Not so Secret Anymore

Published August 19, 2005

Regarding our story about Walt Disney Feature Animation's (WDFA) special session at this year's SIGGRAPH conference and expo (Reporter's Notebook: SIGGRAPH 2005), reader J wrote to tell us that we got the attribution for Disney's CGI over live action feature Dinosaur wrong.

Dinosaur was *not* made by the Secret Lab,...

The Secret Lab came later,....even though management put their name on the film. During the crew screening, you could hear the howls and shouts on when the logo scrolled up...

After the film was finished, what was left of DreamQuest still existed in Simi Valley,...they were moved to the Northside building soon after and were dubbed the SecretLab, much to the consternation of all...

Disney management wanted the public to think that all was hunky dory inside Feature, but the reality is that there were a lot of unhappy people.

...there's a lot more to the story, but you've probably already heard it

I enjoy your website,

Thanks,

Actually, we've only gotten bits and pieces of the story regarding the saga of DreamQuest and the SecretLab. That's why we opted for the Internet Movie Database—read Disney—version of this 2000 Walt Disney Pictures release. We've asked J if he'd be willing to fill us in.

As for the rest of our report about WDFA's presentation, several folks let us know during phone calls or iChat sessions that they thought that o-meon.com editor, and the author of this story, C. W. Oberleitner, did the right thing by calling the Mouse for what most of them referred to as "revisionist history." Their thoughts are probably best summed up in the following email we got from a former WDFA animator.

Thanks for being the only one to speak against the recent revisionist history concerning Disney Feature Animation.

To hear this panel tell the story of the past decade, the worst thing to happen to WDFA animation was that a few talented souls just couldn't make the leap from pencils to mice, and while they were sorry to see them go, WDFA continues on in the tradition of classic Disney storytelling.

I've had some of these Disney fat heads jump all over me for daring to criticize Disney animation in recent years. While I feel Glen Keane is a decent fellow, I'm not so sure about the rest of this bunch who seem intent on ramming CGI down our collective throats. While I'm a strong supporter of new technology… I doubt if the Old Man would have given the boot to his staff of talented artists in the brutal, coldhearted way Eisner's management did.

Thanks again for your support.

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