{"id":2083,"date":"2018-05-30T22:42:10","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T05:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/?p=2083"},"modified":"2021-09-19T23:17:30","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T06:17:30","slug":"welcome-to-burbank-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/30\/welcome-to-burbank-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Burbank, Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Originally published in <em>Animato<\/em> #19, Winter 1990.)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2089\" src=\"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/ed2e5cf576a55e842d71d9f89b8a7ee3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"765\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/ed2e5cf576a55e842d71d9f89b8a7ee3.jpg 765w, https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/ed2e5cf576a55e842d71d9f89b8a7ee3-300x235.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"drop\">T<\/span>he Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park, which joined the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Center at Walt Disney World last May, is a place where pieces of movie legend \u2013 from Dorothy\u2019s ruby slippers to the piano on which Sam played it again to Hollywood Boulevard itself \u2013 have somehow magically landed in central Florida. Tucked in one corner of the place is one of the most significant Hollywood icons that has made the trip: an animation studio making Disney cartoons with classic characters like Mickey Mouse and new stars like Roger Rabbit.<\/p>\n<p>While the attraction opened its doors to Disney World visitors only this year, in one sense its roots stretch back to the 1930s, when Disney first began having to explain that it did not offer tours of its animation studio. (An earlier stab at addressing this problem grew from a proposed playground on the Burbank studio property into Disneyland.) Planning for the Disney-MGM Studios project began not long after the present Disney studio management led by Michael Eisner assumed power, and the resulting park combines facets of the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Center into a theme park which complements its two neighbors on the Disney property (If the Magic Kingdom\u2019s greatest appeal is to children, and EPCOT is of particular interest to grownups, Disney-MGM seems to be aimed most squarely at teenagers and young adults. Of course, all three parks are perfectly capable of captivating visitors of any age.)<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The park\u2019s attractions range from the purely fanciful&#8211;a Hollywood Boulevard inspired more by every movie fan\u2019s dreams than the actual street, an elaborate ride through great moments in film history \u2013 to a working film production center where visitors can discover how movies are made. It is here that the animation studio tour is located, along with a \u201cBackstage Movie Tour\u201d built around soundstages and sets where live \u00a0action television programs, movies, and commercials are filmed.<\/p>\n<p>The animation building really holds two intertwined operations: a Disney-MGM Theme Park attraction \u2013 \u201cThe Magic of Disney Animation\u201d \u2013 and an animation studio \u2013 Walt Disney Animation Florida \u2013 that will be producing animated shorts and featurettes as well as other special projects. The attraction, which makes the actual animation studio the centerpiece of an experience that includes films and an art exhibit, does a fine job of taking visitors behind the scenes of Disney animation. While there is humor, in the form of a film and several short video presentations featuring Robin Williams, the overall tone is scholarly, almost reverent; the mood is reminiscent of Frank Thomas and Oliver Johnston\u2019s <em>Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life<\/em> or one of the other big art books on the studio\u2019s work. (Interestingly, the animation studio tour is much more serious and less glitzy than the live-action studio tour that sits next door on the Disney-MGM lot.)<\/p>\n<p>Walt Disney Animation Florida\u2019s staff had to be built from scratch, a not-inconsiderable task given that the state does not have a natural abundance of professional animators. (Although once upon a time there was another major animation studio in the state; see this issue\u2019s \u201cKoko Komments\u201d for more information on the Fleischer studio\u2019s period there.