Is the Sky About to Fall (Again) at WDFA?

Published November 9, 2004

By C. W. Oberleitner

The past twenty years at Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA) have seen the studio, built on the shoulders of seven dwarfs and nine old men, swing from the depths of near oblivion to the heights of unprecedented success and back to the brink of oblivion again. It's enough to make an animator reach for the lithium.

Down by the Old (Rumor) Mill Stream

Now comes word that it may be David Stainton"s turn to brush up his resume. Recently, Disney animators and staffers, past and present, on both coasts, have begun reporting that Stainton's time as President of WDFA may be coming to an end.

A former WDFA lead animator, now living east of the Mississippi and still in touch with former colleagues, says that Sharon Morrill will replace Stainton. Currently, Morrill is head of DisneyToon Studios (direct to video animation).

Sources within WDFA-Burbank confirm hearing that Stainton's time at the Mouse House is "probably" over. One senior creative staffer said that his agent had also shared this same information with him.

According to the reports out of Burbank, instead of Sharon Morrill, Andrew Millstein is expected to be Stainton's replacement. Millstein was handpicked by Michael Eisner to head the new CGI studio set up for the sole purpose of producing sequels to the Disney/Pixar films.

There have been no reports of overt signs that a change in leadership at the top of WDFA is eminent. So, why all the speculation that Stainton's days are numbered?

Apparently, it has to do with Disney Studios much-hyped first entry into full-length CGI feature animation, Chicken Little. Disney seems to have forgotten about its 2000 in-house CGI release Dinosaur.

According to sources familiar with the production, Chicken Little is having problems. Story and creative staff are being pulled off Wilbur Robinson, the studio's next full length CGI animation project, to help iron out persistent problems with Chicken Little's storyline.

There's nothing new about animated movies running into problems during production. Kingdom of the Sun was in so much trouble it had to be reworked from top to bottom before finally being released as the Emperor's New Groove. Ironically, while the circumstances are quite different, the guy responsible for pulling Kuzco's fat, so to speak, out of the fire, Mark Dindal, is in charge of Chicken Little.

According to Disney animation author (and my former boss), Jim Hill:

Kingdom of the Sun was trying to be this epic musical. Roger Aller's follow-up to The Lion King. But the elements didn't gel. It was so serious and earnest in its original form that they brought in Mark Dindal to lighten the film up.

Whereas Chicken Little is a much more modest, nonmusical film.

Chicken Little, it's believed, is suffering from a split personality. As another source said, "They're trying to graph Field of Dreams on to Signs." And Jim Hill adds that the film needs to, "ease CL's transition from father/son family comedy to pseudo-satiric action adventure."

There is genuine concern among Disney observers that Stainton will panic during this, his first real time in the driver's seat of a major feature animation project. Former WDFA animators agree that if Chicken Little is subject to the same type of "executive interference" that has plagued most of Disney's recent animated features, it too will probably fall far short of expectations at the box office. And that would be more than enough reason for Disney management to be looking into replacing Stainton with a firmer hand.

Rollercoaster Ride

Twenty years ago when Frank Wells, Michael Eisner, and Jeffrey Katzenberg came on board at Disney, the studios' once vaunted animation department, like most of the rest of the company, was in complete disarray. What was worse, none of the three industry heavyweights, brought on board to turn the company around, knew anything about feature animation.

Meetings were arranged to provide studio veterans with an opportunity to demonstrate to the new executives that animation was the engine that drove everything else at Disney. Reinvigorating animation had been one of the reasons behind Roy Disney's efforts to change leadership at the company founded by his uncle, Walt, and father, Roy O. Disney.

Those first meetings didn't go well. As one of the executives who led several of the sessions said:

We were supposed to teach these guys everything there was to know about animation in three weeks.

Frank was constantly being called out of the room. After two days he stopped coming at all.

Michael never seemed to be paying attention. He'd just sit and fiddle with his papers and stare out the window. He only asked one question the whole time, "What about those three little ducks? Can we make more cartoons with those three little ducks?"

Eventually, Disney did go on to make more "cartoons with those three little ducks." Disney's DuckTales, featuring Donald Duck's nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, along with their uncle Scrooge McDuck, became a big success for the company on television, cable, and in-home video. But before that happened, WDFA would experience some of its darkest days.

The new management team turned the animation department out of its world-famous art deco headquarters. Feature Animation was moved lock, stock, and drawing boards from the lot in Burbank to the same drab warehouse district of Glendale that housed WED, now known as Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI).

