Disney To Close Florida Animation Studio - please read

[Aloha717200]

Please see the links at the bottom of this post, your support is needed and appreciated.


From JimHillMedia.com:


Mickey's misdirection misfires OR "Since when do new animated features get announced on Sunday afternoons?"


Care to guess why Disney Feature Animation's next high profile project got announced late yesterday afternoon? Could it be that far too many reporters had begun asking questions about today's closing of the Central Florida studio?



There's this time-honored technique that magicians use. It's called misdirection.

"What's misdirection?" you ask. Well, it's what an illusionist does with his right hand when he doesn't want you to watch what his left hand is doing.

And yesterday, the Mouse's PR staff mounted what some are calling a pretty major misdirection operation. All with the hope that reporters around the globe would stop paying attention to the old news story (I.E. today's closing of Feature Animation Florida) and start "Oohing" and "Aahing" over the new news story (I.E. Disney's dramatic announcement of the studio's next big CG project, "A Day with Wilbur Robinson.")

Why did Disney do this? Because late Saturday night, it became apparent that the WDFAF closure story was not going to go away. Since the news had been officially been broken early Saturday by both the Los Angeles Times and the Orlando Sentinel, the studio's PR department had been inundated with calls from around the globe. From reporters both near and far. Each of them looking for some sort of official comment on Disney's decision to shut down its Florida animation operation.

Given Disney had deliberately leaked this news to the Times and the Sentinel on Friday evening (All with the hope that the WDFAF closing story would have somehow blown itself out by the time Monday morning rolled around again), the Mouse's PR staff knew that they were in big trouble once Reuters picked up the Florida closure story and ran with it. Then came word that NBC would be mentioning the item as part of the network's Sunday morning news reports.

It was then that Mickey's PR department knew that it had to mount a major damage control operation. Try and get ahead of all the bad publicity that the Mouse's decision to shut down its Feature Animation Florida unit was sure to cause the Walt Disney Company. Throw something out there that would (hopefully) divert all the reporters who were hammering on their door.

Which was why -- totally coincidentally -- yesterday afternoon that Walt Disney Pictures' publicity department just HAD TO issue the following press release:


Press Release Source: Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Feature Animation Set To Spend 'A Day With Wilbur Robinson' With New Animated Feature Slated For 2006

Sunday January 11, 2:52 pm ET

BURBANK, Calif., Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Walt Disney Feature Animation will produce a feature length animated film based on the bestselling William Joyce book, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, it was announced today by Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, and David Stainton, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation. "A Day with Wilbur Robinson," will be executive produced by Clark Spencer ("Lilo and Stitch") and produced by Disney animation veteran Dorothy Mc Kim. Steve Anderson (head of story on "The Emperor's New Groove" and "Brother Bear") is set to direct. The animated film, which will utilize the latest computer-animation techniques, will be produced at Disney's Burbank-based animation studio and is scheduled to be released in 2006. Animation will begin in June 2004.

The fantastic world of William Joyce's beloved 1990 book A Day with Wilbur Robinson comes to life in this comedy-adventure tale that follows one fateful day in the life of a boy-genius who creates a mysterious machine with one fantastic purpose -- to recover the lost memory of the past. What he unlocks instead is time itself, and a visit with a future, a family, and a world whose survival all depends upon him.

Commenting on the announcement, Stainton said, "William Joyce's charming and funny book has everything you could possibly want in an animated film and offers our animation team a rich world of possibilities. Steve Anderson has proven himself to be a great storyteller and will make a great director on this project, given his instincts and passion for the material. Clark Spencer did an amazing job producing 'Lilo and Stitch' and we are thrilled to have him and Dorothy Mc Kim lending their expertise to this project. Our goal at Disney is to tell great stories and to take full advantage of the medium, and 'A Day with Wilbur Robinson' gives us a chance to do both."

Acclaimed illustrator/author William Joyce has previously been associated with Disney on the Emmy Award-winning Disney Channel series, "Rolie Polie Olie," which has earned kudos during its five year run. As a bestselling author of children's books, he has written such favorites as Dinosaur Bob, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, Santa Calls, Bentley and Egg, and Nicholas Cricket, among others.


This is the PR department's desperate attempt at working some "Disney Magic." Putting a big happy extremely optimistic story out there about what Disney Feature Animation will be working on in the not-so-distant future out at the same time as the official word is coming down about the Florida studio closing. All with the hope that these two stories (one positive, one negative) will somehow negate one another ... Which means that this whole awful awkward situation will have minimum impact on the Walt Disney Company's reputation.

