"Paperman" Nifty Disney Animated Short

Disney's excellent "Paperman" short debuted along with Wreck-It Ralph. Nicely rendered, with a sweet and romantic subject.
Highly recommended:

"Waking Sleeping Beauty" An Interesting Film (To ME)

Just got home from catching a matinee showing of a limited-run engagement of "Waking Sleeping Beauty", an insider documentary about the rise (and subsequent fall) of Walt Disney Feature Animation in the late 80's and 1990's.

The flick offers a lot of behind-the-scenes home movies, photos and interviews.

Peter Schneider, Roy Disney, and Jeffrey Katzenberg (pictured below) are all featured in the film, as well as the vilified Michael Eisner, the man hand-picked by Roy to run the studio.

1970's CalArts students.

The animators feared Katzenberg for creating a pressure-cooker atmosphere, and ultimately he caught a lot of blame (warranted or not) for the collapse.

All in all, I enjoyed the film, and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in the way things worked.

Roy E. Disney Dies

Roy Disney, Known as “Soul” of the Studio, Dies at 79

From Animation Magazine:

Wednesday, December 16, 2009By: Ramin Zahed
Roy E. Disney, Walt’s nephew and longtime exec producer and senior exec at the Disney Studio passed away today (Wednesday, Dec. 16) in Newport beach, Calif. after a year-long battle with stomach cancer, reported the Associated Press.
"He was a great man who believed deeply in the art of animation. He put his heart and soul into preserving Disney's legendary past, while helping to move the art of animation into the modern age by embracing new technology," noted John Lasseter, Disney/Pxar’s chief creative officer, who first met Disney while a student at CalArts. “He was a visionary and passionate supporter of the art form."

Disney was a champion of the company’s classic animation and helped bring about the first renaissance of traditional animation in the 1980sa nd 1990s by supporting the animation teams behind classics such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. He was also recognized widely as a powerful shareholder in the company who spearheaded two successful campaigns to oust company heads (his cousin-in-law Ron Miller and later on, Michael Eisner) who he believed were taking the company in the wrong direction.
Soft-spoken and unpretentious, Disney was also seen as the “soul” of the company by many insiders. “The thing that distinguishes [Disney] from everybody else, and always has and always will, is our past,” he once said “The goal is to look over our shoulder and see Snow White and Pinocchio and Dumbo standing there, saying, 'Be this good.' We shouldn't be intimidated by them; they're an arrow pointing someplace."
Disney grew up on his uncle’s now-classic retellings of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio. He also received a sound education in finance from his father Roy Sr., who oversaw Disney Co.'s business end. Upon graduating from Pomona College in 1951, the younger Disney followed his uncle and father into the entertainment industry, working as an editor, screenwriter and producer on a host of projects, from TV's Dragnet and Zorro to the Oscar-nominated film Mysteries of the Deep.
He would also later produce 2004's acclaimed Destino, using mid-century animation Salvador Dali created for Walt Disney Co., and Fantasia 2000, a sequel to his uncle's 1940 classic.
Disney, who also founded the private equity firm Shamrock Holdings, is survived by his wife, Leslie, four children from a previous marriage —Tim Disney, Roy Patrick Disney, Abigail Disney and Susan Disney Lord—and 16 grandchildren. Following private funeral services and cremation, Disney’s ashes will be scattered at sea. Plans for a memorial will also be announced soon.

D23: Lasseter Promises More Hand-drawn Animation

From Animation Magazine.net:

Monday, September 14, 2009By: Thomas J. Mclean
PIXAR and Disney animation chief John Lasseter has built the studio’s sterling reputation on cutting-edge CG animation, but says Disney fans can expect to see a lot more hand-drawn animation in the future.
Speaking at Disney’s D23 fan expo in Anaheim, Lasseter gave fans a peek at the upcoming hand-drawn film The Princess and the Frog, and a new Winnie the Pooh feature due out in 2011, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He said that studios had made a mistake in focusing solely on CG animation.
“I never quite understood why the studios thought people wouldn’t want to watch it,” Lasseter said, according to a Reuters report. “What audiences didn’t want was bad movies.”
Speaking to press, Lasseter denied there was any truth to the rumor that Pixar was planning an Ant-Man movie as part of Disney’s recently announced plans to buy Marvel Entertainment.
He also announced some casting news for the upcoming Toy Story 3, confirming that John Morris will return as the voice of Andy. Jeff Garliln, Bonnie Hunt, Timothy Dalton and Whoopi Goldberg also will play voices in the film.
In other D23 news, Disney announced plans to revamp the Star Tours attraction to be a 3-D experience, opening in 2011. The company also announced plans to vastly expand its Fantasyland attraction at Walt Disney World, opening in 2012.