Original subtitles

This could be the office of any artist,

but it just so happens to belong to an animator.

And like most animators, he's a dreamer.

These dreamers shared in a wonderful world of make-believe

and many of their adventures took place in a location

known affectionately as the mouse house.

And that all right here in this artist's sketchbook,

oh, we went way too far in our book.

Back up, back up.

Ah, there we are. Our little dreamer.

I'm going to be an animator.

No one's gonna pay to draw for a living.

Disney, Disney Wheel. Disney Wheel.

People who get into this business, don't get into it.

You know, really? They, they,

I never got into it for the money.

The first movie I remember seeing was Pinocchio.

So that thought that would be pretty cool to work

where they made the first movie I ever saw.

And when I was a little kid, that's,

that's all I was gonna do.

And, and it was funny

'cause I, I just sort of, um, didn't pursue any other

interests because I just knew

what I was gonna do when I grew up.

It was just misunderstood that I was gonna come

to Disney's period. That was it.

I have always wanted to do animation, uh,

but I'd always, I think I first thought of it as a hobby.

And I always secretly dreamed I could work for Disney.

I never told anyone. 'cause I never thought

that would ever, ever come to pass.

I grew up like watching Walt Disney on tv. You know,

We had Walt Disney presents in German,

so Walt was speaking German fluently,

which is kind of funny, thinking about it now.

And, uh, Walt Disney,

You know, he would come into my living room.

He was like an uncle with a mustache or something, you know?

And that's how I felt about it.

And, and he had all, he brought all this magic

and fantasy into my life.

And even on a small black

and white tv, you just, you just had that fascination.

You just couldn't take your eyes away from it.

And I think that was the first connection with animation.

I saw this movie and I'm thinking,

Hey, this is a good film.

It wasn't an animated film,

but was it a cartoon? It was a good film.

Once I saw Vu, there was just something

that was just mesmerizing and breathtaking

and I can't find words.

You know, it's just like all

of a sudden your life has a mission or something.

It was just amazing.

And so our little dreamer began learning to animate.

And like most animators, he started with the basics.

Uh, Nice try.

And so his first lessons were learned from the Masters

of Disney Animation.

The nine old men squash stretch,

anticipating action.

It was all developed by these men for Walt himself.

Very good.

And then the day came when he learned to create magic

with paper and a pencil.

It was overly perfect at first, you know,

because, um, seeing the studio

and, you know, working on Fox in the Hound and,

and, uh, again, people doing this for a living, it's,

it seemed real, you know. This is it.

Hi, I work here at Mickey Mouse's Mouse Factory.

I sure do have a good time.

Oh yeah. It was amazing

to walk onto a major motion picture studio

that was just opening Disneyland and walk down Dopey Drive

and have my own desk.

And, uh, uh, it was magic.

We do animation and things here.

We make miracles come to life.

You see, here's a miracle here. Let's have it come to life.

What hit me about the building

was when you first enter there, it was the smell.

It was almost like the history itself

was the, the, the essence.

When when you sit there with a pencil

and a piece of paper, hello

and make something look like it comes alive.

I mean, there's a certain magic

there that artists like to do

Press.

This is a typical portfolio studio.

This is what usually gets accepted.

I remember the first time I, uh, I animated, uh,

I was animating, uh, goofy pitching, uh, a baseball.

Yeah, I remember Michael c

My very first full length feature was Song of the South.

I got to draw a puddle. I think it was a bucket.

It was, uh, a cycle of smoke.

I just remember like people yelling a lot.

He came in and saw

what I was doing. I said, what the heck are you doing?

Uh, he said, no, no, no. Do it a different way.

But it was more complicated. I

Stayed up till two in the morning

working on to make sure it was

Perfect. And, uh,

it took me three or four times to get it right. And

It was like the first time it took me like three hours.

And after about six days, I couldn't get anything I liked.

But I actually thought it was a horrible beginning to my,

my Disney career where I couldn't actually get something I

thought was nice, but I got something that worked.