Seriously, folks. This is how Disney's PR department really intends to answer reporters' questions today. Not to talk about the past (I.E. the corporation's decision to shutter a studio that specialized in making traditionally animated features) but to point to the future (I.E. An exciting new project! Which will be based on a best selling book! That will be made with "the latest computer-animation techniques"! That starts production this summer but will be out in theaters by 2006!)

You understand that no mention will be made at all of the 250 people who are officially being put out of work today. Or the tens of millions of dollars that the Walt Disney Company had already invested in training the WDFAF staff to work in the CG format. Or the virtually brand new $70 million facility that the Mouse had built expressly for its Florida animators back in 1998 ... which is now going to stand empty backstage at the Disney-MGM theme park.

No, Disney's flaks aren't going to want to answer any questions like that today when the studio's public relations office finally officially reopens for business later this morning. Which is why they're going to try and spin the sh*t out of this extremely awful situation. Always stressing the positive ("Did you see that we announced production of a brand new animated film yesterday?") rather than the negative ("Yeah, it was pretty terrible how we jerked all of those WDFAF staffers around for the past two months.")

But something tells me that Mickey's last minute attempt at some misdirection is going to misfire in a really big way. That the mainstream media -- now that it's finally discovered this story -- isn't just going to let go of it. That it's going to continue to ask Disney some pretty awkward questions in the days, weeks and months yet to come.

Which is why I'm predicting that it will be a really blue Monday ... Both for the now-officially-let-go crew at Disney Feature Animation Florida as well as the staff of the studio's PR department. Who are now stuck with the unenviable task of trying to prevent this incredible public relations blunder (I.E. The Walt Disney Company actually turning its back on a 67-year-long tradition of telling great stories through the medium of traditional animation) from continually biting Mickey in the ass.

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So, What Happens Now?

Would it not strike you as strange that for the past five years, Disney Feature Animation Florida, which is expected to be shuttered today, has been the most profitable arm of the Walt Disney Feature Animation department? And that as of today, Michael Eisner, CEO of the Disney Corporation, and David Stainton, head of Feature Animation, are expected to announce the permanent closure of WDFAF?

That's what the shareholders would like to know. Considering that the success of Disney's animated features in recent years has been bolstered by this animation studio, it makes little sense that now Disney would be cutting off its more profitable arm and focusing on its main studio in Burbank, which has not had a successful film since the release of Tarzan back in 1999.

More pressing is the fact that with the closure of Florida, more and more animated projects are being sent overseas, to Disney's foreign animation studios, while animators based in the USA, 250 of them just at the Florida studio itself, are given the choice to either pack their bags and move to Burbank, or find themselves jobless.

More of the same from Eisner who has a habit of cutting the Disney corporation apart, piece by piece, to claim further profits at each year end. Only this time, a profit stands to be lost rather than gained by the closure of the florida studio.

In the months since initial leaks from the Disney corporation that Feature Animation Florida might be on the chopping block, the mood at WDFAF has been low, and to those who pay attention to the goings on of the company, the anger towards the management making this very unwise decision has been growing. The dam broke, however, when Roy Disney and Stanley P. Gold publicly announced their resignation from the Walt Disney Co., in protest of Michael Eisner's mismanagement, while calling for Eisner himself to step down as well, and name a successor.

Eisner, however, has done neither. Instead he has tightened the choke-hold on the disney corporation prior to Disney's resignation from the company. A new company ethics handbook has been released to disney employees, far more strict than the last, while employees have been reprimanded for visting Roy Disney's website, www.SaveDisney.com.

While the employees of the Disney corporation may not have a voice to use in opposition to Eisner's policies, the end consumer does. Grassroots support for Roy Disney and Stanley Gold has been growing exponentially these past few weeks. Two online petitions, in support of Disney, while calling for the resignation of Eisner, have together reached 11,200 signatures total, and continue to grow. One petition, with signatures numbering 7,000 as of today, has grown from 6,000 signatures this time last week, and has been referenced to by Fortune Magazine, which recently published an article concerning Roy's efforts to re-shape the Disney corporation.

What Eisner should be concerned about, however, is that the shareholders themselves are signing these petitions, too. And apparently he is, considering the noose-tightening that has been going on in the company recently, and the smoke and mirrors dance of shutting down WDFAF, claiming it will make the company more efficient, while ignoring the fact that for five years, Disney's entire success in Feature Animation has been largely dependent on this studio.

