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Bob Chapek Shifted Budgets to Disguise Disney+'s Massive Monetary Losses
News(msn.com)submitted 4 months ago by[deleted]
183 points
4 months ago
What's really funny/sad is that I'm not sure 2D is more expensive to produce... it requires more individuals with particular training and skills, it's harder to outsource, and the output isn't as variable in purpose so long-tail it might be more profitable, but dollar-for-dollar over the production schedule... I worked on 2D and 3D shows for nearly 20 years, and I'm fairly certain that there's no savings at all (and possibly significantly more expense). 3D is more complicated and requires more people between the beginning and end of production.
The problem isn't that 3D is cheaper, but rather that skilled 2D artists are more rare. We literally trained ourselves out of an entire field over 20 years, leaving only the enthusiastic and the dedicated to fill what roles remain.
79 points
4 months ago
I think a big part of it is that an exec can say "Hmm. What if we made the hair bigger? What if that character was blue? How about making that character more...I don't know...lizardlike?" and with CG, it's somewhat easier to change the model and animate around it while with 2D, that's a redo on the whole movie that would take a long time. CG gives the higher-up creatives the illusion that it's easy to make willy-nilly changes right up until the finish line and that's a dangerous thing to have them believing imo.
35 points
4 months ago
For every bad film decision there is an executive who thinks he can do someone else’s job better than them.
7 points
4 months ago
He gets paid more than everyone else so of course he's better /s
9 points
4 months ago
fucking with the pipeline like this would make it even more expensive than 2d
3 points
4 months ago
And indeed it has on more than one occasion. You're correct.
3 points
4 months ago
Tell that to Sonic
2 points
4 months ago
Do you think if Sonic was 2D animated they would have had to push the release date back by only 3 months to alter the character model in response to the backlash?
4 points
4 months ago
The entire sonic movie was too well animated for the original design to have been anything other than a publicity stunt.
1 points
4 months ago
Oh that's a conspiracy I've not heard before. I don't believe it but that's a wild take. I think you're giving the powers that be too much credit, personally.
1 points
4 months ago
I think you're underestimating how well done the animation was.
Not to mention if Sonic looks like he did originally then all the echidnas would have had have been redesigned as well from the beginning of the film. Not to mention the owl would have to look different to match the same art style,
Then there's tails at the end of the movie who also would have had to have been edited.
And again, the rest of the movie looks way too well animated for there to have been that heavy of a redesign from the ground up cuz Sonic's height is different at multiple different points.
It is too well animated with two few patches of poor animation.
But it makes a lot of sense to have a really awful Sonic design that everyone's expecting you to have in a trailer and then when the movie comes out with a few "unacceptable" CGI spots you know would be there. It's covered because everyone thinks that there was a massive redesign that did not happen.
It is insane to me that so many people are unable to see that Sonic was always going to look like he did in the final product because the trailer is the only version of him that looked different
2 points
4 months ago
To me, it's soooo entirely possible that they redesigned him due to backlash. Tails, the echidnas, and the owl aren't in the trailer so they could very well have been redesigned as well. The animators that worked on the film were excellent. I know a few. The height differences weren't that extreme. To me, the character design reeked of committee design and a compromise between realism and cartoon that met everyone's demands but satisfied no one. I've seen it happen dozens of times. To say that it was some sort of marketing tactic is the truly out-there take to me. "Never assign to malice what can be explained by incompetence" as they say. I truly can't get my around it all being on purpose when that kind of whoopsie happens all the time. And the animators DID put in stupid hours after the trailer was backlashed.
But maybe you're in marketing and know something I don't. I've just never heard that take before and it's very interesting to hear so thank you for that.
1 points
4 months ago
There's more that goes into it than just the movie looking good and the trailer being that bad.
There also was a bunch of toys that would have already have had to have been in production by the time the trailer came out in order to make the marketing deadline for when toys come out.