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park Grand Opening (1989)\" width=\"840\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TG_rMISm0d8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The staff includes eight animators from a variety of backgrounds: Mark Henn came to the studio after contributing to every Disney animated feature from <em>The Fox and the Hound<\/em> to <em>The Little Mermaid<\/em> (for which he animated many of the title character\u2019s scenes). Brigitte Hartley arrived a veteran of the London TV-commercial industry and an animator on <em>Who Framed Roger Rabbit<\/em>. And Alex Kuperschmidt has been working as an artist at Walt Disney World for several years, including as an animator for a small\u00a0animation group which has since been disbanded. The staff also includes artists \u201con loan\u201d from the California studio for special projects, like Mark Kausler, whose past credits range from <em>Yellow Submarine<\/em> to early Ralph Bakshi features to <em>Daffy<\/em>\u00a0<em>Duck\u2019s Quackbusters<\/em>; he put his experience from\u00a0<em>Who Framed Roger Rabbit<\/em> and <em>Tummy Trouble<\/em> to use during several months at the studio spent working as an animator and storyman on the studio\u2019s first theatrical cartoon, <em>Roller Coaster Rabbit<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the staff is made up of young artists new to the animation business, many of them graduates of Disney\u2019s California studio\u2019s internship program. Disney Animation Florida has also begun its own apprenticeship system, drawing on students from five art schools across the country, including CalArts and Sarasota, Florida\u2019s Ringling School of Art and Design. Ten to fifteen seniors and juniors participate in each training session, working independently at first, and eventually graduating to inbetweening and other production work on the studio\u2019s films. Some of\u00a0the best artists who have completed the program are offered positions as assistants; some of the most promising assistants are being groomed to become animators on future projects. \u201cThey\u2019re all wildly talented as artists,\u201d says Brigitte Hartley of the students in the program, \u201cIt\u2019s great to have that around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The facilities these artists work in are new, nicely-equipped and organized, and attractive. \u201cWell, it\u2019s such a beautiful studio,\u201d Mark Kausler says \u201cIt\u2019s just a great place to work, a beautiful environment.\u201d The studio, with a staff of about eighty, is small in comparison to the California Disney facilities, and compact enough that visitors can peer into each department from story to editing without tiring their feet. Mark Henn comments that \u201cIt\u2019s nice being in a smaller group like this, where everything is at your fingertips: Camera, editorial\u2026everything is close at hand. Being a tight group like this, hopefully you\u2019ll have better communication, which is a major problem\u00a0not just in animation, but in any business of this size.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is also the odd fact that, unlike any other animation artists in history, these ones work under the close inspection of hundreds of Florida tourists. (Not every nook and cranny of the studio is visible to guests, but neither are there great amounts of space that aren\u2019t apparent to them.) The studio is\u00a0soundproofed off from the visitor area, so sound isn\u2019t much of a problem, except for video monitors that continuously play the Walter Cronkite-Robin Williams loops. Some of the employees have taken to shielding these out with the help of Walkman-type tape players. Most artists adjust quickly to the faces watching them; their communications with visitors are mostly limited to a few funny signs taped to the window and the occasional suction cup-tipped dart shot at the glass.<\/p>\n<p>Having decided to operate a cartoon studio as part of the Disney-MGM Theme Park, Disney was faced with the question of what to do with the animation it produced. At first, the plans were for the studio to make theatrical featurettes starring Mickey Mouse and other classic Disney characters, something the studio had intended to do ever since the success of <em>Mickey\u2019s Christmas Carol<\/em> in 1983. Using Mickey and his crowd would serve another purpose: audiences are probably more interested in seeing artists at work on cartoons with famous characters than new ones they aren\u2019t familiar with.<\/p>\n<p>The studio will be doing this: its second major project is a retelling of <em>The Prince and the Pauper\u00a0<\/em>with Mickey in both title roles and many of his\u00a0friends in the supporting cast. During the Summer of 1988, however, <em>Who Framed Roger Rabbit<\/em> opened and caused a sensation, and suddenly Disney had its new star in decades who was perfectly suited to short-subject parts. And so Disney Animation Florida\u2019s first project for theatrical release became <em>Roller Coaster Rabbit<\/em>, a seven-minute Roger Rabbit cartoon which will reportedly open with Touchstone\u2019s\u00a0<em>Dick Tracy<\/em> next Summer. One Roger short, <em>Tummy<\/em>\u00a0<em>Trouble<\/em>, had already been produced in California, with some ink-and-paint work done in the Florida studio; both it and Roller Coaster Rabbit were directed by Rob Minkoff.