Thursday, August 21, 2008

Land of No Cintiqs

I ambled through Disney TVA Sonora this afternoon ... and for the first time it hit me. A studio with no Cintiqs.

My Friends Tigger and Pooh and Mickey's Clubhouse might be c.g.i. shows (and they are), but the production boards are being done on paper, One of the few places where that's happening. I can't think of another mainline studio using Number Two carbon sticks and sheets of wood pulp. Sort of refreshing, when you think about it. A staffer grunted:

"Some production people say we're moving to computers next season maybe, but I haven't heard anything official. I like Storyboard Pro, but paper's okay too" ...

DTVA is now closing in on 100 half-hours of Clubhouse. Nobody seems to be sure if there will be a new season beyond this one, though the series is top-rated.

And three blocks away, DreamWorks busily expands its campus, even as the Mouse House builds out the acreage it holds across the street and next door. Grand Central airport and its runways are looong gone.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to the Grand Central Airport site, Steve!

It isn't mentioned in the article, but I was told a few scenes in "Casablanca" used the exterior of the terminal as backdrops.

And I see that during WWII the runway extension went right through the spot where I now sit in my cubicle working on "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse"!

Steve Hulett said...

I'm old enough to remember planes flying out of the Grand Central Airport. I was four or five at the time.

Anonymous said...

Princess and the Frog animators are using pencil/paper...

Anonymous said...

"Princess and the Frog animators are using pencil/paper"

Not for storyboards they're not. It's storyboards Steve was writing about.

Anonymous said...

The studio I am at is paper/Cintiq optional. No pressure to change over. Luckily..as the last thing I want to do is create everything digitally and see the end of tangible art on a sheet of paper..but I know I'm in the minority here.

Anonymous said...

What's a pencil? What's paper?

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