Difference between a non Disney animated film and Disney

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Difference between a non Disney animated film and Disney

Post by Darkblade » June 14th, 2009, 10:27 pm

Hey everyone. I could really use some info on this one which has been bothering me for the past month. I was looking at some animated movies{mostly Disney films}, and I watched a few animated films that are not made by Disney. When I was talking with a few of my friends one of them said "Some people consider something like Cats Don't Dance and An American Tale as a Disney film". This has bothered me...mostly the name Don Bluth comes to the mind of some people whenever they hear the words "Non Disney animated film" or someone else in general.

Could someone please to me the difference of an animated Disney film and a animated film that isnt made by Disney? If so that would be very grateful of you.

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Re: Difference between a non Disney animated film and Disne

Post by EricJ » June 14th, 2009, 11:51 pm

I believe the context was not in the sense of "Some people SHOULD believe that because of an artistic distinction", it was more in the sense of "Some people DO, because they're idiots." :P

(No, seriously--I can remember when people thought "Anastasia" and "Road to El Dorado"'s female leads were "Disney princesses", unquote, because they looked like one and had songs.) :roll:

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Post by estefan » June 15th, 2009, 7:47 am

Well, considering (during the 90s anyway), Disney was the big studio in terms of animated features, so naturally, people will think of Disney when they see one, despite the castle not appearing at the front of the film. A couple of months ago, I was talking about race in Disney films in one of my classes and somebody was very surprised when I said that The Prince of Egypt is not a Disney film.

It's interesting when you go on some IMDb message boards, for instance, that some people think Shrek or Over the Hedge are Pixar films (since Pixar right now was Disney 15 years ago).

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Post by EricJ » June 15th, 2009, 8:45 am

And doesn't help that Don Bluth responded to Disney's attempt to harrass "Anastasia" by Fox announcing they would deliberately replicate every single aspect of Disney marketing for their own movie, so there--
Starting with the princess doll and singalong VHS, right down to the (short-lived) ice show, and the (Sea World) Orlando theme-park attraction...

...And quite a few mainstream-audience dopes who can't read studio credits ended up hostage victims of the studios' private little war. :?

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Post by Rodney » June 15th, 2009, 2:01 pm

In response to the original post, there's no ONE difference between Disney films and non-Disney films. In fact, I can't think of any characteristic that defines all Disney films. I, for one, do not think there is any great aesthetic difference between studios any more than there are between films from the same studio. To me, it comes down to the creative force behind the film and that usually the director (whether that be Bluth, Miyazaki, or John Lasseter).

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Post by starlioness » June 15th, 2009, 2:06 pm

yeah, I think Anastasia and maybe Shrek are probably among the worst offenders.. especially Anastasia :p..

it's funny that people unconciously engrave in their mind that Anastasia is a disney movie... then think Treasure Planet isn't.. 8) since it's so undisney-like :p..

of course a lot of People think Bolt was made by Pixar .. *shrug*..

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Post by estefan » June 15th, 2009, 3:55 pm

Well, the confusion of Bolt is understandable. It does have an almost Pixar-like look to it and you can see John Lasseter's finger-prints all over it. In addition to his executive producer credit and the fact that he was all over promoting the film, I get why people might be confused.

However, I think with Disney being the only major studio making hand-drawn animated films (that I know of, anyway), I don't think anybody will confuse The Princess and the Frog with a Fox or DreamWorks production.

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Post by EricJ » June 15th, 2009, 10:18 pm

starlioness wrote:of course a lot of People think Bolt was made by Pixar .. *shrug*..
Probably because Lasseter fixed the two Stainton-salvage movies with "what worked" for Pixar (lotsa personal redemptions for each character, complete with "poignant" Jessie-like backstories for each), which is why you'll find 3 out of 5 people still think "Meet the Robinsons" was a Pixar movie--

In those cases, it's understandable, as most are just now figuring out what made "Up"'s script so huggly by the last reel, and are retroactively spotting it in the Lasseter WDFA fixer-uppers.
At least those audiences are starting to learn how to tell one studio from another, even if they still need a little practice at getting it right.

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Disney's Own Magic

Post by Dusterian » June 18th, 2009, 1:43 pm

Rodney I'd love it if you payed attention to this, too.

Disney films have their own Disney magic.

But sometimes, some Disney films don't seem to have that magic. Recent ones, pretty much.

When Walt Disney was alive, it was easy to tell "this is a Disney film" or "this is Disney magic". Now, it's not as easy to tell, especially since they've come up with such "un-Disney-like" films with new directors, and Eisner, and now Lasseter. They've made films people think just aren't very good or very Disney.

But I like to believe that Disney films, most of them, have a house style, a kind of look, though it may be impossible to describe. And Disney magic, too.

For one thing, Disney's rotoscoping, where they looked at photostats of live-action, and sometimes draw over it, is better, and more artistically changed, made into genuine newly created people and newly created movement than in, say, a Don Bluth film. Disney just took it further. They traced over the photostats, but only looked at them, never copied the tracings into the final animation paper. They drew the actual animation free-hand, just looking at the photostats. Maybe Don Bluth never traced the live-action into the animation paper either, but somehow they did not do the same thing the Disney artists always have done, and achieve the same new, floaty, stylized movement.

But more than that, Disney just has it's own style, it's own liveliness that is a very small detail and hard to figure out, but Anastasia looks different from any other Disney film, that's for sure. I can tell. If you can't, well, then either you just can't, or you don't pay attention. I've grown up with and watched a lot of Disney, and I'm an artist myself, so that may help me in telling Don Bluth from Disney. It's hard to put your finger on, but there's definately a difference. Don Bluth definately has his own style, it must be noted. Big cheeks seem to be one thing, if that helps!