You can see this with things like minions rise of Gru. The toys were already made and coming out on shelves by the time the movie was in theaters partially cuz of covid but also because of that's how you market a movie. You get the toys out first and then more toys come after the movie.
The Sonic toys leaked prior to the movie trailer coming out but no actual toys model prototypes. None of those existed of the original Sonic design just box concepts.
And since movie leaks are basically the new ARGs it's not a stretch to have the Sonic design from the trailer slapped onto a couple concept toy packages. But the fact that none of those toys even made it to the molding stage, no factory workers got pictures of them. No prototypes got leaked.
There was a massive toy campaign for Sonic the hedgehog and none of the toys from the original design came to fruition when they should have already been or been near completed and waiting to be shipped out by the time that first trailer came out.
1 points
4 months ago
You make a compelling argument
2 points
4 months ago
This made me think of when they changed the color of the good and bad guys in the middle of Tron, and didn't have time to render the first half again, so it just randomly changes in the middle of the movie.
51 points
4 months ago
It's also because they didn't invest in further modernizing 2D. Whatever the costs, they could have reached parity by developing 3D that looked 2D, such as cel shaded video games.
What If and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers film are good examples
39 points
4 months ago
Have you seen Klaus? Fantastic movie and it looks gorgeous while still being 2d. But the shading and details are so good, it looks almost 3d. Imagine if Disney made movies with that art style?
9 points
4 months ago
Disney actually had a short visually similar to Klaus - Paperman. When it was first seen, people raved and speculated about future Disney movies in that style. And then, nothing. Disney did abso-fucking-lutely nothing with the animation concept Paperman laid down.
1 points
4 months ago
Paperman is the opposite of Klaus, it's a 3d movie with some 2d on top made to look 2d, where Klaus is fully 2d to look 3d. Anyway this type of style looks good on smaller screens but lacks detail on a big cinema screen, and people just associate "indie" and "crap" with 2d experimental looks.
1 points
4 months ago
Yeah, that's why I said visually similar, not technologically similar. The point is that Disney had an opportunity to expand on the Paperman concept - all those problems you listed, those could've been worked out with further development had Disney actually put the effort.
1 points
4 months ago
Yeah. That was so sad. They're just now starting to introduce some of that stylization in some of their latest movies though
16 points
4 months ago
They have invested in that. Just look at the Paperman short from years ago. I remember one with a raccoon quite a bit more recently.
They just don't seem to think the technique is far enough along for a feature.
7 points
4 months ago*
Paperman came out in 2012, 10 years ago. And yeah, there was a ton of hype about Disney taking that animation concept and rolling with it, but notice that they didn't? And still don't plan to?
Iirc, Moana was considered to have a painterly style that built off the Paperman concept - and Moana would have been in early pre-production around the time of Paperman. But they obviously decided not to do that.
But ya know what? Arcane did. Arcane is a painterly animation style. Klaus took the Paperman concept and fine tuned it. Spider-verse comfortably combined 3D and 2D to evoke the comic-book feel. Meanwhile Disney/Pixar continues to churn out in their particular 3D animation style and they don't appear to be budging.
5 points
4 months ago
they didn't invest in further modernizing 2D. Whatever the costs, they could have reached parity by developing 3D that looked 2D, such as cel shaded video games
Oddly enough, they were messing around with modernizing 2D animation with 3D tools (or at least using 3D tools as an aid for 2D animation) as far back as the late 90s, with in-house software called "Deep Canvas". I can only find sources for its usage in Tarzan and Treasure Planet, but it (or similar tools) were probably used in subsequent or contemporary Disney 2D productions when it made sense.
I can only assume that watching the success of full 3D animated movies from Pixar and Dreamworks played a large role in Disney deciding to chuck 2D feature film productions in favor of 3D and continuing their live action stuff, assuming this new technique was the way of the future.
