Don Bluth and his new studio: the return of hand-made cartoons?
Animation legend Don Bluth is opening a new animation studio. Not only does he want to bring hand-drawn animation back to life, but he also wants to let fans participate in the creation of the films.
Don Bluth is an animation legend. At the age of 82, he looks back on a career during which he left his mark on the history of animation with films such as "Brisby and the Secret of NIMH", "Anastasia" and "Fievel and the New World". He could step down, retire and leave the field open to the big boys like Pixar.
But Don Bluth wants to know for sure.
According to the Facebook page, the founder of Don Bluth Studios wants to meet a public need:
We think people are waiting for the return of handmade cartoons.
A first project is already underway: 'Bluth Fables'.
Bluth Fables, revealed in a livestream
The first project to come out of Don Bluth Studios is called "Bluth Fables". Animator Lavalle Lee, vice-president of the studio, demonstrates live how hand-drawn animation works in the era of "Wall-E" and "Moana".
In the stream, he works with Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint, and colours the images drawn by Don Bluth. The fables are to be new stories, for children and adults, which animation technology presents in book form. The pages are turned, the characters on the page are animated or not, Don Bluth lends his voice to the film as narrator.
Working in public
Lavalle Lee is obviously proud of this project and puts his heart and soul into it. And: he involves the audience in his work. In the livestream, you can watch him discuss the colour of a wristwatch with his viewers for ten minutes. One colour? Two colours? After a few attempts, the watch is finally gold.
This way of working should continue. People need to be part of the animation process. "We won't keep any projects secret. We will publish everything and show you all the progress," Lee writes on Facebook.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.