And of course, to top it all off, announcing a new film for Disney the day before the official word on WDFAF closing. How convenient. The problem is, for Eisner and his board, that the media isn't so quick to give up a story like this, and considering that the new film does not even start production until this summer, that leaves the window wide open for the media to look inside the Disney Corporation, and see exactly what kind of game Michael Eisner is playing.

The question is, will Eisner be able to pull the wool over the eyes of the investors yet again, or has the world finally been awakened to Eisner's tactics. It would seem, this time, that the shareholders have seen the light. And come February, the question over Eisner's continued presence at the Walt Disney Company, will be answered as stockholders submit their votes of confidence....or no-confidence, for year end.

If this is Eisner's plan of going out with a bang, he has certainly achieved it. Meanwhile, the ground is moving with supporters of a new face for Disney. Come February, we will see whether 2004 brings a new face and a new direction to Disney.

Does Roy plan on replacing Eisner? Apparently he does not. So if Eisner is recalled from his postition as CEO of one of the world's biggest companies, who do does Roy Disney have in mind to replace him?

Look to Pixar to find the answer. 2004 might be an interesting year...for John Lasseter.
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Your thoughts?

[Aloha717200]

Please help support Roy Disney and Stanley Gold in their efforts to oust Michael Eisner and have him replaced by someone more suitable to run the Disney corporation. The jobs of Disney animators, and the dreams of working at Disney by future animators, depend on it:


http://www.SaveDisney.com

http://www.pruiksma.com/letterofsupport.html

http://www.petitiononline.com/roymagic/petition.html


Thank you, your support is greatly appreciated.

[Aloha717200]

On another forum, someone posted that they hated Disney.


This comes as no surprise. It's largely because of what Eisner has turned the company into: a moneymaking machine.


The goal is to have him ousted and replaced by someone who can turn the company back into what Walt always envisioned for it to become. Walt's Disney was never about money-making. It was always about the vision.


I hope that 2004 will be the year that Disney starts back on that path towards imagination and not just money. Alot of people hate Disney right now for what it stands for. As a Disney fan, I'm doing my part to help spread the word and change Disney for the better.

Here's a quote from Walt himself:

"I knew if this business was ever to get anywhere, if this business was ever to grow, it could never do it by having to answer to someone unsympathetic to its possibilities, by having to answer to someone with only one thought or interest, namely profits. For my idea of how to make profits has differed greatly from those who generally control businesses such as ours. I have blind faith in the policy that quality, tempered with good judgment and showmanship, will win against all odds." - - Walt Disney


This is the real Disney, the policy we hope to restore.

[vampireuk]

hmm when Disney says they are going to produce a movie they mean Pixar are going to make it right?

[poursoul]

i don't understand why you posted this stuff here. what the hell?

[vampireuk]

*shrugs* he cares about Disney, a lot of people do. I'm sick of what Disney are doing myself.

[1stFlight]

I grew up on Disney, and I would hope my daughter will be able to as well.


These are truely sad times...

[saturnotaku]

Pixar = schweet

Disney = teh suck

I wish Pixar would sever their ties with Diz-nee and go out on their own.

[DaveW]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
Pixar = schweet

Disney = teh suck

I wish Pixar would sever their ties with Diz-nee and go out on their own.

what he said!

[Skuzzy]

This is a crock. I have followed Disney since I was way young and had an oppertunity to go to their art school on scholarship when I was out of high school back in the late 60's.

You may not like Eisner, but if it were not for Eisner, Disney would have closed down a long time ago. Roy Disney nearly ran the company into bankruptcy and does not have a sinlge creative bone in his body. He is a bean counter and that is all he has ever been.
Anyone here of a film called "Little Mermaid"? If it were not for Eisner, this film would not have been made. Roy had killed it back when the original Disney crew wanted to do it after Walt died. The idea for film was Walt's.

Every single person at the Florida studios was offered a job in the Burbank studio. I see nothing wrong with a company consolidating. Most companies these days, would not even have offered the jobs.

Roy Disney gets a hold of the reigns then the mouse will die.

[vampireuk]

When was the last time Disney made their own movie? It's Pixar doing all the work for them, the old disney movies were the best.

[TheOneKEA]

And if Eisner keeps the reins, what then?