merlinjones
Member
>>Dear friends and collegues in the animation community;
The time has come to support Roy Disney and Stanley Gold in their battle for the heart of the Walt Disney Company.
We have crafted a letter of support from the animation community (see below), which is posted on Dave Pruiksma's website at:
http://www.pruiksma.com/letterofsupport.html
If you would like to have your name added to the list, please email one of us :
oscarmoore@earthlink.net (Steve Moore)
nm8rdave1@sbcglobal.net (Dave Pruiksma)
merlinjones@earthlink.net (Tim Hauser)
Simply type "I support Roy: (and your name)" on the email header, so we don't have to open it.
We will share lists and Dave will post names with the letter at his site. After we get a healthy list, we will send the letter to the appropriate parties and media.
Please forward this email to anyone you know in the animation community who would like to join the fight. We need all the names we can get, old timers and new. If you have a connection with any of the classic studio personnel, please ask them to join the list.
Roy and Stan need our energy at this critical time, to know what they are doing is worth continuing and that they have our backing.
The letter:
>>"I've always been bored with just making money. I've wanted to do things, wanted to build things, to get something going." - - Walt Disney
We, the undersigned members of the animation community, wish to lend our full support to Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold as they seek to uphold the traditions of excellence that once defined the Disney name. We follow their lead in calling for Michael Eisner's resignation from the Walt Disney Company.
As aspiring cartoonists, we wanted nothing more than to join the Disney organization, to perpetuate the art of character animation as "The Finest in Family Entertainment". We studied Walt Disney's films and the methods of The Nine Old Men. With hard work and perseverance, we became part of a highly skilled team that kept the magic going.
Of course, this would not have been possible without the vision of Roy E. Disney. He protected the Feature Animation division from the new studio brass, who did not sense its continued potential. Without Roy, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King would never have come to be, let alone the Company's artistic renaissance and financial turnaround.
But, after a string of critical and box office successes, animation artists were increasingly locked out of creative leadership roles. In the new corporate template we became little more than factory workers or unskilled laborers at the studio we had helped rebuild. Micro-managers from outside the medium fostered a highly toxic work environment, spawning a creative malaise that continues unchecked.
The unique traditions of visual storytelling, humor and personality animation on which the Walt Disney Studio had thrived, gave way to politically correct sloganeering, stale one-liners and film seminar formulas to which audiences have refused to respond.
Mr. Eisner's rejection of Walt Disney's heritage has been a colossal failure. Yet this is a man who has been paid over $700 million in compensation since 1996, while the Feature Animation department has been decimated by pink slips.
Now, skilled craftsmen go unemployed while the executive ranks swell. A unique American art form, the Disney cartoon feature, hangs precariously in the balance - - reduced to the production of cheap direct-to-video franchise extensions made by committee.
Without Roy, who will protect the 70 year Disney legacy from becoming no more than a hollow brand?
Bravo to Roy and Stanley for challenging Michael's vision for the Company, for making public what has too long gone unsaid, and for daring to "Feed the Birds."
"I have every confidence that so long as our film presentations toughen the mind and warm the heart with the best the motion picture industry can offer in art and craftsmanship and genuine human warmth, so long may we expect prosperous support and a long life." - - Walt Disney
The time has come to support Roy Disney and Stanley Gold in their battle for the heart of the Walt Disney Company.
We have crafted a letter of support from the animation community (see below), which is posted on Dave Pruiksma's website at:
http://www.pruiksma.com/letterofsupport.html
If you would like to have your name added to the list, please email one of us :
oscarmoore@earthlink.net (Steve Moore)
nm8rdave1@sbcglobal.net (Dave Pruiksma)
merlinjones@earthlink.net (Tim Hauser)
Simply type "I support Roy: (and your name)" on the email header, so we don't have to open it.
We will share lists and Dave will post names with the letter at his site. After we get a healthy list, we will send the letter to the appropriate parties and media.
Please forward this email to anyone you know in the animation community who would like to join the fight. We need all the names we can get, old timers and new. If you have a connection with any of the classic studio personnel, please ask them to join the list.
Roy and Stan need our energy at this critical time, to know what they are doing is worth continuing and that they have our backing.
The letter:
>>"I've always been bored with just making money. I've wanted to do things, wanted to build things, to get something going." - - Walt Disney
We, the undersigned members of the animation community, wish to lend our full support to Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold as they seek to uphold the traditions of excellence that once defined the Disney name. We follow their lead in calling for Michael Eisner's resignation from the Walt Disney Company.
As aspiring cartoonists, we wanted nothing more than to join the Disney organization, to perpetuate the art of character animation as "The Finest in Family Entertainment". We studied Walt Disney's films and the methods of The Nine Old Men. With hard work and perseverance, we became part of a highly skilled team that kept the magic going.
Of course, this would not have been possible without the vision of Roy E. Disney. He protected the Feature Animation division from the new studio brass, who did not sense its continued potential. Without Roy, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King would never have come to be, let alone the Company's artistic renaissance and financial turnaround.
But, after a string of critical and box office successes, animation artists were increasingly locked out of creative leadership roles. In the new corporate template we became little more than factory workers or unskilled laborers at the studio we had helped rebuild. Micro-managers from outside the medium fostered a highly toxic work environment, spawning a creative malaise that continues unchecked.
The unique traditions of visual storytelling, humor and personality animation on which the Walt Disney Studio had thrived, gave way to politically correct sloganeering, stale one-liners and film seminar formulas to which audiences have refused to respond.
Mr. Eisner's rejection of Walt Disney's heritage has been a colossal failure. Yet this is a man who has been paid over $700 million in compensation since 1996, while the Feature Animation department has been decimated by pink slips.
Now, skilled craftsmen go unemployed while the executive ranks swell. A unique American art form, the Disney cartoon feature, hangs precariously in the balance - - reduced to the production of cheap direct-to-video franchise extensions made by committee.
Without Roy, who will protect the 70 year Disney legacy from becoming no more than a hollow brand?
Bravo to Roy and Stanley for challenging Michael's vision for the Company, for making public what has too long gone unsaid, and for daring to "Feed the Birds."
"I have every confidence that so long as our film presentations toughen the mind and warm the heart with the best the motion picture industry can offer in art and craftsmanship and genuine human warmth, so long may we expect prosperous support and a long life." - - Walt Disney