Yeah, I mean, you did your first Disney movie, so

how you pulled it through, I mean,

how can there not be a success on some level?

I guess also what I did see though,

that when the film was finished, that I had gotten better.

That my first stuff that I did was really bad

and I felt really embarrassed about.

And then toward the end, the last 10, 12 scenes,

I actually seemed like I, I learned how, how to walk.

Uh, certainly always, everybody always says, wow,

you know, so you work at the park, there's an assumption

that there's some sort of magical,

you know, animation factory.

Like I know behind the pirate of the Caribbean or something.

No, our little dreamers work in trailers

and the parking lots of warehouses down the road a bit.

You see, in the early eighties, new management decided

to kick the animators out of their building

and off the studio lot.

After all, what does animation have to do

with the Walt Disney Company? Anyway,

That was sad.

And I said Walt would die.

'cause he built the studio for animation.

And his whole thing was that everyone was to be,

they have a, a good working conditions, a nice environment.

They would be more productive.

Uh, it, it sort of seemed really low end at Disney. We

Were in a temporary structure in a parking lot,

in a little warehouse in Glendale.

We just had like the best people

and it was just so much fun.

And the guards were great

and, you know, it was just like this little family.

Our dreamers soon found out it wasn't just about his art.

No, there were many other departments ranging from PAs,

receptionists, checking scene planning, security storyboard,

artists, development directors,

and paint editorial effects in between as layout,

animated, camera cleanup, background,

producers breakdown,

and the guy who sweeps the floor at night.

They all took great pride in contributing

to this magical process.

There was a lot of synergy of artists there.

We were all very excited about the

projects we were working on.

All of us, uh, fed off each other's, uh, creativity.

You know, when you're young, my God, it was just fun.

It was like being in a a like everyone said at college.

I mean, looking back on it seemed extremely

casual compared

To now. I mean, just

the fact that you could just

wear whatever you want to work.

Um, you, you go into your office, turn on your music

or whatever it is, you're, you know, listening to a book

or something and draw.

When the studio suits ignoring animation from blocks away,

our little dreamers gave up everything

to create classically animated films Walt himself would've

been proud of, and

that a new animation renaissance was born.

They think that it was, it's been easy for us

to make these movies and they really

don't know the, the struggle.

Yeah. When I first got the job there, they said, okay,

you're gonna be working seven days a week

and you'll probably be working 12 hours a

day. You know, at the least.

We were all really killing ourselves

to get the movie done on time. We worked

Like 80 hour weeks

And we're talking like six o'clock

in the morning at midnight.

A lot of times, you know,

There's a couple times I slept at my desk,

You know, we'd, we'd come to the end of the day

and it wouldn't be quite what we wanted

In the, at the old studio when they were doing snow

flight, that they went through the same thing.

That people were just there morning, noon, and night

and we're, uh, putting in all kinds of hours

because they wanted to make this thing.

You know, it's gonna be up on the screen forever.

20 years down the road, somebody, uh, looks at that movie

and they see something that's not

quite right on the, on the film.

They're not gonna say, well,

at least they got it done on time.

I remember Sue Lance on Viewing the Beast.

We, we could, we, we worked every weekend

so no one could do their laundry.

And she just says, you know, I keep going to this Kmart

and buying more underwear because I don't have time to do.

That was the funniest thing in the world, you know, it

Was draining.

You know, people talked about the overtime

and how sick they got.

Um, you know, from all this drawing and tendonitis and,

and losing friends and divorces were all happening

because we had to work so hard.

I think we're driven by, by our love of the art and,

and we don't stop and take breaks,

and we do work until our scene looks good,

even though we may not be getting overtime. Honey,

What made us special at that time

was the internal desire to be better

and to outdo ourselves.

What makes working at Disney the happiest place on earth?

Uh, we would get the greatest little perks all

the time. Look at

These jackets they gave us for Christmas.

Walt Disney feature animation.

Well, you know, we didn't really start getting, uh, any

rewards or whatever you wanted, uh, until the, uh, uh,

Michael Eisner and that group came in right

From the, from the day I started, uh, you know,

every picture you could be guaranteed of getting the t-shirt

and a and a baseball cap

For me.

