in some earlier posts I showed artwork from the shelved disaster production WILD LIFE that disney feature animation had in preproduction for nearly 2 years, starting early 1999 till 2000. it was supposed to be disney’s first CG-animated feature film. I remember these 2 years that I worked on this project as probably the most creative and most chaotic time I ever spent on a film in this business. the majority of the creative team was amazing, a few less inclusive the directors. anyway, the biggest problem were stupid decisions and missing control of management in the highest levels. they let us run into the disaster, not one of them listened to my concerns about the content problems. but, visually the whole film was after a while so stunning, so new and never conceived before, that most of the creative team did not really care about the major story problems.
I was head of the development and production designer with a team of the best layout and BG artists in the studio, BUCK LEWIS, an illustrator from new york, worked on all the character designs. if there is interest you can read more about the project in my book DREAM WORLDS and CHARLES SOLOMON’S book DISNEY LOST AND FOUND. from what I heard seventy million dollars went down the drain because of ignorance and stupidity, and in the end 200 artists were laid off. too bad, amazing talent that disappeared into the rest of the world. I found recently tons of sketches from the production. it will take a while to scan them – here are the first ones…
© disney enterprises, inc
you can find some earlier articles here, here, and here.
more soon…
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 45 years I lived and worked in exciting places around the world. after 7 years of teaching in singapore I am back at my homebase in manila, working on a few more books.
One1more2time3's Weblog 
Recent Comments