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Disney CEO Bob Iger Says There Are No Current Plans For Hand Drawn Animation – But What Does He Really Mean?

By Drew Taylor
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March 7, 2013 12:22 PM
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4 Comments

News

At a Disney shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday, CEO Bob Iger said that none of Disney’s companies are planning to develop a hand-drawn feature animated film for the big screen in the foreseeable future. This story was picked up by /Film and Collider as effectively ringing the bell of traditional animation at the Walt Disney Company. To poorly paraphrase Mark Twain, though, the death of traditional animation at Disney has been greatly exaggerated.

By Drew Taylor
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February 3, 2013 11:39 AM
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1 Comment

News

While it’s certainly far from the sexiest show in awards season, the Annie Awards, which honors the very best in television and feature animation, was held last night in Hollywood, and it could offer a glimpse at who could take home the Best Animated Feature Oscar in a couple of weeks. And if we’re going by what the Annies have to say – it’s going to be Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph." It positively wrecked the awards last night, winning Best Feature, Directing, Music, Voice Acting, and Writing. What’s more – the animated short that was attached to “Wreck-It Ralph” theatrically, the cutting-edge “Paperman,” won for Best Short. Right now, in some dark part of Hollywood, Jeffrey Katzenberg is fuming.

By Kevin Jagernauth
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January 30, 2013 1:34 PM
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1 Comment

News

So, you've done your homework, and with a few weeks to go until the Oscars, you've managed to catch up with all nine Best Picture nominees. Nice work, but now what is there left to do? Well, have you seen all the shorts? Granted, they aren't the easiest thing to track down, but the fine folks at Disney have done the heavy lifting for you and put "Paperman" online.

By Drew Taylor
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October 8, 2012 5:20 PM
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8 Comments

Reviews

This year's Hamptons International Film Festival has largely been defined by movies that make you want to cry your eyes out until they're squishy red gobs. Pictures like "Rust and Bone," "Amour" and "Silver Linings Playbook" challenge even the manliest audience members to sit there with a straight face and not be reduced to jags of blubbery weeping. But no movie at the festival has packed quite the emotional punch of the Disney Animation short film "Paperman," which, in its brief 7-minute run time, will defy even the most stoic viewer to keep a straight face. From the opening frame, the film's sweeping romanticism and groundbreaking visual style proves too much to resist. The fact that this might be the new face of traditional animation isn't something that even registers; it's that involving.

By Drew Taylor
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June 29, 2012 12:16 PM
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0 Comments

News

One of the many reasons we’re super-pumped about this fall’s “Wreck-It Ralph,” the Disney animated feature set inside the world of videogames, is that preceding the feature is “Paperman,” a groundbreaking new short film by John Kahrs that ingeniously combines traditional hand-drawn animation with cutting-edge computer graphics. In short: it very well could be the future of traditional Disney animation. And thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we now have new details and images from the film (which just had a splashy screening at the Los Angeles Film Festival).

By Drew Taylor
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June 15, 2012 1:09 PM
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0 Comments

News

Well, time to get even more excited about “Wreck-It Ralph,” the video game-themed animated feature from Walt Disney that’s slated to open this Thanksgiving. Disney has just announced that “Paperman,” a next-level animated short that combines traditional hand-drawn animation with computer imagery, will play theatrically in front of “Wreck-It Ralph” when the film opens on November 2nd. The short recently had its world premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 4th and plays the Los Angeles Film Festival (its U.S. premiere) next week.