As long as the simple pleasures kept coming,

our dreamers kept drawing on any given day.

It could be videos, t-shirts, a watch, posters,

a crew jacket, sunglasses, a bathrobe a mug,

sculptures a bag, yearbooks, and of course

Another hat.

Put it with a rat.

Remember when we used to complain another hat, remember

got another T-shirt?

What am I gonna do with a t-shirt?

We were fed, we were fed breakfast, you know,

we had lunch period, and they fed us dinner

and we just stayed until like, we couldn't draw anymore.

We met over the catering tray

and divided up the last of the pasta.

So she walked up and I scooped half of with an empty plate.

I scooped half of my pasta off my tray and put it on hers

and one myself away.

Yeah, I think people see that now.

How, what, what a great time that really was.

Uh, this whole feeling of, uh,

you're in this thing together.

We have to make this work. This deadline is impossible,

but let's just try and make this happen and really try

and make it good on top of it.

Um, that was just, that was always a great work ethic.

This an absolutely wonderful landmark day.

Let's hope it's the first of many

and let it not just be a day of celebration,

but a reminder of what a great mixture of art

and business we are in.

And when the art works, the business will follow

with great admiration and love.

Roy Disney.

I think everybody, even Roy, I think was, was quite amazed

that it did so well.

I think that with all of those pictures, there was this, uh,

amazement from Oliver, little Mermaid,

uh, LAN, beauty and the Beast.

All those just kept getting better.

And uh, so it was very exciting to be on that,

that escalator.

You know, I've got this relative that works at Disney sort

of thing, and it's really exciting.

Every kid in every family is like, oh, you're Jackie.

You don't want Drew like Lion King or Vietnamese. And like,

And just to be associated

with Disney's name became this huge identity for me.

Uh, you know, in a lot of ways

you're treated like a celebrity.

Kids, kids. This guy works at Disney.

Oh, please tell us what it's like to work for Disney.

Our little dreamers very much appreciated the world's love

hit singles played on the airways, blowing reviews

and reading about themselves

and their work, going to celebrity filled rap party.

When, when, when you go to a rap party

and you see the movie, you're just like, wow, wow.

What have we done?

And of course, working the red carpet,

there were autographs for Family and friends

and the all important award season

When you got the, uh, academy Award nomination,

that was really a big thing.

Um, we went to Oscar parties,

you know, that we had for that.

Everybody else realized that we need

to promote these films, and part of that is showing them

how we do these things and maybe who did them.

So all of a sudden we were put in front of cameras,

which was extremely uncomfortable at first.

'cause you know, we didn't know how to do that.

And fumbling for words, you know,

We felt like we were like the stars of the world.

And before we didn't feel that, that we used

to call ourselves the Bastard Children of Vault

because we just felt like they kept us in this warehouse.

They were interested in animation.

And then, um, lion King had come out, uh, come out

and it just blew everyone away.

I mean, it was like the runaway hit of the summer.

Yeah. Well, the, the success of Lion King brought all eyes

to animation as far as the, the money people go.

Any, anybody who had any big bucks to invest, they're all,

all of a sudden looking at animation as an opportunity to,

to make billions of dollars.

Didn't we think it was never gonna end

after the Lion King?

No, we were just stunned.

I remember we had parties

for when it broke a hundred million,

then we had a party when, when it broke 150

and then it broke 200 and the parties just wouldn't stop.

I mean, what was that about? You know, when would it end?

What made it so good? Pay raises and bonuses,

and it was wonderful.

My God, we all got these huge bonuses,

which we had never gotten in our lives.

We,

The checks were just absolutely huge.

You could buy a car for the bonus check,

And they were more BMWs

and mercedeses than they were ever before.

You could put a down payment on a house

with a bonus check, and

It was probably just under

or over a hundred thousand dollars for a bonus.

It, it was so much that I completely put the decimal

point was in the wrong place.

