We’re now just less than 100 hours away from when Walt Disney Company execs will finally reveal what the corporation’s real intentions are for the folks who work at Disney Feature Animation-Florida. But still the sad stories continue to trickle in WDFAF staffers who just can’t understand why the Mouse would opt to shut down a studio that cranked out three hit films in a row.
What sort of stories have I been hearing? Well, for starters, I got a lot of e-mail yesterday from Disney Feature Animation Florida personnel who wrote in to say how much they appreciated yesterday’s JHM article (insert link to “WDFAF Countdown III” here). You know, the one where a Disney studio exec wrote in to offer the corporation’s side of the story.
“Why would WDFA-F staffers appreciate an article like that?” you ask. “A story that offered Disney Corporate’s half-assed explanation as to why Feature Animation Florida has to be shut down?” Well … because getting some information (no matter how nonsensical it may sound) is often better than getting none at all.
Here. I’ll let WDFA-F Staffer A explain:
Hi Jim,
As an artist at WDFA in Orlando, I appreciate seeing the executive’s side of the story. Because that is absolutely the only communication we worker-bees have seen on the subject. Not a word has come from
anywhere about the reasoning behind this. Maybe we’llget some reasons from the top on Monday. Maybe just a pre-baked statement. Who knows?Although, I have to say, either this exec is brand new, or extremely blind. We have been yelling, since
before “Lilo”, about the sheer number of releases that were diluting the brand name. The people don’t know the difference between “Piglet’s Big Movie” and “Treasure Planet.” Heck, they don’t even know the difference between who made “Nemo,” and who made “Lilo.” All they know is that it all has Disney on the front of it. We’ve talked and wondering whether anyone on top would actually notice it, and for someone to say that this was just realized now, with survey after survey, says a lot.It just doesn’t make sense to anyone. If they want to make 3D films, we were on that track. Heck, we could make them now with a little extra time.
We just can’t figure it out. So if you get any other exec opinions, paste ’em up.
Not too surprisingly, WDFA-F Staffer B offered up similar sentiments:
Ok, Jim, I have a few comments on this.
First , thanks for being fair and attempting to give both “sides” of the story. Dissecting that entire email from the anonymous Disney exec. would be an interesting exercise. But I’ll limit my observations to a few lines that jumped out at me as someone who was there and saw it happening.
The Disney Animation exec. said:
“As you might expect, we’ve been doing a lot of market research, running a lot of surveys, trying to get to the bottom of WDFA’s disappearing audience problem. And you know what we’ve found, Jim? There’s just too much Disney animated product out there nowadays. We’ve glutted our own market.”
and
“You see what I’m saying, Jim. That’s an awful lot of product. So I guess you can understand why consumers don’t consider Disney animated films to be all that special anymore.”
Now, that’s real interesting. Almost every artist working at Disney Feature Animation over the last 10 years predicted this would happen since the day they announced the first of the “cheapquels,” “The Return of Jafar ” (1994) . We objected to this strip-mining approach of our carefully crafted feature movies and we kept on objecting year after year as the number of the cheapquels increased. We said those exact words: “It will glut the market” and “The public won’t consider the Disney animated films to be all that special anymore.” We said it over and over. We could see what the result would be.
And we were brushed aside. Over the last 10 years, every time an objection along those lines was made, we were told things like : “There’s nothing we can do about it. And — besides — it’s good for the company, overall. The public loves this stuff. Why not give them more of what they want? Heck, people are buying these direct-to-video things. So they must like them, right? Don’t worry, silly little animators. We’re the business people. Just you scurry on back to your desks and keep drawin’ them cute little cartoons. There’s a good fella. “
So they just now figured this out by doing “lots of market research” and “surveys”? Duh.
Then there’s this:
“And it also means cutting loose our Feature Animation — Florida unit (Which — arguably — has been WDFA’s most consistent production unit. Year after year, these guys have turned out top quality work. I mean, how can you complain about the string of pictures that these folks churned out. “Mulan,” “Lilo and Stitch,” “Brother Bear.” Those titles will be making millions for the Mouse for decades yet to come.)
But we had to do it, Jim. We really had no choice.”
I’ll just let that one hang there, twisting in the wind. People can just read it over a few times and make their own judgment .
No comment is necessary.
Mind you, not everyone has had nice things to say about JimHillMedia.com’s coverage of the situation at Disney Feature Animation-Florida. A few e-mails took us to task for not getting on board with this story months earlier. Take — for example — this e-mail from a former WDFA-F staffer:
Dear Jim,
I would just like to mention that you seem to have overlooked the over 50 or so artists that were given only two weeks notice last June that we were going to be laid off — with only an eight week grace period to get the rest of our lives in order. This number included not only those expecting babies but also those with two, three and five children who would be hitting the pavement with no real prospects and none of the training that was promised “in the worst case scenario” to last at “least six months” to the original proposed finish date of “My Peoples” for their respective department. Some (of the) artists (effected had) up to 25 years experience and nearly all chose this career to be a part of the legacy that generations of artists have literally given their whole adult lives to promote and rekindle that Disney flame that now is burning out.
As work continues to go overseas I wonder when the average Disney fan will stop and look at the destruction of a company that used to stand for “all that was good and honorable” in America and stand up and say — you guessed it — “I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!”
