According to Wikipedia, American Dog, the planned next feature from Disney,
is about to be canned. The reason for this is that John and Ed Catmull have decided that they don’t want
competition from Disney on CG features and Pixar, so Disney will focus on traditional animation, while Pixar will
handle all computer animation.
I think that is a good decision made by Mr. Lassiter. Leave Pixar to all of the computer
animation work and don’t let someone else like Disney do it. It would have Pixar go up against competition, but
it is also doing a favor for Disney. Since Disney’s first CG film didn’t fair so well.
Hmm… if that’s
the case, why not just drop Rapunzel as well? That’s a CG film. I thought American
Dog was well into its production, so why should it be scrapped after all that hard work? I rant because I like
Chris Sanders’ work, and it’s unfair to drop the ‘next CG film from Disney’ instead of the one that comes
afterwards, which would be Rapunzel. Whichever one would be better, we can’t say… and we’ll never know
now.
There are definitely two sides to what has
happened here- it makes sense for Disney to handle 2D, and for Pixar to handle CGI, but to actually scrap a film
that’s already been planned out and that has had production started on it already seems a little extreme. I
guess American Dog wasn’t considered by Disney as a film that would make them a lot of profit, so they didn’t
mind scrapping it to make more money, since that’s what’s Disney is all about. On the other hand, it really
makes sense, since Pixar already has plenty of competition without Disney adding to the list.
I was just listening to John and Ed
describing American Dog and from what I gathered it is very much still in production. John was describing using a
new form of technology that would bring a Traditional Background setting "like classic Disney
animation" to this CG film. In essence combining the 2 medias.
Also, WDFA and PIXAR will both be
making CG films (confirmed by Ed) but 2-D will be revitalized by Disney Animation.
Once again, this is
just what I heard John and Ed describing.
Hmmm… I didn’t
think American Dog was still CG. I thought Lasseter and company had changed it to a 2d pic. Oh well, it doesn’t
have Sanders directing, so that’s a shame. Did anyone else see the in work images? Man, they looked awesome!
Oh, yeah, and ROBONICS95, was this technology called Non-Photorealistic rendering by chance? This is what I
believe they were going to use this before to give it a certain look. Trying to look like some sort of painter,
if I remember correctly.
I missed the 2-D
or 3-D mention, so you could be 100% correct.
Nor did I catch the name for the technology but what you are
describing is very much along the same lines as what John was describing. So could be…
I have never seen a film
where they combine 3D and 2D. It would be intresting though.
TSS: well technically you have if you’ve seen Aladdin or the Little Mermaid. In TLM, Ariel runs down a computer
animated staircase. In Aladdin, the tiger head for the Cave of Wonders was 3D and of course the carpet was a
combo of the two. It was hand drawn but the design was projected on it by computer.
Anywho, that’s really
great they’re going back to 2D animation! I was afraid that was going out because everyone is doing 3D…
My favorite example is the 3D hydra in the 2D world of
Hercules. 
It would be a shame if [i]American
Dog[/i] is put to sleep (lame pun) because I love Chris Sanders. On the other hand, 2D must live
on.
~~=oP
Oh thanks for the examples. I would have
never guessed from a technical stand point. I thought that since the characters are animated in 2D, it is
classified as a 2D movie.
I’m glad, Disney is good at 2-D, and Pixar is good
at CG.
keep it the way it is man.
American Dog story description from John L.:
American Dog (named Bolt) is owned
by a little girl who’s dad is an incredible scientist that give’s bolt super powers to protect the little girl.
The dad is kidnapped by bad guys, the little girl and bolt spend many years trying to save the dad.
This
is actually a television show that Bolt stars in and has spent his entire life on the studio set. He finds
himself out in the real world and begins to wonder why his super powers do not work.
He begins to learn
what is to be a TRUE dog!
Regarding the animation itself, John says they have achieved the softness and
beauty of painted backgrounds and they can “do it in computer animation.”
I personally feel that Disney should (and they will)
still do CG films, and traditional animation. I was so excited when I first heard about [i]American
Dog[/i], and I can’t imagine it NOT being a CG film. Yes, shame Chris Sanders isn’t directing. I
thought this would be perfect material for him. But hopefully we’ll see Ameican Dog
and Rapunzel as CG films.
As far as I know this is till on…And CG.
BTW thanks for the story
info, Rob - sounds funny, if a bit too close to Cars.
American Dog has actually many simlarities to The Truman
Show.
But it sounds fun.
Groaning- Yeah, The Truman Show is the first thing that popped into my head upon
reading American Dog’s sypnosis. It’s way too similar, and therefore has really already been done before.
[quote="The Star
Swordsman"]
I have never seen a film where they combine 3D and 2D. It would be intresting
though.
[/quote]
Have you seen some grimaces cheap saturday morning tv shows with it blended? Ick!
It looks really bad! But anyway, I think American Dog was computer animated with a
rendering trick to make it look more 2D. So it wasn’t actually blended. It wouldn’t be just a simple toon
shader either, it was a real technology that Disney built. As I said, I believe it was called
Non-photorealistic Rendering.
Seems a little early to condemn it, if
you ask me…Besides, there’s only like 12 different stories that exist or something. (Besides, Pixar movies
have been very similar to other films, like Cars and Doc Hollywood.)
According to new information, the movie is now titled [i]Hollywood
Dog[/i], and is set to be released in 2008. And it WILL be in CG.