And I literally took my keys.

I got in my car, I drove to the bank, I endorsed it

and deposited it because I was convinced it was a horrible

mistake, and they would've come looking for it.

I was hoping that legally if it was ready deposited,

that somehow I wouldn't have to give it back.

And, uh, we just thought, this is it. This is it.

Never had it so good. I had a, well,

I had three limos at the studio,

So sure. I felt very

special. I mean, to get on a bus at the studio

and be bused down to the back of LAX and get off the bus

and get on an airplane and not have

to wait in line at the ticket counter.

That was privilege. You know, that was exciting.

It was the best thing and the

worst thing that ever happened to us. Yeah, definitely.

Management said at the time that we, we,

this is an exception.

We shouldn't measure our future, uh, box office, uh,

in connection with the Lion King.

They said they didn't, but they did. They did.

They decided, oh, let's do this every time.

Okay, well, the stars are alive. We can, you know. Yeah.

And so basically, um,

artists were starting to be second guessed.

And, you know, like, they, like,

you just couldn't do a story.

It had to be a blockbuster, you know, instead

of just saying, Hey, let's do this.

Do this great simple, cute story that will touch people,

you know, and we'll animate it

and we'll look great and people will love it.

Now let's do a blockbuster

and we'll put it out in summertime, you know,

with all the other blockbusters,

People of Animation.

We want more. You will be split into two groups

to deliver us more product.

I I mean art than ever before.

Now that all for one, one for all work ethic you are

so accustomed to will have to be pre-approved

by management first.

The plan of the studio was to make more

of these movies since they were doing so well, they wanted

to make more of them, and we needed more space.

And eventually, uh, they built the, the new building

with the blue hat for the whole animation company.

I never thought that we deserved a big fancy building.

I didn't see any reason for it.

With all this success,

they could no longer create magic in a trailer path.

They needed a building that made a statement

About the Night is not the building,

but who's going into the building.

What this building is, is a station, a marker,

a signpost, ladies invitation of,

and friends, we welcome you into the new

animation building.

I mean, I remember talking to a lot of people about how,

how could anybody think this was a custom made

for animation artists building it.

Um, it just was, it, honestly, it was so unfriendly,

Postmodern, Hey David, how you doing?

I don't know what,

I didn't ever think the building was

built for the animators.

It was built for the company to advertise animation.

And it's obvious when you work in that thing.

It's like, it's, it's a sick building.

Postmodern gas chamber. Where is my office?

Well, you know what? I I, I I feel that, that, that,

that there was a whole lot more management types

around a whole lot more non-art in the building.

Now, one person wasn't invited into the new digs.

Oh my gosh. He's going right out of the book.

Well, he didn't fly out of the book.

He landed in a very comfortable place. Just a few pages.

Uh, I, I, I mean blocks away,

but that's for a whole other sketchbook.

Next thing you know, by the time we're leaving this ugly

warehouse and going to the new building, which,

because now we're big stars,

everybody's got agents and they got lawyers.

Yeah, that was the weird thing too.

Like, suddenly everyone had an agent.

Oh, did it get outta hand? Yes, it got outta hand.

Whose fault was that? It was

Michael's fault for firing Jeffrey

When, when Katzenberg left and start a competition.

That's the only reason why

our paychecks went through the roof.

What made us so expensive is Jeffrey Katzenberg leaving

the company, uh, to start his own thing.

Did you get a lawyer? Um, yeah, I did.

Yes, I did go out and get a lawyer.

The guy I had, I think he had something like 200

people, innovation people. He was representing

Some person that I actually promoted under me.

She did that. I just thinking, who are you? You know?

Well, I was very much part of the, the mounting greed,

And you see the pay going up a

little bit more and you go, wow.

How could they be paying that person that much?

They don't really do that much.

I remember what I, what I think people used

to be competitive with to a certain degree was, you,

you wanna be cast a really good scene

or a kind of element you hadn't done yet before.

You know, and a big part of it was comparing myself

to other people, which is a huge mistake.