Let’s hope for a miracle to take our company back…
While still other JHM readers chided us for not noticing that this same sort of behavior — I.E. veteran Disney employees being tossed out on their ear, with little if any thought being given to what might become of these people by company officials, since the bottom line is now the top priority at the Mouse House — is running rampant in the Disney corporation today. Take — for example — this story that was sent along yesterday by a WDW spouse:
There is a key point that is being missed here. The cruel and unusual treatment of the animators is rampant throughout the company and applicable to all employees. You see it at the top, with Roy Disney being dumped from the board “because of his age”. You also see it throughout Walt Disney World in the horrendous treatment of the cast members.
(For example) My wife works at Disney-MGM Studios, right down the street from the animation building. She worked with a wonderful woman who had the age and years to qualify for retirement. A year or so ago, this woman had a stroke while working at the studios. She recovered and returned to work, although it was a struggle. She was not able to retire because she couldn’t afford the reduced pension since she was under age 62. She struggled and recently needed to take several days off due to her condition. She continued to work under the threats of management that she was taking too many days off.
Well, rather than helping this woman find a position that was better suited for her, today they fired her. On top of that, they did it in a way that was heartless, demeaning, cruel, and unforgivable. Two managers took her in the back, told her to clean out her locker, and took her ID card. At this point she was crying hysterically since she was losing everything, especially her health insurance. Then they had the nerve to force her to cross Sunset Boulevard, in front of all the guests, while she was crying her eyes out. In fact she was so upset she almost collapsed on the street. This woman put many loyal years into the company and yet lost everything.
Disney has become a heartless corporation, and the soul-less Michael Eisner is the vacuum at the top of the company.
While I realize your main area of concern is animation, it is important to realize how deep this problem has become. I am beginning to fear that the company is too far gone to be recovered. This is just a tragedy and is indicative of the heartless business environment we see today.
Okay. I’ll admit it. The above e-mail wasn’t exactly on topic. Sticking with JHM’s coverage of the proposed closure of Disney Feature Animation-Florida. But it does allow us to widen our frame a bit. To see the forest through the trees, if you will.
And the fact of the matter is … the proposed closing of Disney Feature Animation-Florida, this poor woman being fired so heartlessly at Disney-MGM, these are symptoms of the disease that’s wracking the Walt Disney Company these days. People just really don’t count anymore at the Mouse House. Money does.
Don’t believe me? Then head over to Disney’s online Investors Relations and Shareholder Services page. There, you’ll be able to access a recording of Michael Eisner’s appearance at this past Tuesday’s session of the 14th Annual Smith Barney Citigroup Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference.
Listen carefully to Eisner’s presentation. How he paints this picture of how things are perfectly fine at the Walt Disney Company these days. How there’s really nothing to worry about. No cause for concern.
One particularly telling moment in the presentation is when Eisner brings up how — to date — the Walt Disney Company has produced 15 direct-to-video sequels to pre-existing Disney films. He practically crows about how these low budget Buena Vista Home Entertainment projects will aid over a billion dollars to the company’s bottom line in the coming years.
Now based on yesterday’s WDFAF Countdown article — as well as the e-mails that I’ve excerpted above — you and I are both aware that Disney management is now aware that it’s all these “cheapquels” that’s been undermining the box office of Disney’s feature length animated films of the past five year. Yet here’s the CEO of the company not only proudly talking up how much these low budget direct-to-video projects have made, but promising that more — lots more — of these video premieres are now on the way from Disney Television Animation.
And — while we’re talking about things that are wrong — I’ve been getting a lot of e-mail asking why the mainstream media hasn’t yet latched onto the Disney-Feature-Animation-Florida-possibly-closing-next-Monday story. In particular the Orlando Sentinel.
Pulling an excerpt from MMaus’ recent e-mail to me:
Why isn’t the Sentinel writing more about this story? Wouldn’t it make sense for WDFA-F’s hometown newspaper to be covering an event where 300 locals may soon be losing their jobs? I’ve checked the Sentinel’s web page every day this week. There hasn’t been a single mention of what’s going on at Disney Feature Animation.
What’s the deal, Jim?
Ah, the Orlando Sentinel. O-Town’s only daily newspaper. Which the Walt Disney Company does an awful lot of business with. Regularly buying ads to promote its movies and television shows as well as its Central Florida-based theme parks, night clubs, shops and resorts.
Now — given that I’m not stupid (more importantly, that I have a more than rudimentary understanding of our nation’s libel laws) — I’m not going to suggest that there’s a connection between the amount of money that the Mouse spends on advertising in the Sentinel and the fact that Orlando’s only daily newspaper is sometimes seen as being somewhat soft on the Mouse. That this paper’s reporters rarely — if ever — really hammer hard on Disney whenever Mickey makes a mistake.
But if YOU, the readers of JimHillMedia.com, want to jump to that conclusion … hey, that’s your choice.
But — on the other hand — if the staff of the Orlando Sentinel would like to prove me wrong (given that the last story that your paper did about what’s been going on at Disney Feature Animation-Florida, “Disney Halts Work on Orlando Film; The end of ‘A Few Good Ghosts’ could leave 258 animators without jobs,” ran back on November 15th) and do a big honking story about what’s going on right now with WDFA-F … hey, that’d be cool today.
Okay. That’s enough rabble-rousing for today. Your thoughts?