Dear Walt...

Me again!

It seems that so far not many people have opinions about the way things are than me. (Or if they do, they just don’t seem willing to share their thoughts with you!) I just have to repeat here though that I believe that nothing’s as inventive, imaginative and at innovative as it was when you were alive and at the helm of this ship we call 'animation'… yes, even with all the computers, technology and digital miracles that we have at our disposal today!

Its not that I want us to make films exactly like you made… far from it! We need to move forward, rather than backwards, and take on fresh challenges. It’s just that nowadays everything is so ‘samey’ and ‘creatively corporate’… and originality seems to have suffered as a result. They do say a camel is a horse designed by a committee don’t they?

It is not as if the knowledge isn’t out there these days either. I mean, so many people are writing about animation and filmmaking that you’d think the films would be so much better, not worse. I’m quite personally enthralled by all the fabulous books that are out now, the like of which were just not available when you were around. There’s Frank and Ollie’s “Illusion of Life” of course. The pretty much encapsulated the magic you created in pursuit of fine storytelling techniques. That’s been pretty much the staple diet of students for a decade or more now. (Not that there are many traditional animation students around sadly these days… art has given so much ground to technology in the name of ‘progress’!)

But in addition to Frank and Ollie’s masterwork we now have the Richard Williams’ ‘bible’ of animation, “The Animator’s Survival Kit”, plus the two fabulous Walt Stanchfield volumes of “Drawn To Life” and even Hans Bacher’s breakthrough concept art book, “Dream Worlds”. You’d actually think someone would be able to put all this together and create something worthy of the name ‘animation’ wouldn’t you! And you’d think someone would actually ‘enable’ someone to put this together and create something worthy of the name ‘animation’ too, wouldn’t you?

There are signs of life outside of your old neck of the woods though. Japan has long maintained a great traditional animation industry and they regularly make some quite amazing films. I know that you’d be proud of Hayao Miyazaki Walt. His latest and greatest film, “Spirited Away”, took the animation Oscar at the Academy not too long ago and was a testament to what great and innovative animated filmmaking is all about. (He’s the nearest thing to the ‘new Walt’ we have these days to be honest.)

The Europeans are showing signs of a revival too. Through great schools like Gobelins and Supinfocom (I know… weird names for animation schools, huh?) they’ve flooded the industry with a whole range of highly talented and innovative artists and animators who are right now just beginning to have an influence. A lot of them are making some pretty amazing films to be honest. The trouble is… they can’t seem to find distribution in the USA, so nobody in the USA actually knows much about them!

The only one to recently slip through the net was “Triplets of Belleville”. That was so original and such fun to watch Walt… albeit slightly weird. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2004 too. Sad thing is though, it picked a really bad year to be released as “The Incredibles” swept all before it… a bit like that greatly underrated film “The Secret of Nimh” (made by one of your own fledglings incidentally) coming out the same week at the box-office as “ET”! ‘The Incredibles’ was actually a major triumph for a ‘2D guy’ however. Brad Bird, who directed ‘The Incredibles’ was also the director of the marvelous “Iron Giant”, that last really innovative traditional animation film to come out of Hollywood. Shame he didn’t stick in the traditional 2D world really… he could have made a huge difference Walt. I think you would have been proud of him.

Anyway, I think I’ve exhausted my train of thought here! Suffice it to say, for all the ‘progress’ we’ve made in the animation world since you left us, we just don’t seem to know how to create that particular magic that you once had Walt… at least, not in the traditional animation mainstream. There’s something really sadly wrong when that talented workforce of yours has been allowed to dissipate and diffuse itself into areas far beyond animation. Somehow I don’t see this era being a ‘good old days’ in the future, do you?