I would think I'm as good as so and so,

and look how much they're making.

And you hear of artists getting these $50,000 signing

bonuses, and that's not good enough.

So, so and so gets an $80,000 signing in bonus.

You know, I'll just, I'll just say some outrageous amount

and, and, uh, and, and they'll bargain me down.

So I went to Disney and I said, look, this is what I want.

And they go, okay.

You know, when I went in for my contract, I said,

I wanna make what Michael Eiser made in one hour.

I wanna make that in a year.

And then I walked outta that meeting

and I said, do the math, and come back to me

and tell me if you can pay that.

Well, we got together two weeks later

and the, uh, the person in, in finances

and doing my contract says, Tom, I can't pay you that.

So to put things in perspective, yes, some

of these people were pulling in great money,

but if you look at where the,

our execs were, you know, it's,

It's all trickled down.

I was always amazed that we were doing as well as we did.

And I just wanted to live in denial

and figure it was gonna be that way forever.

There there is a childlike quality to some animators.

There is. And the negative side of it is that they,

you know, spent like wild.

Oh, they did? Yeah. I mean, they did that.

That's the movie star thing you mentioned.

They behaved like they were suddenly Hollywood royalty.

I did see people change, but I think it was more

that they, they felt

that like they didn't, they didn't deserve it.

And they were covering their butts all the time.

How much of this situation is the artist's fault?

It's all management's fault.

You know, one, one thing I've, I've missed for,

for actually a long time is being in the checkout line at

Von or Ralph for something

and just hearing people, I mean, literally mentioning

that they, they'd just gone to see, um, a,

a Latin line king the fifth or sixth time.

I never hear people talking about Disney films anymore.

I remember going to a supermarket when

before Hunchback came out.

It was just sort of, um, really made me think.

And the girl at the cash artist

said, oh, you work for Disney there?

I see this is a crew t-shirt. I said, yeah.

She says, don't they have this hunchback

of Notre Dame coming out?

I said, yeah, that, that, that's the next one.

And she looked at me and she says, is it gonna be a musical?

How can we make people love us again?

Well, we could make crappy direct to video sequels. Love it.

We could make them cheap in lands, far, far away. Love it.

We could add more management. Love it.

We could sneak them into theaters first. Hmm. Problems.

What about this flooding the market

and taking the event out of our films?

We'll make a lot of money. I love it.

Management thinking, oh, there's money to be had here.

They wanted to push as much out in the market as they could

to make as much money as they could.

They've done the unacceptable,

which is turn out a bad movie and put the Disney name on it.

A turning point for me was some lady came up to me

and said, I didn't really like that Aladdin two.

And my reaction was, there's an Aladdin two, what

Those, um, really awful,

horrible sequels that they've been doing.

Um, they're really happy with those.

They think those are great. They think

that now they have this library of films.

They'll just like, use those

to make these like mediocre films over and over again.

I know those were straight to video,

but then they kind of got greedy

and started releasing them to the theaters.

And to stick the Disney name on a theatrical release

and have people go and be disappointed hurts the brand name.

And if you do that enough times, people no longer trust

that if they go see a Disney 2D movie, it's gonna be great.

The change of attitude started then,

and cynicism was rampant in the studio.

All of a sudden it became work instead of this magical

artistic thing that it once was.

Well, I gather people are quite puzzled that, uh,

that things aren't happening up

there in the store department.

That should be happening.

Unfortunately. Now, the story

and visual people are not a part of that writing process.

The process of the development process, the development

of ideas was not one of nurturing creativity.

Ideas were treated with brutality.

Suddenly somebody who went to school for accounting

or went to school for business management, um,

is suddenly taking over your job.

They've never seen an animated film before.

They are not storytellers.

They've never had a writing class before.

And suddenly they're in charge of developing stories

and you are pushed out of the way.

Yeah, it's very frustrating. If

You, if you plant a tree, what do you do to it?

You water it. Sometimes you do prune it.

It's very important to make it grow stronger

and better and bigger and everything else.

But you feed it and you care for it and you nurture it

and you encourage it.