Enchanted and possibly now The Princess and the Frog look different from Disney. There was once an animation test of Giselle that looked more Disney than what we got in the actual film. My worries over Disney losing it's established look and movement the way it was taught, after getting rid of the old animation stuff, could be confirmed, but they still have animators who were taught by the original animators, so there is still hope.
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Post by Ben » June 18th, 2009, 3:09 pm

And I'll just make the point that many of the great Disney animators that made the 1990s films are the very same people come back for P&TF, by the way.

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Post by Rodney » June 18th, 2009, 3:59 pm

Dusterian, I never said I could not differentiate between Disney and non-Disney. However, I already know who produced the film before watching it so it's hard to say what the result would be if we didn't know and had to guess. I've been watching Disney films my whole life and am amply familiar with all of them (and with non-Disney films as well). What I was saying is that there is no ONE thing that differentiates Disney films from non-Disney films. I do not think that Disney films have one uniting style. I think they are all family-friendly and that maybe some themes are explored more often (such as having a single parent, overcoming adversity), but these are by no means exclusive to Disney Films. Others have explored similar themes.

I think that within the Disney cannon, we get different time periods each with its own style. Before the 80s, almost all major animated films were produced and animated by Disney so it's very obvious to know which one is which. All other features were either created by minor studios or independent producers. Styles have also developed and evolved since then. We cannot compare a Disney film from the 50s with a Bluth film from the 90s. I bet we could find as many differences between two Disney films produced in the two eras (such as between Cinderella and The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

I also do not think there is a defined house look. You take Lilo & Stitch and compare that with Treasure Planet and you can see a big difference in character design and backgrounds (to give examples from the past decade). If we were to go back further to the period Walt was alive, I would argue that Sleeping Beauty is completely different from its successor 101 Dalmatians in both style and pacing.

Also, Bluth, Lasseter, and Katzenberg all have Disney backgrounds so it doesn't make sense to say that their films are somehow different based solely on the company behind them.

In the end, all I'm saying is that things that define a film have more to do with the individual artist (or group of animators) behind them than with the company itself.

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Disney's Own Magic

Post by Dusterian » July 13th, 2009, 8:23 pm

Okay, well, thank you.

Ben, I do now know a lot of the old staff has come back. However, I noticed the animation doesn't seem to be as good or smooth or flowy as it once was. I don't know if that's because they have to start from scratch now or don't have enough time.

When I look at some scene or trailer from Treasure Planet, I see how far and how good they got! Yes, it looks more articulated and flowy and more frames than the earlier Disney features, more advanced. But now Enchanted and The Princess and the Frog looks like a backstep.

Rodney, all I can say is it doesn't sound like you really read everything I said.

It's very hard, but I believe that there is something no one can really put their finger on, something as mysterious as magic itself, that guides the company's animation, as long as it's passed down. Somehow, no matter what they do, no matter what artists are hearing the teachings passed down, their films end up looking Disney.

Yes, Disney films have started to look very different since Disney died, meaning they do look a little less Disney, or a little less like all Disney embodied. And yes 101 Dalmatians looks very different in some ways from their other films, but the characters call back to the ones animated before, Perdita looks like Cinderella or Aurora, Cruella like Maleficent, Nanny like any of the fairy godmothers. On the Picture Perfect: Making of Sleeping Beauty, someone said even though the style had changed, they still looked like Disney characters, the fairies still somehow looked round, cute, and cuddly. Aurora looks a lot like Cinderella, despite her different style. Yes, they were done by Marc Davis but my point is still made.

You know, it's hard to say what it is, but even in all the distinct styles Disney had while Walt was alive, I can still see their polished, intracate, realistic look.

But now that Walt died, it seems the animation really changed once they got to The Little Mermaid. Some huge-eyed heroine and all these things.

But I still believe as long as it is done by Disney, like magic, it retains something unique only to themselves.

Otherwise, what on earth is the point of having different studios? If they can all do the same things as each other? Well, maybe thet point is some studios will do wackier things or more adult things, but even Disney tries to tread those paths, though usually very quietly, but The Emporer's New Groove is very wacky and different, yet still somehow Disney.

I have to admit, The Emorer's New Groove, Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and Home on the Range look really different from usual Disney in style, but something in the character's animation still says Disney to me. Well, I don't know about Home on the Range, but I didn't see that, and I only saw some of Treasure Planet either.

I think they aren't quite as magical as the older Disney films made closer to when Walt was alive, but they're trying to get it back, or maybe I just have to accept a new magic.

Don Bluth's films all look very much alike! They often have big rosy cheeked characters and there's probably more but I can't put my finger on it.

Even though Don Bluth and James Baxter worked for Disney, when away from the company, they didn't create characters that looked quite as good as what Disney came up with or at least that looked the same as Disney (similar, yes, but you can tell a difference). At least in Enchanted, I don't know what was up with Giselle.
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Post by Ben » July 14th, 2009, 5:39 am

There's also a lot to be said for the placebo effect! ;)

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Post by Dusterian » July 17th, 2009, 9:15 am

But Ben...

Don't you want to believe every studio is unique and retains something, some kind, all to itself?

I'm not saying only Disney has it's own magic, many studios have their own kind of something, as I said Don Bluth films have their own feel in so many if not all of their (his) films.
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Post by Ben » July 20th, 2009, 7:41 am

I do believe.

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