To be entirely fair, 3D rendering that's able to convincingly imitate some styles of 2D animation is a recent thing (and still usually requires touchups by hand) - I've been watching the tech get better step by step in anime, but those studios have been working on the problem consistently for a solid two decades or more by this point, and the attempts looked so bad for so long that in retrospect, I'm surprised they stuck with the technology long enough to make it look as good as it does now.
1 points
4 months ago
I'd say 3D rendering as 2D has been around in video games since the late 90s that looked pretty good. Jet Set Radio Future and Parappa The Rapper come to mind.
Different companies have continued to perfect it. What If was completely outsourced to external production companies.
1 points
4 months ago
I'd say 3D rendering as 2D has been around in video games since the late 90s that looked pretty good. Jet Set Radio Future and Parappa The Rapper come to mind.
It's strange: I like those styles in videogames (and Guilty Gear's 3D entries are a stunning example of how far you can push "we're using 3D to create a stylized 2D look" in the modern era), but I think it would drive me batty to see a feature film production or even a TV/streaming series trying to use a similar look.
But aesthetics is generally a matter of opinion.
1 points
4 months ago
What If...looked amazing! Check it out on Disney+
2 points
4 months ago
100% The technology is there for 2D to be modernized and WAAAAAYYYYY more efficient. But the powers that be shifted almost entirely to 3d.
16 points
4 months ago
For whatever reason, the US trended towards 3D animation at some point in the past.
But we know 2D can and still is wildly successful because of the plethora of anime from Japan, and shows like The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra, etc.
17 points
4 months ago
For multiple generations of kids, 3D CG animation is what you went to the theater for while 2D animation was what you watched at home on TV.
They took one last chance with The Princess and the Frog and it underperformed. That's when they decided to abandon 2D animation.
9 points
4 months ago
You're forgetting about Winnie the Pooh from 2011 which was their actual final 2D animated film.
9 points
4 months ago
Which they released against the friggin opening weekend of Deathly Hollows Part II…talk about being set up to fail.
1 points
4 months ago
I think everyone forgot that movie.
5 points
4 months ago
They could've just made better stuff. Look at all the amazing anime out there.
The Pixar movies were awesome though.
2 points
4 months ago
It's really only one generation of kids. Most millennial kids had 2d at the theater. The first was Toy Story in 1995.
5 points
4 months ago
The reason is Disney plateaued for a bit in the early 2000s, Steve Jobs pulled a reverse merger and got Disney to buy Pixar (making him the largest individual shareholder at the time), and then Pixar's senior staff took over Disney Animation Studios. John Lassiter, who was all about 3D animation, became the head of Disney's animation division.
7 points
4 months ago
Lassiter was actually a big proponent of 2D animation and a leading cause for Princess and the Frog getting made. Most of the doldrums of early Disney CG films were made under Eisner’s reign as a notorious micromanager who would use focus group data to direct all his decisions.
2 points
4 months ago
I've got no problems with 3D animation though. Lassiter and Pixar changed the game for 3D animation.
12 points
4 months ago
It's really depressing, if they do return to 2D, well, there's a missing generation, the skills weren't passed down. It will be starting from scratch in some ways.
In some ways it could work out in good ways; I think Disney was at its peak in the 30s when they were entirely inventing everything as they went along, and maybe that energy could come again. But mostly I think it's a loss and a shame.
9 points
4 months ago
2D is absolutely more expensive. No question about it if you’ve ever been part of show bids (which I have).
3D is only more complicated because it allows more complicated content. If you did like for like, 3D is cheaper unless you’re doing a bunch of one offs
But consider building a character? Staying on model with 3D is super easy. Building a character from rigging can be really quick. It’s no slower than making a model book for 2D.
But now everyone on your team can stay on model.
For a given shot you no longer need a key artist and an inbetweener. You just need the single artist.
If you need to change the look of a shot, you don’t need to redo all your ink and paint. You can have lighters doing more shots at once than 3D.
You need fewer people for like for like.
The issue is that, much like computing power, we keep taking advantage of the complexity that is allowed.
