hand-Drawn Animation

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hand-drawn animation, out of fashion in the computer age, experienced a rescue worthy of a fairy tale on Thursday, when Walt Disney animators announced they would bring the art form back to the big screen. “We will be bringing back hand-drawn films,” said Edwin Catmull, the president of Pixar and Disney Feature Animation. Animators refer to hand-drawn animation as “two dimensional,” as opposed to computer-generated animation, referred to as 3D. Speculation has swirled over whether Mr. Catmull and John Lasseter, the chief creative officer, who took control of the ailing Disney animation facility, would reestablish the art form that made Disney the world’s pre-eminenent animator. When Disney bought Pixar to try to revive its flagging animation program, Mr. Catmull and Mr. Lasseter took charge of both studios, which are run separately. Mr. Catmull and Mr. Lasseter gave the first descriptions on Thursday on how they reshaped story lines of Disney films already in production, canceled others and restructured how the Disney artists work. “Pixar is still Pixar – nobody left,” Mr. Catmull said. “At Disney, you have these remarkable artists there. ...they were not kneaded together in the right way. At the heart of it there has to be a director and the director has to have a vision.” Mr. Catmull said there were no plans to merge the studios or to limit them to a certain type of animation. “We always believed that quality is the best business plan,” he said. He and Lasseter showed clips from upcoming films, including "Ratatouille," "Meet the Robinsons," "Wall-E," "American Dog" and "Toy Story 3."