<\/p>\n<p><em>Roller Coaster Rabbit<\/em>\u2019s story was conceived and storyboarded in California, along with <em>Tummy<\/em>\u00a0<em>Troubl<\/em>e and three other Roger stories which may be animated in the future: <em>Hare in My Soup, Pressed<\/em>\u00a0<em>and Impressed,<\/em> and<em> Beach Blanket Bunny<\/em>. (The animation tour\u2019s story room, incidentally, is the one\u00a0area that is at this time a mock-up rather than a real, operating facility; <em>The Prince and the Pauper<\/em> was also storyboarded in Burbank.)<\/p>\n<p>The cartoon takes Roger, along with Baby Herman and his mother, to a county fair, the atmosphere of which Mark Kausler compares to the animated sequences of Disney\u2019s So <em>Dear to My Heart<\/em>. As in <em>Somethin\u2019s Cookin\u2019<\/em> (the Roger short that opened <em>Who<\/em>\u00a0<em>Framed Roger Rabbit<\/em>) and <em>Tummy Trouble<\/em>, the storyline concerns Roger\u2019s hapless attempts to save Herman and himself from perilous situations, of which the fair proves an extremely rich source. Roger pursues the baby through a dart game and shooting\u00a0gallery, around a ferris wheel (in a scene that may not make it into the final film), and into the bullpen home of a bull who resembles a more belligerent cousin of Disney\u2019s version of Ferdinand. The climactic scene comes when Roger and Herman find their way onto the title\u2019s roller coaster, which is computer animated a la the clockwork scene in <em>The Great Mouse\u00a0<\/em><em>Detective<\/em>; and as in <em>Tummy Trouble,<\/em> there is a surprise ending incorporating live-action footage. (During the cartoon, Jessica Rabbit makes a cameo as the operator of an understandably-popular kissing booth.)<\/p>\n<p>Like <em>Who Framed Roger Rabbit<\/em>\u2019s animation and <em>Tummy Trouble<\/em>, Roller Coaster Rabbit is done in the style of the mythical Maroon Cartoons studio, which Alex Kuperschmidt describes as \u201ctaking the best of American cartoon forms and combining them all in one\u2026a hybrid of Tex Avery\u2019s sensibility with a Disney quality.\u201d Avery\u2019s influence is felt in the visual style \u2013 the look somewhat resembles that of his early films for MGM \u2013 but most importantly in the; films\u2019 gags. Every time Roger Rabbit does a take, it\u2019s a loving tribute to Tex Avery and his importance in the history of American animation.<\/p>\n<p>But Kausler says that the exaggerated gags are \u201cthe only thing that\u2019s survived from the forties. Everything else is like a feature; Roger is really a feature character. Not just a crazy little character like Droopy\u00a0or the buzzards in <em>What\u2019s Buzzin\u2019 Buzzard<\/em> [Tex Avery, 1943], which he somewhat resembles. He\u2019s got a little more depth to him than that.\u201d (Although Brigitte Hartley, whose work on <em>Roller Coaster<\/em>\u00a0<em>Rabbit<\/em> focused on Baby Herman, laughs that she \u201cworked on Roger in the film <em>[Who Framed Roger<\/em>\u00a0<em>Rabbit<\/em>], but he\u2019s become too wacky. I can\u2019t keep up with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The production process on the short, too, bears little\u00a0resemblance to the traditiona1 cartoon-making system, in which budgets were tight and the story was planned down to the last detail before animation began. Mark Kausler estimates that only one out of every four animation drawings done for <em>Tummy<\/em>\u00a0<em>Trouble<\/em> ended up on the screen, and suspects the ratio on <em>Roller Coaster Rabbit<\/em> to be similar. \u201cIt\u2019s much more of a live-action approach,\u201d he says. \u201cThey think in terms of shooting ratios, how much stuff can be done over, rewrites at the last minute, just like in live-action filmmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mark Henn agrees, and notes Walt Disney Studios\u2019 Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg\u2019s influence on how Disney animation is produced in both California and Florida. \u201cIt\u2019s a kind of a hybrid of live-action and the way Disney used to make films. Knowing that in one sense nothing is ever locked, and there\u2019s always room for improvement, but with this hurry-up, we\u2019ve-got-to-get-it-done-yesterday kind of pace. In a lot of ways, it\u2019s good, because you don\u2019t have to wait four or five years to see your finished work. You don\u2019t spend so much time on it that you lose your objectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The work pace is much brisker on the Roger cartoons and new features than the leisurely gait that Disney animation had settled into in the 1960s and\u00a01970s, but in many ways the attention to detail on\u00a0<em>Roller Coaster Rabbit<\/em> is exceptionally high. (The Roger shorts are by far the most expensive short\u00a0cartoons ever produced.) Mark Kausler: \u201cEverything is on a higher level. The cleanup is a lot more refined; they don\u2019t just take the animators\u2019 drawings and Xerox them. It goes through a whole different stage:\u00a0the cleanup people have to make it very, very precise, and add all the little things \u2013 like his pants cuffs falling through, what happens to his ears and hair, the amount of delay on every part of his body. Essentially, you\u2019re using two sets of animators for every scene.