But that's not the way ideas are handled.

Actually, the visual development department doesn't exist.

They completely got rid of it.

And it's now being developed solely

by the creative executives.

Somewhere in this chain of events, something went wrong.

Now, whether it's the advent of technology

or whether our story,

people aren't making the stories right,

or whether the public has lost interest in animation.

I mean, it's probably a little bit of all of that. Yeah.

That's caused this, this slump right now.

I think also with the company being so big, it's gotten

so big and cold.

And I think it shows in the films, not only in story,

but I think also in the, in the other departments.

So people don't put that warmth into their drawings anymore.

No one seemed to speak of pencils anymore.

It was all about digital.

What's digital?

Uh, let's see. It's been, uh,

almost two weeks now since we had those, uh, those meetings

where they told us most of us are being laid off

On Monday, March 25th.

That was the worst day. I first got wind of it though,

on the train prior to going in that there was going

to be a big meeting and that it was gonna be bad news

In a million years. I would

never have actually believed that

what's happening is actually happening.

I I sort of still don't believe it.

Message one. Hey Daniel, it's just me.

I got my, my marching papers.

I'm outta here November 27th, Thanksgiving.

So, um, that's it.

Um, well we just all heard that, uh,

we're gonna be gone.

The, uh, company has decided to, uh, downsize,

uh, mostly everybody.

So we are downsizing to one unit. Is that it?

Out of all the units that we have we're downsizing

to one unit and the answer was yes.

I was not aware that

that one unit will be a computer generated animation unit.

No, they start the meeting with Alice Dewey says,

did anyone see how well Ice Sage did this weekend?

Like yeah, I did 47 million. A

Non Disney company has a huge CGI hit.

And suddenly we were being killed off

because 12 to 24-year-old boys thought it was cool

to see 3D animation and not

Two. He kept saying it. It

was, it has nothing to do

with you people, it's just that we slated this, this way.

Like this is the schedule

and we're just, we we're, we're bound by the schedule.

By the way, don't come back

because we're not gonna hire you back

after this slate is ready for another 2D picture. Yeah.

How come they have to, uh, you know,

cut all the artists out of the, you know, the,

this filmmaking process.

But basically they were going to

bring the studio size down to 1,100 people.

And in the Tom meeting when he said that,

I spoke up right away and I said,

can you break down the thousand people?

You know, what percentage of those are artists?

Because six people doesn't sound like a lot of artists.

And I asked him actually three times during the meeting.

He would not answer the question.

Everybody is a, uh, a vice president of something.

I, I heard yesterday from one of the shuttle drivers

that they were like, what?

30 vice presidents

and some have are, are in charge of departments

where they are the only member.

You know, I was like, don't they know what they're doing?

They literally, I mean, and,

and I guess this is, this was Tom's call.

He literally sat there and he goes, you know what?

Let's not do these films anymore.

We just put our pencils down, looked at each other.

We were in shock

and we felt it was the end of the world for all of us.

We went into the hallway and people were just coming out

and they were so, their faces set it all.

Yeah, it was a variety of, of emotions.

I remember it depended on people who saw themselves

as real artists, who we had given their soul took it the

hardest, of course.

And other people thought, oh, well everything good has

to come to end and I'll do something else.

But I, I would say most people took it very hard because

after all, we were all artists.

The day of the meeting, my sister called me

'cause she had just watched Cinderella, you know,

the pumpkin gets turned into the carriage and stuff.

Then the godmother goes, um, you know, go, go to the thing.

And she looks at her dress and she's like,

I I, you know, look at me.

I can't go in this dress.

'cause they didn't change her dress yet.

And Stephanie just says to me,

and her expression when she said that was just

so like, perfect.

It was just like so humble

and like, oh my God, I can't go on this dress.

She goes, Jackie, how did they do that?

How did they capture that expression?

And I was just like, Stephanie, these animators are,

are magicians are artists.

They're just pure artists.

And I had brought that up in the meeting.

