An interesting video that's doing the rounds at the moment, demonstrating how Disney has "recycled" several of the same sequences in a number of their animated films over the years.
And stories covering the video in The Telegraph and The Times.
My thoughts...
The video, if nothing else, is compelling viewing. It's crafted to perfection, flowing seamlessly from one film clip to the next. The most surprising thing that's come out of this is the reaction from the "Disney fans" (read: people who commented on YouTube). From The Times:
“I feel so ripped off now. All the money I spend on this crap, they could at least come up with some original scenes,” wrote one viewer. “Our childhoods were based on a lie,” said another.
A little melodramatic, maybe? Oh wait, this is YouTube commenters. Maybe not then.
As a fan of Disney, do I feel "ripped off" or that my childhood is now "based on a lie"? Definitely not. The fact that a handful of scenes from a small number from Disney's dozens-strong canon of animated films have used the same animation sequences is fascinating to see, but certainly doesn't destroy the legacy that Disney has crafted. I find it surprising that the broadsheets would report the YouTube commenters as genuine commentators.
Returning back to the video itself, I found it remarkable that the video referencing system was used as late as 1991's Beauty And The Beast, and that the sequence reused was one from Sleeping Beauty, a film over years old at the time. I'll also be interested to see if any further compilations of this technique, from Disney films or otherwise, surface in the near future.
Error'd: Tangled Up In Blue
6 hours ago
7 comments:
That is an amazing video. I guess they saved time on re-storyboarding fight/dance scenes. I love how similar some of the characters look (e.g. animal musicians) between the films. :D
It's almost hypnotic to watch. I know what you mean with some of the characters too, which is why I don't understand how some people can be so outraged by it. It's been fairly plain for me to see since I was a child that Little John in Robin Hood is just The Jungle Book's Baloo with brown fur and a snazzy green costume.
On further investigation, it's also pretty amazing that it's taken this long for this process to become apparent, seeing as three of the main culprits - The Jungle Book, The Aristocats and Robin Hood - were all made within a span of only six years.
guessing the modern equivalent is Disney Pixar using software platforms they develop for one film in the making of another?
I'm not upset at all, I mean, the the same actor voiced Baloo, Little John and Thomas O'Malley for chrissakes. As far as I'm aware that film clip only includes nine separate Disney films and they've made waaaaay more than that.
"guessing the modern equivalent is Disney Pixar using software platforms they develop for one film in the making of another?"I don't think there really is a modern equivalent, since the Disney ones are examples of the content of a film being affected for the sake (I assume) of saving time and money. It would be like Pixar re-using the Mike and Scully models from Monsters Inc. for a film about two humans who happen to look a lot like Mike and Scully.
I don't think it'd just be using the models, I know for example that pixar built a face building piece of software for the incredibles so that they could have lots of similar but different extras, and they're still using the same system in other films.
Perhaps, but I think there's a distinction between using the same tools for two projects in which all the ideas are originally generated and using the same tools and the same ideas (ie storyboarding of fights/dances).
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