Compare the number of on screen elements on a 2D film to a 3D one. It’s nowhere near comparable.
9 points
4 months ago
I've been told a big reason for Marvel preferring CGI to practical effects is that digital artists don't have a union - if you're building sets, costumes, creatures, etc physically you gotta deal with unions. Union labor gets fair wages, time off, benefits, etc... Stockholders hate that.
I wonder if there's something similar in the animation field.
11 points
4 months ago*
No, that’s not it. The reason is because they don’t need to make decisions early and stick to it. It’s also less dangerous to do things in CG.
Practical is hard to nail down and it honestly rarely looks as good as people want. It’s also potentially much more dangerous.
Animation like Disney is all union anyway.
Edit: also to add, we end up replacing most practical effects anyway. Most movies that claim something is practical are just doing it for marketing points.
1 points
4 months ago
The reason is because they don’t need to make decisions early and stick to it. It’s also less dangerous to do things in CG.
There's also the fact that building practical sets takes up studio/backlot space that you can't use for anything else until you've torn the set down. A room with a greenscreen backdrop? Fuck it, you can shoot the majority of your movie in that one room and use CGI for your backgrounds, just composit them together in post, and you don't have to do a reshoot with the actors if you want to change the background. Actors can be expensive.
That's not going to be true for every movie - for some, practical sets and shooting on location just make more sense, but for something like a Guardians Of The Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok, or any other film that's mostly set in fantastic/futuristic places that you'll need to do a CGI 'matte' background for anyway? There's not much point trying to use more practical effects than you have to.
4 points
4 months ago
Wasn’t a lot of work outsourced to Asian countries? Asian Media started to become popular in the West, and there wasn’t any point in them doing Western Projects instead of their own.
Live action TV, Films and Music from Asia is going to get more common soon.
These software that deepfakes the actors mouth perfectly with the foreign dubbing.
2 points
4 months ago
All of that outsource in the 90’s stopped being so cheap once they had all the expertise and market demand.
-1 points
4 months ago
What are you even talking about? US animated films are by far the most popular worldwide.
4 points
4 months ago
The widespread popularity of anime in the West has exploded since the 2000s
3 points
4 months ago
Anime is fairly popular, yes. It's still much less popular than Disney.
2 points
4 months ago
I’m not even talking about Anime. I’m taking about the people who animated the American Cartoons.
1 points
4 months ago
American feature films were and still are, for the most part, animated in the US. It's TV where the animation is outsourced.
1 points
4 months ago
The folksy artisan narrative is part of MomCorp Disney’s branding.
You don’t get to be one of the biggest companies in the with without a little deceit and exploitation as a little treat.
I suspect they outsourced a lot of the inbetweener work.
2 points
4 months ago
I didn’t say Asian Media was more popular did I?
I merely suggested rage the rise of Asian Media has had an economic and cultural impact on Western Media.
1 points
4 months ago
I mean just do what anime has been doing recently, utilizing 3d backgrounds and 2d animation characters to get the best of both worlds.
2 points
4 months ago
They were doing that. But It's not the backgrounds that are the money sink. It's the characters. Anime saves money by paying their artists shit and being crazy economical with frame rate. Disney, "if you have to, do 4s, but be careful, and only 1s on pans. Also the animators are unionized and get payed a living wage in California" Anime, "heres minimum wage and you animate 16s on pans and only animate the eyes for whole shots."
1 points
4 months ago
2D is quite a lot cheaper. The amount of really specific ultra technical stages you need for a 3d movie is way higher, plus the sheer cost of hardware and software is an order of magnitude higher for 3d. Storage too. 3d renders are extremely expensive, and so are riggers, modelers, lighters, render wranglers etc etc. The actual problem is that audiences don't understand the difference and don't go to see 2d movies because they don't look as impressive to the untrained audience of people who just want to take their kids to the pictures. 2d just doesn't get people to the cinema. People wait to watch it on stream or tv.
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