I, I told Tom, I go,

you have the London Philharmonic at your disposal

and you wanna turn it into a boy band.

The one question I remember asking is

that basically the hundreds

of animation artists are gonna be laid off is the animation

studio the way it's existed for like 10 years now.

And the likelihood of something that sort of resembles

that group ever being reconstituted is basically unlikely.

And, and not in so many words, he said, yeah,

I've never seen a person, um, talk so eloquently

and so much about nothing.

I'm sort of looking at this mouth, you know,

moving blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm, you know, here to tell you guys that, uh,

things are changing and it's all good.

The studio's got great plans

and we're gonna continue making animation.

And, and it, it's, it's all gonna be really good.

And then, and the public just wants

to see computerized stuff these days.

And, and it, it, he just totally danced around the issue

that basically he is just gonna lay everybody off.

It was like watching Circus Sole, you know, this man

who just, he's a magician with words.

He just says nothing.

And that's why these articles in the newspaper are really

frustrating because it sounds like if you read the article,

it's like, oh, you got plenty of work.

There's like, you know, all these things in the pipeline

and you know, we're only laying off 250 people.

I've never seen a place decimated as much

as I have in the past couple of weeks.

I've never seen people wandering around like a

Day of the Dead movie.

It was just, that's exactly it.

He wanted George Romero to yell Cat, but he wouldn't.

Yeah, but he wouldn't.

And then it happened, the unthinkable hundreds

of artists were kicked out of their home.

A tradition was no longer appreciated.

And there was nothing to say, nothing to do.

We are being run by people who don't love the business.

They don't love Disney. They,

It's heartbreaking.

And it's heartbreaking. I mean, it's just,

it's such a beautiful medium

and there's so much more we could have done with it

and the history of it, you know, with like Dumbo.

And I mean, to this day, like,

I think the most beautiful moment in any movie is when Dumbo

is being crushed by his mother.

When she's being locked up

and she's singing the little song

to him, you know, baby mine. But

That's what people love is, is the sentimental.

They love to sit in the dark in theater

and cry their eyes out

because, you know, the Elkins picked on Dumbo.

I can't see that as being a art form that's dead.

You know, I see it as an art form that, you know,

always should be because it's not the same, um,

doing it on a computer.

It's just, you know, it it, you,

when you draw something out, there's just

so much more you put into those drawings.

Well, you do get a sense that people

expect these kind of movies.

Nobody has a problem. Uh, when they hear that people, uh,

that, um, Disney is also now doing CG movies.

Nobody seems to, oh, okay, that's interesting.

But when you tell 'em there might not be movies like Jungle

Book and Lion King

and Little Mermaid anymore, they look at you in disbelief.

No, no, they wouldn't do that.

I said, well, for the moment it looks that way.

That's, that's how I'd put it.

Well, I feel, uh, really sad

because, uh, for the first time it doesn't look good to me.

And, uh, and I would hate to, to leave on this note, uh,

you know, I would like to leave with the audience applauding

and, uh, you know, leaving when,

because things are in the toilet, not doing well.

When, what seems sort of like the wrong time to leave.

You wanna, you want to get it going again

before you leave. You know,

I'm still in denial.

I know it's gonna happen. I know it's like the end

of something pretty awesome. I,

I think we've, we created some,

or we're part of something that, um,

is not very normal at all.

I will do everything in my power

to never go to the real world.

Well, it's still the best job in the world for me.

And how many times have people said it?

I, I get paid to sit down and draw.

You know, how many people can say that at the end

of the day, sit down

and do all day what they want to do, what they love to do.

So sometimes I have to keep that in mind

and be grateful for what I have had.

And okay, we don't know where it's going,

even though I think it's gonna come back.

I remember I was at, at the Oscar party with, uh, Andreas,

and I just looked at him

and I said, you know, Andres, I go,

I'm really gonna miss you and I'm really gonna miss this.

But, you know, for 10 years there we had like

a really great run.

And I go, we really had some great times.

And he just looked at me and he just started crying

and I was just like, oh my God, you know,

it's gonna be over.