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This painstaking work pays off: while the animation is filmed using the Xerox camera, which usually results in a rougher line quality, <em>Roller<\/em>\u00a0<em>Coaster Rabbit<\/em> has a slick, hand-inked look straight out of the 1940s.<\/p>\n<p>While much of what\u2019s new about the approach to production taken on the cartoon is also taking place on the Disney animation features, there are some notable differences. On the features, animators are typically \u201ccast,\u201d with each animator spending most of his or her time on a particular character\u2019s or characters\u2019 appearances throughout the movie. Animation on the Roger Rabbit cartoons however, is assigned primarily by scene, with each animator being responsible for a scene and all the characters in it.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Henn draws some further contrasts between animating on a Roger short and his work on the features: \u201cIt\u2019s a very different style of animation. It\u2019s very broad; it\u2019s very action-oriented, very fast-paced. It\u2019s kind of as if you were taking a very well-known dramatic actor and putting him in a comedy role, or vice-versa. It\u2019s putting on a slightly different hat for me, which is good; I like the challenge of doing something different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt differs from the other studio in that our\u00a0organization is a little primitive, compared with California,\u201d notes Kausler. \u201cWe\u2019re still developing, and we don\u2019t really have a smooth, efficient way to work, because we haven\u2019t done enough pictures yet. I think when we get more production in, we\u2019ll finally get it up to speed where everybody\u2019s comfortable. Right now we\u2019re going in fits and starts.\u201d (At this time, the Orlando studio\u2019s work must be approved in Burbank, necessitating plane trips back and forth for the directors and a certain amount of further delay.)<\/p>\n<p>Chances are that the studio will get the opportunity to achieve the development Kausler refers to: attendance figures at Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park are said to have surpassed even the company\u2019s immodest expectations, and that The Magic of Disney Animation attraction and Disney Animation Florida will be around for many years to come seems assured. Exactly what the studio will be doing is harder to say. There are as of yet no long-term plans (no public ones, anyway), and what projects the studio gets is likely to depend on what needs doing at any given time.<\/p>\n<p>The immediate future, after <em>Roller Coaster Rabbit<\/em> and <em>The Prince and the Pauper<\/em>, will probably include more featurettes starring Mickey and the gang, and perhaps more Roger Rabbit cartoons, if Disney and\u00a0Spielberg choose to continue their collaboration on the character. As the need arises for commercials and other special projects involving Disney characters, they may be done there as well; a McDonald\u2019s ad featuring characters from <em>The Little Mermaid<\/em> was the first job completed at the studio.<\/p>\n<p>There may also be some work on feature films: the studio has already helped out on the the ink-and-paint\u00a0for The Little Mermaid (and received its own set of credits in the film for doing so). Mark Henn will be doing some animation from Florida on <em>The Rescuers<\/em>\u00a0<em>Down Under<\/em>, in addition to his work on <em>The Prince and the Pauper<\/em>, and studio officials have reportedly considered using the Florida studio as a unit on upcoming features.<\/p>\n<p>The ultimate project for the studio, of course, would be a feature film of its very own. Such a task would require major expansions of both the staff and the studio facilities, neither of which is currently planned. Mark Henn for one, would like to see it happen, and calls it his long-term goal.