Humbled by their loss of stature within the company, the remaining talent at Disney animation, both old and new, dug in at their new soulless home and began the process of adapting to life in the belly of the corporate beast. Gradually, by fits and starts, projects reminiscent of the studio's glory days began to emerge.

Peter Schneider became the new head of animation. New creative talents like Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were brought onboard. At the same time, Eisner, whose career originated at ABC TV, continued to press the company to expand its television animation offerings.

Disney animation came roaring back from the dead with an amazing string of record-breaking blockbuster animated features and very successful animated TV shows. WDFA returned to Burbank in a brand new state-of-the-art facility located across the street from the main lot on Riverside Drive.

Pulling Out the Rug

The release of The Lion King was a watershed moment in the history of feature animation, both at Disney and throughout the film industry. It would, however, be the last Disney-animated mega hit produced entirely in-house. Soon, Disney partner Pixar would eclipse the Mouse House and set new box office records. With the arrival of its Shrek franchise, DreamWorks Animation, now headed by former Disney Studios head honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg, would regularly swap places with Disney/Pixar films at the top of the box office.

By the start of the New Millennium, the bloom, once again, was off the animation rose at Disney. In 2001, the company bought out or laid off 4,000 workers company wide. Shortly thereafter, they laid off an additional 300 people from the Burbank animation department and cut salaries of the remaining workers by 30% to 50%.

By this time, Peter Schneider had left Feature Animation to head the Disney Company film division. Like many other Disney executives in the post-Frank Wells era, he would eventually leave the company. He was replaced by his second in command, Tom Schumacher.

Schumacher, who like Schneider had a background in live theatre, was believed to be more interested in heading Disney's theatrical productions than Feature Animation. It fell to him to oversee even more WDFA lay offs. In early 2003, Schumacher became president of Buena Vista Theatrical Worldwide. David Stainton replaced Schumacher as president of Walt Disney Feature Animation.

Unlike Schneider and Schumacher, who had backgrounds in creative production before joining and eventually heading up WDFA, Stainton began his career with Disney in its most powerful division, Strategic Planning. Following his stint in Strategic Planning, he worked in Feature Animation Creative Affairs and as President of TV Animation.

There Is No MBA in Creativity - or Tact

Under Stainton's leadership, Disney animation continued to hemorrhage jobs. During his first full year, he shut down production on a variety of animation projects and oversaw the closure of Disney animation studios in Paris, Japan, and Florida. Those closures resulted in the loss of hundreds of jobs.

Early in his tenure, Stainton, a Harvard-educated MBA, began developing a reputation for ham-handed tactlessness. He quickly became known for a series of feckless pep talks admonishing his demoralized creative staff to have "fun, because good films come out of a fun atmosphere!"

In a bizarre effort to raise moral, he sang out, Evita style, from a second floor balcony of WDFA's Burbank headquarters to the staff below, "Don't cry for me animation." Shortly thereafter, he announced that American Dog, originally slated to be a traditional 2D-animated project, would be switched to CGI, thus giving the last of the 2D animators something to really cry about.

Stainton defended Disney's burgeoning direct-to-video operations against criticism from a group of WDFA-Florida (WDFA-F) animators he had just laid off by saying, "the public couldn't really tell the difference between the direct-to-video stuff and the films that Feature Animation actually produces." This brought on a series of catcalls, boos, and jeers from the assembled crowd.

Shortly after announcing the closure of WDFA-F, Stainton sent a overly cheery email to the entire staff congratulating them on the Academy Award nomination for what would be the last Disney film ever produced there, Brother Bear. Dozens of now unemployed WDFA-F staffers took to the internet to vent their feelings of having been callously insulted by a thoughtless individual still secure in his six-figure income.

Stainton has been quoted as saying he couldn't understand why Finding Nemo, from Disney partner Pixar Animation Studios, was such a big hit. That, however, did not stop him from decorating the halls of the WDFA building in Burbank with Nemo cutouts as if the film had been produced there.

Stainton seems to have few, if any, supporters among Disney animation's legions of fans. While no one seems to bare him any ill will, most hope that if he is replaced that it will be with someone with a "creative" background and not another MBA from Strategic Planning.

this business of show

David Stainton President, Walt Disney Feature Animation.

Chicken Little star of the Walt Disney Pictures film of the same name.