Mind you, I’m not the only person who got a really depressing e-mail yesterday. Just take a look at this beaut that Jerry Beck got in his in-box on Monday morning:
I am a regular reader of your “Cartoon Brew” website, and an animator at DisneyToon Studio’s Australia. I have some breaking news for you: At 3pm today (Monday 25 July) the entire studio was summoned for a staff meeting in which we told by the General Manager Phil Oakes that upon completion of our next production “Cinderella 3”, DisneyToon Studio’s Australia will be closing down after 17 years. They have cited current business needs and production schedules as the cause. So Disney hand drawn animation now ceases to exist.
As soon as I became aware of this news, I began making calls to DisneyToon Studios. Trying to find someone who worked there to confirm this story. Finally, I got ahold of a veteran producer who actually works for this division of the Walt Disney Company. He agreed to talk with me IF I kept his name out of this article.
So this was his reply to several questions I ask him about what was really going on at the DisneyToon Studios production facility in Sydney:
Yes, the story that’s up on Jerry Beck’s site today is true. Yes, we did hold a meeting with the entire staff of that studio earlier today. Yes, we will be closing that DisneyToon production facility sometime over the next nine to twelve months.
Now before animation fans start going crazy here, what people need to understand is that this was a business decision. It’s nothing personal. It’s not that we don’t like working with those guys in Australia anymore. We still think that they’re all tops. I mean, wait ’til you see the job they did with “Bambi and the Great Prince.”
No, this was strictly a monetary decision. The cost of producing pictures in Sydney has slowly crept up over the past five years. Meanwhile, new animation studios have been popping up all over Asia. And these new studios have been churning out very high quality footage for less than half of what it costs us to produce similiar footage at our Australian animation facility.
So it just made sense — strictly from an economics point of view — for us to shut down our Sydney operation and then start farming all of our “video premiere” work out to studios that we already do business with over there. Places like Cuckoos Nest Studio at Wang Film Productions in Taipei, Studio Fuga in Tokyo and Toon City Animation in Manila.
Check the credits of movies like “<Mulan II” and “Tarzan II,” Jim. You’ll see that we’ve already used these studios on a number of our pictures. So we’re not really talking about making a huge change here. Only instead of just getting some of our work, now these studios are going to get all of our work.
So — from a consumer’s point of view — there’s really going to be little or no noticable change in the quality of the product that DisneyToon produces. But from a management point of view, we’re talking about a real cost-savings here. Something along the lines of $20-30 million a year.
Still, it’s hard not to feel bad for all those guys in Australia. They worked so hard for the company, pouring their hearts & souls into pictures like “The Three Musketeers” and “Return to Neverland”
I really wish there was a way we could keep the Sydney studio open. But it wouldn’t be the financially responsible thing to do. So once work is completed on “Cinderella III” and “Brother Bear II,” that’s it.
So I guess — if you’re desperate for a bit of good news today — you can take some solace in knowing that this isn’t actually “The Final Nail in the Coffin” (I.E. That’s the headline that Jerry used when he posted this story over on CartoonBrew.com ). Disney hand-drawn animation isn’t really going to “… cease to exist.”
No, the Walt Disney Company will still continue to produce prequels, midquels and sequels to the studio’s traditionally animated films. But — once work is completed on “Cinderella III” — the productions of these movies will now be farmed out to parts of the globe where Disney’s production dollar can go a lot further. Places like Manila and Taipei.
I know that this isn’t really good news. Particularly for those nearly 300 folks who work at DisneyToon Studios in Sydney. Who just found out that they’ll soon be out of a job. My heart really goes out to you guys. You’ve done some truly great work on films that far too many folks dismiss as being cheap and pointless. Which just proves to me that these people haven’t actually seen the pictures that they’re pretending to criticize.
Which is why it just kills me that the Mouse is tossing you all aside like a used Kleenex. You guys are just now hitting your stride. It’s hard to imagine what you would have been able to accomplish (Your very own original animated feature for theatrical release? Or — at the very least — the animated sequences for Disney’s upcoming release, “Enchanted”?) if DisneyToon Studios’ Sydney production facility has just stayed open for a few more years.
But now that’s not going to happen. All because some accountant with a spreadsheet determined that it would be more cost effective for the Mouse to make movies in Manila. Which sucks.
But — no — traditional animation at the Walt Disney Company isn’t actually dead, folks. It’s just being out-sourced (or — if you prefer the kinder, gentler term for this frankly heartless practice — right-shored) to the Phillipines.
Your thoughts?