<\/p>\n<p>A Disney animated feature produced entirely in a state other than California is an odd thought, but no odder than the mere idea of a Disney studio outside of that state would have been a few years ago. Florida won\u2019t even be the only home of a satellite Disney cartoon studio: the company recently announced plans for a second Disney-MGM park at Euro Disneyland outside of Paris, which will also have its own animation facility<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the future holds, there will be a lot of cartoon fans watching with interest what goes on at Walt Disney Animation Florida. And possibly ducking a well-aimed plastic dart shot in their direction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sidebar: The Magic of Disney Animation: A Guided<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Tour<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first thing visitors to The Magic of Disney Animation lay their eyes upon when entering the attraction is an imposing case filled with thirteen of the Academy Awards the Disney studio has won for animated films over the decades. The case is the centerpiece of a small but impressive museum of Disney animation art and other memorabilia from the studio\u2019s origins to <em>The Little Mermaid,<\/em> the contents of which will change every six months.<\/p>\n<p>The gallery also serves as a waiting area for <em>Back to Never Land<\/em>, a film starring Walter Cronkite and Robin Williams that introduces visitors to the basics of animated-film production. This film is a delight which, like the attraction as a whole, entertains and educates in equal parts. Williams gets changed into an animated character \u2013 one of the Lost Boys from<em> Peter Pan<\/em>, to be exact \u2013 as Cronkite briefly explains each step of the animation process. The film\u2019s animation, directed by Jerry Rees, is a nicely-done pastiche of the Peter Pan style. Williams is hilarious, and Cronkite is an agreeably avuncular host whose demeanor and voice bear a startling resemblance to those of another Walt who used to give similar presentations about Disney animation on TV. (<em>Back<\/em>\u00a0<em>to Never Land<\/em> was, incidentally, produced outside the Disney studio by Bob Rogers.)<\/p>\n<p>After the film is over, visitors enter the animation studio tour itself, which is conducted along a raised, glassed-in area from which each studio department can be viewed in sequence. The tour, accompanied by video monitors playing further Cronkite\/Williams explanatory material, is almost unique among Disney theme park attractions in that it is self-guided; visitors are invited to stay as long as they wish and watch artists and other employees at work. Stops on the tour include story, animation, clean up, effects, backgrounds, photocopying process (aka Xerox), paint lab, ink and paint, camera, and editing. The\u00a0studio is on a staggered work schedule, so that visitors will find employees at work during most of the park\u2019s open hours, including nights and- weekends, although animation and ink and paint are the only two departments in which workers are almost always visible. These are also the departments in which park guests are most likely to want to take their time: watching the artists laboring over animation and cels for films which won\u2019t be released for many months is fascinating, and like most animation studios, the place is filled with gag drawings, memorabilia, and other interesting clutter that\u2019s fun to take note of. (Animation fans are especially likely to want to linger in the place and take in the little details to be seen, like model sheets, copies of books on the work of Disney and other studios, and even, on one artist\u2019s desk, an inscribed sketch of Bugs Bunny by Chuck Jones.)<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the touring area is a small theater area in which a video program featuring film clips and interviews with Disney animators is shown; like the art display, it also serves as a painless waiting area, this time for a concluding film show of classic Disney animation clips in an adjacent theater. (As is common with such compilations, the film \u2013 which oddly ignores the short subjects almost entirely in favor of brief snippets of the animated features -is not terribly satisfying. It would be nice to see it replaced with a complete Disney short, which might change on a rotating basis.)<\/p>\n<p>From there, visitors exit back into the Disney-MGM park, by way, if they choose, of an elegant shop which sells mementos including books, posters, and greeting cards, authentic animation paper and pencils, and production art and limited-edition cels costing thousands of dollars. (Animation fans with long memories may grow nostalgic for the long-gone days when Disneyland\u2019s Art Corner sold choice cels from the 1950s features for a few dollars apiece.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A look inside Disney\u2019s Florida studio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/ed2e5cf576a55e842d71d9f89b8a7ee3.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18805,"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions\/18805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrymccracken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}