Disney revives hand-drawn animation with "Princess and the Frog"

It's been the simpsons dvd years since Disney made an animated film that Walt himself could have rolled up his sleeves and pitched in on. The traditional, hand-drawn "classic" animation fell out of favor with audiences enamored of the computer-generated animation of the simpsons dvd Pixar and Dreamworks. Until the idea for South park dvd"The Princess and the Frog" came along.
"All of the artists disney dvdalways believed in this (hand-drawn) art form," says Mark Henn, who animated Pocahontas, Princess Jasmine ("Aladdin"), Belle ("Beauty and the Beast") and Mulan. "But nobody sat us down and said 'Let's takeSouth park season a vote about continuing or not.' It was disney dvddecided (by corporate)."
Disney family guy dvd dropped hand-drawn animation altogether, closing the last of its disney dvdsanimation studios in 2004.
"So what[size=x-large]disney movies on dvd[/size] do you do?"disney dvd Henn asks. "You keep working, tryall disney dvds to learn new skills, do what you have to do to take care of your family."
"And some of us got rusty," jokes animator Michael Surrey, who counts Timon from "The Lion King" among his credits.
Hand-drawn animation was South park seasonkept alive -- barely -- with some scenes in the animated-and-live-action hit "Enchanted," and in shorts such as Goofy's "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater" and the coming Loch Ness monster short, "Nessie," both of all disney dvdswhich Henn worked on.
Then, as bigdisney movies on dvd companies South park seasonoften do, Disney changed its mind. Actually, disney dvdsDisney bought Pixar and Pixar chief John Lasseter, the simpsons dvd assigned to run all of Disney animation, family guy dvd decided to bring back hand-drawn animation to the studio that perfected it. And the directors who spearheaded the great Disney animation revival with "The Little Mermaid"disney dvd (1989) came back to try to do it all over again.
They had South park dvddecided things were going one way, permanently,disney movies on dvd and then the Pixar deal came through, John Lasseter took over and everything changed,"all disney dvds says Ron Clements, co-director of "The Little Mermaid," "Aladdin" and "Hercules."
Clementsdisney dvd and co-director John Musker pitched Disney on a new "princess" movie, a variation on a classic tale they would call "The Princess and the Frog." It would be a musical set in old New Orleans. The princess would be a first for Disney. She would be African-American. And disney dvd box setthe animation? Hand-drawn.
Randydvd disney Newman, Pixar's the simpsons dvd house composer and a songwriter with New Orleans roots, would do the music. Henn was brought on to do "another princess" and became animation supervisor South park seasonof Tiana, the film's heroine. Surrey would animate Ray, a comical bayou firefly.
Clements and Muskerdisney dvd collection had no trouble liningdisney dvds up animators, "because even those who were proficient at computer animation (of the 'Toy Story'/'Ice Age'/'Shrek' variety) wanted disney movies on dvdto be on this one," Musker says. "We all love this way of making movies."
Clements admits to the simpsons dvd a special sense of urgency, "because this art form really could die out if we don't do this right." They had co-directed "Treasure Planet" (2002),dvd disney one of the films that got the studio thinking that hand-drawn animation was too risky, [SIZE="6"][color:6a33="SandyBrown"]disney dvd box set[/SIZE]too expensive and passe.
Musker says theirdisney dvd challenge is the simpsons dvd as obvious as the opening credits to every Walt Disney Animation film, that logo that now uses a snippet of Walt's 1928 South park dvdbreakthrough film "Steamboat Willie."
"We started as Disney fans," the simpsons dvd Clements says. "Walt inspired us, and we want to inspire the next generation with a movie that will introduce them to a great art form disney dvd box setthat really isdisney movies on dvd a Disney tradition."